2025 Projections
a refusal to exist in the context of what came before !!!
A week ago, I asked my friends to trade in- and out- lists with me. The creative and perceptive trend projections that I’ve received have veiled my prospects for 2025 with hope and positivism. In the new year, we can truly accomplish the things we set out to do. And our friends are cheering us on to do so. I keep saying that 2025 will be a good year - below is my proof based on your predictions.
The end of hater behavior. Reviewing predictions, I’ve realized that the in-list has without exception been longer than the out-list. This aligns with complaining landing on 3+ out-lists. We’d rather project than judge.
Beautiful trends such as theater, being, sincerity and quitting tell on a movement towards actionalising your dreams without compromise, even if you may not be 100% ready or sure about them. A positivist and accelerationalist position.
Tradwifery is out. This can be read in a wider sense - aesthetics as a whole are out.
The end of Irony (false confidence). Don’t take yourself too seriously (irony is out). 2025 is a brave year. Don’t linger - be vulnerable and transparent about what you want.
Action and organizing. Following a campaign year as paranoid as any, and in a political climate where nothing promised is ever guaranteed, we are longing for actions over words.
In this year’s US election, one of our two political candidates ran a campaign that initially lacked a political policy and vision, which could only be read as an appeal for votes toward maintaining the mediocre Democratic status quo of inflation, genocide and an increase in federal and local funding of militarisation. As we try to understand how Trump could win another election, the DNC’s party decision to insist on Joe Biden as a candidate until the very last minute, and their subsequent betting on a victory for Kamala despite giving her only a 3 month margin to run that campaign, is a good place to start. All while the Republican candidate led a mass populist movement promising a better future for Americans, holding trojan policies that will increase inequality and be an infringement on reproductive and immigration rights.
It is clear to the American people that both of these puppets represent the top 1% elite, and that candidates who lead hope themed campaigns increasingly fail to live up to their lofty promises due to senate issues. As an example, Biden has throughout the past 4 years failed to forgive student debt and make college free for families making less than $125,000 /yr, failed to ensure a measly 7 days of paid sick leave and failed to increase transparency of election spending. Out of Trump, Biden and Obama, Trump has failed the most of his 2016 promises at a whooping 55% failure rate - understandable considering one of them being “build a wall and have Mexico pay for it”, while Obama failed on his promise to close Guantanamo Bay.
Since most campaign promises are made to sway voters (politicians know that more than half of their policies won’t be politically viable), a campaign year is packed with contradictory information - we are drawn to be vigilant and paranoid in our own audiovisual environment. By extension, social tensions often run high. Today, being alive and online during a US election year approximates the feeling being unable to turn your gaze away from a car wreck. When you can’t trust your public institutions or what they say, democracy is really in danger.
Almost exactly one month after the conclusion of two election campaigns that totally evaded the massively popular topic of affordable health care, a CEO of one of the health insurance companies that statistically deny the most claims was targeted and killed in broad daylight, met by fanfare on both the left and the right. If you can’t recognise the validity of this widespread emotion, you are probably either a wealth criminal yourself or an avoidant liberal who will continue to be appeased by respectability politics. As we now know from our research, avoiding is out and directness is in.
These politicians don’t have the interests of the working class at heart - neither do they care to pretend that they do so.
As we grapple with the question of why Trump won the election, and look beyond makeshift theories based in identity politics, we embrace a year of reading, community work and hopefully by Q3 - organizing.
On this topic - considering and understanding contradictions will be big this year. Returning home to Scandinavia over the holidays, both me and my friend have caught up with a handful of friends who have recently been able to afford having kids and buying a home. It’s made us question if we still know what we’re doing in the most expensive city in the world, and if pursuing art is still enough justification for spending 20k on rent each year. My answer is still Yes, Agnes is unsure.
Sex is Back - after being very out for a long time. This year, Gen Z was measured to be having more sex, peaking at the beginning of the year, many due to progress made in therapy. But experts claim that Gen Z is having substantially less sex than generations before them were having at their age. Let’s reassess this in a year.
Quitting is in. Keeping a job that drains your soul - is out. With the past two years’ rise of the ”lazy girl job” and r/antiwork, it is refreshing to see people actualising this approach, before getting soaked with another mundane round of layoffs. While the lazy girl strategy would be to find another job before leaving your current one, quitting a draining job is starting to be seen as equally proactive. After all, you’ll get a steeper increase in income from job hopping than staying put in the same job waiting for that raise, especially as salary freezes has become more common across the corporate landscape. Grinding for that 3% annual raise can get old really quick.
Privacy is sexy. The turn towards privacy might indicate a rise of making moves in silence and not for the aesthetic? Working on your mental health in private instead of on tiktok? With the enshittification of the internet being upon us, the thought of privacy undoubtedly feels sexy. How will the inclination toward privacy manifest in 2025?
Decisiveness. We see a strong trend toward randomness, but simultaneously a movement away from doubt. Decisions will be made and they might not be reassessed - doing something, anything, is the point. Taking action will give you direction. We hold the power to climb mountains in 2025. Whatever you’re about, be about it! If nobody else did it, take it. And have fun while doing it - enjoy stillness, sex, belly dancing. Study the bible, call your friend a loser. Enjoy quitting your job.
Wishing you all a brave new year!
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Honorary mentions
Out Back: liberalism, The West, identity politics, Spotify, veganism
Hot, Contested Topics: DIY / Crafts, baggy pants, discourse, design, growling / grunge singing voice
