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- [00:04]
A
Where did you spend your Christmas and New Year's? Were you in New York or were you in Miami or. Miami, yeah. And you, are you back in New York or are you.
- [00:13]
B
I'm in New York, yeah. You see there's no light.
- [00:16]
A
Yeah, there's no light. That's right.
- [00:20]
B
Have you been outside today? It's cold and it's wind. Good to see you.
- [00:26]
A
Yeah, good to see you.
- [00:27]
B
Excited for this conversation.
- [00:37]
A
Cool. So today what we are talking about is the very topic of our podcast makers, how brands influence culture. And specifically we actually, I realized while, you know, when Anna, you and I were chit chatting over WhatsApp about what to talk about, we never actually talked about, you know, what are the brands that we think are influencing the Influencing culture. And what I thought we could, where we could start is when we say culture, what does that mean? I mean it's a sort of an obvious word. You know, we talk about it quite a bit and it's such part of everyday conversation that I actually didn't think about what culture means. And not to get too academic, but just so that you and I have a common language that we're speaking about or even like different, different perspective on, on culture in general, you know, what do we mean by culture?
- [01:30]
B
So welcome everyone. Not to overwhelm you with light topics that, yes, ground running, like let's define culture. Do you know there is entire area of like cultural sociology, cultural studies. But no, I think that's a great, I think that's a great question. So let's start with you.
- [01:48]
A
Yeah, I'm a trained cultural sociologist. You know, you, you have a degree in it, I've been part of it and I've been in an industry that either influence, shape or at least be part of it one way or another. So a couple of things that come to my mind when I think about culture, and this is a very non scientific way of talking about culture, is that I think for something to be cultural, it needs to be in the general public conversation. So not just like, you know, within a small closed sector between the industry friends or what have you. But I think it needs to break out of a certain small circle so that, let's say, you know, would my mom know about it or would my parents know about it? What would my relative who has nothing to do with marketing or branding or the industry that we live in. So I think he needs to, for something to have cultural influence that it needs to writ out of the closed circle where it started. So that would be one thing, another thing Is, do people lust aster? You know, does it create desire? So do people want it? Whether it's music or whether it's a product or whether it's entertainment or whether it's a restaurant or what have you. Do people desire that thing? And I think that's what. What means to be cultural or to have cultural influence. Those. Those are the two first things that, you know, as we were, as I was thinking about what do I talk about? What. What are the. The company's brands and things that. That. That I think have cultural influence. So I'll stop there. What. What's your take on, particularly from a sociological perspective?
- [03:37]
B
Yeah, yeah. Well, this is. I'll get to that. But I first want to sort of address what you said, that it needs to break. So you basically say only mass culture is culture because you're saying whatever is like. But I think, like, let's. Let's dive deep into that. Relevant for brands and it's your behavior.
- [03:57]
A
Yeah.
- [03:58]
B
So basically I would argue that micro. And that whatever the conversation is, whatever the influences are on that microscope scale and the niche scale and even subculture.
- [04:11]
A
Yeah.
- [04:12]
B
KL is what make this culture as aggregation of those niches. There is no monoculture anymore. So now I know you didn't mean that.
- [04:23]
A
So maybe one thing that I was gonna mention, and I'm glad that you bring that up because, like, what culture used to be when I was growing up versus now, I think it was a lot simpler 20, 30 years when I was a teenager, you know, 30 years ago, because the media landscape was much simpler. And what my parents knew in terms of, like, TV programs that they watch or whatever is in the news and what I knew, the distance between what I knew and what I was into and what they knew, it was much closer. Whereas now, like, I have a very vague idea of what my teenage kids are into. But, like, unless I really dig deep into it and, like, there's so many, to your point, you know, micro cultures or subcultures that are out there that I have no idea until I click into a TikTok video or I click into a link or I go into Reddit. You know, there's so many micro cultures, infinite number of micro cultures, that maybe only a hundred people are enthusiastic about it. But there's a Rabbit fan base. I do think that it needs to be more than just one person talking about something. Like, it needs to have some kind of aggregation of people who are interested in that topic. But what culture used to be and what culture is now, I think it's much more complicated and much more fragmenting than it used to be.
- [05:52]
B
Yeah. And then going to the second one, you said desirability.
- [05:57]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [05:58]
B
Like, I think this is a good father for me to start. Because when I look at it, there is no one culture. There are cultures. That's first how I think about it, and then second of all, it's. I look from. As a sociologist, as ecologist, I look from influence perspective. We never make decisions in isolation from each other. We never make decisions in isolation from the context, the website design, the TikTok aesthetic, the store design. We are influenced. We don't live in a vacuum. Human beings. We are influenced by design of stuff, and we are influenced by each other. So that's how I think about culture. It's about what are the streams of influence, basically. So you can be influenced by Bread Summer aesthetics.
- [06:54]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [06:55]
B
Behavior or a vibe. The mood or the mule mood, but that is his specific aesthetic attached to it. Or you can just. Like, if you live in New York and you live downtown, you're going to be influenced by completely different things than you take subway and you go up, like, up uptown. And so basically, that's what I'm talking about. What are the sources of influence?
- [07:17]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [07:18]
B
That we are exposed. And what are the dominant sources of influence? So, obviously, you know how in monoculture, you had, like, magazines and editors and. And that's what we talked about, how it all got fragmented, that there is not one center. There are gazillion celebrities. And I would even say if there is one person who is doing something relevant, like, let's say, Basquiat or even, let's say those very obscure designers or artists, and no one knows about that at that time. And then later, 20, 30 years later, they hit into the right cultural mood, which means the mindset, the behaviors, the aesthetic influences are right for that to kind of gain traction, then it can become part of culture.
- [08:05]
A
Yeah, yeah. So I want to pick one topic that you mentioned, which is Brad or Brad Summer. And that became kind of a thing in 2024, you know, including, I think, Kamala Harris sort of adopting it as part of her campaign. And that was like one rabbit hole that I went during the break. I guess what was fascinating was how it became such a thing, a cultural thing, in a relatively short amount of time. And it broke out of the music circle, and it went into so many different directions. And it's an unusual thing, and I think it has a sort of an unexpected cultural impact that I don't know if Like Charlie xcx, if she had intended it or if it was like way beyond her expectation.
- [08:56]
B
Yeah, I think that's a great point. And I would recommend everyone to read Grace Gordon's unpacking of that bread campaign. She published it on my newsletter on the sociology of business. And I'm bringing it up because that is a masterclass in brand building and the masterclass in brand communication Ray. Because what she did, she used irl, like what were. Like what was happening in terms of communities and what people are talking about and what was actually in physical world to make her album gain traction globally. So rather than us unpacking here, I mean, Grace did such a. By the way, you guys should also follow Grace Gordon. She has a fantastic newsletter. So I would just recommend that. That, like, we're not going to surpass the quality of her analysis. But I think that's a great example of the modern brand building, which of hit making. At the end of the day, when you have to do a lot of small things that poking culture in order to create one program that may or may not.
- [10:12]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [10:13]
B
Explode. So what I'm personally most interested in, can that be reversed, engineered so you hit success every time.
- [10:21]
A
Yeah. So do you want to start talking about specific brands or organizations or companies or. Or even individuals and, you know, we don't. Once we start unpacking it, I'm sure we can come up with a lot of different types of brands and entities that are having some cultural impact. I have a few on my list that I was thinking about, and then maybe we can just kind of compare the list. So let's.
- [10:45]
B
Let's do it. Let's do it.
- [10:46]
A
Yeah. All right. So the first one, not in any specific order, maybe from the scale I said, the biggest one, the first one that came to my mind was Netflix. So Netflix as a technological company, that's a company that's been around for two plus decades now, they morphed, you know, from one type of technology company to a different technology company. Yeah. So they kept themselves to be relevant as a service. You know, they could have gone away if they didn't evolve. Right. And it's a company that consistently have been able to produce hit content several times a year and then multiple years throughout. And then some of them become global culture hits. Some of them might be more local, but they, they. I think that's one of the companies that's been able to create cultural hits consistently at scale.
- [11:49]
B
I like that. And that, like, sort of drives me into what I'm seeing and what we're going to see more. So Netflix built its streaming business on the, on algorithm and basically on algorithmic recommendations and to such a level. And I mean it's, it's famous how they tag their content and tag their audience and then, then, then fit tags together. And I think that we are now going like people are sort of anti algorithm, anti AI. And I mean it's not new people have been anti algorithm for, for the past five years. But I think the power of individual taste, individual recommendations and taste makers is something people recommending to people without AI, without any algorithm. We are going to see more of that. And you're seeing that a lot at substack now. And substack has grown incredibly in the past year. And when you have all those fashion substack, beauty substack furniture substack, it's literally people recommending to people and you have imperfectly perfect. And that is a service of literally just people getting together and without any optimization algorithmic AI anything. So I think not that Netflix is going to suffer at all, but you will have the obscure, the paid wall that the taste driven the micro.
- [13:26]
A
Yeah, slightly a different topic but as it relates to Netflix and where sort of industries interact with each other. So for instance, a couple years ago, succession was a pretty big hit, right. Like two, three, four years ago. And around that time quiet luxury also became a bit of a thing. And like at that time I wasn't really tracking it. But did one influence the other?
- [13:56]
B
No, I think they, they, they had the same bad influence. There is like a mood was right. It was like eat the rich mood because there was triangle of sadness, there was succession, there were white law tools. Yes, succession came first, but it all came in the same cultural mood of, of eat the rich of backlash against ostentious displays of wealth, white luxury and succession at the same time. Succession poking fun. Look, if they're like that, we have nothing to aspire to.
- [14:26]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [14:27]
B
So it came from the same place. And the other thing is I see like look with Netflix Algorithm, Netflix Algorithm tell it that they need to put Nicole kidman in the 17 same roles of a matriarch with a king or whatnot. You know, so that's what we are seeing a lot. And I do think that like that crafted and human is really. We are going to see like a great bifurcation in that sense.
- [14:52]
A
Yeah, yeah. So that's the first one. The second one kind of derivative in terms of technology, but in a different, completely different way is OpenAI as a technological Platform. And the reason, it's, it's sort of an obvious one, but I thought I needed to mention it because I think it's changing the behavior of people. Like how they look for things and even like how they think about things. Yeah. So like I remember about. So I started teaching out of graduate school maybe about seven or eight years ago, and one of the professors, and I didn't talk to that professor directly, but I heard, I read her post or I read her interview somewhere and she was talking about how students, young students in their late teens, early 20s, the way they organize files on their computers is completely different in that they don't organize at all. And I noticed with my daughter, who's 15 as well, is that she has very little concept of folders on a computer, like the folders and directories. Yeah. And because the reason why is that they find everything through search so they just hit command space or whatever the key command is to look for that specific file or document and then that's how they navigate. Like I don't know if you don't.
- [16:26]
B
Know what you're looking for, if you don't know exact, or you have a vague idea that you know.
- [16:32]
A
Yeah, but that's how they, I mean you can look for either by name, type of content or any names on.
- [16:38]
B
Any of my files or anything. So that's like.
- [16:41]
A
So are you, are you a type of person who like meticulously organize your files or. No.
- [16:46]
B
So, but, so how do you, how do you find, how do you find Extent. But it lives all over the place. I'm like that, like search. But then often like I don't remember, like it's, it's very convoluted. It's more like you have to use all those hacks to start to try to remember because it's also enough if you remember a word that was in a document, you don't need to remember the name. That's, that's fun. I like that.
- [17:09]
A
The point is, is that like technology changes the way people behave and even like the way they intellectually or mentally organize information in their head.
- [17:23]
B
Absolutely.
- [17:23]
A
So yeah, there's a clear cognitive difference between somebody who's a 40 year old versus somebody who's a 14 year old. And even though we are same human beings because of the way we interact with media and the way we interact with technology, it literally wires us differently.
- [17:45]
B
Absolutely. And honestly, Ray, it's also by design and by values that are designed into technology, which is if everything is. Hey chatgpt, tell me XYZ then that is going to be the preferred interface. And when you had like with the books you had linearity. And I think we have a lot of problems with progression and linearity these days because the way things are organized are more waterfall. It's more like biological of garden. Like something happens slowly and then all at once. That's how social influence actually works. When you have those information cascades and it's not linear, the more of the thing is not going to get you to a tipping point. It's basically the quality of the nodes and so on.
- [18:34]
A
Right.
- [18:34]
B
So I think we are going to see way more and I think it's not just cognitive. By the way, there is a writer, Andy Clark, who wrote a book about distributed cognition which means how those. How between us and a computer and the Internet. Try writing something without having Internet available.
- [18:53]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [18:54]
B
Just knowing it's available, you know.
- [18:56]
A
Yeah.
- [18:56]
B
Or with our cars, how they became like total media before it was like a gazillion buttons to push.
- [19:03]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [19:04]
B
You know, and so in a sense it's kind of like that, that changes how we think about things and yeah. Cognition. But it also changes how we socialize.
- [19:14]
A
Yeah. You know, once, speaking of socialization, one thing that I wonder now that we are the main interface is changing from a search box, input box to a chat window. Over the past say you know, 10 to 20 years or so, I think the way we talk to each other, particularly through text and particularly like again with my teenage kids, like they are much more, I don't want to say rude but very like Curtis. So they just like text you with, you know, reply to you with yes, no, maybe. Cool. Like very curt, you know, and I wonder, I wonder that because like when you are searching say on Google that you just put you know, a sequence of words to look for information. Whereas now like if you use using ChatGPT or whatever you have to type in a sentence, like you have to give it a prompt and a better prompt you put in the better answer you get. So I wonder, I think you're reading.
- [20:21]
B
Too much into it. I think you're just like over attention deficit. I think it's just overwhelming attention deficit and also like the emojis used and so on. So I think like yeah, keep thinking about it. Maybe it, maybe it get. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe it's combination of all those things, you know. But I think that's a really good point point when you say I think maybe it does evolve in, in, in at the same time. What I strongly Am believe and I'm seeing is when you know how everything is so fast and cheap thanks to AI that now with the same thing as that. That taste, individual taste and curators, you literally have, like, craft and handmade again. And I know we had that since. For the past 10 years, but I do think, again, there is going to be that differentiation between fast and cheap, and there is going to be different. I think that we are going to experience a new genre, which is human.
- [21:19]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [21:20]
B
And that's going to be a separate genre versus the rest. What's going on in culture, in material culture, in visual culture. You name it.
- [21:28]
A
Yeah. Okay. So that was the second one, the third one that I have. It's completely in a different direction. And I may have missed mentioned this in another conversation. And this is in the apparel slash fashion world, so it's more in your world than mine. But this tiny, tiny brand called Human Made and.
- [21:45]
B
Oh, I love Human Made. That's Pharrell's brand. It's a. Yeah, they're amazing.
- [21:51]
A
Yeah, it's been around for quite some time, I think for about 15 years or so. But in the last three years, they've grown three, four times. And a friend of mine is actually a CEO who went from Uniqlo maybe about four years ago, and then he joined as a CEO and now he's become a CEO. But he. Yeah, he's doing things. He's not doing, like, splashy big things, but he's doing, like, little things that are helping the company and the brand grow pretty quickly. And again, like, he's not doing anything fancy. But they are now selling in over 80 different countries. They only have stores in, like, Japan and one in Korea and one in Hong Kong, but they sell. They ship to over 80 different countries. Like, they have. They have customers from around the world. And in the last three, four years or so, they've managed to create a kind of traction just by doing. And, you know, this is. This kind of goes back to one of the topics that I was talking about in the last episode was boring is a new core. Like doing boring things, like mundane things, but like creating cultural consistency between the brand and the customers or the fans. And it's like slowly but relatively quickly. It's not. It's not like exponential, but I mean, they grew three, four times in the last three years. You know, so they're doing something right. And it's. It's creating that cultural relevance.
- [23:30]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And I think array that these are one of those brands that have cultural relevance among Those who are in the know, the tastemakers, the gatekeepers almost. Because you know how Internet always was like for Internet democratization, let's get rid of gatekeepers, Everything for everyone. And now you get those answers. Yes, no, maybe. Because everyone is like so overwhelmed with like content, with products, with options, too much choice. And so now everyone is literally like, tell me. Yeah, what to buy, what to watch, where to go. Because, you know, it's just so I. That's why I also think is just the premise of information space with no gatekeepers is naturally gonna give you gatekeepers if you work in cultural industries. So I do think that human race is one of those brands that by no means want to be mass brands.
- [24:25]
A
No, no, they're not trying to be. In one of the conversations that we had, and I think this was the last conversation where you mentioned the return of the middle. I think in the past, say 10 plus years or so, every brand, once they reached a certain scale, the only option was for them to grow, grow, grow. You know, and that may be one of the reasons why like luxury started to lose its plot. Because like, how can you be luxury if you had to be available to millions of people? And everybody has the same thing. Like it's not, you know, it's, it doesn't have that exclusivity factor. So like in the past 10 years, there was this narrative of growth and reaching scale and there was that kind of pressure for big brands to grow, grow, grow.
- [25:15]
B
Yeah. Is it a narrative or is it the economics?
- [25:18]
A
I think it's actually, it's economic. Well, maybe it's economics, but also I think economics started to become partially a narrative. And I wonder if for sure.
- [25:29]
B
But I would argue that the growth model was created by this constraining financial structures which said only that you can grow by creating more. And the big is good, but definitely narrative always needs to cover economics.
- [25:47]
A
Yeah. Yeah. So I think like an example like human made. I'm super interested because I think and there's room for a me small to medium brands to not just survive, but thrive.
- [26:03]
B
Yeah.
- [26:04]
A
Moving forward. And I think those are the, the real interesting ones to. To watch. And even if they don't become a mass brand.
- [26:14]
B
Yes.
- [26:14]
A
They still, you know, there's still enough. Yeah. There's still enough scale for their business to, to succeed. And they in some cases might start to gain more cultural influence.
- [26:30]
B
I think that's a combination of those tastemakers and those brands and then aggregation of niches across the globe. But they need, they have endorsement of tastemakers instead of having Google Ads, meta ads, giant campaigns and giant media buys because you know the market was created by those who can afford to reach a giant number of people relatively.
- [26:57]
A
So. Okay, so that was my third example. So you know I'm kind of going from like technology to technology driven or technology influenced human behavior with OpenAI human made is an example of a relatively small brand gaining cultural influence and cultural traction. And then the next one that I have, well actually I have two more. One is Hybe Entertainment. It's a Korean music entertainment company and it's basically the company that produces K pop.
- [27:28]
B
Amazing, let's talk about that.
- [27:30]
A
That's not my domain of expertise but I do find this company quite fascinating because on multiple reasons, for multiple reasons. One is that almost single handedly this company in the past 10 to 2010 to 15 years created this K pop genre and they've managed to not only scale it but sustain it for quite a few years and then repeat it. And I was actually listening to an interview with a K pop artist. I guess she's part of blackpink and she used to go by Rosie but now she goes by Ros. She just you know released her own album and she was talking about like the training that she went through to become a K pop star. And it's, it's grew like she would start training at 9, 9:30 and every day train until 2 o'clock in the morning she gets one. She got one day off every two weeks and then and did that for like four years before she became she, before she debuted. And then you know blackpink became, became an instant success. But they repeat this kind of cycle and they just keep producing these K pop artisan stars who are essentially like produced and even manufactured.
- [28:55]
B
But isn't that the case like with the music industry in general with like NSYNC in a sense here or like Disney stars how they put them on track like that goes from having a show to music career.
- [29:08]
A
This is on a different, this is.
- [29:10]
B
On a different level, on a different, on accelerated.
- [29:13]
A
Accelerated. Much more intense and like they've been able to replicate the success found the.
- [29:22]
B
Best practice in just industrial like it's assembly line basically.
- [29:26]
A
And I, I don't necessarily subscribe to that. That way of working or that way of training. And I don't know if it's good for these kids to go through that.
- [29:35]
B
What do you think? Make a wild guess here.
- [29:38]
A
Yes, exactly. You make a lot of guess. Exactly right. You know that's behind.
- [29:42]
B
How do you create tennis stars? They just do one thing since they're like five, you know.
- [29:47]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I, I am impressed and I am fascinated by a company like Hive Entertainment that specializes in producing cultural entertainment entity and content on a regular basis and succeed at, at scale. And then, you know, they're, they're, I mean, movie studios and there's so many, you know, music labels and there's so many companies that have done that for many, many years. But it's, it's a new kind of entertainment company.
- [30:20]
B
And I think it's actually fascinating because you know how like in Hollywood it was like, oh, nobody knows anything. In a sense, you don't know if your movie or, or TV show is going to be a hit or not. And I guess they take like guessing out of it because they kind of reverse engineering that cultural influence and they're saying, hey, if we train those people, if you listen to data and that's going to do well. They're just basically producing the same thing. So the upside is you can really quickly create stars. And I guess the downside is how much of that you become risk averse.
- [30:56]
A
No, they've, they've been able to figure out what that system or what the formula, formula of creating culture hits is. Yeah. And again, like I said, I don't know. The formula that they have is ne. I mean it's certainly working. I don't know if it's a good formula for these kids specifically.
- [31:15]
B
Yeah, but they have like luxury brand deals and everyone knows them around the world. Like, you know, it's, it's kind of crazy level, as you say.
- [31:23]
A
Yeah, this, this company, I think it's, it's going to, and I wonder how, you know, in 10 years time whether they would have the same level of cultural influence that they have now.
- [31:34]
B
Correct. And I think that's based what we talked before. It's kind of like if this is super AI, like super algorithm, like super manufacturer, is there going to be a backlash across creative industries? Because maybe we are seeing that now on a very small scale, like people recommending themselves or like those tastemakers in going for independent designers or handmade stuff and so on. Is that going to happen on a level of the global music industry when you're going to want to find the complete unknown, you know, like literally, is it like a small independent movie going to find distribution? Because look what a 24 is doing. And that gets me to what, what My, my observation is that more and more and more brands are in the business of producing everything. In a sense. It's that Universe, that creative universe. That's the thing. So brands want to own the whole experience. It's not just for a 24. Enough to be a distributor. No, they produce movies, but then they create a membership program. They create merch, they create zines, they create popcorn condiments that you get. So they own the entire experience around their core product and service. So I think more and more brands are going to be doing that. Just basically, what are we playing with? Let's own everything around it.
- [33:01]
A
Yeah.
- [33:01]
B
Let's close the loop of the experience around it.
- [33:04]
A
Yeah. And then my last one is this is sort of a category as opposed to a specific brand or specific theme. But I think it's. It's something that didn't necessarily exist that much or maybe did, but people as brands.
- [33:17]
B
Yes. Unbelievably personal branding has exploded.
- [33:23]
A
Yeah.
- [33:24]
B
Not last year, in the past few years, but it's been accelerating so much.
- [33:29]
A
It's one of those things that, like, it was happening for a long time. Mean, you know, celebrities existed for a long time anyway in the old times, you know, in the traditional times on TV and what. Whatever. And I think when the, the Internet started to become a thing 20 years ago. Yeah. You know, there were these Internet celebrities and, and those characters. But like, it's really like in the past three to five years, it just like went exponentially. And that influence. Yeah.
- [33:59]
B
And going back to what we were talking, it's basically how technology, because when you had mass media, you had mass celebrities, and then there was reality TV at parallel with the beginning of the Internet 90s, but really like later and now it's like with TikTok, literally every person has audience. And if you have audience, you're. But you're not a celebrity. But you can be.
- [34:24]
A
Yeah, exactly. You can be a mini celebrity. You know, you can have 10,000 followers or 100,000 followers. And you know, they're gazillion mini micro influencers with a hundred thousand followers or around that number. And that's still, you know, it's not a huge number, but it's still big enough for whatever that they're doing, you know.
- [34:41]
B
Right, exactly. So I think it's, again, the media and technology really shape that behavior.
- [34:46]
A
I think we all knew that these influencers do have influence, but, you know, not to turn this into a political conversation, but I don't think a lot of people realize how much influence one person can now have. And, you know, that's why we have now the president elect that we have, whether we like it or not. And I think a lot of people underestimated the power of personal brands within the past year or two. And he just like shot up to the level that I don't think a lot of people expected. So that's my last one. So just to recap, I had Netflix, you know, this technology platform, OpenAI, this is interaction behavior. Human made is this boutique brand having influence. Hive Entertainment, a company that's systematically producing culture and then personal brands or the power of personal brands at a new height that a lot of people didn't expect a year year ago.
- [35:47]
B
And then on my end there was anti AI of recommendations and algorithmic recommendations. So in a sense of taste making and taste, individual taste are bad. It's Human Made and Human Recommended. And then it's also building those consistent brand worlds at the scale, I guess that we haven't like the retail and other areas, they're all merging together. So even no matter what, everyone is entertainment, that's what we've seen last year, maybe year before. That's accelerating. But it's also, it's not about the product and service. It's about literally the experience you create in culture and how much of that experience you. You get own. So which is going like, you know how we were always saying 10 years ago, lifestyle brands. Well, now it's literally door to door, like back to back. The loop has been closed. You don't need to leave a 24 universe at all, which is going back again to those taste communities. Because it's not for everyone by design, which is again that return of the middle.
- [37:04]
A
Yeah.
- [37:04]
B
And I think we're going to have a lot of unexpected trends like, like we had last year because basically social media by design just allow random things to pick steam if they hit the right mood.
- [37:20]
A
Yeah. It's a lot more unpredictable than it used to be.
- [37:23]
B
Unbelievably so. And it is because the social influence, cultural markets are taste markets and taste is something that it's social and we are so socially influenced by each other. That is completely unpredictable how that influence is going to spread.
- [37:38]
A
It'll be interesting to do like at the end of last year we did the, you know, patterns and predictions for the following year. You'll be interested in December 2025 look back and what were the unexpected trends or unexpected trends?
- [37:53]
B
Yeah, let's definitely do that. Let's definitely do that when we do that. I would love that. Absolutely. And then the final thing, it's basically, I think that we are going to see a lot more safety in culture in a sense, like the brand even more than before. Brands are going to play even more safe. Like, you know how like maybe four or five years ago it was, you know, like all sorts of equalities, also of political statements. And then there was a gigantic backlash. And I think we have overall big backlash in culture, in society towards conservativism. So you're not going to be. Have controversial celebrities, controversial statements, controversial aesthetics. No, I see.
- [38:38]
A
I need to. I need to chew on that. I need to think about. There's a lot to think about there.
- [38:42]
B
You know, I think risk aversion is going to be big.
- [38:46]
A
Interesting. That's not. This could be a whole different conversation. But does that make things more boring?
- [38:53]
B
I think absolutely. But it also makes like, it's kind of cancel proof, you know, cancel proof. So, yeah, let's see. That is sort of like, that's what I'm seeing because there's too much backlash and because of personal brands, personal influence and because backlashes can explode as much as success as brands are going to want to maximize successes like your hype factory and minimize. So that's why they're going to stay within algorithmic aesthetics and whatnot.
- [39:24]
A
Right, right, right, right. Yeah.
- [39:25]
B
Let's see. I don't know. I don't know. Let's keep. Let's keep monitoring.
- [39:29]
A
Let's keep monitoring. Yeah. Did we want to do a hit list? Separate hit list?
- [39:33]
B
Yeah, sure. Go first.
- [39:36]
A
This is just a tiny one. I came across this Instagram account, and it's a photographer who's actually producing AI photography. And what he does is combine. And for those of those listeners who are listening to this, let me try to visually describe it. So the one picture that caught my attention was an aerial shot of a basketball court in some random city, right? And it looked like a European city, but on the court it was this beauty, beautiful Persian rug with these intricate patterns. And I'm like, wow, this is an amazing view, an amazing photo, an amazing design. And I clicked into it and it took me a while to figure out that it was AI generated. But it's this photographer who's combining like a design object, like a rug or carpet or even a dress, and then putting into an unusual environment, but creating a very magical scene out of it. And from a technical perspective, like, it looks so real that I didn't first doubt that it was AI generated. It was real. And then second, even though I now know that it was AI generated, that I don't mind it, like a lot of AI art, like, once I see that it's AI Generated, like, I lose interest. But this is one of the few ones that I came across not too long ago. And I'm like, this, like, this is one of the first artistic use of AI that I actually like, I think.
- [41:29]
B
Have you seen those tennis courts in areas like caves or deserts? It's the same.
- [41:37]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [41:39]
B
Completely artificial environment. It does look real. Yeah, it looked like at the first I was like, is this possible? But then it's like, why would you be in a cave in Abu Dhabi, you know, or something?
- [41:50]
A
Yeah, I know. I've seen those. Yeah.
- [41:52]
B
I think there is so much more that that's accelerating. I don't want to say necessarily. I don't want to go into creativity discussion, but I do want to go in acceleration discussions. It's very quickly you can test ideas. How would they look like? It's unbelievable for designers, for, you know, if you're. If you're interior designer, if you're designing your home, if you're a fashion designer, if you're like, whatnot, architect, you very quickly can test best ideas. How would that look like in a very real setting? So I do think there is just a gigantic accelerator or my. I have a hit list that's like, not new, but it's very relevant. It's like I've been reading Deluxe how luxury lost its luster from 2005. So from 20 years ago, this woman, Dana Thomas, who I strongly recommend, is writing about the downsides of luxuries, big growth that we are literally going through and are going to continue going through in 25. Like the scale, the corporate ownership, the industrialization, the opening new stores, the going to new markets. Like she wrote about it 20 years ago. All they had to do is like that and not do it like that.
- [43:06]
A
And it's interesting that this was 20 years ago. So basically history repeating itself.
- [43:11]
B
It was in 2005 and she wrote it and I'm like reading about it and the numbers are off because luxury was. Market was so much smaller, but the directions were on. Like, they're literally. That came home to roost in 25.
- [43:26]
A
Wow. So history repeating itself and all these luxury brands.
- [43:30]
B
I mean, no, I think this is even worse. This is literally scenario planning. This is like, this is where you are. This is where you're going to be. Be like now get there and.
- [43:39]
A
Right, right, right.
- [43:41]
B
So, yeah, I recommend. I really recommend it. Everyone who is interested in understanding what is going on in luxury, just beyond like, oh, you increased prices, you, saturated markets, they should read it.
- [43:52]
A
Sounds good. All right, so I think that's. That's a wrap for the first episode of 2025. Looking forward to more. See you in two weeks.
- [43:58]
B
Happy new Year to everyone and hope it's a good start.