Overview

Why are microdramas on the rise as a branding device? What role are Roblox and dating apps playing in Americans’ protests against ICE? And what does the Brooklyn Beckham drama say about changing family dynamics?

Below are our February 2026 cultural trends: three topics on our radar this month and their impact on people. By scanning the headlines, keeping tabs on social media conversations and tuning into the zeitgeist, we connect the dots between our trends and the wider world so that you can make sense of what’s happening now and what it means for you.

Key insights

Scripted short-form dramas are gaining steam. Microdrama app ReelShort attracted around $1.2 billion in consumer spend in 2025, and microdrama series like Brooklyn Coffee Shop attract hundreds of thousands of weekly viewers.
Virtual worlds have become sites for protest. Consumers in America are turning to Tinder, Grindr, Facebook groups and Roblox to express their political dissent and stage anti-ICE protests and initiatives.
The Beckham family drama has shone a light on shifting family dynamics. Nearly 2 in 5 Americans are estranged from at least one family member, and the social media hashtags #ToxicFamily and #NoContactFamily have garnered billions of views between them.

1. Mainstream microdramas: Short-form series attract viewers and brands

Microdramas are supplanting traditional TV series in an age of mobile-first viewing

Scripted short-form dramas that run for two or three minutes per episode are increasingly attracting both viewers and significant investment from Hollywood. First popular in China, the format is set to have its breakthrough in the US and other western markets in 2026: ReelShort, a microdrama app, attracted around $1.2 billion in consumer spend in 2025.

These formats borrow from television, equipped with episodic arcs, character development and cliffhangers, but are optimized for vertical screens and mobile viewing. The result is a hybrid form of entertainment that feels native to social platforms while delivering the narrative depth audiences crave.

Brooklyn Coffee Shop sets the tone for a new form of brand entertainment

One microdrama that has already captured hearts on Instagram is the New York-set Brooklyn Coffee Shop, created by writer-actor Pooja Tripathi. Filmed entirely inside the same café, from the same camera angles, each episode follows a familiar rhythm: the two regular hosts and a customer (often an influencer or actor) have a conversation that is often a social critique of a popular internet microculture or discourse.

The quirky, authentic storytelling has found a loyal follower base of over 300,000 who tune in weekly. While the café itself is entirely fictional, the series may have also inspired a new era of brand-led storytelling.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Pooja Tripathi (@winnie_thepooj)

Brands are riding the authentic storytelling wave

In June 2025, fintech company Bilt launched Roomies, an ultra-short sitcom about young people living in New York. Inspired by other popular sitcoms like Friends and New Girl as well as Brooklyn Coffee Shop, the series lives on TikTok and Instagram and has already amassed more than 130,000 followers. Its second season was released in January 2026. According to Cyrus Ferguson, Bilt’s Senior Director of Content, the goal was to build goodwill and awareness in an organic manner on social “We had this idea bubbling around more serial, narrative-driven, character-driven content, and how that felt like a really cool opportunity that not a lot of brands were doing”.

@roomiesroomiesroomiesEllie from Ohio has 3 weeks to make it in NYC♬ original sound – Roomies

Larger brands are following suit. Bratz wrapped the second season of its weekly TikTok show Alwayz Bratz in May 2025. Jeweler Alexis Bittar continued its social soap opera The Bittarverse into its fourth season, while beauty brand Tower 28 hired a writer from HBO’s The Sex Lives of College Girls to develop The Blush Lives of Sensitive Girls, a sketch series that subtly centers its blush products without feeling like a commercial.

Meanwhile, snack brand Pretzelized released its first digital campaign as a four-part comedy series, Pretzel or Pita Chip?, in which two comedians debate the brand’s chip categorization of part pita part pretzel. The aim, according to the brand, was simple: raising brand awareness through humor. And Gap recently hired its first-ever Chief Entertainment Officer, as they realized that younger consumers discover fashion products through entertainment content, signaling a longer-term commitment to newer formats of advertising.

Microdramas allow brands to be the supporting character rather than chase virality

In these brand micro-series, the brand itself functions as a supporting character, appearing incidentally rather than intentionally, to push the narrative format without necessarily advertising the product.

The spotlight, in short-form series, stays on people, relationships and everyday culture – allowing the brand to earn attention without demanding it or pushing it onto consumers.

Another appealing aspect is that, as social platforms continue to fragment attention, these shows offer short-form content that sits between traditional television and viral reels. They break up the mindless scroll and instead give viewers an enjoyable content experience. For brands, this represents a shift away from chasing virality toward forging a connection with consumers through authentic storytelling.

New formats offer opportunities for viewer participation and fan edits

Another possible consequence of social-first bitesize content is that audiences are no longer just passive viewers but active participants. In a related development, fans are increasingly reshaping the narratives of beloved TV shows and films when official endings fall short of expectations.

Following dissatisfaction with the finale of Stranger Things, for example, some fans turned to AI tools to generate alternative endings – effectively reclaiming authorship over the story. While fan fiction narratives aren’t new, AI means that individuals can quickly create professional quality alternatives that meet with their approval. This shift begs the question: as AI tools become more accessible, will the future of entertainment be increasingly co-authored by its audiences?

How should brands ride the microdrama wave?

Tap social series to reach audiences on their preferred platforms. As audiences grow tired of low-effort brain rot content but remain unwilling (or unable) to Escape the Algorithm, episodic brand shows offer substance and quality content without asking users to leave the platform. How can your brand blend into users’ feeds in a way that breaks up the noise? Ensure your content prioritizes compelling narrative, humor and relatability that speaks to wider internet culture. Authenticity is key to engaging audiences who are tired of consuming mass-produced viral content for the sake of views.

Experiment with entertainment-first advertising. Social content helps create brand awareness and goodwill without pushing products onto consumers. This resonates with ad-saturated consumers. As evident from the wide array of brands spanning different sectors that have created social series to engage younger consumers, non-media brands have an opportunity here to play meaningfully in this space. Rather than centering products, brands should create repeatable formats rooted in everyday cultural moments their consumers already care about: dating, work, friendship, wellness, identity or aspiration. This builds relatability as well as brand credibility.

2. Virtual vigilantism: Dating apps and Roblox become sites of protest

Women are sharing information about ICE agents they meet on dating apps

Since January 2025, when President Trump returned to the White House, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been pivotal in seeing through the new administration’s mass deportation initiative. ICE has carried out thousands of arrests over the last year, and protestors who oppose the agency’s operations have clashed with ICE in public places. Tensions mounted in January 2026 following the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, both of which sparked outrage and mass protests across the country.

While many protestors have taken to the streets, others are channeling dissent into less conventional and more personal spaces in order to hold ICE agents accountable. One of the most striking vigilante efforts has unfolded on dating apps. A number of TikTok creators have encouraged women to carry out coordinated efforts to identify suspected ICE officers on Tinder, Bumble and Grindr, and strike up relationships before soliciting selfies and explicit photos to publicly shame them – activities known as catfishing and doxing.

In North Carolina, this escalated during ICE’s “Charlotte’s Web” operation, which was described by the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) as an operation targeting “criminal illegal aliens terrorizing Americans”. Viral posts urged users to crowdsource screenshots in a public “folder” of agents operating in the state.

In a widely shared video, @healthpolicyprincess urged her fellow North Carolinians to watch for a “sudden influx of men on dating apps” arriving in their state to enforce Operation Charlotte’s Web, encouraging viewers to collect and share screenshots. She said she was compiling a list of suspected ICE agents with the intention of making it public.

@healthpolicyprincess CALLING ALL DATING APP BADDIES WE NEED YOUR HELP! Send me a screenshot of anyone who’s says they are are for ICE! Let’s work smarter not harder ppl!! Also my shirt is from the fabulous @Sending Luck ♬ original sound – hannah

Similarly, on a post reshared from LibsofTikTok’s X account, a woman from Massachusetts details how she coordinates a group on Facebook discussing and sharing information about suspected ICE agents that members have dated, with the goal of exposing the agents. And on TikTok, user @ohforthegoodoftherealm asked gay men in Minnesota to out any ICE agents they identify on Grindr. Another woman from New York claimed dating app Bumble was “swarming” with ICE agents.

A public list of ICE agents highlights how people are taking matters into their own hands

Beyond dating apps, parallel efforts to track immigration officers are taking place elsewhere online. ICE List, a crowdsourced Wikipedia-style page, compiles personal details of ICE agents and thousands of DHS employees using volunteer verification.

The website states the list’s purpose: “The ICE List Wiki is designed for public use. Journalists, researchers, and advocacy groups use the data to track enforcement patterns, identify repeat agencies or jurisdictions, and contextualize individual incidents.”

Meta recently banned links to ICE List on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, but Dominick Skinner, creator of the list, says links have been shared for over six months.

While some TikTokers and consumers see this as a form of political activism, federal officials have publicly warned that sharing identifying information about federal officers – including their photos or work status – can be a criminal offense and may place people at risk if it crosses into doxing or harassment.

Young Americans take to Roblox to express dissent

For younger citizens, especially teens unable to participate in physical protests, resistance is also taking shape in gaming spaces. On Roblox, teens have turned roleplay games into sites of political expression, staging anti-ICE protests, confronting players dressed as SWAT or Border Patrol agents, and reenacting raids to critique them.

In Brookhaven, one of Roblox’s most popular roleplay games, players have reported avatars dressed as ICE agents conducting mock raids – banging down doors, “arresting” users and simulating border surveillance. These scenes have been met with in-game protests, with players waving Mexican flags, breaking barricades and facing off against ICE-dressed avatars.

17-year-old Simon Gutierrez, who organized one such protest, said he wanted to attend the IRL “No Kings” protests but was prevented from doing so by family due to safety reasons: “A lot of young people really want to protest and put their words and beliefs out there but are unable to, so [Roblox] is the only thing we can turn to.”

How should brands react to virtual protest behaviors?

Empower consumers to take control safely. One of the opportunity areas from our Trending 2025 report, Vigilante Vibes, describes how consumers are increasingly stepping up where the system falls short. This presents an opportunity for brands to help consumers in their activism endeavors, especially as the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer shows that businesses are more trusted than NGOs, the media and government to do the right thing. Businesses have a trust rating of 64%, 11 percentage points higher than the proportion who say they trust government. How can your brand empower consumers to take control and make a difference? While it may be tricky to support consumers in what they see as justified rule breaking, you can instead focus your resources on helping forge trust in other ways – such as giving back to affected communities by providing support or aid.

3. Families at war: The Beckham saga foregrounds familial estrangement

Brooklyn Beckham’s online declaration generates headlines and memes

In a change from the wider news diet of geopolitical tension and economic woe, the Beckham family made headlines in January after David and Victoria’s oldest son, Brooklyn, posted a six-page statement on Instagram in which he stated, “I do not want to reconcile with my family”. Beckham laid out the reasons for the rift, including details of events leading up to and during his wedding to Nicola Peltz, which generated thousands of words of commentary and social media chatter.

For some social media users, the story was an excuse for some Light Relief, as they created humorous posts relating to the topic. Many of these related to Brooklyn’s claim that his mother “hijacked” his first dance with his wife at their wedding. Videos humorously comparing the alleged incident to dance scenes from the British comedy series Motherland garnered millions of views. Brands also got in on the act, with bookmaker Coral posting a video from another BBC comedy series, The Office.

Victoria Beckham at Brooklyn’s wedding…. pic.twitter.com/KRUNelwtLg

— Coral (@Coral) January 20, 2026

The saga shines a light on family estrangement

Brooklyn’s bombshell also raised more serious topics, such as that of family estrangement, with several commentators pointing out that this affects a large proportion of people. One survey of Americans suggests that nearly 2 in 5 people are estranged from at least one family member. It’s been suggested that Gen Z and Millennials in Western nations are increasingly cutting off their parents, for reasons including more individualist mindsets that place less importance on familial obligations.

The topic is widely discussed on social media, with the hashtags #ToxicFamily and #NoContactFamily garnering billions of views between them. The latter phrase, often abbreviated to NC, features heavily in the Reddit thread r/EstrangedAdultKids, where Brooklyn Beckham’s travails found sympathy. Others are opting for what they refer to as low-contact family relationships.

Changing family dynamics impact spending across categories

In our trend Social Wellness, we explore how, as well as valuing positive relationships, consumers are also prepared to cut off toxic or negative ones. On the other hand, the growth of family estrangement runs counter to the concept of the Networked Family, where support and advice is shared between generations. At a broader level, we explore the evolving nature of family dynamics in our Shifting Societies Macro Driver. A number of factors including Lifestage Delay, Declining Fertility Rates and More Single Households are changing household composition, which has implications for shopping behaviors in many categories.

Family estrangement may lead to less multi-generational living, travel and socializing, with the potential for friendship groups to replace the role of families in many of these contexts. For instance, Google Trends data shows that searches for “Friendmas” – the alternative to a family-focused Christmas – have been growing year-over-year. More consumers are also exploring joint bank accounts with friends, in an attempt to achieve “financial intimacy” with someone who is not a partner or family member.

How should brands adapt to changing family dynamics?

Bear in mind in messaging that not all families conform to type. While it’s true that family remains the number one identity marker for global consumers in our data, this does not mean that all family associations are positive. While advertising has grown increasingly representative of non-traditional families – something which itself has attracted the ire of traditionalists – family estrangement could be a topic to tackle in a sensitive way. Messages of reconciliation may be uplifting, but they could also jar with those who have decided to cut off contact permanently. The idea of friends as family may be one to consider.

Create purchasing opportunities for alternative groupings at typical family times. The growth of Friendmas is just one example of how purchasing dynamics could be affected by these changes. A group of friends could have different requirements to families across food and drink categories, including numbers of portions. The same may be true of travel, with larger groups of friends looking to travel together to the same destination. Making it easy to share costs in a way that a nuclear family might not will be important in all of these contexts.

Talk to us about getting access to Collision

These February 2026 consumer trends are part of a longer report published on Collision, our dynamic trends intelligence platform. Members get access to these reports at the beginning of every month, so they always have a finger on the pulse of consumers and culture. If you’re interested in learning more about Collision and how the platform can make a difference to your business, get in touch today.

Written by Shreya Soni

As a Senior Trends Analyst at Foresight Factory, I help brands make sense of social, cultural and commercial changes, with a particular focus on FMCG and hospitality. I specialize in identifying cultural trends, analyzing them and generating actionable insights for our trends intelligence platform Collison, helping clients stay relevant in an ever-changing landscape.