According to NYT - Pipes Will Have a Moment in 2026

[briangray]

Along with dumb phones as a status symbol and some other completely irrelevant things, the New York Times, in its predictions for the year 2026, predicts the return of pipes and pipers in a big way.

Link to the article (paywall):

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/style/trends-predictions-2026.html

and a screenshot of the short text:



Are we in for another pipe smoking renaissance, a reduction in tobacco prices and taxes, the opening of new B&Ms in every neighborhood... or is it just another utopian idea?

Happy New Year, pipers!

 

[TimeKiller]

If the NYT told me the sky was blue, I'd go outside and double check

 

[Servant King]

Methinks this reporter's jar of Penzance has been cut with a fair amount of angel dust. And in New York, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[TimeKiller]

Joking aside, I think they have severely underestimated the magnitude of ingrained hostility to tobacco. There is a large portion of the population that view it not just as calculated risk taking, but a borderline moral failing.

They have also followed it up with an absolute scourge of anti smoking laws and restrictions under the premise that if you are smoking in the same area code as an underage person, you are giving them cancer, strokes, and heart disease. Even regular safe havens like bars or patios or "x feet from a building entrance" have all but vanished.

It's still legal to smoke, but you have go home and turn off the lights and put a blanket over your head first, like you're eating an Ortolan.

 

[Skyfall]

Did NYT research the great Sutliff debacle of 2025?
Maybe the writer has stock in some tobacco company?

 

[Skippy Piper]

I sure hope the writer ends up being correct, though I don't think he will be just because of the simple fact that smoking a pipe has a rather steep and lengthy learning curve. I'm sure lotsa folks who long for simpler and slower paced times like the idea of smoking a pipe, but once they pick up their first pipe and tobacco and get tongue bite the first half a dozen times they try smoking it then most won't stick with it.

It takes a lot of time and practice to learn to smoke a pipe slowly and gently enough to not get tongue bite and really get a good taste of the tobacco, and I just don't think the average Joe (or Jane) these days would have the patience for it. Most folks want something quick and easy to use that isn't going to scorch their tongue and taste awful until they finally figure out how to do it right, which I think is why cigarettes and then vapes have been so successful in the modern era.

But hey, we can still hope.

 

[Skyfall]

I sure hope the writer ends up being correct, though I don't think he will be just because of the simple fact that smoking a pipe has a rather steep and lengthy learning curve. I'm sure lotsa folks who long for simpler and slower paced times like the idea of smoking a pipe, but once they pick up their first pipe and tobacco and get tongue bite the first half a dozen times they try smoking it then most won't stick with it.

It takes a lot of time and practice to learn to smoke a pipe slowly and gently enough to not get tongue bite and really get a good taste of the tobacco, and I just don't think the average Joe (or Jane) these days would have the patience for it. Most folks want something quick and easy to use that isn't going to scorch their tongue and taste awful until they finally figure out how to do it right, which I think is why cigarettes and eventually vapes have been so successful in the modern era.

But hey, we can still hope.

The first tobacco they buy will be SWR and give up

 

[Skippy Piper]

The first tobacco they buy will be SWR and give up

Though sour grapes may turn to wine, it's all just vinegar with time.

 

[tartanphantom]

I sure hope the writer ends up being correct, though I don't think he will be just because of the simple fact that smoking a pipe has a rather steep and lengthy learning curve. I'm sure lotsa folks who long for simpler and slower paced times like the idea of smoking a pipe, but once they pick up their first pipe and tobacco and get tongue bite the first half a dozen times they try smoking it then most won't stick with it.

It takes a lot of time and practice to learn to smoke a pipe slowly and gently enough to not get tongue bite and really get a good taste of the tobacco, and I just don't think the average Joe (or Jane) these days would have the patience for it. Most folks want something quick and easy to use that isn't going to scorch their tongue and taste awful until they finally figure out how to do it right, which I think is why cigarettes and then vapes have been so successful in the modern era.

But hey, we can still hope.

Maybe it will be an opportunity to unload dumper-truckfuls of the awful Vinegar Sir Walter Raleigh that seems to be so prevalent these days. The hot trend hipster nouveau crowd won't know the difference.

EDIT: Damn. two like-minded folks posted while I was running my mouth!

 

[woodsroad]

The NYT lives in a bubble so tiny and so dense, that physicists had admitted they are entirely mystified by it.

"We used to believe that the New York Times was the basis for Black Holes" said Swiss astrophysicist Hans-Dietrich Schleissbjorgenstein, "The truth would go in and then completely vanish from existence".

Recent evidence, however points to the possibility that the NYT is just a different form of matter entirely. Researchers have dubbed it Irrelevant Distraction Matter or RDM. "This matter is so inconsequential and so utterly unrelated to anything else in the cosmos that the entire scientific community has agreed that we should just ignore it and get on with whatever else we were doing."

 

[Smokeybandit]

I’m new to pipe smoking for the most part, was reintroduced by a few of my coworker who just started themselves. Could definitely be a thing.

 

[briangray]

As you can see in the link, this is in the style section of the New York Times. They are more amused by the idea, aesthetics and "Dickensian glamour" than enjoying tobacco.

In order to popularize, demystify and destigmatize pipe smoking, I invite all of you pipe smokers to work on your outfit, introducing elegant details from the clothing of the Victorian era.

Marketing is everything and if we really want lower prices and taxes on these God-given wonders, we have to attack them where they are the softest - in the style section.

I'll start by sending a message to Taylor Swift via Instagram.
"Dear Taylor, how about a pipe as an accessory for your next post?"

 

[TimeKiller]

I invite all of you pipe smokers to work on your outfit

Can we all agree to make bath robes the new smoking jacket?

 

[jpberg]

As you can see in the link, this is in the style section of the New York Times. They are more amused by the idea, aesthetics and "Dickensian glamour" than enjoying tobacco.

In order to popularize, demystify and destigmatize pipe smoking, I invite all of you pipe smokers to work on your outfit, introducing elegant details from the clothing of the Victorian era.

Marketing is everything and if we really want lower prices and taxes on these God-given wonders, we have to attack them where they are the softest - in the style section.

I'll start by sending a message to Taylor Swift via Instagram.
"Dear Taylor, how about a pipe as an accessory for your next post?"

You are automatically a bad person person for starting this thread.

 

[jpberg]

Not burn in hell eternal damnation kind of bad, just never start a thread kind of bad.

 

[briangray]

You are automatically a bad person person for starting this thread.

C'est la vie.

 

[georged]

As you can see in the link, this is in the style section of the New York Times. They are more amused by the idea, aesthetics and "Dickensian glamour" than enjoying tobacco.

You mean there are people who value style over substance???

Surely you jest

 

[fireground_piper]

Hand tattoo required.

 

[TimeKiller]

"Bring out the heavy smoking hardware"

 

[tartanphantom]

Can we all agree to make bath robes the new smoking jacket?

No way-- too staid and conservative. We gotta hit trend-hipsters where they live-- blindly copying the style of others.

I say, in order to do them a good turn, we gotta go with the ubiquitous wrestling singlet as the new trendy haute couture smoking jacket of the moment!

It's going to look particularly head-turning on the new crop of incoming female pipe smokers.