Welcome to The Trend Report: Business Edition™, a midweek look at top stories, trends, and more of what’s happening online and off by Kyle of The Trend Report™. Today, we’re talking two dueling issues between Israel and America, dissecting what recent horror movies say about culture now, getting Christopher Nolan’s take on Gen Z, and looking at Dr. Bronner’s winning pro-DEI strategy.
We’re in the midst of quarterly report season, with brands like Yelp having dropped their thoughts as we anticipate the latest big drop from Lyst. In the interim, little ole me has a Q2 review to share with you all: the latest Trend Report: Trend Report™, which is available now. To give you an idea of what to expect, I did a more-than-an-hour live last week where I break down every section and essay included in the 70+ pages: give it a watch here. If you have a paid subscription, send me a note or reply to this message and I’ll DM you the full report 💋
Similarly!! But also very specifically: if you are in Barcelona next week, for the evening of July 22 (DATE BEING TWEAKED: Will update momentarily!), Nicolas Cevallos and I will be in conversation with mar vallverdú to launch Culture Slop at the super cutesy books-and-magazine shop Terranova. There will be free drinks and free issues of the magazine, along with una charla sobre SLOP. Come say hello! And bring a fan because it will probably be HOT!!!! You can RSVP here or at the link below ⤵️
Now…back to regular TR.BIZ programming!!
Two big dramas are happening in and around Israel right now, one more “important” than the other, but both very grim reflections of the 2020s.
California congressman, Ro Khanna, was recently detained in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “What happened was unprecedented,” Khanna said on Meet The Press. “They had violent settlers detain American citizens, including an American government official. You had these settlers brandishing M4 [rifles], kicking the tires of our van, laughing at us, mocking at us, videotaping us.” The situation happened within the span of 20 minutes, but has come to represent — and further expose — Israeli imperialism and the lack of meaningful respect Israel has for America and Americans. “As Ro points out, this is an everyday experience for Palestinians,” Rachel Cohen explained on TikTok. “Since 2020, not a single Israeli settler has been found responsible for a Palestinian civilian, despite the fact that, between January 2017 and September 2025, 1500 Palestinians were murdered by Israeli settlers.” This should be considered a big geopolitical incident but, given how intertwined the regimes of Netanyahu and Trump are, something like this is slipping through the cracks.
In a very different corner, specifically around the clubs of Tel Aviv, everyone’s favorite looksmaxxing moron, Clavicular, is imperialmaxxing by broadcasting a “not propaganda” trip to the country’s capital. What looked like the main offense here was his his being seen out with Shira Braun, an IDF soldier who runs the Israeli military’s TikTok account. The event got her in trouble because Clav is associated with anti-semitic creators, which would seem like a big deal if…he didn’t literally have dinner with Netanyahu’s team who want to broker a collaboration between the leader and himself. Clav is claiming all of this is “by coincidence,” that this plays into his “geomaxing” dating strategy, but know evil snakes are eating their flaming tails. What a miserable statement on the state of creation and celebrity.
Do not laugh at me, but I finally saw Obsession and Backrooms (which I saw with Cris, who has some brilliant thoughts on the film — and hopefully will write about it!!). One I was blown away with and the other I thought was really, really okay — but both speak to trends that have been sticky in my mind. Let me explain, by breaking down the one I liked not-as-much before looking at the one I am out of my mind obsessed with. Some minor spoilers for these two below but I don’t think they really spoil anything: this is a warning regardless!!
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