What's zeitgeist trying to tell us

Contradictions, Inversions, Oddities, and Coincidences

Welcome to the Sociology of Business. In my last analysis, Friends, not clothes, create culture, I took advantage of Telfar’s recent 20th anniversary celebration to look into every innovative business thing that this brand has done in the past two decades. If you are on the Substack, join the chat. With one of the paid subscription options, join Paid Membership Chat, and with the free subscription, join The General Chat on The Sociology of Business WhatsApp group.

The tie has broken out of officecore to be come a 24/7 accessory

Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present, said Albert Camus.

Success of an idea, product, story, or a trend is hidden in the right now: in what we do, how we spend time, what we spend money on, who and what influences us, and what we pay attention to.

But, despite of all the signals made available to us in our present, where we really excel is explaining our past.

Fashion, entertainment, food, sport, and other cultural industries spend inordinate amounts of money on predicting what’s going to be popular, with mixed results. Best success stories are usually retroactive. We say that something was successful because it “resonated with consumer,” “captured the mood,” or was “of its time,” only once it was a success.

The real explanation is often shrouded in mystery.

Challenge is to capture the mood while it’s happening. To be able to get something to resonate with the the vibe of the moment, we should look at contradictions, inversions, oddities, and coincidences in our culture, economy, and society.

They hold the secret of the change to come.

Contradictions are when two irreconcilable things coexist. We are having both having niches and monoculture, active and passive taste. Active taste of the niches is best reflected in niche magazines, offline supper clubs, running clubs, member clubs, art spaces, etc. that are loci of connoisseurship, experimentation, creativity, and aesthetic innovation. Passive taste is one of formulas, predictability and mass popularity, West Village Girls, Alo yoga pants, algorithmic creativity, and Forma Pilates. Fandom and aesthetic gentrification coexist. People want choice, but in order to navigate it, they rely on others - aka algorithm on TikTok, Instagram, Spotify, Netflix, Resy, etc. so end up looking like others, liking the same things like others, and going to the same places like others. Mimicry is the decentralized mechanism of cultural influence, economic production, social cohesion that gives us both otakus and cultural homogenization.

Inversions are novel reversals in a trend dynamic. Two recent articles, Jia Tolentino’s in The New Yorker and Sarah Jones’ in New York Magazine talk about sex recession among young adults. They quote a 2024 report from the Survey Center on American Life, which states that “only 56 percent of Gen Z adults — and 54 percent of Gen Z men — say they were involved in a romantic relationship at any point during their