~updates, goals, & other things for 2025~

Taking my goals on main, for both accountability and to actually make them a reality.

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For almost all of the years that I have been not-in-school, I’ve made an annual list of goals. Call them resolutions, call it a to-do list, but I consider them the map for my year and, if we were to look at all these lists from these past decades, you’d be able to map my life. These are all tweaks to myself as I pursue becoming a better person for a better year, little adjustments I’ve been building myself upon since my frontal lobe developed. In truth, I find this practice to be very square and very silly — until I think about all the ways that I’ve been able to change (for the better) by figuring out what I want to do and how I want to do it: you make your own change.

As mentioned in the inaugural How To Be A Creative post, a key to success — from a creative project to personal growth to professional goals — is to pursue them in public. This means sharing goals with friends, talking about them realistically, reminding others of where you’re at, and actively making traction. This ladders into the idea of “increasing your luck,” which is the technically scientifically proven idea that you can become “luckier” by being more flexible, optimistic, intuitive, and resilient, much of which comes from allowing your goals to take you places via the act of sharing. Positive self-talk in public, minus delulu expectations of deserving anything.

I say this because I typically share my goals, publicly, in some form, to inspire a checks-and-balance system, so that friends, colleagues, and strangers alike can see these ideas and go “Oh, how are you doing at that?” or “I have an idea of how to help!” or, generally, to embarrass myself into action. I meant to do this last year but ran out of time (because I was, um, depressed) so I’m getting on the wagon, going vulnerable on main, to show that 2025 really is a time of change and we can make it for the better. This will be broken out into two sections, ten items each: Trend Report™ goals — which will include programming updates, hence the full distro — and ~personal goals~, which will only be for paid subscribers. Consider this a bigger version of last year’s updates announcing a paid tier. Let’s get into it!

The 2025 Trend Report™ Goals

aka: “career” goals, which are about this newsletter and reshaping how it works.

1. Make posts SHORTER. I was talking with

   Georgia Graham
   a few weeks back, where she offered a casual lightning bolt: she said all the posts are great — but there’s just not enough time to read it all. Then, after the 2024 reader poll, I got a similar note or two: it’s great — but it’s often too much. Paired with this newsletter eating away at my own life and the landscape getting way crowded, it’s unsustainable to repeat the past year. I also hate the problem of their being too much content — and I have to do my anti-capitalist, anti-consumptive part to produce less and take up less space. Here’s how I hope to shift —

   • Less links. For the past two Weekly Reports™, I’ve confined the format to seven “links” (or clusters of links) per section. This is very hard for me as a middle child and a Taurus: it’s baked in me to be indulgent, to try to take up space. I’ll resist this temptation!

   • Shorter, more personal essays. Speaking of indulgence, posts got way bloated last year as I took the weight of a growing following personally, that I was responsible for over 10K people’s Internet diets. However: I’m not a newspaper. I’m a single person. I’m hoping to shift essays to slimmer territory, the first always reflecting the week while the second will aspire to be more about art, culture, my life, etc. I also hope this makes posts lighter, a salve for these heavy times. (Og readers will recall that this was how the newsletter was formerly formatted.)

2. Make workflow easier. Paid posts are getting formatted to take less time while being more strategic. This is means more people will be getting a peek at Tuesday emails via the following formats —

   • New “reports.” I’m introducing two formats for Tuesday that I hope will help elucidate how trends are made: via taste and via change. Taste and change are in short supply and, when put together, they make a trend. So, I’m hoping to highlight leaders in these spaces, people whom I admire and want to amplify for their taste and changemaking abilities.

     • Meet The Taste Report™, an interview series with someone who I think has great taste. I’m aiming for this to be the first Tuesday of the month.

     • Meet The Change Report™, an interview series with someone who is making change in the world through means of activism or shaping how we think. This should come out the third Tuesday of the month.

   • How To Be A Creative posts will now be bi-monthly.

   • TR.BIZ remains untouched, as this format works.

   • Otherwise? Bye bye, Tuesday posts, unless I have time and or am bored. Ideally, this time is filled with me having more of a life, which makes this newsletter even better as I’ll have findings from in-the-field.

3. Quarterly “business” reports. I’m trying to up The Trend Report™’s business game via two quarterly Culture Reports™ —

   • Quarterly roundtables that bring together experts and or persons of similar circumstances to offer a birds eye view on a subject. Think the 2020s Survival Guide and the Social Media Managers Are Turning 40 posts.

   • Quarterly forecasts, which is a “business request” offering a deeper dive on cultural storylines that we should watch for. I hope to tap into expert sources, pending timing. These may be akin to the yearly forecasts.

4. Monthly events. A long time coming! And is another effort to get me back into the world as I used to host events and parties all the time in LA. But, being in a new city and country, I’ve let fears of being an outsider seize me — and that’s gotta stop. I see this taking two forms —

   • TRL, Trend Report Live™, which is a “live newsletter” to happen monthly-ish, wherever I am, definitely starting in Barcelona. I’m doing a test run this month with friends and will then take it public. I’ll syndicate online, etc.

   • Culture Meetups™, aka: venues for us to get together and talk, in the company of wine. We have a date for the first one too: March 6 in Madrid, as I’ll be covering the Arco, Art Madrid, Just Mad, UVN, etc. art fairs. Will you be there? Do you live there?

     Bobby Aaron Solomon
     and I would love to meet you! Details coming soon! Also: I’m planning to be in Paris for ~my birthday~ in May and we’ll have another one in June, in Barcelona, for Sonar.

   • Pending 2025 financials, we may have these events in London, stateside, and in other parts of Europe. But…travel ain’t cheap, fast, or great for the planet. Stay tuned!

     

5. Archiving old writing. As explained, so much of my writing has disappeared due to tech bro whims — and I cannot be the only person experiencing this problem. Someone is likely spearheading a project like this already so, via collab, contribution, or my own doing, I hope to find ways to archive lost digital works of mine and of others.

   • Archiving Los Angeles, I’m Yours will be the first project, as all the interviews I did with people like AL Steiner, Zackary Drucker, Catherine Opie, Drew Droege, Janna Ireland, Adam Wingard, Patti Astor, Charli XCX, and so many people from the early 2010s LA are all lost. The site even had contributions from people like Jeremy O. Harris, during his LA tenure. (He wrote Coachella haikus for the site, if I recall correctly.) But…all that is gone. To preserve a bit of Los Angeles’ creative history, I hope to get the site archived via library, public service, tech group, or similar service — or do it myself!

6. Contributing to third party publications as I’ve really dropped the ball on proper “writing” as this newsletter eats up all my time. I’ll be making a more concerted effort to fit trend thinking into other publications, via pitching or…by you telling me where I should submit! I have two stories ~in the works~ with publications now but, if you have an in or are an in, let’s chat. Please!

   • NOTE: I hatched an idea on the treadmill today about racism and being hispanic in America in the 1990s and 2000s — and I’m looking for a few sources outside of myself and my family. Did you or your family stop speaking Spanish to “pass” as American? Did you change your name to something more anglicized? Did your family code switch? I have a few friends who have similar stories but I’d love to interview others who had this experience. If that’s you, let me know!

7. Get two more TR.BIZ accounts. I have a shadow newsletter that offers daily trend recaps. An expanded version of Friday’s distro, TR.BIZ is for businesses, agencies, brands, and more to get a daily download of “what’s happening.” I have [REDACTED] clients but I’m hoping to bring on more, with the modest goal of two. If you’re curious about this service, here is an example of the daily distro. If interested, message me and we can work out logistics.

8. Transition work to writing as social media has been my post-Hollywood stopgap, a great resting state that…is also how I built my career anyway. Now — and because I really don’t want to support tech billionaires anymore — I’m crafting off-ramps, which could be through this newsletter, doing more journalism, sharing expertise with clients, and or any other combination of thereof. We’ll see where this takes us and, again, if you have thoughts: I’m all ears.

9. Sharing writing skills. An item I miss from managing writers is teaching people how to improve their writing. This also fits into a macro, next-decade goal, of saving fora physical “space” to teach writing and hosts artists, to evolve The Trend Report™ from an online entity into a way to share skills, foster creativity, and impart tools to make and communicate with the world in mind. This could be a residency, this could be an arts compound: tbd — but this is about creating literal community and giving back to others. To get there, I need to start sharing skills as a resource. Is that via teaching locally? Free clinics with readers? Something else? We’ll see! Again: you all tell me, as I’m here to help — and hoping to start actively building toward this.

10. Writing about and experiencing more art. To the previous four items, writing about and working in visual arts was something I did “before the pandemic” as my “side hustle.” I largely contributed arts coverage, reviews, and interviews with creatives for publications, going so far to open a gallery within my apartment. It was a fabulous time! That’s the space I’d ultimately like inhabit, versus popping in and out pending the market and employment. To get there, I have to write about and experience art more, which was so easy in Los Angeles but requires more intentionality outside of such a big city. Thus…it’s a priority this year!

That…went longer than expected: apologies. A few other upgrades, per a reader poll suggestion: the About page has been revamped, to emphasize the aforementioned, along with new tabs for Sunday’s Weekly Report™, Culture Reports™, How To Be A Creative, Friday’s TR.BIZ, and Tuesday’s general lifestyle posts. This should make navigating the site easier!

Another thing: what about the Substack Nazi problem?

As explained last year, I’m hoping to migrate ~out~ of this place as this venue still gets failing grades as far as dismantling systems of hate. However: I’m not in an economic position to leave yet, nor do I feel like a readership model is in place to sustain itself. I could be wrong though: you tell me! I just don’t see that happening — yet.

I’m not sure when the move will happen but it’s still very much on-the-mind. To combat the issue, we will continue the monthly 10% tithing of paid subscription profits to organizations that undo Nazi problems and enable a greater good. Why 10%? This is to match Substack’s cut of paid subscriptions. In the past year, this 10% matching has resulted in donations to: California Fire Foundation, Anti-Slavery International, Brennan Center for Justice, Oxfam, Unicef, the Harris campaign, FairVote, Middle East Children’s Alliance, The Marshall Project, Palestine Children's Relief Fund, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the ADL (which…I have some regrets about now). So! Where should we donate to next? Let me know!

And…those are all the updates for the newsletter! Thoughts? Please let me know what you’re thinking and feeling about all this as I always hope this space reflects our lives, is net-positive, and contributing to making your life — and the world — better. Even if this means a single person can get offline more, enjoy life more, and make more change in the world, that means I’ve done my job 💚

Now, my paid angels…you get to read my ~personal~ goals for the year. They’re always v random, super personal, and entirely too aspirational — but they’re goals! Spaces to grow into, as you’re reshaped into a better you! I don’t always achieve them all but I’m proud to accomplish, like, eight out of the ten every year. That’s great!

Kyle’s 2025 Personal Goals

aka: how I hope to upgrade myself this year.