Looking Deeper on Cultural Trend Reports

"To see what’s coming, we must respect the bizarre and validate the weird." 

Reddit's Head of Cultural Forecasting Matt Klein says every trend report discovers the same things about the same audiences using the same technology. 

Klein synthesized five years of reports from the top agencies and has found trends within the trends.

Yes, he’s gone full meta.

Matt’s findings were remarkably samey. First-world problems, technology and the emotion of fear have been ongoing themes for the last half-decade. Across thousands of presentations, decks and insights, the internet hive-mind mostly agrees on all things Gen-Z, sustainability, consumption and ChatGPT. 

Luckily there's a way out of the echo chamber. Klein suggests looking to cultural fringes and subtle cultural signals as the solution. 

"Rather than treating these Meta Trends as an accurate forecast, we must now also use them as filters to seek out what’s NOT discussed," he says. 

Subtle forces often shape culture. According to Nassim Taleb's *Black Swan theory, the future always ends up way crazier than we expect because we have a habit of overlooking the things which create the most impactful change. 

Most reports analyse the same type of person. The audiences are Western-centric, well-educated, and tech-savvy. These studies are undertaken by similar agencies with similar employees who have similar commercial goals.  

"All of the trends over the past five years reflect a first-world “developed market” outlook... what we have today are not cultural trends, but one culture's trends," Klein says. 

What would trends look like if more reports focused on overlooked demographics rather than surveying the average Joe and Josephine? How about low-income Gen Z, or the less digitally savvy, the under-educated and the unhealthy? What about trends that aren't informed by tech? 

Learnings from Five Years of Analyzing Hundreds of Trend Reports

Last year's meta report

*I used an asterik there because I’ve tried reading Nassim Taleb's Black Swan book several times, but I always find it just a bit too dense to finish. Three quarters complete is the current record. Congratulations if you’re on 100%.

Melbourne skateboarding project update

In 2020, as I rediscovered skateboarding, I was surprised by the intersection of subulture that was drawn to the sport. I’ve discovered this comes from skating’s unique capacity for individuality and a focus on self-expression. 

Skating seems to draw a certain breed of person who has an individual reason for getting involved in the sport, they come from diverse backgrounds, and they all have a story to tell.   

With that insight in mind, this year’s going to be a little different. Some of my best times being a newbie in skateboarding are the fascinating people I meet. Rather than solely document skateboarding as a visual subculture, I’m going to focus on the tales of these unique people for chapter two of this project. 

I feel most successful when I take someone's photo and they randomly open up to me with a story. It can have something to do with skateboarding or nothing to do with it at all. There just seemsto be something about approaching a stranger with a camera that makes them want to 

What Comes After Social Media, Influencers and Content?

I really enjoyed reading "After The Creator Economy," which is a publication by Berlin research studio co-matter and creative publishing platform Meta Label.

The zine, which you can buy or download for free, explores what the future of the creative economy might look like. It explores sustainable alternatives to how creatives currently publish “content” on platforms owned by other people.

My favourite quote - "The creator carries on the myth of the individual creative genius, more interested in their own influence than in supporting the social and collaborative networks of which they are a part."

Over the course of 50 pages, they analyse and redefine how we create, distribute and monetize creative work. One of the big ideas is publishing content as a “Meta Label,” which is a collection of people with shared interests hosting and controlling the distribution of their own work. Loads to think about, plus it's nicely designed too.

Link here.