TR.BIZ: 3.5.2026

From Harry Styles' flop era to Pink "Minnie Mouse" Pantheress, 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 exploring migratory patterns in and out of the States, the elites fucking around and finding out, State Farm paying customers, a Fruit of the Loom swag suit, and lots more.

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💥 Soft Powers: Anywhere but here

Given the state of the States and the world, it’s unsurprising that people are finding themselves looking elsewhere. I wrote about how this decade may be remembered for it being a highly migratory period not too long ago — but I want to punch into this, as this story continues to continue because of politics, because of economics, because of the general present. Let’s look at this within and through an American lens, which is very much under the shadow of Trump.

• At the end of last year, Atlas Van Lines shared most people are moving to Arkansas, Idaho, and North Carolina while most people are moving from Louisiana, West Virginia, and Wyoming. A similar U-Haul study from the top of the year saw Texas, Florida, and North Carolina seeing rises as California, Illinois, and New Jersey (followed by New York) saw big exits. As The Hill observed, much of this lies somewhere between seeking affordability and aligned politics. But is this really all conservative flight? Or simply people going where the boot is less on-the-neck given the reality of money troubles? I’d argue the latter.

• Speaking of K-economic shakes, looking in another direction to those who are perhaps with more money and are more progressive: people are leaving the country entirely. This is unsurprising, which a recent Wall Street Journal story dug into, boasting “record numbers” of Americans exiting. What does that look like? America had a net-negative migration last year, between negative 10K and 295K bye byes according to Brookings plus roughly 2M self-deportations, with is aided by less in-bound migration (~2.6M entered last year, compared to the 6M peak in 2023). The Journal looked at 15 countries to find approximately 180K Americans jumped, joining the nearly 10M who are already out-of-the-country. A curious and obvious factor is many countries — Germany, Ireland — are seeing more Americans inbound than locals outbound while places like Portugal, Spain, and Czech Republic swell. The story has very obviously become voyeuristic clickbait.

I say this as changing deck chairs on the Titanic via migration is clearly “in” given the state of the world, much of which “goes viral” when tied to the rich, white, American, etc., all of which is quite frivolous when placed again thr rise of migration from actual war zones like Iran, underscoring who Pedro Sanchez’s immigration calls are really about. It’s all sad, interesting, etc. Will such “Where are Americans going?” obsessions continue? Will these Americans stay in their states or in the States? I’d place money on seeing big boomerang energy around 2030, which I’d guess (Hope??) will be a more stable period.

🏛️ Politicultural: The FAFO state

Following the above, there’s a vibe around consequences now, or fucking around and finding out, of the idea of a guillotine or comeuppance starting to maybe materialize. Let’s count three ways.

• The inaction around the Epstein files in America is seeing an evolution of the Women’s March variety via a Saturday and Sunday march to place pressure on the release of the documents. There is specific activation happening in New Mexico too, as the state’s truth commission is seen as crucial leverage in the case. This is happening twenty days before the next No Kings march.

• “Corporate profits as a share of U.S. GDP have soared to 15.85% from 8% in 1982,” Fortune reported in late February. “By contrast, employee compensation as a share of GDP has tumbled to 61.9% from 66.6% in 1982.” K-economy — yes, yes — but it also ties into the rising worker feeling that Zohran tapped into with the $30 scooping: workers need to be paid what they’re worth.

• I didn’t do a 2026 predictions, but one that I do have and discussed on HIP REPLACEMENT in January is that data centers will be a site of destruction, both literal and metaphorical. TIME has been following the emerging populist movement against such sites, but the Iran-America (Ugh.) conflict is seeing Amazon data centers in UAE and Bahrain being drone targets. “Gulf data centers support government surveillance, intelligence work, and military communications, making them more valuable and more likely to be deliberately targeted,” Rest of the World explains. Things that make you go hmm.

It seems like the heat is rising at the top, yes, given world wars and the struggles of the rich — but the underdogs and underlings are sharpening their knives too. As 2025’s Gen Z (“Gen Z”) revolutions proved, you boil people long enough and they will grab their knives. Is this what fucking around and finding out by the rich and powerful looks like?

🩹 Branded: State Farm pays its customers

A fascinating people power counter-programming outside of the fast food CEO culture (BK FOREVER.) (But not the AI thing.) is State Farm doing the unthinkable: paying its customers. The insurer “announced a historic $5 billion dividend for its car insurance members, the largest in the mutual insurance company’s 103-year history,” CNBC reported last week. What does that mean? “Customers can expect to receive refunds of $100 on average, though State Farm says the amount will vary by state and by the amount of premium paid.” This sounds dumb and small but is a big culture win as people love getting any and all free money, to feel like “The Man” is watching out for them. Whether true or not, the optics convey the brand as honest, giving, and caring, even if that may not be true — but a worse company would have swallowed the $5B dividend, giving it to executives instead of the masses (which…I’m sure is happening too). Payments should be coming this summer to more than 49 million policies.

🤩 Hollyweird Insider: Is Harry Styles going to khia asylum?