TR.BIZ: 2.26.2026

From an awful Rimowa bag to a new Whopper, 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 talking Mamdani’s latest flex, Criterion taking on Kpop Demon Hunters, a revamp of the Whopper, a terrible Rimowa bag, some new and depressing AI ads, and more.

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🗺️ Localized: $30 a scoop in NYC

You probably know that much of the American east coast got pummelled by a historic blizzard. It feels like another era, when winter was real! Which is reassuring until you think about how it’s gonna be 90ºF in LA soon. EEEEEEEEE!!! A breakout in this — and another win for Mamdanistan — is the mayor paying 800 shovelers a shift $30 to clear the streets. That may sound like nothing but some context: national minimum wage is $7.25 an hour (!!) while NYC’s is $17, making this a huge get-shit-done effort backed by a real motivator in this time — a fat paycheck — speaking to what political solutions and success have to look like. And…it worked! It’s basic, good economics!! Locals are offering glowing reviews of cleared streets, all as these “frontline workers” share what the job was like (while right wing media tries to yuck this yum). Another slam dunk for socialism, despite the haters!

🩹 Branded: The Whopper got a makeover

Readers, walk with me: I am a Burger King stan. When was the last time I’ve eaten there? I couldn’t tell you, but my soft spot for The King is of a very specific context because, for much of the 1980s through 2000s, the franchise was the only “normal restaurant” available on military installations outside of Army-only knock-offs like the Subway wannabe Robin Hood and Pizza Hut-cribbing Anthony’s Pizza. For almost twenty years of my life, Burger King was fine dining to me, the place we’d go to treat ourselves to. So imagine my surprise when I got an email this week about the brand’s signature sandwich — the Whopper — getting its first makeover in ten years (!!), which takes inspiration from “Guest feedback.” What’s changing? The burger now comes in a more premium (“better tasting”) bun with “freshly cut onions and tomatoes and crisp lettuce, tangy pickles, and now better tasting mayo,” the brand says. It’s also being served in a box, to help reassure quality from kitchen to palms. This is all well and good but…this very much smells of trend trickle-down, that it’s an effort to push a more “artisanal” side to fast food, appealing to “freshness” and upgraded (MAHA!) tastes during the era of eating less and hypothetical food. I asked the brand (lol) about this, who had two interesting things to say that both speak to this and also invites in another trend. “Over the years, Guests have shared how much they appreciate the flame-grilled flavor and fresh toppings of the Whopper, while also expressing a desire for greater consistency and execution at a higher level each time,” BK said, circling around the socio-economic food forces stressing out Chipotle hence offering greater consistency while elevating “what makes the Whopper iconic.” (The brand noted again and again the burger “has long been free from artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives, and that remains unchanged.” Alright! Sure!) The other trend? Having it your way, which BK defined as a dynamic decades ago but, in this era of everyone having an opinion, take, etc., has to be taken further — hence their “giving out” the phone number of the brand’s president. (Which plays into another trend of now: fast food CEO as influencer.) All fascinating things that we’ll keep an eye on, as this new Whopper launches today. Stay tuned on if I try, rekindling my military roots 🫡

💥 Soft Powers: The friend-as-critic economy

KRF NOTE: After two months, this is Olivia Choi final dispatch as our lil intern program comes to an end. Thank you, Olivia! And find all her stories here.

Have you heard about the app Beli? It’s a Gen Z favorite that me and my friends go crazy over. Two weeks ago, the CEO and co-founder Judy Thelen visited my school where she pointed out a critical shift in how my generation discovers food: we trust our friends and family more than “anonymous reviews," hence her initiative to "track restaurants together in a way that felt personal." As an avid user, I deeply resonate: I love expanding my taste palate, especially in an international city like D.C. and a global campus like Georgetown, where food is a great starter to interacting with diverse cultures. Yet, when deciding where to eat, my friends and I are no longer relying on Yelp, Google Maps, or the culinary equivalents of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic: we’re using what our friends are rating. It comes down to the value of a qualified critique: because I know my friends and their specific palates, I inherently trust their recommendations over the consensus of thousands of strangers. Beyond simple utility, Beli’s popularity is driven by self-expression too: much of social media’s success comes from people’s desire to share parts of their identity to the world, which is why apps that blend utility with conversation are booming. Curious about why Gen Z goes crazy over Spotify Wrapped? It validates “our conceptions of ourselves as individuals” and serves as a “venue for identity exploration and discovery,” which is how Beli fits into the ecosystem of similar services like Letterboxd, Goodreads, Strava, and ShopMy. As the broader internet becomes an overwhelming sea of unreliable information, we are actively retreating into trusted "micro-communities" of personal networks to successfully navigate culture and the world. While the behavioral science behind it all is fascinating, the real joy is just having a documented, data-backed excuse to prove our taste is objectively refined. No wonder group chats are popping :)

📲 Tech Talk, I: The AI Friend commercials are way worse than the subway ads