I have a theory about end-of-year trend predictions/forecasts that’s going to make me sound kind of arrogant or curmudgeonly, but it’s something I want to at least attempt to articulate....
A prediction can be based on research, too, but it can also be an entirely unfounded hot take, like we often see from Tiktok Oracles. That’s why I bristle a bit at its use — I just fear that it devalues the work, similarly to what we’ve seen with the confusion between ‘ trending ’ vs. trend.
🔮 2026 MACROTREND REPORT 🔮
- Foresight has a trend problem — today’s trend hunting is largely a by-product of a linear, mechanistic, and extractive system that hopes to profit off of the “next big thing,” and is also mired in a hyper-masculine perspective of what’s important or what should be examined.
- Foresight has a time problem — “This or that will happen in the next 1, 3,
The Future Thinker’s Dilemma
The industry of cultural futuregazing, once a niche subset of ‘coolhunters’ in the 90s, who began tracking street-born trends for brands, has evolved into a sprawling industry. This year alone, 135+ trend reports were published by tech companies, agencies and consultancies. Today, anyone with a TikTok account or Substack and a penchant for digital
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