2024 PREDICTIONS: the tadz trend report
nature's ozempic, dachshunds, bed rotting, and looksmaxxing
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trendspotter tadz here, reporting for duty.
wait, what are your crystal ball qualifications?
i’ve got two:
as a kid i was a black sheep.
black sheep make the best trend forecasters.
their only chance of (social) survival hinges on becoming attuned to the changing winds of culture.
i scanned 160+ trend forecasts for 2024.
from goldman sachs to wgsn. most were dry as hell. so if you’re looking for an analysis of the macroeconomic outlook, this ain’t it.
rather, this is my highly unscientific attempt to make sense of the last year and what it means for the next.
i make no claims of objectivity. in fact, assume i’m pushing my own agenda and 100% biased.
finally, substack got mad at me for trying to add too many footnotes. so if something isn’t cited, apologies. “highly unscientific”, remember?
🚨 warning 🚨
you’re about to dive into a rat’s nest of trends.
taken individually, they’re chaotic and seemingly unrelated.
but zoom out and you’ll see a throughline.
people feel as though they’ve lost all control of their lives and the world at large.
we feel we’re being managed entirely by external forces:
the distraction economy — your feeble brain in a cage match against an army of the smartest engineers in the world
a food system designed to cause overeating
anxiety & depression at all-time highs
unending work demands
information overload
climate crisis
the war(s)
FOMO
we’re grasping for any sense of control.
the top trends of 2024 will be in response to this.
they won’t be uniform — folks cope in different ways.
but viewed through this lens, trends like “be delusional” begin to make sense. they may be a perfectly rational response to the world we’re in.
→ 2024 is the year of weight loss
claims the new consumer1, i agree.
GLP-1 > GPT
we’ve hardly begun to grok the impact this class of drugs (GLP-1 agonists) will have. (2025 update: boy was i wrong)
to name a few:
🛫 cheaper flights
united airlines will save $80 million a year in fuel costs if ozempic is widely adopted.
🛌 a more (sexually) active population
potentially a solution for our looming birthrate crisis?2
🥃 reduced rates of alcoholism
🎰 a salve for gambling addiction3
with the legalization of online betting, gambling addiction is about to skyrocket.
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surely we’ll learn of some hairy side effects down the line (we already are). but for now, i have no problem with celebrities and the ultrawealthy volunteering as guinea pigs.
for those of us who can’t be bothered to get stabbed weekly, other trends will achieve the same means.
🍗 protein:
so hot rn. one example:
cottage cheese
move over tin fish — there’s a new hot girl snack in town.
been on this tip for a minute. while in paris, maja + i perfected our protein crepe recipe — something the french would find abominable, but shit fire (email me if you want the recipe)
🌿 nature’s ozempic
as anyone who’s had one too many protein shakes will tell ya, protein is not without its costs 😶🌫️
which brings us to the next trend: fiber
fiber will benefit from a masterstroke of marketing on behalf of supergut, spinning it as “nature’s ozempic”.
expect to see it in every form: powder, capsules, and of course everyone’s fav vitamin delivery system — gummies.
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🌿 wellness worship
starved for community and increasingly secular — wellness (and huberman) are our new gods.
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🧖♀️ saunas
the lazy man’s workout.
in an era of wellness worship, sauna culture will proliferate.
additionally, with the release of smoke sauna sisterhood, saunas will benefit from a PR lift (just as F1 did from neflix’s drive to survive, though to a lesser degree).
→ MENTAL HEALTH + BELONGING
📓 journaling
it’s about to have a moment. seen an alt to talk therapy.
the viral “shadown work journal” is outselling every book on tiktok (including oprah).
yesterday i saw apple installed a journaling app with my latest iOS update.
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🫦 GPT as a therapist + romantic partner
the movie her, but in real life.
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🎈 a new industry: joy coaches
like most trends, this’ll start with the ultra-wealthy, then trickle down.
nyt bestseller die with zero galvanized this trend: putting your money to work to improve the quality of your life.
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💆♂️ looksmaxxing
we’re well aware of female body dysmorphia. but men’s body dysmorphia? ehh, we (men) would rather not talk about it.
male body dissatisfaction increased 300% in the last 3 decades.4
one in three men say they’re willing to sacrifice a year of their life in exchange for their goal weight.
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🪺 community as a service
more brands like USAL offering community as a service (CaaS?).
→ CULTURE
📲 delete hinge, download duo
dating apps are out.
but on the internet, every app is a dating app.
in 2024 it’ll go down in the DMs more than ever, but also in some unexpected places:
terri russell, 55, and mel chiong, 48, connected over yelp thanks to a macaron bakery review russell posted in 2012. they got married in 2018.
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❌ wokeness is canceled
says i, a card-carrying liberal from portland
the whole thing has become so performative and exhausting that it has lost all its meaning.
we’re back to just judging people, no better than before — just another iteration of “us” versus “them”.
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🪐 megatrend: escapism
recall the loss of control throughline? escapism is the answer for many. a few signals:
“be delusional” trend on tiktok
tropical drinks are trending
fashion getting weird again
bed rotting phenomenon
hopecore
today we’re looking to brands and personalities to give us something to believe in — to inspire.
jacquemus’ surreal campaigns are an example of a brand acing this.
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🌭 dachhunds
dog of the year
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💨 pot is out
the scent of burnt weed in the streets of new york no longer fills me with deviant joy. it just means some bozo bought a couple pre-rolls from the local zaza-r-us.
we’re starting to realize it’s not nearly as benign as we once thought. thanks huber-daddy.
anecdote: after running my 23andme data through a third-party service, i learned i’m prone to cannabanoid-induced psychosis — yikes — those munchies ain’t worth it.
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🕵️♂️ privacy first
with our increasingly online lives, we’re beginning to take privacy concerns seriously at last.
concierge privacy services like blackcloak that monitor your social media presence and notify you if you’ve accidentally doxed yourself.
cybersecurity will finally be taken seriously following a covid level shock to the system after a major cyber attack.
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📱 tiny iphones are in
get your 9 inch iphone pro max outta here.
→ WORK
⚰️ hustle culture out
feel good productivity in.
expect more books like oliver burkman’s 4,000 weeks (a must for any type A person) that espouse a more humane version of productivity.
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💼 continuation of anti-work trend
the lazy girl job, quiet quitting
counter-trend: the rise of hardcore culture like elon’s X
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🌏 offshoring of knowledge work
covid brought widespread remote work culture.
given the trends above and austerity measures, hiring abroad is a logical next step.
headhunting services like support shepard will thrive.
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🗿 monkmode
i nearly choked on my food the other day when an it-girl tried mansplaining monkmode to me. strong signal.
→ TRAVEL
🪷 mindfulness camps + digital detoxing
the #1 reason folks cite for vacations: to relax and recharge
rise in solo retreats
a friend shared their nye plans with me: going solo to a retreat center in costa rica for a booze-free nye spent with strangers.
expect to see more of these, both formally organized or self-facilitated like my opt out of new years ritual.
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🧳 death of the digital nomad
quite possibly the loneliest occupation.
to fill its place is the hub and spoke model (rotating through the same few destinations each year). this addresses the loneliness aspect as with each visit your community in that city compounds rather than starting fresh each time.
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🚄 train travel is in
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💸 experiences money can’t buy
unless you’ve got enough, in which case, services like myria are more than happy to take those stacks off your hands.
a continuation of the die with zero mentality.
→ SOCIAL MEDIA:
🤪 gets more unhinged
treating it as a playground, not a minefield5.
here for it. more unapologetic cringe, please.
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🧑🦯 who we follow and why
increasingly, follows are treated as a doorway. a way for us to position ourselves in someone’s orbit. a person i admire is following them — by following them, i’m brought a tiny bit closer to them.
credit: mørning report
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📝 caption first approach
idgaf about your 3 pasta pics sprinkled amongst photos of inanimate objects + a tasteful thirst trap. but if you’ve got a good caption, i may just like it.
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🧪 the formula your fav meme page uses
lookin at you, nolitadirtbag
A. stretching to fit existing trend
B. makes 8% sense
C. universal through political spectrums
D. multi-reality
E. emoji from a nondescript software
F. bad resolution and crop from oversharing
G. where in the world could this picture have been sourced from?
H. relatable for an inexplicable reason
credit: mørning report
→ OUTDOORS
🦜 birding
2024 is gunna be its year.
…that’s it
→ FOOD + ART
🍝 food + art blend into one
the artists i’m most stoked on these days are all food artists. consider them a new entry point to the art world.
see: laila gohar, joumana, allison jacks
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🥤 affordable luxuries
more small indulgences like the $20 erewhon smoothie as folks cut back on big splurges.
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🍔 smashburgers are out
give me a good ol burger from an institution.
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🍹 rise in tropical cocktails
see: escapism trend
→ FASHION
👯♂️ gets weird again
get fucked quiet luxury.
boots especially are about to get wackyyy.
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▫ dainty watches
no more big bold faces.
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👕 real polo and OG RL
going back to the source that ALD and noah pulled from.
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👖 we’ve hit peak baggy
more skinny silhouettes, a la blog-era nastiness.
tiny shorts back.
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🐄 more leather
bad time to be a cow.
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🌡️ thermal layers are in
→ CLOSING THOUGHTS
well that was fun.
but i have to be honest with you… it’s all mental masturbation for the most part.
predicting what will change is a fun exercise, but a far safer bet is studying what won’t.
morgan housel’s latest book same as ever had a profound impact on how i understand our changing world, counterintuitively arguing you ought to start with what won’t change. it’s given me peace of mind, loosening the stranglehold that news and algorithms once held over me.
one example that drives the point home:
when building amazon, jeff bezos took a different tact than most. rather than trying to predict the changing appetite of consumers, he inverted it. asking himself “what won’t change?”
will customers ever want slower shipping?
worse customer service?
less selection?
from those insights he derived an approach guaranteed to work, so long as he delivered on those promises.
the clarity of focus that provided was invaluable. errr, actually, about $1.5 trillion in value.
welp, that’s it!
til next week,
-t
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I cackled at the „bad time to be a cow”