TR.BIZ: 9.23.2025

Your early-mid-week check-in, where we cover fandom meetups and Anthropoligie's "rock" trend ✨

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 taking a look at the rapture, the Disney boycott, and checking in on the spells I cast last week.

Also a reminder: tomorrow, join us at 12PM EST / 9AM PST / 6PM CEST, as I’ll be chatting with

Max Berlinger

for the initial How To Be Creative™ series entry about fashion writing and trend analysis. It’s free! RSVP here!

💥 Soft Powers: Delulu soup of the day

If you’re reading this, we have not been raptured. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, there is a wellspring of things we can technically call actual “spiritual psychosis” that illustrate beliefs enabled by technology and false prophets resulting in sanity running away from us: there is the church playing a Charlie Kirk AI video; there is the eclipse happening on the same day as Charlie Kirk’s funeral; there is the Panamanian creator who has TikTok nervous about a captured alien (which is likely just a trick of polymer); there is the whole hullaballoo that today is the rapture, all tied to the Feast of Trumpets at the end of Rosh Hashanah in Israel this year. I kinda sorta talked about this Sunday but a lot of this has to do with people being lost and looking for saviors, for someone to be their salvation: when we are astray, we will grab at anything to tether us back to beliefs, to ourselves. It “is” spiritual psychosis but this is such clear proof that we are a flock very much astray, reaching for anything to be a shepherd. It reminds of how China is cracking down on AI religion scams, as many are falling for tricks that seek to exploit such existential vulnerabilities. Such, the success of MAHA (Tylenol autism, anyone?) and other terrible ideologies, which prey upon the weak only to suck them dry of money and mind. It’s a dangerous world out there! Stay strong as we wander through…whatever aesthetic this is.

• What can you do about this? For anyone in community and or any “brand” out there, now is the time to be a leader, offering an ear — but not in the sense of industry or sales: offer guidance, offer reassurance, offer outlets for people to express their concerns and fears about the state of things. Listening is in such short supply! All the above and the directly below are what happens when people struggle in the storms of information. Few are invulnerable to this moment — and you have the chance to make a lasting impression, to be the “calm in someone’s storm.” We’re in crisis! And take your role as listener seriously, divorcing the act from profiteering. You will win in the long run.

🤩 Hollyweird Insider, I: Disney gets cancelled lol

Did the world read TR.BIZ from last week? I think so, as I’ve been pleasantly surprised that there is an actual movement of people boycotting Disney, with celebrities tied to the platform speaking out about it, to the point of some buying a subscription just to cancel it. This is sparking a few different conversations — PBS Passport getting publicity from this, Disney adults questioning their choices, protests tied to the industry, whether Kimmel should return at all — which has people wondering if this will actually “hurt” the brand. As rumors swirl of billions lost, the idea of said loss hasn’t been meaningfully substantiated. But the pressure is on as fuck ass billionaire loser Bob Iger is now in the crosshairs as the brand tries to right the wrong of being a footstool to authoritarianism. This is all further proof of the industry killing itself, as Mark Ruffalo’s thoughts on the brand’s stock seems to prove: “It’s going to go down a lot further if they cancel his show…Disney does not want to be the ones that broke America.” Again: it is to be seen if this “becomes” a new Target situation — but it does show that everything can change in a snap in Trump world and that, despite the glitz and glam, most celebrities are more like you than unlike you, meaning broke and powerless, frustrated by the political drain spinning we’re doing, hence their calls for boycotting too. We’re “all in this together” or whatever.

• What can you do about this? Quit your Disney accounts!!! But also use this to open other eyes, about the relationships between business and government and general bad acting. Help shake people out of their complacency! People are listening and ready to learn. How will you help lead them? Also: make yourself Trump-proof, less to avoid controversy but to hold onto your beliefs and your integrity. Like Disney, Starbucks is learning this the very hard way while Ben & Jerry’s suggest what meaningful action looks like now.

🤩 Hollyweird Insider, II: Make room for fans

A theme of the decade that finally feels like it’s coalescing is creating space for people to get together, which hasn’t been by making “third places” but by making space for fans to be in communion. It’s not just the rise of the mega-fandom events like D23 and Tudum or whatever hostage situation Taylor Swift has been embarking on but things like The Fan Fest Society, a group of Gilmore Girls diehards who host roaming meetups to support the creators and cast. There’s also the Summer I Turned Pretty watch party that took over a sports bar and the rise of the WNBA fandom, all proving that people are looking opportunities to get together in the name of a shared love. (Just ask Charlie Kirk!) This is often led-by-brands — a recent example being Spotify in London hosting a show for Lola Young fans, to reward local listeners of the musician — but works when the fans are centralized, less as a space for people to “make content” (They will.) but to meet others with similar mindsets, to sing together and cry together and share in creating a culture together. This collides with the fans-shut-down-city phenomena that has become a staple of the creator economy, most recently flexed by IShowSpeed, Salish Matter and her Sincerely Yours, and Fares Salvatore, building on local hysterias caused by people like Kai Cenat and Austin McBroom and phenomenon like “stream sniping,” where fans (often maliciously) hijack public streams of creators. All to say: if you build a gathering space that isn’t a random sponsored café attached to a bank, they will come. They might not behave and they definitely will make content — but they will come, hence how we’ve ended up with Wikipedia merch and Bucee’s as a lifestyle brand.

👹 The Thing: Anthropologie’s $1K rocks