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 why World War III is trending, what Kai Cenat’s fashion is really about, why gaming will continue to break out this fall, and the rise of “buge.”
🏛️ Politicultural: Let’s hyperbolize that it’s WWIII, shall we?
German hospitals prepare for war. The UK hasn’t done enough to prepare for shocks to food supplies. The Pentagon weighs pulling a third of U.S. forces from Europe. The US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report. All this sounds bad, doesn’t it? It sounds like we’re in the middle of World War III, right? Well, if you’re to believe a genre of political and news creators, you’d be in the throes of a freakout as @caprisunnpapi and @aaronparnas1 are doing good numbers by making people see a certain political picture as something to worry about among many other things to worry about right now. Is this a tense moment? Sure! But has the whole of the 2020s been this tense? Yes, absolutely. While all these stories “are true,” the framing of them in this “WE’RE GONNA DIE NOW!!” way neglects wider contexts that aren’t sunny but are obvious. For example: Russia has been a threat to the larger EU for far too long, which is why France — for years and years — has been making similar moves that their German and UK counterparts have been slow to catch up on. Stories like “this” in the EU have been circulating for some time, largely catalyzed by Trump pulling out armed support from the continent as this international relationship sours — hence more recent stories about the Pentagon pulling out armed forces. This is a story about larger geo-political strains and the reality of American voting patterns, as the AI story furthers an environment created by Trump and the global right wing technofascist realm. This is all scary! But it has been scary, as nothing just “happens” overnight in these ways. Just like climate change becoming our current reality, this is the result of years and years and decades of decades of being warned that this would happen: this is our finding out, after fucking around for far too long. Trending WWIII scares are a very small symptom of larger political miscalculations made en masse, which is a great pre-midterm reminder that such freak-outs enable terrible short-term decision making versus keeping an eye on a more sustainable, peaceful future.
📳 Marketable: Brands and fashion and families collide
Items in and out of social and media and marketing that hit my inbox to know about!!
Spotify and Coach are collaborating, which is being brought to life by a global campus tour featuring artists like Tinashe and Rachel Chinouriri. The effort is two fold: to connect Spotify with personal expression (a la: what you listen to) while Coach is pushing its Tabby bag (a la: a product you can customize to your style). This seems to be working too, as the bags inspired by brand ambassadors have all sold out.
Kai Cenat’s big fashion moment may be more about him than anything else, given that so many tech arms are reaching out to pat his head in his Vivet effort. For example: after his Twitch’able fashion week debut last week, he and his sister Kaiya have taken to Instagram (via YouTube) to offer a look into their process. Will all this sell his clothes? Unsure, as I still am not sold that his brand and big buyers truly overlap, but I do think this is a bigger moment for social brands to talk about him talk about what he’s doing.
Wayfair is going all in on family and football, as it debuted a new campaign featuring LA Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford (and his family) to highlight how the brand delivers on real life needs. This is a reminder of a big Q2 finding: sports figures are the biggest and best spokespeople now as they connect more to one’s lifestyle than celebrities. Stafford represents this well too as he’s currently shilling for Old Spice and New Era and Madden 27 and Raising Canes and Johnnie-O (?). Granted, as the Wayfair ad notes: he has four daughters. Gotta pay for that big ass family somehow!
Some news about what’s happening at Cosmo and Seventeen as Willahbennett has appointed a new fashion director for the brand: Chelsea Zalopany. This is buzzy NYC media news as it shows how Willa continues to build out an Avengers style Gen Z destination within Hearst (which we got a peek at earlier this year during her HIP REPLACEMENT interview). “Chelsea deeply understands youth culture and thinks expansively about how young people dress—and aspire to dress,” Willa said of the appointment.
