‘It’s a digital jungle out there as tastes change’
FROM home ownership to digital media consumption, climate change to reality TV, the world is changing. For years, new homes were consistently located around 10 miles from your prior house. This year, it seems many of us are looking further afield as the pandemic has meant geography has become less of a work constraint with more people working from home and making fewer trips into the office, if any at all.
The use of apps increases daily. It is said that the average Tiktok user spends 95 minutes on the app each day.
That is close to double that of Instagram. The Chinese government is limiting the use of Douyin (China’s version of Tiktok) to 40 minutes per day.
Douyin’s content is far more educational – science experiments, museum exhibits, and so on. Who knows if the UK will do similar in the future.
Netflix is losing subscribers. Whether that is due to natural saturation or people cutting down on purchases or competing in a crowded streaming environment with the likes of Disney+, and Apple TV+, who knows?
Then we have the boom in secondhand, specifically resale. It is said that secondhand is growing 11x faster than other retail.
By 2030, secondhand fashion will be nearly twice the size of fast fashion.
The younger generation has a penchant for SHEIN but also care about the environment.
The solution is resale, with millions of consumers turning to sites dedicated to resales. The cheaper clothes literally go to landfill largely because they are so cheap in the first place, that they have no resale value. I, like many people, have things that I’d love to sell, but going through the hassle of photographing items, talking with potential buyers, and then posting the items puts me off.
We’re experiencing a mental health crisis, particularly among teens and young adults. There are many contributing factors: social media use, the recession, the pandemic.
However, the younger generations are more willing to talk about mental health and to seek help.
Stigmas are breaking down, and access is improving through technology.
Pop culture has become global. The English speaking West used to dominate global culture, but that’s changing.
Squid Game (Korean) is the mostwatched show on Netflix; Khaby Lame (Senegalese-italian) is the most-followed person on Tiktok; Bad Bunny (Puerto Rican) is the most-streamed artist on Spotify. I hadn’t heard of the two people named either!
The rise of the internet has created many more opportunities to put out content.
Netflix, Spotify and the like are global, which makes it easier for local productions to earn fans overseas.
Most democratic of all are social media platforms such as Instagram, Tiktok and Youtube, which let aspiring performers
anywhere in the world create songs or art that can be distributed at no cost.
Of the 50 most streamed songs on Spotify over the past five years, 47 were in English. But English’s dominance is slipping. In India, Indonesia, and South Korea, the share of English language tracks in the top 100 has fallen from 52% to 31% over the past five years.
In Spain and Latin America, the share has dropped from 25% to 14%. The same story is playing out on TV.
An analytics group studied celebrities talking about Paris Fashion Week this year and found half of the 10 most valuable voices (in terms of the boost they gave to brands) came from emerging markets like the Philippines and Brazil. Only one French celebrity made the list.
If you bought a flatscreen TV in 2000, it would’ve cost you around £2,500. If you go to buy that same TV today you can get it for so much less.
Technology is making life more affordable, more accessible, and higher quality. But it has yet to reinvent sectors like education, housing, and healthcare. Education is becoming prohibitively expensive, jobs are becoming harder to get, something has to give.
The magnitude of our climate crisis is being played out in front of our eyes. China is outpacing the rest of the world in solar and nuclear power (while also adding to the global emissions at an alarming rate.)
The West has a lot of catching up to do, and time is running out. A survey conducted in China revealed “astronaut” as the most-desired career.
Perhaps they know more than us about the state of Planet Earth!
This brings me on to my last point, reality v reality TV shows.
My personal belief is if you are employed in any job then you should do that job. Even more important that you follow the rules if that position is one of high profile.
I am, of course, referring to the inclusion of Matt Hancock on I’m a Celebrity.
Before he went into the jungle, he was adamant that his motivation was to highlight dyslexia as a cause that was important to him. He must be saving that for later in the show.
Matt might want to move on but many in the country are not yet ready to forgive and forget.the everyday story of an ordinary bloke who just happened to become a cabinet minister.
So what’s he doing on I’m a Celeb other than pocketing a reported £400k? Amazing how no one ever mentions they are in it for the dosh.
The last place any sane person would expect to be real is on a reality show.
I’m a Celebrity is one of the most sadistic shows on TV and the only reason Hancock has been brought on is to be the hate figure against whom the country can unite. Some people have no shame or class.