the arts are on LIFE SUPPORT 🤕

Performing a body scan on the state of creative industries (Spoiler: it's bad.) and speeding through trends that I've been keeping tabs on.

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: I will be out of town later this week and the week after, ostensibly “on vacation.” That may mean some posts will be non-existent or “lighter.” If you need something to fill the Trend Report™-shaped hole in your week, please drink a sparkling beverage and pet a dog instead. The results are the same!

Campus protests continue
Biden Denounces Violence on Campus
How the World Sees U.S. Campus Protests
Companies are on students' divest list. Does it work?
Turkey halts trade with Israel
This week in matters of college protests and Israel-Palestine conflicts, which continue to spin in a frenzy. A standout was Sunny Hostin’s assessment on The View. Unrelated and not: this Fred Armisen character.

Donald Trump on His Second Term
Sleep tight after reading this piece. I didn’t finish, but this part jumped out: “He would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress.”

Push to restrict LGBTQ+ rights hits a snag
Some good news: all this time after anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced, most are floundering — and the GOP isn’t interested in maintaining them…in this form. These will either die or, most likely, be repackaged as something quietly hateful that people overlook as they get passed.

Florida bans lab-grown meat
The latest Culture War™ item to capture how rotted brains have become.

Amy Coney Barrett is no handmaid
One of the more surprising reads of the week is a review of ACB (Bleh.) and her Supreme Court tenure thus far. She’s a lot more centrist than expected!

Boris Johnson turned away from polling station
For not bringing proper ID. Lest we forget the incredible reason why: “Legislation introduced by Johnson in 2022 and brought in by Rishi Sunak’s government last year stipulates that every person must bring a valid photo ID.”

Another Boeing-Linked Whistleblower Has Died:
"Boeing hit squad most efficient team they have"
Sounds normal to me!

Raw Milk Influencers Are Going to Give Us Bird Flu
An incredible story, as two trends — raw milk influencers and bird flu’s recent jump to milk — colliding in the most brilliant of ways. Hope no one gets hurt besides these dumb idiots!

Thousands Believe Vaccines Harmed Them
I don’t know how to feel about this story but it is interesting to hear about the supposed legitimate reactions that people have had from Covid vaccines. Or something? Again: I don’t know how to feel about this!

How Locals Saved ‘Yosemite of South America’
Some more good news! This is the rare people-work-together-to-benefit-the-planet story that offers a lot of hope for creating change. Hopefully this becomes a trend!

Wild Orangutan Observed Using First Aid
Babe, wake up: orangutans are using natural cures.

“The bulk of TV right now,” James Poniewozik writes in the essay The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV, “feels flattened out in the broad middle. No, not flattened: Smoothed…It’s friction-free. It has an A.I.-like, uncanny luster, like the too-sharp motion-smoothing effect that you have to turn off when you buy a new flat-screen.” The critic David Ehrlich called Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted, a movie about Pop-Tarts that released on Netflix this past Friday, “painfully stale from the moment it starts” and “about as dire as streaming content gets.” How does this happen? Well, “there’s not a lot being made right now,” Abbot Elementary co-showrunner Justin Halpern told Variety, where he observes that production “remains below pre-strike levels.” Some executives are calling this “the great contraction” while others claim to be working “in the aftermath of an industry.” Meanwhile, Montblanc asked Wes Anderson to direct its ad. He did — and designed a pen. Also: “Goodfellas & Utopia Unveil First Image Of Pamela Anderson In Gia Coppola’s ‘The Last Showgirl’ As They Team To Co-Sell.”

“Anything that critiques her work as one-dimensional when she’s playing a kind of 4-D chess…will fail to speak to even the most casual of her fans,” the New Yorker‘s Sinéad O’Sullivan wrote about the new Taylor Swift album, to which Ghostly’s

Sam Valenti IV

commented, “The idea that success is somehow above feedback, plus the ahistorical concept that other musicians don't build worlds, is staggering.” Which is to also say: mainstream music has become supremely boring to reflect supremely boring ears which is happening as smaller, potentially more-interesting artists are paid less. “It depresses me how many middle and upper class people there are in the music industry,” musician manager Dan Potts recently told The Guardian. “Because the working class just can’t afford to fork out £150 a day for van hire.” Another sign of this: club acts trying to play in the United States, where a three year visa and its associated costs (legal fees, expediting, etc.) can range from $3K to $10K. “DJing is a such weird/ annoying medium because very easily and often its really just a false pretense for undercover raging capitalists (influencers) to pretend to be creative while in reality their priority is brands & pushing lux lifestyles,” the artist and DJ BAMBII recently posted on Instagram Stories. “*OR* you could actually be an artist, intentionally connecting with people across social groups and trying your best to make music consumption fun and fair, and it seems no one (promoters or audiences) can tell the difference anymore.”

Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel, spoke with WWD in regards to the Chanel Cruise 2025 show this week. “We’re entering a weaker, less favorable cycle,” he said. “But the brands that have good fundamentals should come out of it unscathed…I’m certain we will continue to post growth this year.” He declined to comment on the brand’s price increases — despite having spoken about needing to reach younger shoppers — while also not-commenting on how current creative director Virginie Viard is faring. Journalist Max Berlinger called the show “so bad ... i'm aghast” while another observer shared “something very sinister” about the combination of sweats and tweeds in the collection. Another person noted bluntly: “the brand is decaying and we’re kinda here for it until a new creative director comes.” People are speculating about the creative director too — but there is a silver lining: “Johnny Depp's Daughter Lily-Rose Shows Major Skin in Crop Top and Mini Skirt” at the show, just days after “giving the pantsless trend a clowncore spin.” Meanwhile, leggings are a multi-billion dollar industry. It pays to be bland: “80% of women in Williamsburg dress exactly the same 80% of the time,” a viral Tweet posited, along with a picture of a group who were wearing leggings. “Strange thing about America is that even in the country’s most stylish city, the yuppie class, or at least its square majority, hates clothes,” another remarked on the phenomena. Perhaps this is why so many brands are opening restaurants? It could be worse: vintage pinstripe pants are being rebranded as “Y2K baddie office siren Bella Hadid Gisele Bündchen Miu Miu FW23 vibesss.”

The Intercept’s @Ken Klippenstein somewhat shockingly resigned this week. “The Intercept has been taken over by suits who have abandoned its founding mission of fearless and adversarial journalism,” Ken wrote on his Substack. “I can’t continue in an environment where fear of funders is more important than journalism itself.” The outlet laid off fifteen people in February including the editor-in-chief, which played into a larger observation of media layoffs perhaps being the next housing crisis. This all is an echo of increasing industry-wide repression despite the dire need for clear, trustworthy information as a growing noisy field of independent journalism, content-as-media, and the Substackification of news occurs. A clear sign of this was what

Ryan Broderick

pointed out this week: the lack of Drake/Kendrick explainers. The book world fares only marginally better, as private equity and consolidation prevents more (or newer) authors and more (or newer) stories from being released. However, the “hottest” thing right now is Dimes Square export Honor Levy, whom The Cut describes as being writing “like Adderall-inflected slam poetry.” A Silver Lake native with a celebrity makeup artist mother and director father, Twitter offers more insight: The Cut’s celebration of mid-ness was written by the author’s friend. The book ostensibly takes what Patricia Lockwood has done so exquisitely and floods it with enough water, with enough flat bubbles, that readers are left with a La Croix that is supposedly TikTok flavored.

Are these not all symptoms of creativity being smothered by empire? Of a declining creative output and creative class, as we’ve discussed before? Blame technology, blame capitalism, blame ourselves but we are in a deep state of creative decline that shows no signs of bettering. We all have become losers by default: we are in a deep recession of the cool. Just ask Camila Cabello or, better yet, ask our elders. “The market is asking for something safe and easy to buy and sell,” the artist Maurizio Cattelan told The Telegraph in April. His response is a series of 24-karat tiles shot with guns and a marble statue of a sleeping man, whose stone penis dribbles water onto the floor. In the words of Jessica Lange, just weeks ago, “So much of the industry now is not about the creative process…I feel like the artistic impulse is overwhelmed by the corporate profit motive.” Her answer is Mother Play, where she plays a character who ages forty years in less than two hours. "We’re in a very conservative time; creativity is restricted,” the director Denis Villeneuve told TIME. “Everything’s about Wall Street. What will save cinema is freedom and taking risks.” His solution is making four movies at once: Dune 3, Cleopatra, Rendezvous with Rama, and Nuclear War.

“When people bemoan the Marvelfication of culture, they often imply a dumbing down of art,” Steven Phillips-Horst wrote in The Guardian this week, reflecting on the past few years in culture via the immersive breakout Sleep No More. “There’s something more insidious in applying a child’s comic book taste to culture writ large. We see it in Disney adults who cover their bonus rooms in Mickey Mouse Funko Pops, or Taylor Swift fans who bring three laptops to the Eras tour concert with spreadsheets to track which songs she’ll play next. It is culture that confuses completionism for curiosity, that mistakes obsessiveness for intelligence.”

Why do people choose to self-immolate?
If you read one essay, let it be Nina St. Pierre’s reflection on self-immolation which has become “a trend” this year. Her mother did this a decade before her birth, which will tie into her memoir coming out next week. This plays into another memoir style of the year: unpacking your parent’s trauma, which reminds me of Sarah LaBrie’s upcoming memoir.

Vegan cheese beat dairy in a competition
Drama of the week.

What Is ‘Queer Food’?
I don’t want to say “my impact” but we can’t say this without connecting this to my Eater story from 2018 (sure, the Times scooped us a week before but their story wasn’t as thorough as mine, to be quite honest).

Is there more or less sex on screen?
A fascinating review of movies finds that, yes, there is little sex on film these days: less than 20% feature sex and nudity. We are failing as a people! The ancient Greeks would be so disappointed in us! (Granted the sex that is appearing is more graphic. I still think we need more!)

Who's winning the Drake vs. Kendrick showdown?
The ongoing Drake and Kendrick drama is interesting because…what is it even for? This is just “We don’t like each other.” versus actual turf wars. This said: the best development here is the surge in popularity of a local Toronto Chinese restaurant.

At The Cindy Lee Show
While I’m not obsessed with Diamond Jubilee (It is good though!), I do think the roll out and “design” of the experience of the album will be talked about all year and then some. This Stereogum story does a good job of capturing that! And explaining, if you’re not familiar.

[HD] GBI (German Bold Italic)
Did you know there was a Japanese Kylie Minogue techno track from 1997 about typefaces? There is! Thank you for the tip this Soo Joo mix!

Priest Allegedly Spent $40k On Candy Crush
Catholic Group Defrocks AI Priest
This week in priestly behavior. Come for the defrocking, stay for the Gatorade baptism.

"receding gum reveal"
“Definitely bleeding”
"Be careful what you put into your body"
Zyn might be trendy but, as we’re seeing play out with Emma Chamberlain on TikTok, it can cause irreparable damage to your gums. Just like vaping, this shit is bad, people!

“The Bob Appetit test kitchen”
"RETVRN TO TRADITION"
I Tried Making Homemade Drumsticks
One day I will write a larger story about how the Bon Appetit test kitchen pushed a hard reset on stagnant food media, which had been in the rut of post-Tasty stylings. What a time this was! Which Claire threatens to return to (which I am invested in and watched and loved).

BREAKING: there are no new hairstyles
Paid subscribers got a deep dive on the bargain basement moment that is male hair trends. The mullet needs to be OVER! It’s not cool anymore, my queer and non-queer angels!!

 It’s been a while but I’ve been keeping a log of items for this: welcome to a lightning round of trends that I’ve been keeping an eye on. Big and small, these are things I keep meaning to write about, that are building (or have been built) that you may want to watch. Let’s go!

• Short Skirts, Long Jackets: This may be a localized trend — Unsure! — but I have seen so many young people (Women, let’s say.) wearing short skirts, blazers, and cowboy boots, or any other variety of tall boot that falls around the knee (but not above). It’s a combination that looks a bit like a child playing dress-up divided by 90s nostalgia, urban country sensibilities, and the shift from winter into spring into summer. It’s cute! And I feel like the epicenter was someone like Alix Earle, or some combination of Netflix dating reality show stars. I would wear this (And want to!) but I just cannot figure out how to wear cowboy boots comfortably. Any advice is welcome!

• The Scraggle Beards Cometh: We’re entering a moment of the white boy patchy beard being taken seriously. Zuckerberg’s AI beard and Justin Bieber’s ongoing beard posting suggests a rise of the unkempt, “wild” beard that is anti-manicured and — frankly — ugly. I think this is both a reaction to social media and culture’s hyper-fixation on looking “complete,” which is interesting given that one of these is not real and the other is from a child star who is ostensibly in freefall. White boy in the suburbs are going to have a great summer.

• The Celebrity Food Run: I believe I will be writing a larger essay on this because I think it says a lot, a lot, a lot about culture right now but I have seen so, so many stories in non-tabloid spaces obsessing over what celebrities are wearing as tey pass through the in-between spaces of life, specifically to and from grocery stores and restaurants. It’s one part Paul Mescal Goes To SweetGreen and another part Erewhoncore. We all lose because no place is slum-able (at least in NYC and LA), where every thing is advertisable.

• Everyone Has A Podcast: I hate to say this but, unless you are Chris Black and Jason Stewart, podcasting is not cool. It’s so 2012! No one wants to hear your yapping (although for whatever reason people do want to see you yap). Just ask Clubhouse. Like the celebrity food run, every celebrity or small star or wannabe star has a podcast for…god knows what reason, likely to build likeability and capitalize their every second. We got two celebrity book podcasts, Bowen and Matt and their countless and countless and countless aspirants, those people who used to be on this show and that show and this show, those non-gay guys who love gay guys, this celebrity sibling podcast and that celebrity sibling podcast, this model and that celebrity and their mother and this drag queen and that very specific queer band — and this doesn’t even include wannabe podcasters! Or those who use podcast formatting as clickbait!! Podcasting of the personality-driven, culture-surfing is all noise now: they’re not special and, like the celebrity food run, just shows that you have a mouth which can speak in commercials. Somehow everyone is still racing to create the least interesting audio dinner party.

• Millennial Yawns: Not just for Millennials but I think we’re approaching a collective exhaustion that needs to be addressed. As those of us squeezed between Gen Z and Gen X are feeling the weight of two decades (Plus!) of working, many without leaves that come with having children, we’re hitting a ceiling of exhaustion and mental health crises based in life and work not working. “Millennials are aging from bright-eyed 'hustle culture' workers into exhausted middle managers” is right but also specific industries — pilots, health care workers, veterinarians, social media workers — are feeling the burn of burnout too. As we watch the mental health crises of war unfold, we’re piling that onto the obvious: unprocessed Covid grief, which is built upon whatever wasn’t fully processed from 2016 which is laid upon recession items which is laid upon, say, the Iraq War and the larger “war on terror” from the 2000s. What if the terror that was warred on was ourselves all along? Anyway, we’re about to see a big crash for Millennials. I feel it, you feel it, and it’s going to cause some problems.

• Extinguishism: Did you hear about how conservative South Dakota governor Kristi Noem killed a dog? It was a huge subject this week, which dovetails into something that the Times’ Jamelle Bouie recapped best: Noem killing a dog because it wouldn’t “behave” captures how conservatives see people who do not conform as disposable, as kill-able, as a threat to “normal.” This resonates very obviously with reactions to the college protests and the interpolation of anti-war sentiment into antisemitism or the pinkwashing of the matter. It’s all absurd and suggests that the whole country needs to go on summer break and read Sarah Schulman’s Conflict Is Not Abuse.

• Just Pickle It: I don’t need to tell you but I will: pickles are having a moment. The past week has seen a rise in an interesting trend of pickle drinks which is colliding into the ongoing Bucee’s obsession and the buzzy (idgi) redesign of Grillo’s. This obviously builds on the popularity of the chamoy pickle while manifesting the potential of the pickle spritz — but there’s something else: pickleball. These things are all related.

• The Other Padel: Yes, we know pickleball is trending. Yes, we know tennis is about to have a mega moment in the shadow of mega-hit Challengers, as we await the French Open, Wimbledon, the Olympics, and the US Open this summer. But there’s another item to pay attention to: padel. The other other small ball, small court sport is becoming fashionable which I can qualify as so man Europeans where I am are abuzz about the sport, playing after work and over weekends. I think we can blame the popularity (and upcoming popularity) on the sport’s cuteness, that it requires less real estate, and enables mega accesorizing.

• 2014 Redemption: From people realizing Chappel Roan collabed with Troye Sivan and Connor Franta years and years ago to the Connor Franta beef to the Watcher dramatics to MatPat’s return to Meg “MayBaby” DeAngelis’ comeback, we’re primed to revisit and celebrate old YouTubers, those in the Creator 1.0 class. This will dovetail into 2014-core and Gen Z’s aging, recalling their youth and wondering where people are now. We’re approaching a moment where more people do what Joey Graceffa is doing: performing an autopsy on early 2010s YouTube (and Vine) in the forms that they know.

“walking into Urban and seeing ur birth year”
“my mom was born in the 90s”
This was the week that Gen Z officially realized they are aging.

"i can’t stop laughing omgggg"
This went very viral this week. Dare I say we’re seeing a comeback in great news clips?

"Reporting news in Memphis"
Speaking of great news clips, this is easily my favorite of 2024 so far. The way she talks to the camera person in the end…kills me. Kids are freaks!

"Hirotada Ototake, a disabled rights activist"
What did he do? Cheated on his wife with five different women. This is wild but true and reminds of the Andrew Huberman story. And I barely have time for lunch! How do these people have time to be so bad?

"The way JFK’s grandson just never has a normal story"
"John F. Kennedy's only grandson"
"JFK's grandson is posting thirst traps "
The internet has discovered JFK’s grandson (who shitposts and thirst raps on IG).

"this reddit comment about Ariana Grande"
Who will play her in the posthumous biopic?

"I want a Mies Van Der Rohe birthday cake."
My birthday is next week and I better get to eat a chocolate designer chair cake.

“for when i’m high and don’t want to speak”
Maybe these buttons would help my marijuana induced anxieties?

"while I was coming off a tab"
I hate to be the “kids are dumb and lazy” type but…come on, y’all. Do something, Charlie!!

“is this real”
Taylor Swift actually said this! I can’t believe it.

“In your case, two weeks.”
“him after watching pendulum”
FKA Twigs speaking to the Senate about AI is one thing, this is something else entirely.

"Cannot stop thinking about this video."
This is the future of news. All information should be delivered this way. Here’s the full account.

“quiet home alone night time routine”
Really, really hate this.

“The chamoy lay maxi skirt”
Can someone come over to my apartment so we can talk like this?

“Asked the waiter for a picture”
All pictures should be taken like this.

And, finally, the distilled feeling of reading the Trend Report™.

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