Oversized adult sippy cups. Collectable troll dolls. Fluorescent cocktails that look like they’ve been scooped from a ball pit. Table tennis in the office. LEGO for grown-ups. Across many of today’s most popular products and trends, there is a clear pattern emerging: adulthood, softened. Made sweeter, safer.

 

This isn’t nostalgia in its traditional sense. It’s not about reviving eras gone by – it’s about reviving childhood itself. Not as a memory, but as a lifestyle. And it’s everywhere. So why is it working?

 

Is it because it makes ‘adulting’ less daunting – easier on the palate, easier on the psyche? Because it gives permission to still engage with play? Or does it indicate something deeper: anxiety about the future and uncertainty about what adulthood is supposed to look like now?

 

To understand this modern adult-child limbo, we first need to zoom out.

 

The old, linear markers of progress towards adulthood – marriage, home ownership, children – no longer hold universal power. Consumers of the same age might be homeowners, living with parents, influencers, 9-5’ers, students, or parents themselves.

 

This isn’t purely a matter of choice. Socio-economic pressures have stretched and fractured the child-to-adult transition, and young people are acutely aware that many traditionally valued milestones are less attainable for them. There is no longer a single, linear path to ‘growing up’. Instead, young people are redefining what their identity as an ‘adult’ can mean on their own terms.

 

Fluidity and self-curation take the lead. In an ever-growing digital world, what you buy, wear or post is no longer just functional, it’s communicative. Products and trends have become temporary replacements for traditional cultural markers, acting as shorthand for where you stand in the world. Young people aren’t just buying products anymore; they are consuming identity.

 

We like to think of this alternative approach to selfhood as a new wave.

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Bold colours, distinct shapes and playful cues have become the toolkit for rapid social signalling. Just look at Buzz Balls or Stanley Cups: instantly identifiable and designed to allow for self-curation. You’re unique in your colour or flavour choice, but unmistakably part of the same group. These aren’t simply childish visuals, they’re a form of modern iconography.

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The strength of this new wave is its versatility. It enhances pleasure in already pleasurable products, extends permission to play into adulthood, and ultimately transforms the mundane into something emotionally resonant. Products and brands across categories are being used as temporary bearings along the child-to-adult trajectory. They allow people to locate themselves socially and anchor meaning in the present, when the future feels undefined: we may be the same age and at entirely different life stages, but right now this gives us common ground.

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Seen this way, the popularity of youthful codes is not a retreat from adulthood, but an attempt to make it navigable again.

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It’s in this space that brands can make a difference.

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Monzo is a perfect example. From budgeting tools to step-by-step investing guides, Monzo makes financial responsibility – a core marker of adulthood – accessible and manageable. Its friendly tone of voice and intuitive user interface are designed not to ‘dumb down’ banking, but to demystify it.

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In the wake of a shifting consumer landscape, as products and brands hold consumer value in continually new ways, the brands that endure will be those that meet this new wave with empathy and intentionality. By offering confidence without cynicism, play and levity without escapism, reassurance without regression, brands that succeed here won’t just soften the present. They’ll help define what comes next.