How to stay on top of consumer and pop culture trends

Executive overview

Attention is the scarcest asset. The platform and location don't matter — what matters is understanding distribution, content craft, and culture.

This Q&A covers three areas: winning on social media as a creator, the NFT cycle and how to position now, and the habit of deep cultural curiosity that lets you spot trends early.

Obsessive curiosity, not talent, is what keeps you ahead of culture.

Content and social media fundamentals

• Location and backdrop are secondary — platform craft is what drives reach.
• Know the mechanics: posting time, thumbnail, first three seconds, how each platform distributes differently.
• Copywriting and platform-native wording matter more than the subject matter alone.
• Start with what you want to teach, not what you think the audience wants.
• A million travel bloggers get no views — content skill is the differentiator.

NFTs: where things stand and what to do now

• The NFT correction mirrors the 2001 internet crash — the underlying tech hasn't changed.
• 99% of NFTs will go to zero, as with sports cards, art, and sneakers — rarity drives value.
• Don't lead with NFTs right now; the sentiment hasn't recovered.
• Use this period to build content skills, study Ethereum and new protocols, and be ready when the cycle turns.
• Conviction over convincing — build quietly and be prepared for the next wave.

Staying ahead of culture: the curiosity habit

• Dedicate deliberate off-time to curious digging — two to three hours a night, or the last two hours of a long flight.
• Go deep on why a trend is happening, not just that it is: who started it, what platform, what catalyst.
• Track across multiple verticals: fashion, food, music, sports, anime, psychedelics, geopolitics.
• Use Google Trends, social media, and ChatGPT to trace the origin of emerging signals.
• Listening is the skill — most visible output is the tip of a much larger observation habit.
• The next step beyond spotting trends is pattern-matching: what does this signal mean, and what comes after it?

Starting a media company today

• Keep costs at zero to start — no raised capital until there's genuine traction.
• Raised capital burns fast; founders who raise early often spend on the wrong things.
• Build around what you know or love — not where you think the money is.
• Patience is the underrated variable; most companies take longer than expected.

Entrepreneurship in higher education

• Reading about entrepreneurship is not entrepreneurship — students must be required to do.
• The best higher ed programs create full-semester experiences of actually running a venture.
• Self-awareness is the core skill: knowing whether you are actually suited to entrepreneurship.

Technology: what excites and what concerns

• Technology is the undefeated driver of human progress — every quality-of-life gain traces back to it.
• The real risk is over-demonizing technology to the point of suppressing its potential.
• AI commoditizes individual expertise; the right response is adaptation, not fear.
• Social and traditional media systematically amplify the negative — progress is real but invisible in the feed.
• Parenting, not regulation, is the answer to concerns about children and screen time.