TR.BIZ: 2.5.2026
From peace monks to Woke 2.0, this is your late-mid-week check-in š«
Welcome to The Trend Report: Business Editionā¢, a midweek look at top stories, trends, and more of whatās happening online and off by Kyle of The Trend Reportā¢. Today, weāre following the peace monks, ice skating Minions at the Olympics, investigating Woke 2.0, and understanding why iShowSpeed is such a hit.
šļø Politicultural: Weāre peace walking here
Iāve been tracking this for a few months given my work with Garbage Day, but a literal movement has been sweeping the South and is primed to have a much bigger moment, given the weather and given what they stand for: a group of monks from Texas are āwalking for peaceā and are passing through Virginia now. The group has been on-the-move with their dog since October and, given a recent Washington Post shout out, theyāre about to step into the limelight and crossover from ongoing local narrative to national and international superstars. Why? They simply bring a message of peace and, in very divided and anti-peaceful time, such a quaint statement feels not only relevant but revolutionary, as if time travellers from the 1970s came to teach us a lesson. This whole thing hasnāt been without dramas given some Southern preachers have tried to hijack the moment for Christ while creators have tried to clout chase the movement for views, both of which miss the point. Will the next big content surge be peacemaxxing? Doubtful, but I wouldnāt be surprised if digital clergy start speaking up on this or taking on similar public endurance challenges for change.
š Trend Watchers: Dope dine with me
Thereās a woman on TikTok known as @natashahasthemunchies who has become known for food videos that all start the same way: gobbling down four to ten weed gummies before entering an establishment to eat. What follows is a dazed mukbang that sometimes includes dizzying amounts of food, all of which pays off the munchies of it all without ever falling into a state of intoxicated disrepair. How does she get home? Not my problem but the videos do big numbers (10M to 25M, for example). Months after her rise, TikTok has moved on from simple parodies of her gummy consumption to the establishment of a clear genre: dope do it with me, where people eat similar substances only to try-and-fail to imitate her dining and vibing style. This obviously plays into a genre of super-high-with me, popularized by creators like Brandi TV and xCodeh, who have long gone to great heights while ādoing somethingā typical of the social networks around us. The most interesting thing about this to me is that this hasnāt already ābeen a thingā on this level on social, and that it highlights how the legality and prevalence of weed āĀ and that no one really cares. Then again: considering Med Men went down in 2024, the weed rush never really panned out, at least not in a way of self-made millionaires and the opening up of a new economic window that would repave our lives. Itās a fitting analogy to AI: it will exist and will be a part of many peopleās lives but, by and large, it will be siloed to the select few who really dig it and the occasional indulgent who brings you to laugh along too.
šļøāšØļø Listen In: Is Gen Z pretending to be Millennial?
Are Gen Z starting to pretend theyāre Millennials for clout? They might be, at least according to Lukas who shared this thought on the latest HIP REPLACEMENT. ā[My coworker]ās younger than me and I donāt know how it came up but she mentioned that she was a Millennial and I kind of turned to her really sharply,ā he explained. āI was born in 1996, which I know is very firmly in the middle. Itās just funny cause she was arguing with me on it, playfully, but she really did not want to be lumped into Gen Z. I was kind of blown away by that.ā Itās interesting for myriad reasons but also ties into something Ben Dietz and I have seen on the podcast many times before: people dwelling on the cusp, or claiming to be more Millennial than Gen Z. Might this be an emerging generational trend? Of young people distancing themselves from their peers by claiming to be older? We can push people to qualify their age and card them ā but we wonāt actually do that, instead wondering if theyāre age playing to appear more mature, qualified, and generally not āa part of all that.ā Food for thought. Is this unique to Gen Z? Or something that has always existed? You tell me: catch the full conversation on Substack, YouTube, and Spotify now.
š©¹ Branded: An ice skating Minion
