TR.BIZ: 3.19.2026

From progressive losses in Illinois to AI slap fights, 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 looking at a wave of AI imitating Black women, people trying to throat sing, a surfing crisis in Munich, and another Top Model doc.

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📲 Tech Talk: Why is AI putting Black women on the frontlines?

This has been on my mind for weeks, but I wanted to give a bit of space to this as I am hoping someone does a bigger story: Black women seem to be trending in the AI world, as AI users and scammers use their likeness for content creation. This was first flagged last June, when videos of AI creators debuted with many of them featuring AI Black women sharing and pushing products. This started an ongoing conversation about digital blackface, which are “images of Blackness to emote, to express and to entertain” that have gotten “even more harmful and unwieldy” due to advancing tech, as journalist Zeba Blay explained to NPR. This has been shown to sow division while creating profits from racism, which is getting pushed further as the cultural image of Black women are being used as trusted points of sales that also are forced into labor roles that reinforce stereotypes. See a viral video of a Hilton phone representative “Jolene,” a frustrating exchange for both caller and commenters alike. “the choice of voice for the AI is crazy,” someone notes. “They demand our labor,” someone else says, “cloning our voices and then laying us all off.” This happens as a rising TikTok genre emerges of Black women who are small business owners sharing their struggles, crying and dealing with hate, all while sharing their wares: see @aliyahsbuckles.store, who shares her belt buckles while crying, and @bree.monroe59, whose lobster bags keep getting hate, as examples. The videos are all set to “American Pie” and the accounts were made within the month, racking up millions of views. Also? They are not real, a sob story scam trying to play your emotions to get your shopping and supporting…who knows! But sales are not benefitting real Black women. This strategy isn’t new, but plays on an uncomfortable intersection of political and social understandings, all that plays and preys on Black women without compensation for stealing their image and space. I’m hoping and anticipating a larger story on this culture (Or maybe lawsuit?) to emerge given how universally bad this practice is: this is the start of something.

🏛️ Politicultural: Did AIPAC and tech win in Illinois?

Bummer news: Kat Abughazaleh lost her election, one of the most buzzy young progressives who stood against the business-as-usual backdoor dealing of politics, fitting into the trend of winners like James Talarico and Zohran Mamdani. How bad did she lose? Not too bad, as she only lost by a sum just shy of four thousand votes, landing in second. Why did she lose? She was one of a fleet of candidates that AIPAC and tech money was lobbed at to ensure they lose. Persons like Melissa Bean won in the area thanks to groups like Elect Chicago Women, who are “aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee” and offered $4M all as an “AI-focused committee ran ads in favor of her,” Politico reports. Similarly, Donna Miller won her race while getting lots of AIPAC money too. This is being seen as a big hit to the far left’s momentum, all as eyebrows raise given upwards of $22M was spent against these candidates. It’s not all losses though, which could create a Streissand effect given scrutiny is being placed on this questionable campaign tactic. Moreover, anti-AIPAC Daniel Biss was who beat Kat, meaning someone not completely terrible is moving forward (but…he’s fine). Similarly, La Shawn Ford won his seat despite big crypto spending for him to lose. This is certainly regional, but represents forces we all have to think about given our big election year in the US — and worldwide: money from questionable entities are spending against your interests. Beware! (And please: watch Eddington.)

🤩 Hollyweird Insider: The “creators aren’t journalists” conversation is about to explode