2025 was dominated by the Let Them Theory. 2026 will be Let Them Be Petty.

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This isn't about public call-outs or cancel culture. It's about finally using the Let Them Theory the way it was meant to work.

2025 was the year The Let Them Theory quietly became our collective self-improvement mantra. Inspired by Mel Robbins' bestselling book, many of us set future goals centred around emotional detachment, letting go of what we can't control so it no longer controls us.

But by the end of the year, something shifted.

After watching Sean Combs: The Reckoning on Netflix, produced by 50 Cent, many online seemed to abandon restraint altogether, embracing what could only be described as our peak pettiness potential for 2026.

Culturally, we appear to be entering an era of peak pettiness, not because cruelty has suddenly become acceptable, but because restraint has been over-romanticised.

The logic of Let Them is undeniable. It's why the book became a bestseller.

Watch: Mel Robbins explains 'The Let Them' theory. Article continues after video.

After years of being told to stay silent, rise above, and move on, the promise of peace through detachment was seductive. But the pendulum is swinging. This phase won't be elegant. It won't look like quiet acceptance or smoothing things over for the sake of harmony.

It looks louder and messier, and far more insistent on distinguishing between inconvenience and injustice.

So why has 50 Cent, of all people, become a reference point in this moment?

Not because people are suddenly inspired to produce exposé documentaries or publicly dismantle others on an international stage. That's Cancel Culture, and it's not what most people are actually reaching for. What resonated instead was something smaller, more familiar, and far more personal: the permission to stop swallowing minor injustices in the name of appearing emotionally evolved.

Somewhere along the way, Let Them stopped being a boundary-setting tool and became a moral posture. Silence was reframed as growth. Detachment as healing. Remembering as immaturity.

For some situations, that works. For many others, it feels performative. Let Them is far easier to agree with than to live emotionally. People adopted the appearance of composure without ever feeling its relief, mistaking restraint for resolution.

Image: Supplied.

When the feeling didn't fade, it wasn't just discomfort that followed. It was shame. Not because we were irrational, but because we had promised ourselves we would "let them" go for coffee without us and feel fine about it. Instead, we discovered that some exclusions don't register as neutral disappointments. They register as injustices our nervous systems refuse to ignore.

We know the dangers of Cancel Culture. We've learnt, or at least should have learnt, how quickly it tips into harm. But we've also been socialised from a very young age not be difficult, especially as women.

The Let Them theory promises inner peace, yet for many it simply taught us how to look emotionally evolved. We wouldn't waste a minute on something as "petty" as a neighbour putting their dog's poo in our bin. The injustice, however minor, lives rent-free in our minds regardless. So we stay quiet. We let them. After all, at least it's in a bin and not on the footpath.

But deep down, we know speaking up would be labelled conflict. We know it would be called petty.

As a society, we dismiss these moments as trivial. But at its core, this isn't about pettiness. It's about trusting your judgement and backing yourself when everyone around you tells you to "let it go", even when something genuinely unjust has occurred.

And maybe this is where we need to let ourselves be called "petty", and stop trying to defend ourselves against the word. 

Because pettiness, in real life, rarely looks like confrontation. It looks like remembering. It looks like the joke a relative made seven years ago that still tightens something in your chest. The one you've mentioned to friends more than once, trying to work out if you're overreacting. The one you've half-raised with them yourself, only to be told it was "just a joke" and that you're too sensitive.

That's why moving seats at the dinner table gets labelled petty. Not because of the movement itself, but because everyone knows the backstory. They know you've brought it up before. They know it still bothers you. And in a culture that values closure over honesty, unresolved discomfort is treated as a character flaw.

Image: Supplied.

We're told that if something still affects us years later, it means we haven't healed, that growth should have erased it by now. But bodies don't work like that. Memory doesn't work like that. This isn't a rejection of The Let Them Theory. It's a correction of how it's been used to mistake endurance for growth.

Let them say it was harmless. Let them believe the past is irrelevant. Let them roll their eyes and call it petty. And let me move seats.

Letting them isn't about pretending it didn't hurt. It's about stopping the exhausting work of re-explaining, re-justifying, and re-litigating your discomfort. It's choosing regulation over repetition.

The same logic applies to the girl who bullied you twenty years ago. You might still talk about it. You might still feel a flicker of dread at the suggestion of catching up, even with mutual friends now in the mix. That doesn't make you immature. It makes you honest about what you truly remember and feel.

We've been taught that maturity looks like proximity, like sitting beside the people who hurt us to prove how far we've come. But healing doesn't require access. It doesn't require amnesia. And it certainly doesn't require us to keep ourselves dysregulated for the comfort of others.

Let them think it's petty. Let you choose the seat where your body can breathe.

Feature Image: Supplied.