Every year in reporting and writing about our beloved state, we come to know ourselves as Texans a little better. Accordingly, every year we come to better understand what we’re just not willing to mess with anymore. 

The Washington Post has been telling us what’s in (bathroom fridges) and what’s out (cottage cheese) around New Year’s since 1978. And in the past few years on social media, the turn to January has meant a flurry of personalized and screenshotted Notes App “in/out” lists assigning tired trends (eating while standing up) their doomed fate, while heralding the future (medium-length socks).

While we’re far from Texas’s ultimate tastemakers, we know a thing or two about the state’s cultural dips and turns. We know, for instance, that there’s a particular brand of fatigue reserved for a billionaire in a cowboy hat, and that nothing satiates the soul quite like a lunch-hour swim. Read what we’d like to see more and less of in 2024, below—and don’t let us catch you saying “howdy” ironically ever again.

In for 2024

(*“In” every year since 1973)

Out for 2024