TR.BIZ: 1.13.2026
From a Las Culturistas drama to auditioning for jobs, this is your early-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. Today, we’re exploring the Las Culturistas drama, the closing of LA hot spot Horses, “auditioning” for jobs, an American free money trend, and a very special invite for paid subscribers.
🏛️ Politicultural: Las Culturistas vs. Jasmine Crockett
A really, really great window into what political culture looks like now is the drama between Las Culturistas and Texas representative and Senate hopeful Jasmine Crockett. It all started “innocently” enough when Matt Rodgers (who is white, gay, a man, etc.) told listeners not to support Jasmine Crockett (who is Black, a woman, etc.), saying she is already very well defined as a politician and that her Democrat competitor James Talarico is more interesting. This inspired a wave of reactions, from people pointing out how gay white guy racist this is to how this sums up a trap of identity politics, that a politician of difference cannot be critiqued without it invoking calls of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. Matt and Bowen have since apologized for all this. To be clear: this is…stupid. It’s retrograde across the board, much ado about nothing that sweeps away valid critiques of someone like Crockett. It’s a trap we already fell into for a decade — and it shows that we clearly are interested in keeping sticky within this trap. Jasmine will come out of this fine, but the losers are any non-Republicans of difference and certainly Matt Rodgers. As a perfect TikTok explained days ago, “As people on the left, it’s important to come together and find news ways to police each other’s language and assume the worst intent. This is the only way we can fight fascism.” It’s gonna be a long year.
🗺️ Localize: Does losing Horses matter?
Horses is a very buzzy spot in Los Angeles that recently closed, which has put a certain set of people in the city into a tizzy. It has inspired a lot of speculation about what happened given the restaurant was beset with scandals, from animal abuse to #MeToo associations, all as celebrities kept it’s high profile through the roof. I’ve been following the drama while in town and there’s an aspect of the closure that is very strange and summed up by a post like this: people are blathering on about the need to “save” the restaurant despite all the aforementioned allegations, not to mention the menu being typically pricey. A situation like this reveals cultural priorities, that many a better restaurant from better people in Los Angeles can close without such championing to be saved — all as such energy isn’t put behind pushing back against situations like local ICE arrests, issues of homelessness, and a general lack-of-care to the city by the city. It’s a very LA thing that I’ve forgotten about but have been experiencing first hand: some people simply do not care about the full cultural body, instead content to steal the fruits of the city to brag about it. Also? All of this for a place that coalesces and kills trends, while profiting off of celebrity wannabeism: places like Horses are not where culture emerges but where culture is exploited, to seem “good” while ultimately over-charging you for the chance to feel special. How very now! Horses and its closure is less about the state of LA restaurants being in critical condition and more about a certain set of clawing to hold onto their Yves Klein walls because the setting beyond the venue is too real for them to face.
🎪 Eventful: A special invite for ~paid~ Trend Report™ subscribers
