i slop therefore i sham

On ad-based psychosis and why commercials have cannabalized culture, and what the incoming collapse of the "strategist" digital universe says about the working world.

The Trend Report™ is a reader-supported publication. Consider upgrading to paid to support Kyle and such writing on life and culture now. Pay it forward!!

• Wanna learn more about fashion and writing? Join myself and fashion journalist

  Max Berlinger
  on Sep 24 at 12PM EST / 9AM PST, for a conversation and Q&A on writing and trend reporting. It’s free too: Learn more here and RSVP here!

• 🦿HIP REPLACEMENT🦿 is back after a brief holiday, where we were joined by icon

  Casey Lewis
  who chatted with
  Ben Dietz
  and I about career crises, Gen Alpha beauty trends, and what happens when old and young people quit tech. Listen on Spotify and YouTube!

Suspect in Charlotte train stabbing charged
"Vance suggest white men should kill"
Far-right commentators call for ‘vengeance’
Right-Wing Activists Are Targeting People
State warns immigrants not to mock Kirk's death
10 Political Violence Experts on What’s Next

This was a very big week for the right craving the blood of the non-normative, wasn’t it? When in fact the calls were coming from inside their (groyper) house. The last story is very good: “The assassination of a high-profile political figure like Charlie Kirk marks a continuation of the trend toward lone-actor violence, rather than the emergence of organized political conflict or even partisan conflict.” I also suggest this video from a historian on how we forget the wars that don’t happen and the need to fall concentrations of power along with talk about memes as symbols, shit post murders, right wing queerness, and boy culture now.

Nepali Troops Move to Restore Order
France Braces for Protests
Russian drone into Poland tests Nato
Russian Bomb Hits Crowd of Retirees

A lot happened in many places this week too, all instances of “the war” evolving, suggesting a massive upheaval is indeed happening as the world shifts under our feet.

Javier Milei suffers setback in polls
French Prime Minister Bayrou Loses Vote

And to that: win some, lose some, etc.

Democrats Release Epstein’s Birthday Letter
Who’s who in Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book
“Epstein and JP Morgan”
“how is this real”

The Charlie Kirk thing really sucked the air out of this.

Jair Bolsonaro convicted of plotting coup

And this too!! It’s a major story, as justice was finally served somewhere.

Is the EU about to start scanning your text messages?

In the EU(SA), there are a lot of rumblings about Chat Control recently, an effort to monitor any and all messages sent by citizens, which would “break” encryption. Don’t let Trump hear about this! And don’t let these morons live down trying to hold silence for Charlie Kirk.

Humans inhale ~68,000 microplastic daily

Awesome 🫠

Learn more about advertising with The Trend Report™ 🙂‍↕️

The dancer who sings from the Fox show took the stage, the same night she won an award for a song in a movie promoting the production capacities of Apple and the worldwide aspirations of racing league F1. That same night, Lola Young performed her TikTok famous messy song on a stage branded by Dorito’s while Lady Gaga performed a song featuring a TikTok dance to promote a Netflix show that’s part of a 60 year old franchise. All broadcast by MTV on Paramount+ but also CBS! “Boba tea? GNARLY. Tesla? GNARLY. Partyin' in the Hollywood Hills? This song? GNARLY,” they say, before: “Hottie, hottie like a bag of Takis, I'm the shit.” “Assemble a chair from IKEA, I'm like uh,” she says. “The couch is really comfy, comfy,” she later says, before adding, “Got some Chips Ahoy if you’re hungry.” “Switch it up like Nintendo,” she sung last summer. “I know I Mountain Dew it for ya,” she continued. “Sitting on his lap, sippin' Diet Pepsi,” another cooed nearby. “I'm so reckless when I rock my Givenchy dress,” the ancient one proclaimed. “When he fuck me good I take his ass to Red Lobster,” she prophesied. “Why do it?” the Golf brand rapper says, as a basketball player and Nike spokesperson does his sport. “Marketinggggg,” people type. Katseye — a band created by Hybe and Geffen Records as documented by Netflix — bend and snap for Gap, all to a song by Kelis produced by the guy who is the creative director of Louis Vuitton but also Billionaire Boys Club. “Marketing team deserves a raise,” people type. Sydney Sweeney stares, dazed, into the camera for American Eagle, likely confused as to where she is as as her presence multiplies by Laneige and HeyDude and Dr. Squatch and Samsung and Baskin Robbins and Jimmy Choo. “Whoever runs this account is [FILL IN THE BLANK],” people type, acknowledging they too have MBAs and understand how the whole of marketing works because they too have been forced into advertising to sell their capabilities just to get a job or to get views, to operate in these new ways of this world, after completing their MFA in filmmaking in the 2010s. “A lot of young people are really obsessed with gaining cultural identity from things they are meant to consume,” a TikTok explains. “At the end of the day, these are both ads. The Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad is not a fascist manifesto: it’s an ad. The Katsye Gap ad isn’t some like revolutionary text about diversity and inclusion: it’s an ad.” But don’t worry: my eye started twitching weeks ago, when the “you need to nerd out” trend quickly became a monster mash of people boasting the brands they love. Or did that happen during the trend of brands making TV shows, which sees the snake fellating itself as shows and movies become tapestries for ad space? Unsure, but there is a confusion of shopping-as-cultural-identity, given that all the aforementioned “fun” is shadowed by the anti-Target movement and the Bud Light boycott. “Go woke, go broke,” the famous saying goes, the yin to the yang of the BDS movement. As if I have to tell you but: a poll earlier this year found a quarter of US shoppers spend in ways that align with their beliefs. “Fandom has taken over American life,” Ellen Cushing of The Atlantic explained of grocery store simping. “It seems like we are all defined by our tastes and our tastes are defined by what we buy.” Thus, the logical conclusion: our fashion/cultural recession has created a vacuum, replacing our lives, our relationships, our culture with brands. “I shop therefore I am” wasn’t a critique but a curse.

Everything is an ad now or ads are everything now. Every celebrity has a brand deal has a production company has a social media presence has a makeup deal has a food brand, which means every normie is a creator is a filmmaker is a multi-level marketer, pyramid scheme pilled by affiliate link rot and UGC creation and doing “volunteer work” for brands. “Hollywood’s favorite side hustle may have reached a saturation point,” The Cut mused this week on too many celebrities with too many brand deals. “I have a problem with rich people having a side hustle,” Tina Fey told Amy Poehler in March. “But Tina,” Amy replied. “That is where you have to learn from Gen Z…They don’t judge it.” And why would Gen Z judge it? If we all have to whore sell ourselves every day, monetizing every second of our time to survive, why wouldn’t we then view the world through ad-tinted lenses? The president sells Bibles with his face on it and has a franchise of golf courses around the world: this is the era of ad-based psychosis, where everything stands for something and nothing ever “just is,” putting us in a constant dissection of people, places, and things, a swirly path of following the money into someone’s already very full pockets that then has us chasing our tails with pitchforks looking to call anyone and everyone a nepo baby, which allows very real campaigns against the rich to get confused as being dramatic, as over reacting, the less-thans acting spoiled and jealous for trying to level the playing field.

It’s not that “Gen Z broke the marketing funnel” but that the funnel became everything because the internet is everything and everything is money on the internet, which no one has. So we perform being spokesperson and vendor, as best expressed by the very 2020s and very Gen Z graphic design trend of cutesy lil price-tag inspired stickers upon every surface, which suggests the selling of ideas and culture by small kisses placed upon real points of sales, making the ad culture and culture an ad. Brands are your friends which means your friends are brands too! Everything then has a double meaning, a hidden sale, a secret deal being made only if you know where and how to look. From believing the McDonald’s menu is full of demons to interpreting a picture of Katy Perry as a sign of a European tour, we suffer from salesfloor insanity, hungry for deep discounts, our eyes trained to decode everything as if a QR code because everything is advertising, everything is a brand mention. “I’m not a businessman: I’m a business, man.”: etc.

Such symbology has always existed, which is exploited in every way possible now: MAGA as worldwide signal inspiring the American flag as Brazilian far right symbol, which is held in the same hand as the St. George flag becoming a hate symbol in the UK. Charlie Kirk dies, the blood from his neck less the sign of lost life and more his transubstantiation into object, a cross many will wield to reiterate the hateful stain he left on this world. Yes, the discourse machine is broken, where culture is so deep in a recession that life is flattened into micro-dosing ads as entertainment, hence nothing and everything having way too heavy a weight. It is that deep because everything involves investment, because out time is money and we don’t do “anything for free” which is why we see our relationships and our lives as transactions, a buying and selling versus a sharing and a collaborating: we will never pick berries because we now see them as something to monetize versus the world giving to us, offering a lesson that we should give to each other too.

But whatever. Who cares!! It’s not that deep!!! “Hottie, hottie,” I sing. “Like a bag of Takis,” you sing. “I'm the shit,” we sing, becoming Soylent Green, not because the state ground us up but because we willingly wanted to become the product being sold. “Take this, all of you, and eat of it,” we say. “For this is my body which will be given up for you,” we say, as the machine delivers a sweet, final kiss as it processes us into a pulp to squeeze upon the great human toast that is the whole of humanity now.

Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way
“It’s quite a bit harder…to talk about his life”
“Welcome to Abundance Convention”

This Ezra Klein story is such supreme pee pee poo poo thinking, minimizing Charlie Kirk’s hate as if the medium that the message came through was righteous. As if! Taken with Dean Withers’ cry cry crash out, we have a bigger picture of the space: seeking defusion, as the story of Charlie Kirk is a story of creator safety, in that the line from Ezra to Dean to Hasan shows how political activity on the main stage is a hazard that YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, etc. — Or traditional media like the Times! — will not protect you from, no matter your proximity to power. We all knew this with doxxing, etc. — but it “took a turn” as some (Ezra, Dean) reveal their performative maleness, their useful idiocy. Having a wife and kids does not absolve your having taken a hammer to culture, placing nails of hate into us until we all became flat! “Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words lead to hateful actions,” Matthew Dowd said on MSNBC of the situation — and was fired! “Oh please,” Elizabeth Warren rightly observed of this revisionist honor given to Kirk. "Why don't you start with the president?" Stand for something, people.

Jerry Seinfeld Compares “Free Palestine” to KKK

Seinfeld is…a bad guy. Don’t believe me? His daughter is a part of The Free Press. Don’t let the reruns fool you!

Sam Altman Worried Dead Internet Theory
Silicon Valley enabled brutal mass detention in China

I’m reading Empire of AI and, without a doubt, Sam Altman should be dropped in the middle of the desert and left to figure shit out by himself. As if his fingerprints aren’t all over Chinese surveillance! (If you want to see some loser-on-loser violence, watch Altman get grilled by Tucker Carlson.)

Why everyone still wants to dress like Sade

Did you know Sade was a trained fashion designer? I had no idea, but clearly it explains her competence in image-making. If you’re in London, go to this show and tell me how it is!!

Christie's Reportedly Closes Digital Art Department
"I just sold my Bored Ape”

A sign of the times! And a funny one at that, considering we moved from crypto to NFT to AI and are bracing for an incoming bubble Yes, Beeple did just make $69M on a recent collective work — but that is a great exception to the norm given this shit doesn’t happen anymore.

The Controversial Artworks
”a better outcome than this”
"the genius of Banksy"

When I think of Banksy, I think of that one video of people theorizing new Banksys. But he really hit a homerun this week with a piece that continues to bloom as it’s a searing critique of our world of have-nots in 2025.

"Art and Heritage in Nantes”
Latest Version

I doubt I’ll make it, but artist Willem De Haan’s interruption of a historic fountain in Nantes to include current city workers is so special. I hope they make it permanent!

Two years ago I wrote about how the creative director was the new chef was the new rockstar, that the 2010s were the time when “everyone wanted to be” a creative director as the hot cool person job, which built off of the 2000s being the era of that for the chef, with ripple effects that still have culture in a chokehold. In the piece, I theorized what the 2020 “it” jobs might be. Let me draw your eye to something that has become our reality, to quote —

“Analyst” / “Strategist” / “Curator”: These are all fluid items that also dovetail out of Creative Director, another version of someone who just says yes and no, offering opinions on what people should do without having any credible experience to back it up. From @CultureUnfiltered to @OldLoserInBrooklyn, these are people related to a culture who just talk about a culture: it is aspirational to get paid to give your opinion, being a critic with few qualifications.

While Masani and Mandy definitely have credible experience to back up what they’re saying (See last week’s age piece.), the crystal ball of “analysts” and “strategists” has swollen in this time — and is starting to crack, as the state of the working world and things like AI slam such positions against the skull of our terrible now. Such titles — ”analyst,” “strategist,” “curator” — represent the new fakest gayest job: something that comes across as vibes, which looks like “no work,” resulting in an engorged landscape of fraudsters and hucksters who demand to be heard, which means anyone in such a position loses both power and meaning. “Anyone who has the word strategist in their job title has a fake job,” a popular TikTok this week went. “No one needs that much strategy…That’s a faker job than a creative director.” Because of this feeling, the landscape has gotten gauzy, where ideas are “everything” and yet they are nothing because they aren’t monetizable outside of being “in house” or at whatever failing agency. So we dance around these crowded digital corridors for coins given that the glorified tip culture of “the creator economy”/”the gig economy” has become all of the economy. Substack is the shining example, a monument of dream careers and bullshit jobs, aspirations of getting paid to think as expressed through countless essays that none of us have time to read, that long for an editor but will never get such attention since that job went extinct. Then there’s its evil twin: the TikTok guy-who-points-at-things-behind him, copying the labor and ideas of others without giving proper citation, enabled to succeed because of cute accents and telegenetic presences that land brand deals when others are doing the work — and you, the made-for-TV strategist? You continue down your Rumpelstiltskin road as you offload ideological slop to its logical end place: LinkedIn.

Strategists and this landscape of fake jobs is less an indication that this economy is in the seconds before collapse but of the gluttonous supernumeric state of things: most things in the white collar working world aren't real and strategists are the best expression of that as most tasks and most careers are a meticulous, multi-team effort to move chairs around the Titanic. Lives lived in decks, AI cover letters for AI interviews, the constant shuffling of workers, the middle manager holding pattern, layoffs as the norm, the deflating bounce house of tech as a cushy gig: as theoretical as the products sold, most jobs and most companies are similarly theoretical. Hence the rise in “tough bosses,” who are realizing their structures have become hollow, as companies are constantly selling and unselling, buying and unbuying themselves, macroeconomic actions that further reveal the meaningless of our so-called “careers”: it all means nothing, resulting in a nihilistic working world where we need fake gay job soothsayers like analysts and strategists to guide us through the darkness with the light of semi-informed “vibes.”

So…polywork we must, as wide-scale economic abuse is administered from the high to the low. “We are in a white collar gig economy,” Mbiye Kasonga so sagely put this week. “[Companies] are only hiring freelancers and contractors or new vendors to do those exact same services that those people who were laid off were doing…You are no different from an Uber driver.” And yet: we simp for such work, the slave on their knees licking the whip for more — because how else will we live? “The result is too many people working much too hard because there’s just not enough work,” as The New Yorker shared earlier this year. Or, as Hannah Horvath said earlier in June or workers exploiting themselves: “The system has created something very unprecedented: people who are willingly working harder for less money while feeling grateful for the opportunity.” Abuse, but make it the whole of the working world.

“There was a huge lack of psychological safety,” an employee at OpenAI told Karen Hao in Empire of AI. “It is like the opposite of a company as a family, which is fair, you know? It is a company.” Thus is life in the 2020s, thus the context for the “analyst” and “strategist” ecosystem: diviners who have one foot in and one foot out, those that the machine is most willing to crush but keeps so that they can have their fur picked and teeth cleaned, we the oxpeckers upon the bucking corporate wildebeest, an insecure creature who cannot make a decision without “data.” “The US is merely an example of a worldwide problem,” as

George Tsakraklides

said this week (h/t Amy). “We have never been in control, simply because all these choices boil down to a single choice: another cash injection for the oligarchy’s necroeconomy.”

And so…we Trend Report™! We analyze and strategize and curate! We construct these towers of babble to massage the shoulders of the more corporately inclined, all to forget that — when the towers collapses — it will fall upon all us little people who were dying to hold it up.

“epitomizes our cultural moment”
“what it’s like living in America”
"this dude literally went on to steal all the merch"
“The whiplash of switching”

There were many a funny posts about Charlie Kirk but this real life post by a very real person is both hilarious and…concerning. An extremely 2025 “type.” (If you want more, I’ll give you more: two other good posts that capture this week.)

“deathly allergic to the raisin”

Another doc, on the Mr. Beastism of the now. It reminds of Chris Maggio’s Thanksgiving pics.

"Your 30’s are gonna humble you"

Ditto, as my war with sciatica continues for the second year 🫠

“MS. JUICY RAE”
Diet Pepsi (ft. Miss Juicy Baby)

This was one of the few things that brought me joy this week — and it brought a lot of joy.

“the fugliest dog”

I have seen uglier dogs but, damn, that dog is uggo.

“Who are you, spirit?”

I don’t need to see the new Conjuring because I’ve seen this.

“no i didn’t sew my shirt”

I fear this is me, but I always take such slights as a compliment. It pays to be stupid!!

“horse scared by a fast car”

I would like to make such videos when I’m 95.

“me lying”

We were all hula-performer-who-caught-on-fire this week.

And, finally, my experience of being a super smeller.

---

Subscribe to The Fox Is Black and gift a paid subscription today.