TR.BIZ: 5.12.2026
From 2000s stars on OnlyFans to FT's culture wins, 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 looking at Spirit Airlines as working class hero, FT’s dominance, celebrity MILFs on OnlyFans, and more and more reasons why everyone hates AI.
🏛️ Politicultural: Crashing the flying class
Spirit Airlines is dead which, for my European readers, is like if Ryan Air or Vueling up and disappeared overnight. It was a deep discount airline that, as many have pointed out, was a lifeline for people who needed to travel but didn’t have the money: it was the airline of the working class, of regular people. As its budget peers face similar pressure given the continued oil crisis, it’s obviously sparking two conversations: first, it’s stoking the K-economic indicators as its timing aligns with word of Delta shifting to cater to the richer over the poorer, all while cutting snacks, furthering the idea of paying to play in the air; second, as both people losing jobs and the James Charles anti-poor people drama shows (and even the associated Elizabeth Warren dramas), this is spiking the feelings of classism and how such a situation is designed by the rich to attack the poor. While the Iran conflict and related economic forces are not explicitly designed to handcuff the non-rich, the result has been the same, essentially reinforcing the idea of an old video that went viral a month ago, about how the rich will travel and the poor will travel in the metaverse: these things are related even if they aren’t, as they reinforce the simmering class wars that we’re seeing play out this year. In a year where so many storylines of culture are anti-regular people have emerged, this is being seen not just as a part of a literal war but more a corner of the widening tapestry of anti-poor maneuvering by the larger cultural apparatus.
🤩Hollyweird Insider: What’s up with Hollywood MILFs going on OnlyFans?
News recently broke that actor Jaimie Pressly has joined OnlyFans, which the actor noted as an effort to “evolve with the times,” which comes weeks after Shannon Elizabeth made a similar move, which she noted would be an effort to “show off a more sexy side no one has seen.” Interesting. But what’s happening on these accounts? Both Jamie and Shannon’s accounts are free, giving access to some photos and videos for free, while many are behind a paywall of tens to hundreds of dollars, as I found by signing up and poking around their accounts. I took it a step further, buying a cheap ($15 and $20) post from the two of them to see if these actors were doing much of anything: as expected, there isn’t nudity — at least not at the low paywalls — which Shannon Elizabeth herself noted in a recent Playboy interview, responding to a question on adult content with, “You said that assuming I am doing adult content on there. And I’ve never said that’s what I’m doing.” And she’s right, confirming what I noted on Twitter: this is a targeted horny bomb on Millennials and Gen X dudes hoping that their high school celebrity crushes are actually doing porn, which is exactly why and how Shannon Elizabeth made a million in the few weeks shes’ been on. This is a growing genre of not-really-entertaining entertainers who join a site like OnlyFans on the promise and premise of adult content, just to offer a fan club style atmosphere and Cameo-style content. It’s a smart move but ultimately is another means to not only monetize off people being horny but to enable the larger gambler state, making subscriptions and payments here prediction market bets by an older demographic who are lonely and horny enough that they’ll bet money that they can woo a non-acting actor that they were once obsessed with to show them love. You can explore screengrabs of my findings here, here, here, here, and here. (A quick coda: Rachel Dolezal is on OnlyFans and is actually going the distance.)
📲 Tech Talk: Reminders that everyone hates AI
I have nothing of import to say about AI today, but I want to quickly log a temperature check that I find fascinating and that further cements this technology as deeply loserific and bad —
