TR.BIZ: 10.23.2025

From the Google search killer to a new military style, this is your late-mid-week check-in 💫

Welcome to The Trend Report: Business Edition™, a midweek look at top stories, trends, and more of what’s happening online and off by Kyle of The Trend Report™. Today, we’re covering Trump’s new construction project, the Sora “accent,” and two cute fashion developments.

🏛️ Politicultural: Destroying the White House

In case you missed it, amidst the second longest government shutdown, Trump is performing surgery on the White House to build his ballroom. Has something like this happened before? Yes, as over the years many a president has modified the site. That said, the circumstances and approach are unique: he did this without permission from the National Capital Planning Commission — barring Treasury workers next door not to take photos — while also taking on private donations from Lockheed Martin to Google to pull the feat off (all as he demands millions from the government for having been sued by the government). PBS has a good explainer on this, in case you’re wondering, but people are piling on as it’s a striking visual that captures this moment well. There are lots of questions, one of the biggest being is if this is a biohazard given a contractor on TikTok pointed out that the site may be full of asbestos and lead (a worry others are echoing), all ironic as Trump’s EPA is seeking to be more lenient with such chemicals. Is this project really going to save the government all that much money, considering state dinners have happened on-site for years, in or out of tents on the lawn? I’m doubtful, but this clearly is part of Trump’s fixation on the aesthetics of the royal. No wonder TMZ hates him! (While we’re here, the Graham Platner situation has nosedived into hell for the dumbest reasons. Slate has the best coverage of the madness, but know that the real story here is how shady tech goons like Palantir can scrape the internet to reveal anything about you — that is, if that story is real. Welcome to the future!!!)

👀 Trend Watchers: “You’re twelve.”

A funny turn of phrase is emerging, to explain things like Karoline Leavitt responding “your mom” to a journalist: there is a line of thinking in (right wing) culture that is very aligned with being twelve years old. The idea originated from musician Patrick Cosmos on Bluesky in early September, who explained it as such: “working on a new unified theory of american reality i’m calling “everyone is twelve now…’I’m strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm’ of course you do. You’re twelve. ‘I don’t want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal’ hell yeah homie you’re twelve. ‘Maybe if there’s crime we should just send the army’ bless your heart my twelve year old buddy” Cut to now, where ”you’re twelve” as a Dem clapback has been swirling and evolving like woah this week, arriving somewhere between the everyone-is-being-weird trend and macro-kidification. Expect this to continue, potentially having a big breakout when someone like Chuck Schumer tries to say this as if a serious and credible leader, thus ending the moment.

📲 Tech Talk: Meet the real Google killer