TR.BIZ: 7.30.2026

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 how Gen Z is using Yelp, what Olivia Rodrigo’s boyfriend means, a viral litter bug in Echo Park, and European racism on Instagram.

Back in February, when Olivia Choi was doing a little internship with me, she wrote a story about Gen Z’s growing drawn to apps and experiences that offered direct recommendations from friends, personal reviews that emphasized relatability. She cited apps like Beli and Letterboxd, noting, “It comes down to the value of a qualified critique: because I know my friends and their specific palates, I inherently trust their recommendations over the consensus of thousands of strangers.” Fair point which, all these months later, we have a further detail from a recommendation site that has been monitoring this feeling: Yelp just dropped a Gen Z deep dive that reviews the demographic’s behavior, discovering that they want details from humans instead of scripted commentary or nebulous “star” ratings. “The survey found Gen Z favors detailed written reviews over influencer recommendations for both dining out (78% vs. 59%) and service professionals (81% vs. 61%),” the report reports. “The survey also found that 77% of Gen Z respondents trust platforms with detailed written reviews over those with only star or numerical ratings when researching services, and 76% feel the same for restaurants.” The findings also explain that this heavy research does not favor AI summaries as Gen Z doesn’t find them trustworthy, instead wanting proof and sources to back up findings. There are plenty more interesting items here, from how they weigh takeout over eating-in and how research is a tool in navigating current economic struggles. Also? They’re using slang in their searches: compared to last year, mentions of “main character energy,” “hundo p,” “girl dinner,” and “maxxing” saw triple digit increases. (They increased by 989%, 273%, 156%, and 137%, respectively.) Keep this in mind in appealing to Gen Z: give details, drop slang, and don’t use AI. Check out the full report here.

I cannot get the Olivia Rodrigo “man in finance” thing out of my head, that she is dating an AI private equity bro and has been seen with him at the airport and in the park — and that this has become a hot topic! Why? I’ve been trying to figure that out as it feels like a big cultural signal? Or something? Cultural workslop, in a way, but also a crawling up and into the mouth (or asshole) of big tech and MBA types, an arrow pointing at who holds power now. Nicole Kidman is in a similar man in finance fling, which brings me to Lady Gaga’s tech entrepreneur boyfriend and Este Haime’s crypto currency husband and Karlie Kloss and her Kushner love affair. This was a subject discussed with João Rodolfo of SIGNALS on the latest HIP REPLACEMENT, as I’m trying to work through why it bugs me — and I think I have a better idea: it not only portends but fully realizes the everything-is-television future we’ve talked about again and again, where not only workers and job hunters have to “audition” for the roles of extras in corporate America but that those with the most economic power are also on camera too — and they’re the stars. The death of Hollywood — or the power vacuum happening in Hollywood now — means that anyone in proximity to power “is a celebrity,” meaning: the MBA-types and finance bros and tech people are no longer “industry players” but Kardashian-adjacent entertainment fodder, the real life stars of Industry. Again: in a workslop world where people fawn over Becca Bloom, a no-name “man in finance” is now at the same level as Olivia Rodrigo. Such a connection suggests that whatever dumbass 1s-and-0s “fake job” he does is at the level of Olivia’s music career. I don’t agree with this assessment, but we “know” such couplings in the public eye are an equalizer of simplistic mirroring: Taylor and Travis connecting means he no longer is just-in-sports but is also an entertainer; Timothée and Kylie connecting means art becomes a technofascist crossovers art expression too; Katy and Justin connecting means politics and entertainment cross-pollinate to create whatever they are. The edges around every industry and profession are blurred, but these couplings might reveal the goal of surveillance summer: to set a respectability caste system, to reveal who is worthy of being watched and in what forms this viewership should take. Are you poor and ugly? Downvote. Are you rich and pretty? Upvote. Are you in tech or finance? Upvote. Are you in retail or hospitality? Downvote. This is the difference between paparazzi (Upvote.) versus “caught on (hidden) camera” (Downvote.). Who knows how far any of these people are dating out of their tax bracket (Maybe Olivia is? Hmm.), but these couplings mean no creative endeavor is worthy when you can win a Kushner: economic upwardness no matter what “is the moat.” Media items like Notting Hill and Pretty Woman, and the more recent Marry Me and The Idea of You, once posited normal people and celebrities were the dream when the reality has become a celebrity is now the “normal one” as their linking up with a titan of industry is the fairy tale. My career in the arts for the golden cow of a finance bro! It’s a fact of human existence that the rich have long married the rich, but now the fantasy of (mainstream) artists craving creative compatability has died a death: why seek a creative equal to inspire you when you can diversify your portfolio?

Sam Altman, if you’re reading this: fuck you. But also? I have some advice, which we outline in the latest Q2 Trend Report™: you need to actively work on being less evil — and you are royally messing this up this task, losing a cultural battle by repeatedly giving us all knives with which to stab you and OpenAI’s reputation with. Let’s count the ways you’re fucking it up culturally this week, shall we? First, you recently spoke about AI essentially being a genie where our wishes “broadly benefit humanity.” Hmm. That was a choice? Second, in response to the issue(s) of ChatGPT agents trying to hack companies, you were “a little surprised” people weren’t as upset about this hacking as they should be. Well. Do you know what we all think of the tech? Third, at the recent Y Combinator Startup School in San Francisco, you explained how AI will enable “no privacy, you will have no agency, you will be a perfect surveillance state, there will be no privacy” and we will be “in the service of AI.” Uh. So! Everyone hates that. While we know tech has pivoted to being evil, reminding why companies like Google removed such guidance from their code of conduct, it’s so clear why the public has soured on this sector: it doesn’t care about us. My advice to them and you, SamA? “Illustrate in real ways how you are not that, that you are pro-people,” I wrote in the Report™. “Lead with actions too.” Dive into the Report™ here and, if you are a paid subscriber, you can grab it for free. Send me a note below! And Sam? If you message me, I will take a dump on my laptop and mail it to you.