The Weekly Roundup (week of 5.1)
Can we ever escape the trend cycle? And do we even want to?
1. You’re Locked in a Prison of Trends
This is an old article from September 2022, but I wanted to include it in this week’s roundup because I’ve been thinking a lot about the trend cycle in the age of the internet. This might be the best article I’ve ever seen written about the topic, none other than by Jonah Weiner of BlackBird Spyplane (a writer I aspire to be like). It’s an incredible write-up about the nature of trends, complete with fun graphics to keep your Ritalin-rattled ADHD brain engaged and optimized.
“More subtly, it’s there in our admiration for elders who get off slapping, sui generis fits: Looking at swaggy old ppl, we glimpse a seemingly trend-transcending state where someone 1) no longer cares about what looks “cool” at any given moment, and yet 2) looks mad cool despite not caring. They appear to have somehow stopped playing the game and yet also won it… This is a state that many of us in the jawns-rocking community aspire to, in ways large and small.
But is escape the most useful metaphor here? And if so, is it actually achievable, or is it a crazy-making, paradoxical fantasy? If it is achievable, is it desirable?”
Check it out and subscribe to BlackBird Spyplane if you haven’t already.
2. How to decouple revenue from sales
Another one from Ana Andjelic. In this, she discusses exactly as the title describes which is methods to decouple revenue from sales. Mass commodification, consumer capitalism, and the internet have flattened trend curves and left things feeling saturated and overdone. As a response, brands like Chanel have decided to take an alternate route:
“This is the strategy of decommercialization. For those who can afford it, decommercialization is a unique competitive advantage, brand equity builder, and revenue protector. In the modern economy, everything has become a commodity: art, content, luxury, experiences, heritage, places and people. True brand and business differentiation is in offering the opposite, and building a viable, feasible, and sustainable business model around it. Decomercialization as a business model is based on delivering superior brand value versus just product volume.”
3. We are entering a new age of AI-generated psychedelia
“While logging onto social media obviously isn’t the same as dropping a tab of acid, the internet is innately psychedelic; it bends and distorts our perceptions of time and space, unlike anything that came before it. An extension of our own consciousness, social media has altered our states, carving out untrodden paths for new and imagined realities, while the algorithm guides us like an invisible hand. As consensus reality dissolves, we see fringe ideologies and conspiracy theories enter the mainstream. The Pentagon is investigating UFO sightings using AI-powered probes, while bug-eating conspiracies that originated on 4chan find new channels within international politics. The mainstreaming of AI pushes this unreality further, causing us to question even the most basic truths. Next thing, Donald Trump is arrested on the streets of New York and the Pope is dripped out in Moncler.”
4. Fear of God could grow to $1bn. For Jerry Lorenzo, that’s not the goal.
“In his first press interview as Fear of God CEO, Chang envisions future expansion in staffing, revenues, categories and geographical presence for the brand. Characterising current annual revenues as between $200 million and $300 million, he adds: “As we look forward, we do see a path to half a billion dollars, and then after that, we see a path to a billion dollars.”
Describing those figures as a “marker of progress” rather than be-all, end-all targets, Chang echoes Lorenzo: “Numbers are not what this business is all about: the path ahead will be unique, just as the way in which Jerry has created this brand has been unique.”
Really fascinating article about Fear of God and the actual business. Love it or hate it, you cannot deny that they are in a very strong position. Read more here.