Welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm Cara Price. This is the story.
As I've mentioned many many, many, many, many many many times on this show, I am extremely online, and that means that I am exposed to a lot of things that I find interesting, but I don't really understand because these trends change really quickly, and the people propelling culture forward are arguably a little bit younger than me. They're gen Z and Jen Alpha. I need some help. So our guest today is what I guess we would call
a trend analyst and a youth whisperer. Her name is Casey Lewis, and she writes a substact that I've read for as.
Long as it's been in existence.
It's actually like the only one that I read with any regular cadence.
It's called After School.
And I rarely do this, but if you're listening right now, you should subscribe to it if you care about youth culture or the Internet at all. Every installment of After School is this curated grab bag of current trends, cultural moments, and analysis. So as we look ahead to what twenty twenty six has in store, I thought it would be helpful to reflect on the ethos of youth culture at
this very very weird moment. Casey and I started our conversation with a trend that overtook many Instagram feeds this past weekend that unfortunately, even parents were doing young parents and old parents, which was posting pictures of yourself back in twenty sixteen. And while this felt incredibly random, Casey told me that it actually didn't come out of nowhere.
Here's Casey.
It's been fascinating because months ago, maybe not nine months ago, it was all about millennial cringe, the stomp clap hay music coming back. So it went from millennial cringe to just the end of the year, the millennial cringe had morphed into a millennial optimism, young people obsessed with, you know, the sort of twenty tens of New York I want to be a hipster.
But now the twenty sixteen thing.
Has built on all of that, and it's it's crazy having twenty sixteen.
You two, like, do you think it was a special year?
No, I mean other than like the first worst news cycle that ever existed.
Exactly, it was a weird time in culture. The Cut published this piece that was like, you know, we do not want to live through this again, and they mentioned things that happened in twenty sixteen that I'd completely forgotten, you know, happened then the Pulse nightclub massacre, Brexit, there were like multiple horrible police killings.
Politically, it was.
A horrible time, but most of the you know, the trends around it are just an excuse I think to dig back in your photos and show how like cutesy you looked. People are romanticizing the flower crowns at Coachella, the chokers, the snapchat filters. I think that young people associate twenty sixteen with peak whimsy aesthetically, even though having lived the twenty sixteen it did not feel particularly whimsical.
It was the antithesis of whimsy. So what got me interested in talking to you for this particular interview was your end of the year review, which was titled Nostalgia, Economy and Analog Awakening. You sent out two hundred and sixty newsletters in twenty twenty five. What was the cultural shift that you felt was most overlooked and what was the kind of thing that surprised you the most.
I don't think the analog trend is overlooked by any means, but I think it's hard to over emphasize, like how big of a thing this tension between analog and AI is, especially for young people. It feels like every single day there's headlines around, you know, young people have discovered these old school hobbies. I've seen multiple headlines this week around like Grandma core and at the same time the rise of AI, especially in more like tech adjacent corners of
the Internet. I mean, it's totally taken over the conversation in the last year. So I think that the tension between these two stories is very interesting to me.
There is like an interesting juxtaposition because it feels like the AI headlines things coming out of cees are like industry checkpoints, whereas you're really reporting on things that people are doing. And I think that what's more interesting to me is like what are people doing to combat the fatigue of like an influx of like this is how you should be using your phone, this is how you
should be using your computer. And to me, based on what you report, it seems like people are like, I don't want to do any of this stuff.
Yeah, young people in particular, it seems like they're pushing back against this. Even with my end of year Christmas Hall analysis, a lot of people got iPads specifically to many of them didn't have any social media on their iPads. They just had it for games and Pinterest. So this is like, it's like an interesting tech I know, it's
like almost like catalog behavior or magazine. But you know, as adults who have been in the workplace for a while, I think we're seeing this narrative around using AI to optimize, to you know, just be the best like corporate machine that we can possibly be. And then young people a aren't exposed to those headlines and when they are exposed to them or trying to push back against them, but they are using AI for homework, yes, exactly.
So I've noticed that some brands have taken to the analog awakening. And I've thought for a long time that unplugging or taking time away from your phone would become the ultimate luxury. But is gen z buying into this? And how about gen Alpha?
So gen Alpha is interesting because in my research, a lot of these kids have very limited tech access, and in interviews I've done with you know, different kids, some of them you know, maybe only have an hour a day and they spend that watching YouTube videos or YouTube shorts. Others have you know, kind of as much screen time
as they want, but they can't be on TikTok. Very few of the Gen Alphas I've talked to, and I've probably talked to fifty in the last year, very few of them are allowed on TikTok, but they still are able to consume that kind of content via reels or
other platforms. I think that Gen Alpha is generally too young to really have a sense of being unplugged equals luxury or you know, freedom, because they've grown up in a time of you know, being in front of screens, but also their parents moderating the screens one way or the other. So it'll be fascinating to see as they're able to make decisions for themselves.
Another thing is the phone bands.
You know, so many schools in the last year have band phones pretty widely, and so their screen time has always been so you know, they're sort of like babysat So will they think that being able to be unplugged equals luxury Not at first, I don't think, But for Gen Z and also millennials, the twenty twenty six ins and outs tiktoks that I watched being offline was a huge in brain rot, a huge out all of these words around, like being super online and you know, knowing
these sort of like week to week, day to day trends isn't cool anymore. It's much better, according to the ins and outs, to be unplugged, to read books, to
limit your screen time in the morning. Like they were imposing all of these rules around screen time, which you know, it's fascinating because I think at the end of the day, having an awareness of what's happening online and being ahead of the trend cycle is never not going to be a flex but they do want to be nice to their brains a little bit and limit the doom scrolling.
What do you know about school phone bands? Like how has this affected.
Things across the country. So many public schools have banned phones. Private schools are a little more you know, they kind of create the rules and yeah, but there were so many articles around like, you know, kids are socializing again, the lunch room is loud again, and a lot of these articles interviewed both teachers and students, and it seems like it's very much net positive. Of course, some kids are figuring out how to get around it. But if everyone is sort of like not supposed to be on
their phone. Then being the one kid that gets arounded by like having an extra device in your pocket, like who are you going to talk to? Like, you know, there's there's really no reason to do that if everyone else doesn't have their phone. So I do think that it is good for education, but I think that that being limited during the day to check what's happening just will make people sort of binge a bit more before and after. But I do like the you know, the
discovery of analog at the lunch room. I will say earlier this week, Peugh published a study around phone band sentiment and they talk to adults and teens and something like half of the teens were okay with like phone bands, but they did not believe that it should be banned during free periods in lunch room.
So there is pushback like.
This, what are we gonna do?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's not like kids are generally like phone ban good. You know, like you're never going to want to be limited to things like that, Like you don't want to be patrolled.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to be patrolled either.
As a complete pivot, you mentioned the decline of the dating app.
Can you fill me.
In on what sex and romance looks like for gen z because they're certainly, I mean they're certainly reading a lot of romance.
Yeah, yeah, And you know they're reading a lot of romance, and I think some of them are coming into their own sexually from the romance to see. You know, they're realizing what they want and they're realizing like how to kind of put it into words. So I, you know, haven't consumed a lot of romance to see myself, But I do think it's net positive in many reasons. You know, people are reading more, but people are also realizing what, especially like women's passion can look like.
I this last.
Year, maybe last two years, in terms of gender and sex and dating, it's been so complicated, I think, and made me just so grateful that I'm a millennial and not like in it because I believe I was on dating apps. Twenty sixteen a really good time for dating apps, yes, peak and years around it, yeah.
Peak dating app.
Like one thing you can say about twenty sixteen is that Hinder was great, But I think that dating apps haven't evolved, and so young people feel as though they're just endlessly swiping to no end, and then when they are going on a date with someone that they meet on a dating app, it's not a good match, and so they feel like they've wasted their time. It feels like part of that is the apps have to monetize,
and so the experience is worse. But in the last year two years, there have been a million headlines around all of the other ways young people are meeting in person. So obviously the cliched run club, but there's a million other speed dating, having a matchmaker, having your friends do creative.
Google doc for you.
You know, there's just so many different ways that people are trying to meet that aren't.
The dating apps.
I think we'll see a dating app comeback. I think that that isn't really inevitable.
I do think so.
I think that the dating apps will realize they're ruining the experience by monetization, and maybe the largest ones won't. You know, they have to answer to shareholders, the ones that are public, But that gives a great opportunity for challengers to enter the space and make an actually good experience. But at the same time, I think what happened politically the election last year just created so much beyond the
dating apps, beyond the it's hard to meet people. It created so much friction between men and women, and you know, I felt like you couldn't trust men who didn't feel like my husband's great but I was so angry at men for you know, And so I think that does add like some complications to the gender dynamic for people who are seeking out ooh identify a straight and are seeking out an opposis ex partner.
After the break out dating apps in AI Lovers stay with Us. You actually mentioned that gen Z are eighty three percent more open to developing relationships with AI chatbots.
Is that a trend that you see continuing?
Like, because as we talk about sort of nostalgic core analog, where does the relationship with a chatbot really fit into things?
For gen Z?
One sort of asterisk with that stat. It was cited in a New Yorker piece, But it is a survey that has been commissioned by a some sort of like AI company, and so it's always hard to know with those. I mean, I still find it interesting and like worth considering, but at the same time, it's it gives me pause often and that one especially, But I do.
Think you know.
The cut wrote a piece about AI as my boyfriend. I think is the reddit the subreddit that has seventy five thousand members, like people like, even if we don't have any friends who are in relationships, they HI or.
I have friends that are in pretty serious like parasocial relationships with chat thoughts.
Yes, yes, and I think that it's not something that we're really like talking about. And one thing that kind of made me realize, like, oh, this is a little bit deeper than I realized. At the end of the year, there was a TikTok trend where girls were asking chatchept the craziest questions that they had asked chatchip. It's sort of like a chatchepte.
Wrapped yeah yeah.
And so they would post screenshots of the response and the way that that chat cheepe deep talk to these girls like oh girl, Like it was crazy. It was so crazy, and it made me realize like, oh, they are talking to them like if not boyfriends, like their
best friend. Like there is some real parasocial relationships happening, and I think for a lot of people, they're not like I'm going to seek out a relationship with an AI chatbot, but they just find themselves suddenly emotionally attached and then it's like, oh shit, I'm in it with this chatbot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think it's also I mean, I don't know, I think that there is even I have friends that are married who are still like very attached to what a chatbot thinks. I think we have since the kind of dawn of the personal computer. I think this predates the phone. Like we have learned to outsource our emotions onto devices, you.
Know what I mean? Like, yeah, am I sad? Am?
I happy? Am I excited? Am I confused? Like let me use a device? You know?
And it used to be that we like picked up a book or read a.
You know, and like And I don't mean to sound old fashioned, but I think that this idea that like we can sort of outsource our emotional need to something digital is like the most indicative human evolutionary change of our time. And it's why there's so much rage online, why there's so much joy online. But like, I think the chatbot has like become an extension of this need
that we have to be in constant contact. And the irony is that, like I think we are in less contact with people, but we are in more contact than ever with something. And I think every time a new digital tool gets introduced, like human attention is co opted.
I think that is so true.
So I could not agree more like young people are more lonelier than ever, like of course they're going to turn to AI. And also, you know, we've seen such a rise in therapy speak, and you know, everyone knows that they should go to therapy. You know, everyone needs therapy, but so a few people can afford therapy. And you know, even if you sort of scoff at that and then you find yourself in a hard moment and you're like,
I don't know how to process this. I'm going to ask the all knowing chat GPT, well know, And it's very easy to see how someone could turn to that.
And I also believe that at least I don't know. Do you spend time on the.
Substack notes, I don't know, Okay, so it's it's substack sort of Twitter competitor, But among the writers on that are very very vocally anti AI, and I do see that kind of poke up here and there on TikTok too. For instance, when a rumor that Pinterest was going to be acquired by open Ai through all of these like never Ai people. But I have this feeling that like no one is being honest about how much they're actually using AI in the day to day. And I could
be wrong. This is just my theory, but you know the theory the people who are the loudest against something are either secretly like fascinated by it or like actively using it. But it's just it's so easy. It's it's readily available to you. And I just think that, you know, everyone is using it more than they're kind of letting on.
No.
I think that's absolutely I think that's apout right. And I think it's like even if you don't think you're using it, you're using it right, you know.
Like if you're searching something on Google, you're using it at the pop is.
So I want to talk a little bit about maxing, because this was a trend that we saw this year. Everything was about maxing, and there's looks maxing, social maxing, productivity maxing. Now there's friction maxing, which might be the trend of twenty twenty six. Is maxing the evolution of a word or a behavior that has already existed, or is maxing an entirely new phenomenon.
I think we've always maxed.
I think, to use another trending sort of phrase, I think it is optimization core adjacent. I think it's I think about as a teenager, young teenager reading seventeen and teen Vogue, you know, the health advice, the fitness advice, like I tried probably when I was like twelve, I tried to do every single like that was my bible.
It's kind of sad to talk, well, but.
If I could follow the advice of these editors, like I could be a perfect specimen, like I was obsessed. I think many young women are obsessed with this idea of perfection, and I think that that's very much Maxine the teen boy, you know, association with Maxine. I think that the Andrew Huberman's, the Joe Rogan's, the manisphere that has sort of taken it to another level.
But I think to your point, we've always maxed.
I mean, I think fitness culture has always been a thing for men. I do think that the Internet in general.
Has like called to the four a brighter spotlight on the sort of vulnerabilities of men and their looks in a way that when I was growing up boys just didn't talk about it.
Definitely, it does seem like there's more visible pressure on young men to look a certain way.
Though.
My brother is a year older than me, and when we were in high school, I remember he was like at one point, this is going to embarrass him if he listens to this, but he was like obsessed with like getting his cap to be like like, I mean, this is a tale as old as time. Teen boys, young boys, they've always had pressures on them to look a certain way. Yeah, the resources of the you know, all of these YouTube guys who are dispensing advice like
that didn't exist as much. Like if my brother wanted to really truly like learn about what we now call looks maxine, he could maybe read a book about like the like exercise, you know, like the physiology.
I totally total.
But now, but now the resources are packaged very differently, And I think that's how so many of these boys who discover looks maxine then become you know, slightly red pilled, and then it's like a whole different thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, before I let you go, I just want to play a quick game with you. You very kindly included a buzzword section for people like me and I want to read through a few of these and you can give me a don Would you be comfortable if I did that?
Yeah? Yeah, I hope, I I hope. I can't I have them down?
Okay, first one, am A me a livecore?
Am I a live core?
So?
This was a pretty wild.
I'm glad we got that on microphone.
Actually, this was a weird micro trend. This was not like something that kids nationwide were doing, like you know, but kids were filming themselves dropping heavy objects on their feet to get the reaction as a sort of like rejection against AI and and honestly a rejection against algorithmic blandness and a sort of proof of life.
Wow, am I a live core?
Club? Club?
This was very much a micro trend. But a group of gen Zers created a club for going to the club. Okay, it was this push pool between like we want to be going out more, we don't have that many friends, people are afraid to go places by themselves for many reasons, safety, et cetera.
And so they created a club club.
Very Cool Life. Three sixty kids.
So these are Genalfa and to some extent to gen Z they have been surveilled by their parents and teachers and you know, for much of their life. And so Life three sixty is an app that I honestly didn't know existed until a year or two ago. And it's very it's like find my and So's. It's basically parents just keeping constant tabs on there. It's like helicopter parents
two point zero in bold and by tech. But it would be very interesting to see what happens with this generation or you know, the subgroup who has been constantly you know, kept tabs on by their parents. That is, when they have freedom.
Will they ever have freedom? Do they even want freedom?
That's a good question. Lemonee Miso gochu Jane.
So this is kind of making fun of you know, not just the New York Times food but so many of these food bloggers food TikTokers just cramming as many buzzwords into their recipe names as possible.
Got and you know, it's like.
Fusion, fusion to the max. This phrase took hold then the New York I believe it was Eric Kim, one of the New York Times food guys, then created a lemony miso gochu jan recipe as a sort of wing but you know what was interesting is in the ins and Outs for twenty twenty six lists this kind of sentiment, either specifically saying lemony miso go chu jing or saying just overly complicated recipes very much out people want like very simple quality recipes for twenty twenty six.
So like pasta with tomato.
Sauce exactly, exactly, like going back to basics.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is one that I'm very curious about.
Monkey barring.
Okay, so there's like a constant sort of cycle of dating app adjacent terms or dating really dating terms. Yeah, so sharking is another one. So sharking is when you're just you're circling around, you're pursuing hookups monkey barring. I mean,
think about it. You're on the playground, your arm you're still visualized there, you're still holding onto this monkey bar you but your other hand is on this So you're like you are effectively cheating on your partner who you're planning to break up with while starting a new relationship with someone else.
Yes, well, being alone is very hard.
It's hard.
It's very hard. What's a good boy?
Okay, I'm so glad you asked. So the gene alphas have like their own sort of phrases, many of which I feel like I probably don't even know about because I really only learn about the ones that make it, make it to TikTok. But good boy was when it's like sort of demeaning to say, like, oh, aren't you
a good boy? So it's like, you know, kids can like make anything, yes, yes, yes, yes yes, And so then it took hold to where teachers were banning the phrase good boy, much like six' seven and it was a new.
One, now, yeah for one is another.
One it's actually interesting, though because six seven took off and then for one was like deemed the new six, seven but then six' seven like took off with a vengeance like for one never really got the legs that it maybe, could have, because yeah six seven then became like such a.
Mainstream thing, yeah, yeah yeah what's a?
Yearner girl so THIS was.
I leave this popped up around The Time taylor swift released her. Latest album it's when you you're kind of a hopeless romantic but you're like very like proud, of it and so you're not chill about what about your crush or what? You?
Want?
Interesting, Interesting yeah i'm definitely a year, inner girl Which is fine's anything wrong?
WITH it i think it's, better ACTUALLY so.
I get my last rapid fire is not a term what's gonna pop in twenty six or?
Not pop.
YOU know i identify as a, trend researcher not a trend what's The word i'm looking for that people?
Fore cast.
Trend FORECASTER but, i think, you know the brick popped off so much at the end of the year with all these headlines. AROUND landlines i think all of those things are, very CUTE and i think that they're nice ways To signal i'm a balanced person who isn't. Terminally ONLINE but i do wonder how much of that is just performative or, even worse like just for, the CONTENT and i could see like a hobby backlash or.
Like everyone ebaying. Their.
NEEDLE interesting i don't know the. Analog trend it seems to me that it is still, gaining steam that it has. Not PLATEAUED but i do wonder how many hobbies can one do and realize that that doesn't actually fill.
The, void katie thank you so much for. Joining me thank you.
So much this is so. Much fun.
That's it for this week For, Tech Stuff I'm. Kara price this episode was Produced By eliza Dennis And. Melissa slaughter it was executive produced by Me, Oswa Oshan, julia Nutter And kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope And katrina Norvell For. iHeart Podcasts jack insley mixed this Episode And kyle murdoch wrote our.
Theme song join Us on friday For the.
Week, in tech where we'll run through the headlines you need to follow and, please, rate review and reach out to us At tech stuff podcast at gmail.
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