I’ve been spotting trends for almost two decades. Trends are hard to figure and harder to tease out. Doing it right means tracking people, social momentum, brands, economies, companies—all in constant motion. But trends also mean business, especially for people in PR; we’ve got to be in and of the culture if we’re going to keep ourselves, our agency and our clients not only current but also thinking ahead. The wealth of material lately is nuts. Here are a few trends I’ve been teasing out of it this summer:
Get surreal. That’s my advice for anyone looking to understand the American psyche, circa 2010. The Onion just released a spot-on video of a cable newscast in 2137 with a sexed-up anchorwoman, states renamed for corporations and video-game graphics. My only quibble is that it’s so far in the future—we’re almost there now. Seriously, a former CNN correspondent told The New York Times that “[a]bout the only funnier cable news is the real stuff.” No one bothers to make things up anymore because real life—brought to us via real-time news—has gotten so bizarre that we need to view it from an ironic distance. (Not to mention that quoting The Onion has become a perfectly legit way to begin a blog post.) Ten years after “Survivor” started, we’ve gotten so used to, and so bored by, reality TV shows turbocharged by 12-step dropouts that it takes new feats of extremism to get our attention. In this age of “Yeah, so?” what would’ve been shocking a few years ago is ho-hum. How did David Letterman end up being hailed as smart and savvy for confessing that he slept with staffers? Does anyone even remember that?
That same distance defines interpersonal relationships. There’s a lack of real intimacy in our era of emo bling (that is, conspicuous displays of emotion). Facebook cuts users off at 5,000 friends—and lots of users (“users,” not “people”) have hit that goal—even though Oxford University professor Robin Dunbar posited that no one can really manage more than 150 relationships. We’ve traded quality for quantity, giving up ties that truly bind in exchange for counting thousands of friends and followers. It’s just like the way we’ve stuck i’s and e’s in front of everything to emphasize their newness but lost the essence of the things themselves. Memberships of face-to-face institutions keep declining, while we gravitate toward pop-up iConnections. Even distance learning means a breakdown in alumni ties—how excited can you get about a website you logged on to or the people you traded comments with?
So we’re craving an antidote to all that. Hyperlocal has become the new global. Local isn’t even local enough; in New York, where I work, people don’t look for news about New York but about the West Village, Williamsburg, Bushwick…. People are fiercely proud they never leave Brooklyn. This is the yin to the yang that is our absence of intimacy. We need to check in right here, not there. Remember when a well-stamped passport was a badge of honor? Now it’s a “mayoralty” on Foursquare.
Finally, dreams of immortality are giving way to reality. (Or is it surreality?) We’re sick of tofu and wheatgrass, of going to the gym and going to bed early. Knowledge is power, but it’s deeply disheartening—we keep finding out about new things that will kill us. Semi-wellness is enough, we say; a life without bacon isn’t worth living. Caloric restriction has been shown to extend longevity, but who wants to sacrifice dessert? Early detection is a mixed blessing—should women have mammograms at 40 or 50? Economists and health experts say a tax on soda will reduce obesity, but the outcry is something fierce. Meanwhile, services such as 23andMe let us swab our cheeks and assess our genetic risk for disease, taking behavior and personal responsibility out of the equation. The health police can go home…but what happens when your test comes back positive? Do doctors figure out lasting treatments that prolong life and play to your strengths? Or does disease profiling become the new racial profiling?
Supersized egos, irony, emotion, fear, social circles—things are still as big as ever. But as hyperlocalization keeps gaining an edge, the transition phase to a simpler life looks like it’s getting shorter. Stay tuned.
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