IT GETS BETTER 🥲

A reminder that we are all the girls who are going to be okay, and a check-in with a very inspiring creative on creating a creative life.

May 10, 2026

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

👀 Some things I did this week, which you may enjoy: I chatted with Grace Weinstein about The Met Gala — an event that I hated — for Who Broke It: read that here; I also chatted with Holly Beddingfield about what I think is HOT and what I think is NOT: catch that here.
🦿 HIP REPLACEMENT 🦿 this week features consumer researcher Kate Daykin who chats with Ben Dietz and I about drinking trends, cultural sentiments around AI, and why work “never stops” now. Listen on Substack, YouTube, and Spotify!

Hantavirus spreads between ship passengers
What is hantavirus?
“All we want is to feel safe”

The story of the week, which may be an entertaining something-to-watch on this episode of our reality show of life or potentially something much bigger: we shall see. Both the CDC and WHO say risk is low, which I am going to hold onto until I hear otherwise. It’s refreshing people are paying attention though!

Reform gains as Labour counts losses
Takeaways From the U.K. Local Elections

Big uh-oh to Starmer which should be an uh-oh to Democrats, but also know that Greens picked up seats as Nigel Farage’s far right was the biggest breakout. An interesting player in all this? Something like the Iran conflict as booster the European far right, as they position themselves as an outsider antidote. Bad news!

Attacks in Strait of Hormuz imperil ceasefire
Trump says ceasefire still intact
Trump and Rubio Insist Iran War Is Over

This shit continues to piss me off so bad — and I don’t even drink Diet Coke!

Mirroring Gaza, Israel is destroying towns in Lebanon
Historic Lebanon-Israel talks: A no-win situation?

Amidst the happenings of the world, Israel seems to continue their march into Lebanon while we’re distracted. Awful.

Republicans sneak in taxpayer cash for ballroom

Feels big that a story pointing out Trump stealing tax dollars for his ballroom is coming from Fox News.

A.I. Populism Is Here. And No One Is Ready.
Billionaires Want Christians to Believe in AI
AI data centers creating microclimates
Rural America Is Getting Blindsided Something New
What Will It Take to Get AI Out of Schools?
Using AI for 10 Minutes Might Make You Lazy, Dumb
Publishers Sue Meta, Zuckerberg

It feels like we’re getting closer and closer to the grand finale of the AI saga, or at least the public’s relationship to AI. See also: the Hollywood Reporter “AI 25” story, a vomit inducing piece aimed to balance the pro and con figures of this space.

**NOW DISCOUNTED!!** Q1 analysis Trend Report: Trend Report™ is available for download here.

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Read while listening to.

There is no GLP-1 for personal development. There is no speedrun that opens a backroom to yourself. There is no large language model that incants taste, no predictive bet to make on your own future. “I’ve only been alive for less than three decades,” someone laments, “I’ve already lost almost all my will to live and passion and drive.” Capitalism, life behind a paywall, the squeezing of the bottom by the top: it’s true, but understand this moment is just a moment. “It’s my first time living too,” another says, “and I would never done that dumbass shit that you did.” Chill, I write in the comments. Chill. “There is not one single mistake,” Roxane Gay speaks of youth, “that cannot be undone…Do the thing! Because it’s so much easier to do things that are adventurous and unexpected when you’re younger and you have fewer responsibilities. You can tolerate a lot of risks.”

A quality of youth — or culture now — is becoming fixated on instantaneously smoothing out life, either by removing the marks of living from the body or becoming consumed with fast forwarding, skipping to the good part to reap rewards without enduring the work of sowing. No gate shall remain locked, no thought shall be thought: Tell me how to do it, someone cries, but without beans. Part of our shared culture of dehumanization is forgetting we too are human, meaning you have to interact with others and yourself to succeed. It is up to you to change. It is up to you to work. Yes, our governments and our communities can help and hinder — but it is up to you to apply the pressure, to seek accountability, to be the change. You have to do something, or else something is done to you. Such is the difference between subject and object, main characters versus the non-playable. Think less “How are you doing?” and more “What are you doing?”: go from there.

It’s unsurprising that Catholicism is trending (against Trump, with AI, in conservatism, around men) as the associated thought processes is aligned with our self-flagellation, of thinking about life so rigidly that it must be lived in a state of anxiety. “As a Catholic atheist” trends, reinforced by cultural separations, underlined by the budding realization that we can let things go. “I just forgave myself for everything,” the comedian Avery McClure says with a sign. “Highly recommend. Super, super easy.” “I got no work done today,” someone writes, danging, adding a crucial detail: “I am still beautiful and no one is coming to punish me.” “Sorry for being anxious earlier,” another says, “i had no idea everything would be fine.” Isn’t it always fine? Uncomfortable for a moment, squeezing desperation out of us, flight kicking in instead of a fight. What if we can change? What if you take a breath and move forward without fixation? Other possibilities are possible. There is another way.

Life is a group project, living the greatest production imaginable. Isn’t it sweeter to keep afloat instead of holding yourself below the surface of a kiddie pool? “Sometimes I forget I’m one of the luckiest people in the world,” someone said. “I have a sink where I can choose if I want the water to be hot or cold and I have a shower that does the exact same thing…Royalty didn’t have that back in the day.” It’s unfathomable, the abundance we have as we are so fortunate to have be here now. And yet we take that horse by the mouth and inspect its teeth, growling in want and want and want. “It’s not like it’s going to make anything that much better,” that same someone said. “Maybe my shower will look nicer but the water is not gonna be any more hot or cold.” “Do you not understand how lit this shit could be if everyone dropped the weird ass judgement?” someone said. Why not be pure of heart? “You can never say the wrong thing to the right person,” Tanner Devore pontificated. “You should be met with nods and smiles.” “Life is worth living,” Justin Bieber sang a decade ago and we continue to repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat it, in irony and in truth because life is indeed worth living. “We not losing!” someone says, listing how the Trump administration has lost the majority of its court cases, how more than 10 states are considering banning or restricting AI data centers (with one already implementing a ban), how Senate seats are flipping to better candidates: overstimulation as locked-in syndrome, peer pressured nihilism because you took the bait. “We are winning!” Crime and murder are falling, people are living longer, poverty has largely been reduced (despite uncertainty), more people live in democracies, suffering in general has gone down: things are good, even if it doesn’t always feel that way all the time. It cannot always be cake: you must eat your vegetables too. Drink a big glass of water and get back at it. All this can disappear as easily as it came.

What comes next? The planet will become a priority again, as something like sustainability and planet-first technologies rise in a post-Big Tech™ and post-AI world. “Imagine if humans worshipped the earth they see every day like the God they’ve never seen,” someone writes, reinforced by videos juxtaposing our gray now with a literally green alternative, a future where our hands are in dirt, where we are arm-in-arm. We recognize the flaws of the now, but that cannot be the hood we tighten over our heads. “After this entire batshit crazy part of the timeline is over, intellectualism will be back,” someone says, highlighting how more people quit school but that the quitters are largely the lesser. “It’s okay to plan for the future even when it seems like there’s no future to be had,” someone says. “Trauma and abuse and living under oppression can make you feel like there is no future and so you don’t plan for things and then you just end up perpetually in a disadvantaged position because you didn’t prepare because you’re so heavily traumatized. That’s not fair to you. You deserve a future.” “i still believe in this world btw,” someone writes , images of different races and different abilities and different people holding hands flashing before our eyes, happily, healthily. Look at the rainbow clouds, consider the special needs animals, and figure out how we can get there: don’t just watch but do.

I send this to you on the day I turn forty, considering how the good of the decades really does outweigh the bad, which is true for almost everyone. I’m very much living proof that anyone can have a better life and a better world if such an outcome is pursued. Will it be perfect? No, but I’d never want it to be as I actually like friction, as I reject perfection (and fascism), as I follow the path as it bends instead of getting frustrated that it’s not reshaping by force. You will get there too. We all will! I watch the sun rise and I think about the next one and the next one and the next one. I have every song I could ever want to listen to in my hand, I have a perfect partner and two dogs, a family that is mostly good, too many friends in too many places, and I am on an island in the Mediterranean: none of this happened by chance but by doing, by believing there was more for me and working toward that more. I don’t know what the next ten years will be like for you or I but I’m interested in making it better for us all. Possibility is possible, but one cannot GLP-1 to happiness or speedrun experience: enjoying the ride despite its bumps is the point. The slowness, the difficulty: that’s the point. You can’t know sweet without sour. This is the moment before something better, which will happen so long as you and I don’t let go of the promise we made to ourselves to leave this world better than when we arrived.

This piece inspired by the second section of the latest Trend Report: Trend Report™, which is dedicated to the idea of the now being a moment before profound change. My birthday gift to you is a price drop: grab it here, my angels 💋

The Cursed Generation
Young, old men are leaving the labor force
Fewer workers are earning a living wage

A peek into the workforce, which zooms in on Gen Z’s unluckiness and zooms out to illustrate how this creates a second generation who are cursed, which creates a larger picture of rising NEET-ness and kneecaped economic mobility. Get us out of this new Gilded Age!!

Half of Gen Z Cancel, Renew Streaming

This is one of those stories that go in the category of “If this surprises you, send me your address so I can pull your head out of your ass.” because it is unsurprising that Gen Z — Or anyone now! — cancels streaming services after watching one show, that they don’t pay full price for video games, and that they go to movies on opening night if they like a movie. People are broke! Keep the party going by reading about Greta Gerwig’s Netflix theatrical win and the Cannes chief positioning movie theaters as book stores.

Concerts tours dying from ‘blue dot fever’

Add this to the above “It’s the economy, stupid.” tapestry.

Murdoch in Talks to Buy Vox

Maybe this would be fine but, as someone said, if this disappears or messes with New York Magazine, the media system would not be able to recover. So over vibes.

Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni Reach Settlement
Feud of the Century
“quote so fire”
“sending up a prayer”

So glad this shit saga is over, the wannabe woke soap opera no one wanted where everyone involved is a loser. The second link, a Vulture story, is a must-read.

Backlash to Billie’s vegan explains a lot

About the American left. This is mostly regarding how we eat too many animals and that the system is very cruel, but it gets at the mistake mania we talked about a few weeks ago, that no “take” about anything from a left-ish person will never not be needlessly scrutinized.

“SEAWORLD VENICE”
“part of a large scale installation”
“Not blocking traffic”

Austria’s Florentina Holzinger easily won the digital Venice Biennale as a performance as a part of her Seaworld Venice work on climate catastrophe went very viral, capturing the ire of the fucking dung brained right. Perhaps a blessing to the Biennale, which has been stained by controversy after controversy.

“we’ve miscast sperm whales”
Sperm whales work as a team to assist a birth

To the point of the above essay: please watch in awe of a recent discovery of whales giving birth in groups, speaking to a matrilineal culture of women sticking together to help each other. It’s very beautiful! Makes me want to reread I Who Have Never Known Men.

Gibraltar dumping sewage into Mediterranean

Your pee pee poo poo story of the week: UK territory Gibraltar, at the very tip of Spain, has very poor and non-working sewage — and has been dumping literal shit into the sea for decades. Next time you swim in the Mediterranean, know you’re wading in the grand vacation toilet of the UK.

“first American pope wears sneakers”

MY MAN MY MAN MY MAN, although I don’t think is AI (which wouldn’t be the first time an AI pope captured our imagination).

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Everyone should have someone like Kel Rakowski in their life. She’s not only excitable with great taste, but she’s someone who always looks at the world with possibility and with a glow. She’s someone whose creativity comes from a place of what could be, of being armed with information as a means to build a path forward. She’s an inspiration, which is why she’s so popular. Literally: her new project, Popular, seeks to share her philosophy with the world, one that is perfect for anyone seeking creative direction. Let her be your shepherd.

We technically first met last fall, as a part of Kel’s project to meet people she follows online and enjoys, and what followed has been a cute cross-continental correspondence. But also: I’ve known her for years and years before I “knew her,” in that I encountered her work over a decade ago thanks to her building out the 2010s iconic Instagram account @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y, which is in part propelled the “Future Is Female” shirt into a cultural phenomena. Given her depth as a creative and creative caretaker along with her work as an entrepreneur and advisor, I wanted to chat with her about the trends she’s paying attention to from New York City and Hudson Valley, where she splits her time. Unsurprisingly, she has a love for journaling and a distaste for tech’s de-tasting of us: come for her guidance on navigating the now, stay to learn about those who are guiding her.

Tell me about a trend you’re following that you’re really into.
Paper. The trend is paper. Journals, notebooks, datebooks.
Recently I have been exposed to Hobonichi and I am in deep. I’ve never really had a hobby before. A hobby where I am spending money and time filling my 3 Hobonichis simultaneously with different parts of my life. Weeks, for weekly agenda. Cousin, I use it for tracking ‘3 daily wins’, mindset and gratitude work. Then I found out about the Hobonichi 5 year, and started in on that. I also love the stickers, washi tapes, markers, pens, highlighters. ALL OF IT. Stationary trends. It’s harmless and fun. Even better, it’s helpful for learning about yourself and getting offline. Wins all round, except for the pocketbook.
I guess the trend would be Hobonichi specifically and everything Japanese paper. I also own other notebooks from Japan, Campus, Maruman, Nitoms. I have a problem. MT brand Washi tape.
I know it’s expensive, but I don’t care. Hobbies are expensive and I’m blessed to finally have one.
What’s a trend you hope never dies?
Making photos—smartphone, digital, film, all of it. You never regret taking a photo. It’s a lasting memory, and I love looking back at them. I started using my old personal Instagram photos in my work (on substack)—more aesthetic shots but also cool moments and memories. For all the guff that platform gets, I’m actually thankful I have access to these 2012 memories. Looking at my IG makes me happy; I’m glad I never deleted my account.
I also keep a photo album of Instax pics and never regret taking a mini-pic. I only wish I took my camera more places. I was pretty good at documenting friend activities, vacations, life events—then lockdown hit in 2020 and I lost the habit. Need to bring it back.
What’s a trend you are so over?
Apps. Downloadable apps specifically—the App Store, Google Play kind. Remember the cringe joke - “there’s an app for that”? Well, it happened, and now we don’t need any more. If you’re in consumer tech, the App Store and Google Play take 60% of your money. Just make a web app instead, like Sniffies. Or don’t make an app at all—write a book, use index cards, go to the library.
This comes from someone who actually created a consumer social app that was in both app stores back in 2017. I was determined my idea wouldn’t be seen as legitimate unless it was in app form. Tinder was at their height and I was like, fuck these tech dudes, I can build an app too. But I’m over it now.
Oh god, looks like that joke was actually the iPhone commercial back in 2009.
How would you describe the current state of creativity?
Creativity is continuously being crushed out of us. Between working way too much and pressure to use AI to create more and more and more—for the content creation goblins of social platforms and corporations—it’s pretty dire. I talk to my friends who are full-time art directors at big companies and everyone is bleeding out. Post-work, they can only manage scrolling TikTok for hours just to get back to baseline chill.
You need downtime, slow time, and vast nothingness to get yourself back to being creative. Hour-long walks just thinking—no podcasts, music, or voices. Time to unwind and read a book. It’s a cultivation process.
I don’t want to pressure people, but I want to show overworked, underpaid creatives that you can still find moments in your day for creative time. Fifteen minutes a day is all you need to start a new body of work—a book of poems, a collection of drawings, a video project. Time-bound creation, reflection, and noticing is how we move ourselves forward and find our voice and confidence again. Our own little burnt-out brains.
There is hope.
Who do you think represents the next era of creativity?
I’m not an offline purist—I owe everything to my URL experiences. I’ve been online since 1995, from AOL to Friendster to Wordpress to Instagram. I owe a lot of my social life and career to the internet.
The people representing the next era of creativity are those using platforms on their own terms. NatashaGetsTheMunchies gets online and makes videos that show who she is and the world around her — taking a stack of gummies, then off to her local So.Cal eateries to chow down. Vita Kari makes work both for social media audiences and her own practice offline in galleries. I’m also a huge fan of Lushious Massacr, who hosts ‘Dragvestigations’ on her YouTube channel. She dresses in low-key ‘mall drag’ and shows up at Kohl’s, the mall, TJMaxx—does her shopping in her southern Texas small town. The act of showing up as her trans/drag self in Trump country is rebellion and activism.
These creators are expressing themselves, getting their work out in the world, and taking advantage of platforms to make money and feed their families—but they’re also making things that matter to them. They’re not letting the algorithm dictate their vision. They’re resilient because they’re using these tools without being consumed by them, maintaining their voice and perspective in spite of the pressure to optimize, AI-ify, or sanitize their work for engagement.