Trend Expert on "Chaos is the New Normal"

getting sucked in. Congratulations. It's so thought provoking. Thank you. Unfortunately, every time I turn on the TV or listen to the radio, I feel like the chaos just gets worse. I finished the report before Christmas, and watching the last several days, I feel like the chaotic swirl is just intensified. Absolutely well, and so much of what you talk about in this report is manifesting, as you say, every time

we every time we turn an out. Uh, let's start with I'm trying to figure out where I've been sort of debating with myself where I want to start. Um, let's start on on sort of this human level. Because you start out by talking about sort of how we interact with each other. We talked about this at my house all the time. You know, get your head out of your phone. Um, but also start connecting with people who you are close to physically. Uh, and in a

physical way. Tell me about that. Well, I mean, let's start off with in a physical way. When you even use the word the verb we talked, I talked to someone. Did I talk to them with my mouth? Did I talk to them with my fingers? Did I face time with them? Did I simply send it simple character tweet or text message? So there's a UM. We have many many more relationships in our daily lives and far fewer

intimate relationships. Um, we've kind of disum, We've used computer to sort of disintermediate between ourselves and the people were closest to. So you could take I could take a class, I could take an m b A without ever going face to face with a professor or another student as a colleague. So you're seeing people desperately try to offset that with things that are high touched, like the heavy blanket,

which makes you feel slattled. Adults sort of asking one another to hug them, which has a whole other obvious implication in this time because of me too and everything else. And I just thought this story today of the Pace University he too problem. Um, I think that we're desperately seeking the physical warmth of another human. We're not so good at dealing with people face to face anymore, and do you and what do we do about that? Look? I mean, it's so simple to say, wind back the clock.

Wasn't it easier to live in the seventies? And we put on rolls codd glasses and we forget everything that was wrong about those times and we sort of um idealized what was. I think the reality is that we probably need to differentiate between friends, fans, and followers. Friends are people you really know, family, or people that you're either really related to or really involved with. But it's it's that the the tug of the heart. I think we need to um kind of clear away all these

followers that we accumulate. I mean, you know, an eighteen year old girl may well have to three thousand followers. You sit down with her, you don't she doesn't know very many of them at all. Most of them are people who know people who know people who think maybe they should know her, so they friend her. She accepts that it's even worse on Instagram and of people liking pictures, So I definitely we need to re insert. I would almost call it simplicity, simple meals to face meals, um,

simple conversations, face to face conversations. It's, you know, growing up, the thing I hated the most was when your mother drove you to school. You were stuck in the car having a real conversation. So I think we need to move backwards to some of those. Yeah, absolutely, Well, let's talk about meals for a second, because I loved what you wrote about, because we've talked about it so much on this show, this idea of plant to plate. There's

a simplicity element there. Obviously, people being more concerned about what's going into their bodies. How real is that in your estimation? Because you know, we talked so much about Wow, that's sort of a fat or or what have you. But this faux meat movement, however you want to describe it, seems to be taking root. How do you assess it? So it's it's a real interesting um bifurcation away because on one thing, we want everything to be very very natural,

We want to eat um. The fewer ingredients. The better. We want to know where the lamb that we're eating, if we choose to eat meat, where it was farmed, where it was butchered, where it was packaged, where it was processed. On the other hand, all these fox solutions that are plant based, we fundamentally believe it's better for

ourselves and better for the planet. So it's a real um meltdown, and I think it's it's why you I was at an event recently where they were sampling the Beyond Meat burger and it was such a long line of people who wanted it, and the most positive thing they could say about it was, oh, it tastes like real meat. But the other morning I was at Dunkin Donuts in Charleston Beach, Rhode Island, and there they offer

a Beyond Meat sauceage. So here's this place, completely conventional mainstreaming trying to convince, you know, every Joe and every Jane to make that switch to plant based. I do think plant bases is rising. I think there's gonna be a pushback and people are going to still embrace their cleaner meats. And I also think that the next wave things to be watching for is this real commitment to

clean food, food with very few ingredients. Food that is, you get what you you know what you're getting and you enjoy what you're getting, but that's what you're getting. And I think that and at the same time, what is the foodie is going to change and evolved. I mean it used to be the being a food emant being very very experimental. Now it may mean that you're slow cooking that home cooked meal, right. Uh. And talk to me about this youth movement, you know, Greta Thunberg

obviously has captured so much attention. Uh, divisive in a way, sort of surprisingly speaking to some of the other trends that you outline, But you know, the youth movement does feel, on the one hand, uh, refreshing and something we've seen before over time, and yet there's an urgency about it. Then maybe I'm just showing my age as a mid forties guy that that does seem a little bit new in a good way. You know that that there is

a sense of urgency out there. You know. I feel like that movement really started with Malala, and I don't think we can underestimate that there was a beginning. I think what Greta has done in the last twelve months is really, um, make all of us feel pretty guilty. If she can do it, why can't wait? If she can stand up to institutions and authorities and educators and adults and say this has to change, we all pay lots of lip service to wanting to leave the planet

a better place for our children and our grandchildren. But the reality is she's the child, and she's setting the example, and I think, um, that makes a big difference. I also think that today's hyper connected, social media infiltrated world, she becomes a role model. One of the things I'm starting to see as a fad are you know, parents who want their kids to be greta lighte meaning lately activists just activist enough to get into a good college,

activists to build a good network. So there's Greta light movement. I think it's going to be a real phenomena, especially maybe in your immediate listening area, in that sort of try state area, connected looking at your traffic report, thinking okay, these are parents who right now are in the throes of college admits that they wish they had a Greta right absolutely absolutely, well, I could talk to you first much longer. Unfortunately we've got to go. Marian Salzman, come

back and join us. I loved reading this. I'm going to share it with my family, put it out on Twitter as well. Uh, congratulations to you. Very thought provoking