TR.BIZ: 9.11.2025

Your late-mid-week check-in, where we're talking international food trends and why Charlie Kirk's death is our Cronenberg moment 💫

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 African uncles getting cursed, our continued descent into a planet of war, “Austin brain",” and why reboots parallel vibe cancellations.

👀 Trend Watchers, I: Eating the world to heal it

This is more a timeless trend, but it’s having a curious resurgence in the past months and year: creators from one place eating their way around the world. The first person I noticed it with was Quenlin Blackwell, who has a TikTok series where she eats food from various countries and reviews them, all to experience new cultures culinarily. Old man creator Dine with Kent is the second, who has had a quick ascent this summer as he tries different cuisines in the south while emphasizing unity and kindness through international food. Spanish creator Ibai Llanos has been pitting country against country for the past few weeks via their breakfast foods, all reaching a finale this week as Peru goes against Venezuela. (Shoutout to

Nicolas Cevallos

for the tip, which he shared at the most recent TRL.) This is a funny triptych suggesting how a “we are the world”-ness is desired, that people are longing for the world to heal itself despite itself. And with food? A most benign way to explore peace, while absolving any larger politics (for better and worse).

• What can you do about this? If you want to create some good vibes on a global scale that carries light internet-friendly tension, pit countries against each other via something benign like comparing national dish, snacks, birds, flower, setc.: use this as a means to express cross-cultural love. In such anti-immigrant times, where diversity is being crushed, this is an easy way to celebrate and elevate.

👀 Trend Watchers, II: Cursing the uncles of Africa

Have you seen the man on TikTok who is cursing African uncles on the street with fake spells? It's one of the funniest bits on the internet now, which has people going wild. I raise this only because, to the point of the above, it pokes fun at and has fun with immigrant culture: what this creator — eztv2.0 — is doing is revealing and celebrating a very specific part of the African diaspora that he is a part of, specifically in the UK. It requires no huge preamble of explanation, instantly snapping you into a place to laugh at and with these uncles. Again: to the point above, this is a naturally funny lol moment based in exploring the nuances of another culture. It’s as if…people are longing for ways to see other cultures celebrate themselves! (Yes, it walks a line of “making fun” — but the by-and-for-ness makes it different.)

• What can you do about this? What’s a niche part of a culture within a culture to explore? Is there part of a local immigrant community that people may not know about? How can you explore and elevate that story? I’m thinking of the Maria Christina False Eyelashes video as more proof of this done in a very simple way.

📲 Tech Talk: Our Scanners moment

The Charlie Kirk thing is tragic, less because of the assassination of it all but more that 1.) it’s a Chekovian twist where fascist Man Who Desires Guns™ for the entire play of his life sees said gun introduced for his final act and 2.) that the entire experience of his livestreamed death felt like David Cronenberg was behind the camera, expressing the moment as if a Scanners reboot, a head explosion for the whole world to stop scrolling for. And let me tell you: I accidentally watched the video, with all that blood, before bed — and it made for a poor night’s sleep, a haunting that will take a few days of meditation to disappear. But I digress: the spreading of this death video across social media evolves a decade of livestreamed murders, of so-called terrorists tortured on half-lit film, of unarmed Black persons shot to death in pixels, of children and concertgoers fleeing in 720p. It’s not just that this horror became live “entertainment” but that it continues down the line of something mentioned on Tuesday, that I made another post about: tech is not only deeply uncool but an ever deepening portal to hell, thanks to its profit seeking and exploitative operations, all without any sense of responsibility or moderation. No wonder people don’t wanna post! As if it’s not being run by evil people! The act of scrolling has become so precarious as you wander a thin place between haha hehes and witnessing a beheading. “[My son] likened it to RFK, where we had — What? — one angle,” PR specialist Molly McPherson said on TikTok, noting how the situation ignited the content copy machine. “It’s really interesting what’s going to change from this…How many young people are watching this video?” Things will change from this, but not in the ways we think or hope, neither to solve the guns of it all or the techno disaster of it all. Such starts another new, dark day with the boot on the neck.

🏛️ Politicultural: Nepal, France, & Utah evolve “the war”