TR.BIZ: 3.17.2026
From the Gen Z Oscars to the new Wordle, 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 by Kyle of The Trend Report™. Today, we’re covering the Oscar’s youth push, the rise of PredictiveHistory, the new game from Wordle’s maker, and what the death of veganism says about #woke.
🤩 Hollyweird Insider: Will the Oscar’s TikTok pandering work?
I did not watch the Oscars, nor did it seem “that great” according to post-show social media hangover. Yes, Sinners did win some wins as One Battle After Another won some wons too, all as I was vindicated for my Timothee Chalamet non-love: it was same old same for the crown jewel of an industry grasping for a lifeline. An interesting development which is both predictable and embarrassing is Hollywood’s continued attempt to “make itself relevant” by catering to the digital world, which it tried and failed to do yet again — and maybe did it a bit bigly this year? You tell me.
The meme aspirations were cringe, which was less “their fault” and more a reaching for Millennial support and sympathy, from a likely Millennial led production effort to an audience of Millennials who could move the needle with their proto-Facebook training. From an Ellen inspired Leonardo meme to a whole bit with Grogu, these came off more as “cute” than “cool,” which may be the point to grab culture by the heartland’s balls than by culture itself.
Then there was the Gen Z wannabeisms, which were…I don’t even know what to say, but it felt like dance about architecture seeing subway surfing and wannabe anime and Mr. Beast obsessing on the main stage. This was all so spiritually Democrats reaching progressive Gen Z voters. The “Golden” bit was inspired but…I’m not sure who that was for, as that’s a bit below the demo while subjecting talented adults to a humiliation ritual.
Their bet on A24 didn’t payoff either, as it feels fairly obvious that the centering someone like Timothee in all of this blew up in the process, all as reality stars and rich right wingers were allowed in too as if STDs ready to stink up the space.
Part of this blame goes to Conde Nast too, who tried to Met Gala the Vanity Fair after party but ending up with a mixed bag of content drops featuring and insufferable Jake Shane looking very silly while trying to use (Anna Wintour’s?) flamboyant dressing playbook to turn a “Gowns. Beautiful gowns.” afterthought moment into the main event. No one even knew Brittany Broski was there! But she was, according to the under-performing videos on the brand’s YouTube and mid-performing videos on TikTok.
What could have helped? And what to consider next year? A few ideas: go all in on Diane Warren memes; invest in some real appreciation for diversity, from longer time in Black spaces to giving into actual homosexuality; encourage and appreciate true artistry (Looking at you, Chloe.); and generally use your influence to speak to power, which at least would show the industry is willing to take risks — which it’d didn’t seem anyone actually did, showing how spineless and uninterested the larger apparatus is at fighting anything, even for itself. Sad, but unsurprising — or in the words of Spike Lee: no words at all.
📲 Tech Talk: Questioning dating apps
An interesting development that isn’t a new development is coming to dating apps: questions. This technique is a hallmark of this space, a fundamental element of OKCupid and eHarmony, that has painted the walls of modern concepts like Hinge (“prompts”). But, in today’s digi-dating market, the goal seems to disconnect people by answering question so that the experienced can be gameified to the point that everyone hates it. Interestingly, this original “tactic” for the apps may be coming back as there are two big examples of the questionnaire finding itself relevant again: Feeld launched “a self-guided discovery tool” that both is and isn’t a means to connect with others but to help position you within it’s “curious” community by using your own answers on proclivities as a point of departure; Date Drop is getting buzz for its being from a Stanford student but for also taking a similar approach, by establishing your values through questions so that you can “be connected” without swiping. This suggests the undoing of tech from within tech, going inward as a means of going outwards. Will it work? When framed as antidotes to the norm, it could. As someone who did meet his partner (Of 15+ years!) via the questions of OKCupid, I can vouch for this method — and hopefully such success will undo the greed in the space to help people meet people again. Lord knows we need that!
🏛️ Politicultural: A bad day off in Sri Lanka
Not to alarm you, but this is concerning: Sri Lanka is shutting the country down tomorrow to conserve fuel given the supple chain issues because of US/Israel attacking Iran. The BBC explains: “This is the latest in a series of belt-tightening measures undertaken by Asian countries since the war choked off the Strait of Hormuz, which used to carry millions of barrels of oil from the Gulf into the region. Nearly 90% of all the oil and gas flowing through the strait last year was bound for Asia, which is the world’s largest oil-importing region.” These few weeks of no-war-but-war will define the year, if not the beyond, as the conflict continues to spiral, threatening to crack an already fragile state.
👹 The Thing: Predictive History
