TR.BIZ: 6.23.2026
From conservative Love Island to Worlde alternatives, 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 digging deep into preparing for the future, why Love Island is cursed this season, an update on American sunscreen, why the word “whimsy” is getting misused right now, and a trend that has people pouring beer on their crotches.
🏛️ Politicultural: Prepare yourself for anything and everything
I was a Boy Scout. I was an altar boy. I was an assistant in Hollywood. If I know anything about anything, it is that you should always have a plan, operating with a light level of preparedness for whatever comes your way in the day and in your life. That’s why I always have water, a granola bar, and a charger on me at all times but also why I have a go bag prepared and started long-term savings in my late twenties. Stay ready, as they say. This is how and why Amy Edelman of Pretty Prepared and I connected, sharing our interest in assessing the world and adapting (Preparing!) for what comes next. She’s a die-hard on the subject, having co-written on preparation with survival expert Chris Begley. Called The Emergency Playbook — and out today — the book maps in simple terms how to navigate apocalypses small (A stain on your shit.) and large (The collapse of democracy.). To get an idea of why we should all be a bit more prepared, I sent Amy some questions to see how she’s navigating this moment. Let this inspire you to think four steps ahead!
Preparedness (or “prepping”) seems like the practice of men of a certain demographic outside of cities.
The main reason I wanted to write this book was to correct the perception that “prepping” was exclusively a “redneck-of-a-particular-political-persuasion” endeavor. Because if you think about it, for most people, the original prepper — who could provide everything from a Band-Aid for a skinned knee to mittens when it was cold, was mom. And again, for most people, there’s not a lot in common between a redneck and a mom.Why do people who are not-the-stereotype need to take preparation seriously?
I would argue that people are already familiar with getting prepared but that it’s the concept of “prepping” that scares them. Didn’t we all struggle at one time or another to prepare for a job interview? For a date? Just leaving the house in the morning calls for varying degrees of preparation (Sunscreen. Check. Keys. Check. And depending on where you live and what color your skin is…ID. Check). Life, for most people, and especially these days, is all about preparing. So why not for the imminent dangers posed by climate emergencies, civil unrest and other unpleasant surprises?These are rough times. Where should someone start to address issues like far-right extremism?
I would say that the first step to being prepared would be to know what you can affect and to focus on that. Frankly, I don’t know if it’s possible for someone who doesn’t have a lot of power, which has always been code for a lot of money, to move the needle on issues like far-right extremism, xenophobia, homophobia and the rest. As a Jewish person living in the US under Trump, I have way more empathy for German citizens who lived under Hitler. Same for the Jews living in Israel under Netanyahu. Sure, we can protest (and I have). Yes, we can “Resist and Unsubscribe” (and I have). Sure, we can financially support independent journalism and great causes (and I have). But ultimately it changes nothing.There’s a whole lot going on that is out of our control and accepting that we can’t change the larger narrative is the first step. The second step is doing your best to make sure you, your loved ones and your community are prepared for what’s coming, whatever that is.
And also, because I’m re-reading this and it sounds like such a bummer. Family, friends, a great song, a silly joke, try to enjoy and appreciate what you have in the moment.
What’s the importance of community in preparedness?
The world is a complicated place with complicated systems, from food to energy to medicine — too much for any one person to rebuild after collapse. Community is, and always has been, key. Even in small-scale emergencies such as an extended power outage, being able to depend on many people who can bring different skill sets (and supplies!) is a plus. So do what you can to strengthen your community. And by that I mean your offline community because let’s face it, when the crap hits the solar panels your TikTok followers aren’t coming to your rescue.What are you preparing for most?
I’m really trying to follow my own advice about letting go of control — or rather accepting that I have no control, which for a lifelong control freak is kind of hard to do. In terms of what I’m preparing for most, my first grandchild is due New Years Day so I’m trying my best to focus on that.
Pick up The Emergency Playbook here.
👀 Trend Watchers: Wordle alternatives
Love Wordle? You’re in for a treat because it appears all these years later the game has been smudged around, into via exquisite corpse style games where your goal is to figure out the word that connects to another silly word — or another silly thing! Or something entirely different that just looks like Wordle: there’s Poople, where you try to figure out how to get to “poop” from the word they give you; there’s JeffGoldblumle, where you try to guess what the twelve-letter word is, which is typically “Jeff Goldblum”; there’s Unwordle, where you’re trying to fill in the blanks of what was guessed in someone’s Wordle game; there’s Miniondle, where you have to guess the Minion of the day. These games aren’t new, as a trend of Wordle satires popped up in the years right after its first ascent, but it’s enjoying attention on TikTok as people are trying to one-up each other by finding, playing, and sharing stranger and stranger Wordle alternatives. If you have a unique Wordle riff that you think you can vibe code into reality, get going now because you have until the end of the month for people to keep interested in this trend.
🤩 Hollyweird Insider: Gen Z conservatism is ruining Love Island
