MILLENNIAL SUMMER LET'S GOOOOOO

Thoughts as we step into summer, which is going to be weird — and very Millennial too.

• A week from today is the next Trend Report Live™ in Barcelona! Coming for Primavera? Sónar? Then join us for a night of talking about the past month in trends: RSVP here!!

• LONDON: I’ll be in town in the middle of the month — and we’re doing a little get together on June 15! Meet us at 5PM at Llama Inn in Shoreditch at 5PM. Here’s a calendar invite with the details too (and s/o to Harriet for the tip).

• Do you love (or hate) The Trend Report™? I want to hear from you about it! As we enter mid-year, share your thoughts in the mid-year survey as I’m considering revamping the paid tier and am hoping to do a general check-in with readers. Why? Because it’s time to turn this newsletter into a business — and I need your support!! 😭 Share your thoughts now! (Paid angels: find your survey here.)

How one five-year-old girl escaped
Burning Girls Matter in Vietnam but Not in Gaza
"Ward al-Sheikh Khalil spoke to Al Jazeera"
In an already devastating landscape of Palestinian death, this week we were subjected to another low: the bombing of a school that was sheltering families, where dozens died — and the video/image of a six year old trying to escape. Devastating. You will cry watching the final link, where the girl — who survived — recounts the experience, which reminded me of my own six year old nephew who shares a similar speech pattern. (If you’re a glutton for punishment, here’s Thom Yorke’s proto-Boomer “take” on the situation. Yikes!)

Germany to suspend refugees' family reunification
Nice! I’m going to turn into the Joker :)

US halts student visa appointments
US will start revoking visas for Chinese students
Pushing the gun further in the mouth, I see. And it’s not just these incoming students: it's that even those studying to become a doctor may be shut out as this summer. While we’re here, only rich people will become doctors soon. Too bad the rich all want to be actors or stupid tech people! An ugly pairing with the loss of Job Corps.

Asked About ‘TACO’, Trump Lashes Out
Taco jibe ruffles president’s feathers
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs halted
Y’all know I am an FT stan and one fascinating saga I’ve enjoyed this year is the publication’s very anti-Trump turn, which was started with glimpses earlier in the year but has recently kicked into overdrive — hence their coining TACO, “Trump always chickens out.” Genius. And he’s big mad about it!

Democrats Still Searching for a Path Forward
"Dem’s brand problem, in vivid focus"
How Trump Remade America’s Landscape
“Understanding Triple-Trending Counties”
I’m starting to feel real pessimistic about what the next era of Democrats looks like for obvious reasons — and these stories don’t help at all. To the point of TACO: the Dems are gonna run that shit into the ground and it will lose all its meaning.

Elon Musk Juggled Drugs, Family Drama
He may officially be out of the White House as his rocket literally disintegrates but it was this story of his drug use that was a standout of the week. K-hole queen! Hoping the Lord takes you to the great beyond soon, dude!!

Behind the Curtain: A white-collar bloodbath
“A CEO in one of the biggest AI companies”
Big week for AI taking over the world, as AI rage bait creators emerge and a kangaroo fooled most of the internet. But what’s worse? Death by careless robots or crypto bros with literal hammers?

You know this but I have to say it: things are still “not right.” For the sixth month this year, we as a (Western) culture continue holding our breath for a supposed cultural “shift.” Yes, it is technically here, as Trump world is the world, but we’ve yet to meet its counterpart: we have our Alien but not our Ripley, our Cruella but not our Perdita, our Joan Crawford but not our Christina Crawford. The villains are obvious! But its equal and opposite is not, or is still being formed. The cultural scales are unbalanced and that has left many of us feeling lost. This is why everyone hates the internet right now, why all movies and music and “stuff” are just insufferable: “Everything reminds me of her.” but she is an overweight bratty septuagenarian rich kid from Queens with an addiction to makeup and processed food who is taking a sledgehammer to the planet as Hillbilly Hitler suckles his anus. The worst dad is now the world’s dad and we long for a mother. Where are you, mama? WHERE ARE YOU??

This is the setting for what is going to be a strange summer. The vibes are going to be off, maybe not in your everyday but certainly in the macro as we continue into the sun of deportations and tariffs and war on education (and certainly climate catastrophes): all this as the backdrop for enjoying the gift that is our lives, escaping the firm grasp of constant existential dread by microdosing good times to escape the overwhelming flatness-cum-ennui. Outside of, say, Labubus giving us labubotomies, nothing else “feels right.” Song of the summer? We don’t have one, despite the Spotify propaganda (one of which is a song from 2020 — which says a lot about this stalled moment). Summer blockbuster? We may have peaked already with Sinners as Lilo & Stitch is conservative propaganda in an incoming wave of reboots and rehashing, unless Materialists or Weapons pull us out of the freezing waters by saying something meaningful. We don’t even have a breakout food trend, despite the pervasive, joyless protein cultures and sober curiosities. Again: our moment of mid is indicative of our being in cultural latchkey, sitting outside an era as we await our ride to the next. Again: Mom! Where are you? I’m tired of being told and sold that AI “is culture” right now because that’s like being given a circuit board to suck on instead of a nipple: it sucks!!

But it’s not just the holding pattern of media that portends an usually cruel summer: June is a big test as these bad vibes will be shaken anew. Besides it being the month of Trump’s birthday and his celebratory parade, we’ll also be celebrating Pride and Juneteenth in this post-woke economy. Surely these occasions are going to be “cancelled” by the White House, no? Even if not literally, the tenth anniversary of gay marriage is going to feel painful less because of retracted corporate Pride and more because of American values being prioritized over “LGBTQ graduate majors” and anti-queer visibility and hopes for trans death. Did you catch the recent saga of Charlotte Fosgate? She was a trans teen who died by suicide, which involved Twitter seeing her cry for help and suggesting she faceplant into the earth. The 2025 Pride merch is mid, we’re losing gender affirming care, people hate Bella Ramsey for existing, and yet it all stanks of homoeroticism. The rainbow is collapsing.

Then we have Juneteenth, which is even more concerning given the gutting of affirmative action and general diversity initiatives, which is going to creep us into a color blind world that is actually much more racist, as we all know: this is another fact of our awaiting a new moment, as we’re told “everything is better” but everything is markedly worse. As BLM murals are painted over, as five years after George Floyd’s death is being rewritten, there is the sense that a giant white firework is about to go off this month, to rebuke and rewrite the progress made earlier in this decade and century. Perhaps a Derek Chauvin pardon? Perhaps defunding Black colleges? Perhaps a ruling on reverse discrimination? How will we suffer the reanimated, emboldened specter of whiteness during a time intended for Black joy? Because we will. We will. We may be too desensitized to register it but it will happen, another cut in the thousand that will kill us — all to be followed up and undercut by overzealous patriotism as some celebrate another year of the USA.

There’s something to be said about joy right now: the joy of rebellion, the appeal of humor and humanity, desires for tenderness, a craving of imagination — all these things that we hope are waiting in the wings, that we hope will charge forward to storm the castle, to chase out the ghouls and goblins by force and not by staging a “love in” or whatever stupid passive shit a strategist is suggesting in some think tank. Perhaps that is what will happen? We are desperately seeking hope in hopeless times and, like it or not, we have been studying all year and will be tested anew. Human progress may be stalled but it is perhaps in each other, in nature, that we can find solutions. You cannot be found without being lost and — Lawd. — we are so far from home without any idea which direction we’re facing. We’ve definitely gone backwards and will continue to go backwards in most parts of the world. As we await mother to call us home, look for flowers but don’t stop looking for and watching out for others. Laugh! And laugh in their faces. Or fart! They hate to see us happy as they hold us down — and they will hold us down. Let’s make our mother proud.

Hailey Bieber's makeup brand sold to e.l.f.
Taylor Swift Regains Control of Masters
Huge week for white women. To the Hailey item…First, as

Casey Lewis

pointed out, lots of (young) people are confusing it for a collab. Second, this shit is making me insane and I will continue to throw copies and copies of Limitarianism at the nepo castle until it collapses. Dakota Johnson, if you’re reading this: know that I will force you to read it too.

Haribo recall after cannabis found
Doesn’t sound bad to me…? This is in the Netherlands, btw.

The Worst Thing I've Ever Shoved in My Mouth
This “smart toothbrush” may not sound bad until you watch a video of how to use it or see how one looks when using it. If you buy this…you are under spells!!!!!!

‘Dear Evan Hansen’ For Holocaust Survivors
This review of Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, Eleanor the Great, is fascinating as this definitely is accidentally in conversation with a certain “war.”

“A blitz vacation”
Another thing that will make me the Joker: people “saving money” by taking 24 hour trips, going somewhere early morning and flying back by day’s end. An expression of these indulgent, careless times: if you do this, I will throw a copy of How To Blow Up A Pipeline at you! Use your brain!!!

A $1tn-plus pivot to tourism
Saudi Arabia bets on luxury
Gulf airlines rake in record profits
Saudi Arabia’s alcohol debate intensifies
"there will be new dubais throughout the world"
"Matcha rave in Dubai"
I had a realization while reading the first FT story that Saudi Arabia and “the Middle East" at large is pitching itself as a neo-Mexico wonderland in the shadow of Dubai's hyper-Vegas core is a sign of apocalypse. Fascinating but concerning.

Queer Pulse Nightclub Survivor Finds Solace
My friend Maris’ documentary about a bodybuilder piecing life together, following the Pulse shooting and Hurricane Maria is out soon! It’s a fitting time capsule of the 2010s.

I Love You Travis (Chuqi Chinchay Is God & God Bless America) Mix
I’ve long been a Chuquimamani-Condori/Elysia Crampton stan and, while I wasn’t obsessed with the surprise release, this mix…made me cry. The opening remix of “I Love You Always Forever” is breathtaking and I truly think the mix is Chuqi’s format. Take the “Rayo Mix 2022” as proof as it feels like listening to a radio station from the year 2200, where culture has collapsed, ancient cultures have reemerged, and media has become as layered and stratified as sedimentary rocks.

To the point of the previous essay: this summer (or June at least) is going to be weird. But also? It’s going to be a very Millennial summer. Let us count the ways.

We’re fresh off a Lilo & Stitch success story, a Zillennial classic that is a small taste of what is to come given we also had a lucrative Final Destination reboot and will be seeing an I Know What You Did Last Summer and Freaky Friday reboot, three films and franchises tied to the Teen People demographic, people in their late thirties and early forties who can tote along their tween children for PG-13 fun and ridiculous gore. Joe Jonas has returned in advance of a brotherly reunion while The Backstreet Boys will share a new “take” (or something) of their 1999 classic-to-some Millennium, which dovetails into the likes of Brandy and Monica and Kesha and Ciara and Lil Wayne and Miley (And Taylor?) also making various “comebacks,” none of which will dominate the charts but will be the context with which Benson Boone and Addison Rae emerge from: nostalgia for the aughts. As if this weren’t enough, 9/11 memes are mounting a comeback.

This is why Lindsay Lohan is being pushed right now, despite her big “comeback” movie not being out for three more months: she is the poster child for this very Millennial summer. She’s the new face of Old Navy and is on the cover of Elle and is teasing a skincare line to go with her “natural” face, shifting from tabloid star to a new-old Hollywood star who shares mothering advice and is acting as an ambassador to a modern Middle Eastern dream. As Millennials enter mid-life at a chaotic, shifting moment, it’s unsurprising Lindsay has been handed the torch versus a bigger name like Emma Stone or Scarlett Johansson, who also have incoming summer movies: she has weathered bigger storms and has come to represent what continuing the (retrograde) status quo, upholding “old times” in these new times. She is living nostalgia and proof that, no matter how lame you’ve become at mid-life, you too can turn it all around. You’ll also notice that this is a decided step away from — or in direct relationship to having used — streaming to rebuild herself: she is emerging as a 21st century star, someone who can speak to the ills of Hollywood and the joys of “leaving it behind” to vague tradwifery in the UAE.

And to the Netflix of it all: streaming is perhaps the definitive Millennial media expression, is it not? Everyone is into streaming now but, while Gen X’s adulthood was about DVDs and Gen Z’s adulthood is dominated by YouTube and TikTok, Millennials are the streaming generation and are exactly why the streaming landscape exists at all, all due to their early adoption and championing. It’s surprising and not that this summer sees a huge end of an era for streaming, suggesting the start of a new generation in the form or what could be seen as the end: it’s not just HBO Go Now Max’s recent coming to Jesus but that it’s the end of virtually all the tentpoles, big and small. Hulu’s Handmaid’s Tale, Amazon’s The Boys (and The Summer I Turned Pretty), Disney+’s Andor, Netflix’s Big Mouth and Stranger Things and Squid Game: all ending this year, largely this summer. And in their place? Who knows! Judging from the state of Hollywood, executives suggesting the form is dead, and the audience’s mounting ennui with media, the internet, and traditional systems, there doesn’t seem to be much waiting in the wings. Again: we’re in the moment between songs. We’re awaiting mommy to pick us up to take us..wherever! Etc., etc.

But one thing that’s certain in this uncertainty: aging. Life! Despite the circumstances, despite the unknown, we are approaching an extremely Millennial summer — perhaps the first of a handful before the page turns. The culture has shifted as far as who the parents are, who the adults-of-the-moment are: Boomers are grandparents and seniors, Gen X are looking toward the twilight, and Gen Z has at least five to ten years before they are “grown.” But Millennials? We’re finally adults, despite what our bank accounts might say. Bye bye, Winona Rider — hello Lindsay! Seeya, Foo Fighters and Weezer — stick around, Paramore and Beyoncé! Before the demographic coasts into true elder statehood, we at least have this final moment in the sun as cultural adults, to prove ourselves despite our lack of houses and lack of savings, as so much of the culture we’ve made is stuck in the mud of a lost youth. But alas! We’ve lost our cool, moving from outside of culture to becoming the center of culture. Such is aging, no? Such is one last melancholic summer in the sun before it starts to set.

"Brazilian nuns go viral after beatboxing"
Legally obligated to share. Come for the beatboxing — Which is great! — but stay for the hunk priest. Anyone has his @ ?

"i’d take him 2 the very end"
“speedo pics to promote”
“You must have bumped your head”
“Be kind, Oprah”
“What was that?”
“WORST PRIDE SHIRT”
Some gay things because I am pushing that agenda in this economy.

“me trying to impress conservative trade”
In this house we hate Tate McRae <3 If you’ve listened to her and Morgan’s “hit song,” please explain its appeal in the comments as I will never listen.

“repeated 1000 times”
“a language outside of English”
“repeated 300 times”
“a random Japanese character”
“repeated 600 times”
“with 5 letters per row”
My fixation of the week is @chatgpt_says, an unhinged TikTok account that tries to break Chat with having it say some of the wildest combinations of scripts and letters. Are they entirely real? I don’t know — but they send me into hysterics. I’m thankful it has inspired a trend!

“Sit on it!”
Every time I watch this TikTok, I find something new. The last two times, I started counting Minions.

“what the finna”
“Some of you are deep fried”
Huge signal of what how illiterate people are now.

“eating dog treats”
Speak of: to any Boomers reading this…are you actually reading this? Are we okay? Or is this mom an anomaly? (Speaking of dogs, look at this bag.)

And, finally, deep thoughts about the bathroom.

---

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