Eli

Alright, we're good? All right Day One FM. I'm excited about this this pod episode, we're going to talk about the 2024 Predictionary.

Trey

Predictionary.

Eli

Don't do it. God, sorry, that was a fleeting moment of personal embarrassment. But yeah, for those who don't know, the day one Predictionary is part dictionary part predictions, a series of words that we feel like, will define or actually, you know, that will define the year and I'll say it with more more conviction that will define the year ahead. It's basically our version of a trend report, or as Clara wrote a dictionary for the future, which I think is pretty well articulated far better than I could. But that's okay. But yeah it's actually the fourth year, fourth year doing it. I will say it was definitely the hardest one to write. And it has been about six months, six months in the making written and rewritten. But yeah, it's definitely one of my kind of favorite aspects of working at, at the agency, a lot of autonomy to kind of write, give a lay of the land of culture at large and more. So critique, I feel like a lot of trend reports are missing critiques these days. It's kind of more just a mirror. But yeah, Clara, I mean, any intro words before we dive in?

Clara

Intro to the intro? No. I mean, we did talk about it and writing the foreword, though that and I feel like every year it gets harder, I don't know if it gets harder, because like thinking of something new to say, after reading very similar articles day over day, month over month, like if it's just sort of part par for the course of these things. But it does feel like I don't know, each consecutive prediction, Harry is more of a struggle. But I think that it was better for it. Probably, maybe I know, that was like a depressing note to leave my introduction on.

Trey

I was actually gonna say, you know, in years past, you have been fairly accurate in terms of things that have come to fruition or, you know, reflections that we've made that have kind of circled their way around the office and, you know, informed a lot of brand campaigns, I think we've hit the nail on the head a few times with things like AI-anxiety, and how that has come to kind of dominant cultural discourse. So I'm excited to hear a bit more about what is on the horizon for 2024.

Eli

I know, buckle up, buddy. But yeah, just like some some quick background so that in previous years, we've outlined, essentially, between 10 and 20, you can tell the workload got here, because the amount of words and the amount of the amount of writing that we've done, has diminished, but you know, quantity over mean quality over quantity, whoa. But this year, we're and previous iterations of the predictionary have been kind of like, you know, there hasn't necessarily been a wrapper on it other than the year ahead. But this year, we're doing things a bit differently. And we've kind of broken it out into three different chapters, that I mean, all of them are, you know, related in one way or another. But we broken it out in three different chapters with two different words, each of the chapters, kind of touch on different aspects of culture. So one is more kind of focused on tech, tech and internet, which were, the wrapper for that chapter is called alternate reality. And the gist is that it's just really hard to understand what is happening in culture on the Internet, what is popular, why things are popular as a whole. And so we've broken that out into data dissonance, which is kind of the disconnect. And we'll talk about each word individually, which is the disconnect between the data used to tell stories about culture and culture itself. So kind of like rogue metrics and rogue statistics. And then ad nauseam, which is, if you've ever seen an ad and said it's giving, it's that feeling that you that you get from that, we have too mid to fail, which is chapter two, which is kind of our cultural chapter at large. And this just has to do with the fact that you're you ever you know, just dip your toes in those cultural waters like this is warm, it's not too hot, not too cold.

Clara

Do you everdip those toes in those cultural waters? If so, you might. Sorry, go on. I didn't mean disrupte the flow.

Eli

It's all good. It's fine. But this just has to do with kind of like an era of mid as, as a whole. So we have zombie IP, which is a franchise or talent that lives long past its expiration date. Taking a look at our elected representatives these days that might count to but yeah, last year we spoke about franchise fatigue which eke which is just overall fatigue with, you know, superhero franchises, spin offs, remixs etc. So this is back from the dead, I suppose.

Trey

Literally by a hologram tour.

Eli

Yeah, I know. And then underneath that we have double click spelled with a que.

Trey

Clique some might say.

Eli

Yes. And this is just about bringing some more intentional friction back into community building, there's been a lot of discourse around, you know, bringing back gatekeeping and helping to facilitate your own tastes outside of the algorithm. So, that word explores that. And then last on the menu, we have the new standard broken out Stan and Dard. And this one is kind of our fandom chapter. So we have a EF-FEM era, she talks about how like you are defining your identity through fleeting trends. You're in your mob mob wife era, your red onion, aesthetic era, tomato girl era, etc. and how it's kind of hard to build substantive, tight knit communities around that. So you just kind of left in a state of vertigo. And then finally, this is one of my favorites. Open Source entertainment are Osent. And this is kind of the next stage of UGC so if you're out there, and you made a fun little gag city, urban environment for Nicki Minaj has Pink Friday too. That would be an example of open source entertainments kind of fan creative spin offs are generated faster than maybe an at a greater volume than artistic or brand creative could in some are incentivize and others are not. So there's a lot of ramifications there. And that's it for the pod today. Thank you. Yeah, but there's a lot to discuss. I just thought I'd teed up ahead of time. So you get the lay of the land. And then I think we can kind of break it out into some of our favorites as a whole.

Trey

So overall, I was really interested in the idea of data dissonance. Especially because we see a lot of reports that use numbers. We use numbers a lot in our reporting numbers or something. Yeah, the numbers in my head spinning. Yeah. What's real? What's not real? Are the 3.6 billion views on hashtag Roman Empire or something to measure anything by? Or is there just that many people on TikTok? Yeah. So yeah. Can you explain a bit more what data dissonance is and how you kind of came up with that?

Eli

Yeah, well, I think there's like several different aspects to data dissonance. I think that like social met, or I think that metrics are kind of highly sought after social currency. It's what's on kind of the recap report. And it's what's used in thinkpieces, to justify that a trend is existing. So for instance, for instance, if mob wife aesthetic has whatever 100 million views that the hashtag is 100 million views on TikTok, or whatever that is justification that this is a thing. And this is worth talking about.

Clara

But yeah, I think what's interesting with data dissonence too, and we kind of alluded to it a bit is that it's just so much easier to generate a number now, like in a similar way, like, if you even went back a few years, you would kind of have few gatekeepers, or even just like pollsters who had the ability to create a survey have like a critical mass of Gen Zer's. But I think that these days, like a brand, like say Etsy can do its own brand survey that says like 75% of Gen Z, say that they bought a gift for a friend on like a secondhand shop, or whatever it is. So you have that side of things where it's much easier to create the poll you wish to see in the world. And then on the other end, you have social platforms, which like Eli was saying, kind of say things like views engagements, and they're somewhat purposefully foggy, sometimes is in terms of what exactly a view entails in terms of like, did this person engage with this video beyond like, watching it on their phone for 10 seconds. And if something gets 3 billion views, how many of them are just that, you know, just someone who had this video up for 10 seconds on their phone and immediately scrolled past? So it's easier, I think, from that standpoint, for the numbers that we are getting from, like different platforms to kind of inflate the importance of a trend or like inflate how much people are actually engaging or like subscribing to something like pickle onion girl or whatever, you know. But yeah, I don't know, Eli, if you had something further.

Eli

Yeah, I mean, I think that the definition also expands. And the word I guess expands just beyond social metrics as a whole. So from like a brand and social side I think we've shifted to like quantifiable culture as the go to like I said, like engagement metrics are the primary social currency that brands seek out. But I also see this in something like economic The data were, by all accounts, I suppose you could say that the economy is humming along very well, unemployment is low inflation is falling. The stock market is at an all time high, the s&p is hitting highs daily, but people feel like it is not really doing well for them at all. So that's something that Carlos Scanlon, who's an economist wrote as like the vibe session, so like, the numbers are there, but the vibes are not really. So to Clara's point, like, you can kind of just conjure up any number that you want to help justify the existence of a trend or a consumer sentiment or economic sentiment. And obviously, I think there's more rigor involved in economic data than there is, in social data. The issue on like social platforms is that we don't really know how these numbers are being counted or quantified. But I think it's just in the move to, you know, spotlight numbers as the most important thing, we are kind of ignoring how people actually think on the ground. And I think that's an issue with like trend reporting, as a whole, it's kind of devoid of actual consumer sentiment in my mind. And I

Clara

think lastly, just to that end, and something that we talked about, sort of towards the tail end of trying to refine it is that I don't think that data dissonance in terms of how these numbers are either like coming up, or being used by media or being used by agencies like you and I, and stuff like that, like, I don't think that it's necessarily intentionally to mislead people or to intentionally oftentimes, like, obscure what's actually happening. But I think, you know, last year, we talked about translation and how fast that culture moves. And I think in a very genuine effort to understand why certain things are popular on the internet, people have turned to things like, Oh, it got a billion views, or oh, I read this thing in Forbes, it said 75% of Gen Z thinks X. And as you know, I think that a lot of it is very genuinely people trying to search for ways to understand popularity and influence and virality. But the tools we have meaning like, the data is often either like, not quite enough for like, isn't providing the right nuance or providing the right context. And so it's really about I think, too, in terms of the solution, thinking about how data fits into sort of maybe a larger set of tools, or maybe some more nuanced thinking, in terms of framing that versus relying on, like, whatever, like the hashtag viewing is on the internet.

Trey

Yeah, it's kind of making me think a lot about the New York Times and The New York Times, specifically the Style section. In the past, you know, two or so years, at least since the pandemic hit, I think we can all agree if something appears in The New York Times styles, as it pertains to a tick tock trend, it's probably like far beyond over at that point. But I think to your point, you know, previously, they've run whole articles about things like, and not a single anything out here, but like cottage core, for example. And it kind of hinges on the the numbers of it. So this story is, you know, brought to you by the 3.4 billion views that prove cottage core is real. Meanwhile, someone who's reading the paper, and you know, it doesn't really matter where but and they're like, oh, cottage core, like, it must be real, if the numbers tell me so and New York Times has written an entire article about it, yet have never experienced anything like that themselves. So I think in the same way that dissonance is like very real to the average person who's, you know, bumping up against the dictates of like, whatever the New York Times says, or whatever brands are kind of telling us to believe?

Eli

Well, I just think that to wrap this up, I think it's indicative of a larger issue with culture at large, which kind of gets into to mid two fails that we have started to think of culture of songs of shows of movies as or, and fashion as like equations to be solved for a century, which is, you know, algorithms kind of run everything. And when that happens, I think a you kind of lose nuance, and the weird and the wacky, and the exciting and everything kind of gets flattened. And be I just think, like, the numbers start to lose meaning as a whole, like, what does 5 billion PR impressions mean? Right? I don't know. Like, if you've never seen anything, does it really, if you've never seen it out in the wild? Does it really matter?

Trey

I think it's I think a good example is like BeReal, you know, the app that reached so many, like the most downloaded app of all time or something, but to the actual person all it meant that you could was like you could post a photo of yourself in real time and share it with friends. So like, the the numbers don't really matter. It's not like the average experience of whoever's, you know, using it or whatever. But the numbers are kind of used to tell the story and you're like, who's to? I mean, who's to blame for BeReal's failure.

Eli

And I guess it's like we're never really going to have like a mass reach cultural moment, like, you know, Seinfeld Season Finale or like, I suppose we have Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl. Thank God. I know, I know. But the interesting thing is that as much as brands say, like we need to reach our niches and like build our audience scale is still something that they chase, like you send a report like, where are the numbers? You know? So I think it's just about recalibrating what successes and what impact means as a whole. Like we said, when you like post something on your IG story, you're not looking for like, oh my god, like 500 people looked at my story, like did this one person look at my, right? Look at my story. And that can be like an apt analogy of like, it's more of the who the how many.

Trey

But that kind of leads right into the too mid to fail, which I love how you coined the term mediocrity and explain a bit further. What to meant to fail really means.

Clara

Well, too mid to fail was a joy. I mean, I think of all the chapters, this was the one that was at least for me, like weighing the most heavily throughout the year. And I think we've talked about it here too, but like, added some relief, high. bar says. I mean, every day I go to sleep and I think about chapter. You joke, you joke I joke. But yeah, so as far as too mid to fail and mediocrity, I think over the course of this year, and I think also towards the end of last year, you're talking a lot about in addition to the sort of a lack of a breakthrough sort of moment, in the scale of something like the Seinfeld finale, it also just felt like culturally, nothing felt exceptionally novel or exceptionally like, wow, this is so cool. I've never seen anything like this. And it was a lot of like, Oh, that's cool, or that's interesting. And then like immediately on to the next thing, but that this sort of stickiness and staying power of a cultural moment. That's like defining, you know, and I think you had shared this article, and we had talked about it earlier this year, or late last year, I forgot what time of the year was, was basically about the sort of lack of a cultural moment or movement that we could really associate with this time. Whether that's because culture has become extremely corporatized. Whether that's because like franchises have taken over the theaters, whether that's because everybody is so busy in their own niche that nobody wants to sort of invest in or create sort of subcultures or even contribute to a monoculture that isn't Taylor Swift. But I think too big to fail is basically about like, the amalgamation of all of that like on one end, you have like the sort of nostalgia overload on the other end, you have this sort of lack of community lack of true sub culture? And how do you sort of break out beyond that and get from the mid of the world into something that's, I don't know, truly new and feels, maybe groundbreaking. And I think one thing that is at least in writing, zombie IP, I thought was really interesting was the Baffler wrote a piece about this fear, which we discussed on Day One FM not long ago. But basically how this fear is sort of like a manifestation of this sort of hyper past facing nostalgia, how entertainment has become about these sort of faux experiences like the Van Gogh immersive exhibit, and things of that nature. And yeah, just how it's so depressing that all of our money and infrastructure is moving into that direction.

Trey

Well, yeah, on the sphere, one thing that I used to you guys wrote that I think, or maybe the article wrote, I don't know, that was quite interesting. It was like it. It's exceptional in the way it's built. But really, it's just repackaging Yeah, I think it's repackaging culture and selling it back to you in a new not even new like format. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, yeah, there's nothing bigger screen? Nothing. Yeah, there's nothing new about it. It's just like, bigger, larger louder.

Eli

Yeah, I mean, I also think so zombie IP was a fun one to co write, I think, but I think I enjoyed writing double clique as well, because this kind of speaks to the loss of personal style and kind of cultural groupthink and how we can get out of that. And I think a lot of that has to do back to like, solving culture as an equation, where it's on tick tock specifically, it's like every brand hops onto a trend is basing that on like prior successes and the cookie cutter confines of what other brands have done. There's like, oh, there's a formula for this. Let's follow that. And I mean, I was listening to a podcast recently that talks about the same thing is like, when you look to the past or when you look to things that are kind of spoon fed for you and you have an outline of what to do. You can do it you can put out a piece of content or a piece of apparel or a movie pretty well, but it just like it's the same thing slightly with a slightly different wrapper. So I think that's kind of what grounds us in the in the mid. But yeah back to double clique, I think this year fomented a lot of status anxiety, specifically around personal style. And like, were you were you reading Emma Klein because you enjoyed her writing? Or because it showed up on like, the Pinterest mood board? Or, you know, Do you regularly spend $70 on a burger and a beer at Finellie's cafe? Or is it like the go to nightlife spot as told by like the New York Times and their Tiktok round up, and I think we really need to bring back a sense of like, personal agency, in building tastes and building style and, and and building community. And I think that's kind of like a rallying cry that is written throughout the entire the entire project, you know, like, a lot of this is about thinking critically thinking outside of the hive mind, and doing things yourself, even if it's like a bit more challenging that you'll you will, in the end, be better off for it. And that's not to say that, like you, you shan't experiment or try different things. Or if your friend told you to do this, you know, you should feel bad about it. But I think it's just having a critical lens towards why you might like something or why you might want to buy something is something that's been lost out by the feed.

Trey

It's just never placed in the proper context. And I feel because we have such easy access to Google or searching, you know, whatever finding the answer to whatever question you have immediately, that nobody takes the time to really look at how something that they currently see, came to be in like what its forebears were. So for example, like the new I don't know, maze on Marcela show that everyone is like freaking out over because it's like Galliano's big comeback, and the makeup was crazy. And like, men were wearing corsets and it was so theatrical or whatever. This is like a nice example. But I see all these people talking online about it, and like, why it's the best fashion show they've ever seen, and all this stuff, and it is very good. But I feel like people also act like they are experts about it. Because they've quickly Googled, like Galliano and know a couple of things that they can quickly like search on YouTube, or watch a video or two. So I think that everyone because they have such easy access to this information, there's no sort of lens through which it is looked at, other than just like, I'm the expert, listen to me.

Clara

Yeah and I think that that's also weird, like double clique and data dissonance have an interesting overlap. Because I think, in the same way that data dissonance is about sort of like the overload of ability to have numbers that backup your opinion or say whatever it is that you want with sort of like the backing of a statistic, I think that, you know, it's very easy to at this point, sort of put yourself or I don't know, position yourself as being an expert, and being sort of very passively a quote unquote expert on Twitter, quote unquote expert on TikTok without actually having any type of depth of knowledge. And I think to Eli's point earlier to I think that's where a lot of this sort of status, anxiety and insecurity comes from, because I think that even though it's very easy to sort of surface level achieve, looking somewhat literate in culture, it's very hard to actually be literate in culture, it's moving so quickly. And so I think you have a lot of people constantly jockeying amongst themselves to seem like they have, you know, as we sit here, talk about the predictionary whatever, like, seem like they have some type of like, pulse on what's going on. And not to say that that's what we're trying to do here at all. But I do think that it's an interesting, I don't know, parallel between double click and data dissonance, but I think also generally, between like, double click and what we talked about later, with ephemera, just sort of again, that sense of people feeling very insecure in whatever trend they're participating in, and like sort of being in one place and always having one eye on to the next like, this is fleeting, like pickled onion today, tomato tomorrow. Like it doesn't, there isn't a sense of like, Oh, I'm gonna like linger and deeply learn more about this, right?

Trey

Well, and there's no like self awareness either. I know, everybody who is participating in these quote unquote subcultures. thinks they know the most, do you know what I mean? Like everyone's espousing knowledge about whatever topic du jour, but nobody, nobody thinks like, maybe I don't know everything. Yeah. So I feel like that's the big problem, because how do you get out of this thing? Where are you like, you know, how do you get how do you actually develop niche taste or your own kind of personal taste when you think you got it all, so to speak?

Clara

And I think that's kind of the intention with Double Clique is that by participating more intentionally and maybe fewer communities or by being a community, or by being a brand that's being more intentional and more exclusive and fewer spaces, or at fewer moments that you're able to, like, actually give people the opportunity to, like, learn and drill down and experience things at a more sustainable clip, as well. But I think yeah, like that would be the goal. Was that like having more double clicks and fumer fewer ephem-eras? Perhaps? Yeah,

Eli

I mean, one of the things we talk about, and it's been discussed in many think, articles, whatever, and for a couple of years now is just, I think it is unsustainable to keep up with the rate of trends, as I quote, online like it is, you will whip yourself up into a state of vertigo, nausea, whatever, by hopping from pickled red onion girl to gorp guy to whatever. So part of part of the solve might be to, you know, surrender, or rather step back from the trend cycle, or step off line as a whole. Because I think and that's also why Sorry, I'm rambling here, but I think that's also why there's been a shift to more kind of analog technology in general CDs, books. DVD, scrapple.

Clara

Bananagrams.

Eli

Hard cash.

Clara

Bring back pennies!

Trey

What you finish off this, I think chapter with which is this line about how communities and brand and platforms should try and play a little harder to get? Because when everyone everything's kind of better when you have to work for it? That kind of resonated with me a lot.

Clara

Thank you, Trey.

Eli

Yeah, sure. We got to take the spoon away.

Trey

Well, they say Gen Z ers are loving the library. So hopefully that means more than the headlines.

Clara

Hopefully, they're actually reading the library.

Eli

What's all this then? Words? Sound it out? Um.

Trey

Alright, so the new Stand-Ard. What? What is it? What does it mean? Please, tell us.

Clara

Well, Eli, would you like to take this one?

Eli

Sure. We can split it. Can we have shared plates?

Clara

You might mind bringing a couple other napkins. Do you mind bringing couple of forks?

Eli

Yeah, three spoons, three spoons. Thank you. Well, obviously so new standard is split into a couple different sections. But I think the overarching just is that fandom was such a huge topic this year. Obviously, the biggest examples would be like Barbinheimer, and Taylor Swift and the Renaissance tour and the World Cup etc. There's all these kinds of articles about the end, you know, write ups and trend reports about the power of fandom and these collect these moments of collective effervescence, etc. One thing that we wanted to discuss is fandom and how that coincides with the rise of like generative AI in particular, because a lot of the most interesting stories from a brand side this year weren't even products or byproducts of the brand. They were from the they were made from fans. So the big the biggest example of this would be like Balenciaga, Harry Potter or Homer Simpson singing born slippy or gag city, which is essentially a I created sprawling urban environment that was used to promote Nicki Minaj, his new album, so we thought it'd be interesting to explore what happens when the kind of gap between being a fan and creator is wildly diminished. And anyone can make anything with the likeness of any brand or any celebrity and how that might impact kind of fan creator fan celebrity fan brand dynamics. And that would be open source entertainment, where kind of the source code for creating anything. Anything that you want is readily available available to you legally or not. I mean, I think one of the big stories about this year will be probably a crackdown on the availability of some of this content, but in my mind, like the the genie the genies out of the bottle.

Clara

And then on the ephem-era side of femme era, like ephemera ephemera. I think the other thing to come out of this year in terms of like the fandom and other categories collapse was just how loosely fandom and fan has started to be used to describe things that are like not fans and not fandoms and they think that ephem era like all of these whatever to me to go out tomayto girl era, tickle girl era, like mob wife core, whatever those things are that they're basically like can like commercial consumption patterns. They're like she and product categories, they're not really something that's like tangible or that is impactful on culture or that even has like a cultural footprint to speak of other than like an affiliate link. And that I think, is damaging both in terms of just how brands are thinking about these trends and what it means to capitalize on them in the first place. Like, when you tap the mob wave trend, you're not tapping a fandom, like you're not tapping a bunch of girls who are truly invested in this, like you're tapping girls who are like, Oh, this is funny lol for now, I'll buy like eight Shein products because of this, but it isn't something that has like legs, or it has an actual sort of like, I don't know, loyalty element underpinning it that if you don't know, do you know what I mean? That like there's kind of a tooth lessness.

Trey

Yeah.

Clara

I think on both, which is interesting, I guess with the new standard chapter, like one of the words ephemera is more about this sort of, like Toothless fan concept that like fan very loosely applied there. And then on the other side, Osent, which I think is more about changing, like Eli was saying the dynamic of being a fan versus being a creator. And if you, as a fan of a brand have much more power to actually create storytelling around it, and to reinterpret its history and, like, define parts of its legacy. Like, what does that mean, as a brand who's like, looking at these fans who have enormous power now over your IP with AI tools, but then also, you know, as a brand, who's probably concerned about its own sort of, like relevancy, but also copyright? Yeah. You know, and like, what's the right balance to strike there? Yeah, lots to unpack with new standard.

Eli

You get back to the content mind.

Trey

Well, yeah, this is sort of interesting to me, because one, I, again, with double click to, don't think that the creators of these things or participants are that self aware to know that they are literally doing marketing work for these brands, or artists, they are fans of supposedly, like, you are generating so much new content, that whose end goal is to sell a product and you think it is some fun, like cultural thing you can, you know, think this is fun. This is fun. This is a job. But yeah, I That's so strange, like how we are in this hyper capitalist mode, where, you know, producing content as creators, like, you also as a influencer, or aspiring influencer, even probably know how to create your own pitch deck, which are something, you know, tools that are used to sell something to a brand, like, we are now all familiar with this language of marketing, and like, you know, selling things to each other that no cultures kind of immune from, you know, becoming advertising productized, or yeah.

Eli

Which is actually another word ad nauseam, which just talks about how everything and every everything and anything has become advertising. So brands, and I'll get, I want to get back to the point you were making about work, and the content mine, I'll get back to the content mine in a second. Sorry, boss break is over. But yeah, one of the things that we talked about in the first chapter, alternate reality, which is why the internet feels so confusing. And annoying in general, is this phenomenon that we called ad nauseam, which basically just has to do with how the feed has become overly commercialized, where brands are becoming more human. So if you've ever if you've ever taken a scroll through threads, or the TikTok comments, and you know, you're literally in a conversation with Duolingo, or Ritz crackers, or whatever, whose like calling you their bestie, or their umphie, or whatever that is, yeah, exactly. Exactly. That is exhausting. And on the other hand, what you're talking about is like it's not just on the brand side, you have Gen Zers creating pitch decks for themselves, or for to present to their parents for their preferred Christmas gifts. You have people doing, you know, get ready with me as they're like, here's my product hauls which is in essence, like marketing or recommending a product unpaid. So we are like both complaining about the commercialization of the feed, but also adopting kind of habits that brands are doing are adopting the habits of a brand. And Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick, who's a writer, he has a newsletter called The Trend Report was talking about this phenomenon in a recent report where he's like, what happens when you when people become brands, it's like they lose. Well, this is kind of like a tough, tough comparison. But the reason I think why people feel lonely and a loss of community, as he says, it's like the job of a brand is to sell not to befriend. So when you are acting as a brand, whether paid or not on the platform, you are just selling things, you're not really building a tangible, substantive community, which goes to the point of, kind of ephemera is like chasing all of these trends, just leads to hopping from, I was gonna, I was gonna say something bad, hopping from one kind of like, community to the next. But yeah, I think kind of everyone selling something at all times, whether paid or not is a huge problem.

Trey

I think, too, that people don't realize how much power they have in shaping a brand's story or narrative or legacy, I think you were kind of saying earlier, like, the amount of content that you can put out there and create around a brand can supersede what the brand can put out themselves, because no brand wants to actively beg or encourage people to create content, and be seen doing that, because that's, that's lame, yeah. But you know, as a fan of a brand, who has like the IP perhaps and the, the imagination and the AI tools to create whatever you want to say whatever you want about a brand, or musician or something that you're into, you can truly begin to shape a narrative, which we've seen a lot of times in the past, you know, five years or whatever, even if it's like, people who took the B movie and made like memes out of it and brought it back to like streaming platforms or whatever, you know, like, so many different things. But I think that from the brand side, the important thing is to arm your fans cleverly with the assets that they can use to tell a compelling story, and one that aligns with the messaging you want to get across. So you're not like lost in the sauce, so to speak. Yeah, scrambling about how you can get into gigs city are like replied to the Elmo tweet. Yeah, I saw literally yesterday a video on Instagram of this brand that sells honestly this like heinous white boot with like butterflies on it. And it had a side zip and that it was reel and the reel was like first started out with a bunch of comments that was like, Oh, cute. Boop, like the side zip is horrible, hate the sides at blah, blah, blah. And so the brand started out with like that. And then it went into the new boot with the back zip. And they were like we heard all your comments. We like took this back, redid it and now introducing like the boot with a zip at the back and all the comments like oh my gosh, thank you so much for taking our feedback into consideration. Yeah, thanks bestie you're my favorite brand. I forget what brand it was but you know, I think like I was saying people have way more power these days. When you have like a direct connection and drip feed you know, with the brands you love or whatever like you can literally help shape the things you want to see or you know the content that you want someone else to create. It's kind of spooky.

Clara

I'm not gonna name names on this, but I'm imagining that it's happened enough that whatever, anyway, I'm not gonna name names, but there was sort of it was like, early in the generative AI, when people were like, make me a house that looks like it's from Wes Anderson, like that sort of thing where it was like, whatever prompts, and there was a bunch of product from this clothing brand that started to be made. And it was like all really cool, kind of like futuristic II, but looked sort of technically possible, like to create a garment or a shoe that looked like that. And like, when I was looking at the comments was like, Oh, this bit this brand has like really fallen off recently. But wow, like, this stuff is really cool. You know, what, like, where it's like, the legacy of the brand has so much potential and has so much. I don't know, sort of, it's good to say, like, so much life left to give, but like the brand itself, in terms of the product that it's selling just hasn't really managed to break through or like, it doesn't feel like they're having as much of a breakthrough moment. But I'm really curious what Osen will end up meaning for brands like that, that have sort of struggled to find an audience with Gen Z, from like a present day product standpoint, but who have enough of sort of a back catalogue that brands like that fans can sort of start to innovate on it and reinvent it, and whether or not they'll pick any of that up or take any of that as a sign of where the appetite is, too. Because I think that it is such an interesting indication of what people want to see oftentimes, and like what doesn't exist, you know, they'll tell you and they'll show you and they'll make it Yeah, on Instagram I saw so you'd have to just be looking.

Trey

Too much democracy. My platform too much democracy.

Clara

Don't talk to Eli about the democracy in 2025. You're not not gonna like it. That's enough now.

Eli

Well, I mean, one of the things that we discussed like the ramifications of Osen. And this was originally a concept that was pitched as parody, I think by Roger Mal, who's a cultural commentator. He writes about the internet, about the concept of fan unions where like fans are influencing brand product brand campaigns brand taglines, and they are helping to they're providing both economic and cultural capital, I suppose to artists, celebrities, brands, and at what point does, does that stop becoming something that you do for fun and start becoming work? Where you should be fully compensated for? So that's one thing that we discussed. Very briefly, there's a longer form article on that if you're curious to read. But yeah, I think the end result of OSA will be twofold. I think it'll be brands who dip their toes further into the you know, their fans influence everything that they do. And they'll have the, you know, the real about their side zip Tabak zip boot and be super stoked on that. And then there will be, I think brands and creators who closely guard their IP, and who don't want their fans to really influence what they're doing at all. I don't think there's a right answer one way or the other, I think you just have to lean in whichever way you're going to do it.

Trey

Yeah, you're I think you're either like a shaper of worlds. And I think of like Frank Ocean or something who puts out exactly what is true to him, and doesn't really let the fans in, in a way that I don't know, is very meaningful, perhaps. But the fans therefore have like a stronger connection to him because they know exactly what he's about. Versus a you know, a brand or another musician or artist who doesn't have that kind of boundary strength, I suppose. And is like more of a co creator of content, maybe like a Taylor Swift that's just so mainstream, and you can kind of project any idea onto her and it still has like, this Taylor Swift back to power or something. But what does it really saying? And like, Who is she really? You know what I mean?

Clara

Yeah, because I think to that point about osent sort of being a line in the sand. I think Frank Ocean is a really good example. Because I think what it will mean is that if you're a brand who is going to be very like stiff armed about your IP, a brand or an artist who's going to be very stiff armed about your IP, you have to be sort of shaper of world to actually deliver because they think that there was an interesting article that came out about Disney and that sort of capacity recently to but like, if you're going to be that sort of strong arm do you need to be bringing people through like, exciting novel worlds each time and like, I think a lot of the Oh sent Rush is a response to boredom and like being bored by what we were talking about what to men to fail, like being bored by brands relying so heavily on nostalgia, being bored by legacy sort of being used as a crutch, like, all of those things. And so I think it's basically sort of leveling up the bar a little bit to say that like, the sort of middle of the road like, hey, queen, like isn't really enough, like a brand identity to lean on and say, like, oh, no, but like, you can't, you can't like create with us or you can't have license to like, mess around with this brand or like with this, whatever creative project, like it better be really good. If it's going to be protected. Shit better be good. Shit better be good.

Eli

All right. Speaking of good shit, go read the 2024 predictionary we'll drop it in the description, or you could read it directly on www.d1a.com/perspective/predictionary. That is all. Thanks. See you next time.