#15 In-N-Out

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Chers readers,

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain

As 2024 comes to a close, we must do our mandatory bit of self-reflection. Produce end-of-year top tens. Generate our predictions for 2025. Manifest a bigger and brighter future. Being in the business of trends, I can’t — and don’t want to — escape the exercise, so without further ado and in no particular order:

• Political apathy, in part to blame for the reelection of Donald Trump as well as the maddeningly slow response to Israël/Palestine/Syria, instability in France, Romania and more, will give way to polite anarchy. Gen Z is realising that being woke in private circles may not lead to actual change. The United Healthcare CEO shooter seems to have reignited class consciousness for many. Even deeply amoral means to an end seem more viable at this point. I deem the shift polite because it’s led by educated, well-meaning groups, not looters.

• 2024 is The Year Creators Took Over per the New Yorker. See: hawk tuah girl launching a media empire, the tradwives renaissance, the U.S. election campaign leveraging podcasters Alex Cooper and Joe Rogan as well as TikTok. Yet, as reported recently, people are dropping out of the creator economy. Even though 57% of Gen Z want to be influencers, the free-for-all era peaked in 2021 and there’s less money to be made. Don’t quit your day job!

• If the 2010s were the me-me-me era (see: personal essays on xoJane, stunt journalism, Into The Gloss Top Shelf, the rise of Instagram), the early 2020s marked a DGAF attitude to digital footprints. See: all the unhinged stuff shared on TikTok, with no concern for “but what if your employer sees your video?” I sense a bit of a pullback to come, with better compartmentalisation between platforms and more anonymity. Let’s bring back campy screen names! Signed, babyprincess89.

• Sure, the word of the year was brain rot. I personally loved the use of “aura” for attractiveness — more elusive, it’s less about how you look than how you’re perceived. What about someone’s imprint? Less appearing, more accomplishing in 2025.

• Pilates and its bastardised cousins Solidcore, Megaformer ruled not only the fitness space but body trends too. Yes, we’re back to being scared of weight training and bulking, as well as idolizing an archetypal leisurely rich white woman. As classes get more expensive and our income stagnates, I’m putting my money on callisthenics. Low investment + high muscle definition.

• Thin is in. Unfortunately, wider access to Ozempic has had an effect wider than body composition: on aesthetics, on the fashion industry, and on dining. I’ve heard a theory on what’s to come: since physiques are about status (fat = rich during times of famine; tan = rich before the advent of paid time off; and today thin = rich when junk food is cheap and Ozempic drugs are still somewhat hard to obtain) you want to look different from the masses to showcase your wealth. To me, the shift in the next ~5 years won’t be fat/thin but easy/hard: if everyone can be skinny with the help of a needle, you’ll need to showcase a level of asceticism and control that only great means and time can afford. Keywords: longevity, testing, orthorexia :(

• AI eats the world. 2025 will bring the next phase in our usage of AI when we learn to tame it instead of chasing the ever-evolving beast.

• Luxury is sinking deeper into a downturn. What now? After years of leading the industry, luxury giants have adopted a similar calendar and output to fast fashion brands. Where’s the value? The exclusivity? Younger fashion lovers are realising we can’t buy their way into personal style. After the microtrend of bag charms, I’m sensing that consumers will put more value in craftsmanship, stories (vintage and beyond) and personal aesthetics beyond trends.

• Fuck small plates supremacy! Media outlets love to report on the fact that younger generations drink less… but I think they simply can’t afford to. All these tiny sharing plates are a scam too. With the rise of a new generation of Martha Stewart wannabes, hosting is coming back. With the flourishes of fun and fancy ingredients, let’s not forget the impact of spending 28 hours a day ingesting aesthetic content via screen.

• Last but not least, I think we’re about to leave the era of ROI über alles. Legacy media, fashion houses and startups alike will have to come to terms that virality is unpredictable and that playing it safe is counterproductive. I’m all for throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks 🍝

—

Let’s also revisit my predictions from last year, which came true for the most part with the glaring exception of financial literacy. Read more if you can’t get enough.

esthermkunofficial

A post shared by @esthermkunofficial

---

📈 Bullish news

• The Perimenopause Gold Rush [The Cut]. Products in the name of wellness for a previously underserved market. Necessary, or a scam? I wrote about fitness and femtech in September.

• 2024 was the year more women's sports franchises finally started to cross the $100 million mark. Experts forecast the value of WNBA and NWSL teams to increase by at least $1.6 billion over the next 3 years [Axios].

• Young Men Are Making Risky Bets on Crypto and Politics—and Raking It In Right Now [WSJ]. 42% of men ages 18 to 29 invested in or used crypto, versus 17% of women of that age.

• How the American Express CMO turned credit cards into Gen Z’s passport to culture [Fast Company]. In 2023, 60% of new global accounts were Gen Z or millennials (despite collectively only comprising some 42% of the U.S. population), and they made up 75% of new Gold and Platinum accounts.

• Wall Street Is Betting Billions on Rental Homes as Ownership Slips Out of Reach [WSJ]

• Melinda French Gates Commits $150M to Help Women Thrive at Work [Pivotal Ventures]. Nearly 1/3 of the cash is going toward advancing women in AI and the tech industry.

• For the first nine months of 2024, Reddit’s licensing revenue grew to $81.6M, up from $12.3M a year earlier [WSJ]. AI companies are paying for access to its data.

• Hailey Bieber’s Rhode took in $40M in revenue in November [Puck]

• Sofia Coppola is starting a publishing imprint [Mack]

• Lastly, if fashion’s musical chairs left you giddy, here’s the tl;dr. Matthieu Blazy left Bottega Veneta for Chanel; Louise Trotter left Carven for Bottega Veneta; John Galliano left Maison Margiela.

📉 Bearish news

• AI Friendships Claim To Cure Loneliness. Some Are Ending In Suicide. [WaPo]. In September, the average user on Character.ai spent 93 minutes a day talking to one of its user-generated chatbots, which is 18 minutes longer than the average user spent on TikTok, and nearly eight times longer than the average user spent on ChatGPT. On the topic: Hinge CEO: Searching for a partner in real life won’t ‘hold a candle to’ meeting online with AI [Semafor]. If you’re new here: here’s my take on AI for dating.

• In 2024, the global personal luxury goods market lost 50 million consumers [Vogue Business]. Here’s the Future of Luxury report, shared by Laurent François.