Hi all,
We’re back with another edition of GOOD SIGNS—a monthly round-up of 4 letters, looking at what’s bubbling up.
Again, these aren’t trends (yet!). That’s way too heavy for a month’s worth of content. These are signals, patterns, counter-trends. Stuff that’s emerging, continuing, sticking out, or simply what we’re finding interesting in the last month.
Enjoy! And let us know what you think in the comments.
1.
01:04— SLOP TSUNAMI // It’s getting sloppier out there. The world is becoming saturated with AI-generated content, rage-bait, and suspect content. It doesn’t really matter if the content is AI or not. It’s slop.
Places it’s showing up:
Phia is making suspicious—likely AI, maybe not—influencers to push their product.
OpenAI and Meta both releasing ‘social platform for AI-generated content.
Pendulum swing → People have been gravitating toward offline mode, and it’s only increasing. Matt Klein calls it ‘Camouflage Culture’, ANU calls it ‘Algorithmic Evasion’.
2.
07:59 — TRUST LOVE // Trust isn’t built in public anymore. It’s happening in small networks. Private lists, friend feeds, resale loops, and group chats where someone else does the filtering for you. The more curated, the tighter the circle, it feels, the more credible it gets.
Places it’s showing up:
Beli is replacing Yelp with friend-fed restaurant lists.
Etsy is acquiring Tise and leaning into “taste you can trust.”
Invite-only WhatsApp thrifting groups are shaping resale culture.
Lore is becoming shorthand for effort. And in effort we see trust.
Pendulum swing → AI fakery everywhere. We don’t know what’s real. Slop isn’t just creeping in. see above.
3.
13:48 — LESS IS MORE // After years of overproduction, people are choosing places and experiences that feel real, a little unvarnished, and full of intent. Less branding, more quietly great.
Places it’s showing up:
A24 x Frenchette’s restaurant, Wild Cherry, is the ultimate date spot.
J.Crew’s 190 Bowery pop-up that felt like a live-in apartment, not a photo backdrop.
At Paradigms, there were logos but much more ‘brand’. Logo-light.
Related: My good friend and brilliant strategist Devi Rhodes wrote a great piece on the potential for a logo-less brand. Give it a read.
Pendulum swing → Luxury brands are going loud. More is more. Especially at Gucci. But also at Loro Piana. And many others.
4.
21:48 — SHAMELESS ERA // The new rebellion is dropping embarrassment. From beauty to sport to motherhood, the people and brands winning right now are the ones removing shame from the room and saying what everyone already knows.
Places it’s showing up:
Sofie Pavitt and Charlotte Groeneveld are showing their lifts without apology.
Paloma Wool is celebrating motherhood with power, not politeness.
Pendulum swing → It seems everyone needs to rage. Whether it’s tagging the Friend campaign. Or loudly weighing in on the American Eagle X Sydney Sweeney campaign. Or Jia Tolentino’s sponcon debacle, we are unable to contain our feelings. Warranted or not, we’re bursting to scream out feelings into the ether.
5.
29:21— POWERFUL CONTRADICTIONS // People aren’t one thing, and they’re done pretending they are. Wellness types who party, ice cream brands that host sober raves, ultrarunners who stop mid-race for a beer—it’s all part of the same story. The tension isn’t confusion. It’s real.
Places it’s showing up:
‘Wellness anarchists’ who chase performance and pleasure in equal measure.
Magnum Ice Cream launched Hydro: ICE pops for sober club kids in Ibiza.
Gwyneth’s zucchini cig-smoking NYFW moment. Vices meet wellness.
Pendulum swing → Some audiences still crave purity—clean aesthetics, clean eating, clean food, clean medicine. But the cultural heat is in the grey space, not the rulebook.
The letters and podcasts referenced in this episode:
That’s all, folx.
-Chris
If you read this and liked it, that little heart is there for that. The algo and I appreciate it.
PS. If you prefer Apple, Spotify, or YouTube you can listen there too.
