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Everyone wants to _______, but nobody wants to ___________. e.g. “Everyone wants to be strong, but nobody wants to lift heavy ass weights.”or my own r
9 Frameworks Every Brand Builder Needs
At a time when brands are bending over backwards to get on our level and speak our language, what we really crave now is ambition: whether that takes
I found that in my self loathing, what I was really doing was protecting myself from actual self reflection that I could improve from. The idea that I
I’ve read that when you feel a connection with a narcissist, what you’re really feeling is a connection with the version of yourself they’re mirroring
Drawing on his experiences as a survivor of Nazi concentration camps, Frankl articulated the concept of tragic optimism: the human capacity to remain
In a 2024 essay, the jazz critic and music historian Ted Gioia described this pattern as “dopamine culture,” the idea that our online life has been en
Culture is made by people. Brands can only serve to shepherd culture, ruin it, or gracefully ignore it.
Are memes generating loyalty? Probably not. Are they selling stuff? Maybe... sometimes. Are they building cultural relevance? Yes and no. As my esteem
At a time when brands are bending over backwards to get on our level and speak our language, what we really crave now is ambition: whether that takes
People have stopped believing that the economy can be good, and have lost the willingness to admit that they are doing well. That pessimism might be h
Americans feel worse now than they did at every financial nadir we have hit since the world wars. Many insist that the middle class had it better in t
Americans seem to be mad about everything, or in spite of everything. Rates of teen pregnancy, domestic abuse, vehicle crashes, and violent crime have
Roughly 20 to 25 percentage points more Americans described themselves as “very happy” than “not so happy” from 1970 to 2020. Then, the “not so happy”
She’s seen firsthand how the festival has evolved from being “solely about the music” to “a full lifestyle weekend made for social media.”
“we’re in a global and culturewide crisis of meaning, in which manufactured realities exert pressure on the real world and we’re being manipulated mor
A Facebook group called Baddies in AI, geared toward women who are using A.I. to either augment their own social-media presence or create entirely new
“Not living my full potential” — this one (or versions of it) came up the most! “Working a 9-5” — they certainly do not yearn to have office jobs“Sold
We’re wired for small, close-knit communities, but instead we’re lost in the chaos of a massive, impersonal society. It’s no wonder we’re struggling—t
However, when a profit-driven, materially-oriented, and hyper-individualistic society finds itself incompatible with our inherent psychological makeup
Americans are talking — out loud, to other humans — significantly less than they used to, with the steepest drop among people under 25. A recent study
“whether I should or shouldn’t be eating in a given moment, whether I’ve completed my nutritional goals for the day, whether I’ve had enough vitamins,
Spiritual chatbot apps have garnered millions of downloads. These AI-powered religious apps, like Bible Chat and Hallow, mimic conversations with cler
The trend tracks with Gen Z’s broader interest in astrology, Saturn returns, and angel numbers as ways to make sense of their lives.
“I hear so much as a therapist that we don’t have community anymore. We don’t have gathering spaces anymore. We don’t have spirituality and religion a
“we’re in a global and culturewide crisis of meaning, in which manufactured realities exert pressure on the real world and we’re being manipulated mor
Two possible paths begin to emerge.In the first, a generation emotionally numbed at work becomes equally numb in their private lives. Interactions rem
Everyone’s good at everything, and I kind of don’t care. Show me what it looks like when you are bad. Show me how it looks when you get it wrong.When
Sam Altman’s iris-scanning World project announced that Tinder users globally can now display a digital badge on their profiles verifying they’re a re
Try a tool that intentionally messes up your writing. It’s a response to A.I. making email sound less human.
Everyone deep in their own individual loop. Getting more productive. Getting more fluent. And getting, incrementally, more disconnected from the peopl
We have invested heavily - decades, centuries if you follow it far enough back - in the idea of the singular creative genius. The lone figure in the s
a recent study found that TikTok is the only platform where left-leaning news influencers outnumber right-leaning ones.
TikTok also has more than double the concentration of news content creators who identify as LGBTQ+ or advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, and 73% of teens who
“The reason for the tariffs is the same reason Clavicular hits his face with a hammer,” Aidan Walker, an online-culture researcher, told me recently.
Our culture hasn’t yet been fully subsumed by nihilism, but you can also see it everywhere in different forms: in the mass shooters who seem to care a
Prescriptions for S.S.R.I.s among young people are on the rise, with two million 12-to-17-year-olds in the U.S. currently on the drugs, and researcher
Competency p*rn: is there any greater escapism than watching a capable person on TV? (The Guardian)Watching people calmly and expertly do their jobs h
The “stimming beauty” trend is turning cosmetics and accessories into sensory soothers, with products featuring raised textures, dangling charms, clic
‘Like an electrical gong bath!’ The Sheffield supermarket going viral for the symphonic sound of its freezers (The Guardian)
TikTok is rebranding ice hockey rinks as ‘boy aquariums’ (Fast Company)TikTok has rebranded ice hockey arenas as “boy aquariums,” with women filming p
It’s no surprise that Gen Z is having less sex than previous generations, not (only) because of surveillance or puritanism or disinterest: As one 17-y
Speaking of, GQ reported on the mainstreaming of teratophilia this week. The sexual attraction to monsters has migrated from niche internet forums lik
Horny yearning is the season’s hottest beauty trend, Allure proclaimed this week. They tie a surge in romance consumption — it was one of the top audi
But, if their inaction is a betrayal, it’s most likely not a malicious one; it’s just that our current pleasures and predicaments are much more salien
Others complain that we are too focussed on the past, or with the sentimental reconstruction of it. Past, present, future; history, this year, the dec
For Sullivan, all of these time biases are mistakes. She advocates for temporal neutrality—a habit of mind that gives the past, the present, and the f
Meghan Sullivan, a philosopher at the University of Notre Dame, contemplates these questions in her book “Time Biases: A Theory of Rational Planning a
My 2026 Macrotrend Report is different from most other ones. It does not include snappy hot takes, mention of “predictions,” consumer data, or cool gr
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 bri
Yet, despite this abundance of enthusiasm for cultural research, it often feels like it’s easier than ever to slip into the gravity well of banality.
Or is it that beneath it all, there is no substance? There is nothing to offer up only a never-ending desire to tear down? Nothing to actually stand b
The Anxiety LoopOn one hand, rituals provide structure, control and the satisfaction of “doing something” about perceived flaws. They create agency in
Self-optimization as status symbols: As you can see from the prevalence of Oura Rings, Hatch alarm clocks, Bala Bangles, self-tanning products, and el
For some Western adopters, TCM feels like an antidote to demanding wellness culture: “Traditional Chinese practices are a lot more accessible than wha
What saved me wasn’t becoming prettier. It was learning to live in my body without hatred. I was lucky. My father guided me toward health—not aestheti
This thought is neither insane nor original. Back in 1998, Andy Clark and David Chalmers introduced their “extended mind hypothesis,” the idea that ex
The term “phone addiction” has wiggled its way into the common vernacular and has become a near-universal self-diagnosis among my cohort. But that doe
pre-brief, do this:What’s being asked?Ok but what’s the actual problem?Is it a problem advertising can solve?If yes, how? —> That is the foundation of
I think about this a lot when creative teams get feedback about the tone or message present in the work. REMEMBER – it’s not what is said, but what is
as much as I hate the word insight, this feels like one that would make for a strong creative brief: