🩸✨The Nexialist #0211meta trending trends 2025 | model collapse | a bestiary of the anthropocene | technovelgy | abracadabra | madonna-ology | striptease | aquamarine | vendetta
welcome to your weekly micro-dose of cyber-vitamines, the nexialist
hey, you! i hope this message finds you where the horrors do not exist. last friday i had the pleasure of speaking (and learning a lot, as you’ll see in today’s nexialist) at the Futures Friendseven in amsterdam. thank you again, Els Dragt and Stefanie Schillmöller for the opportunity. i’m also celebrating because this week the nexialist surpassed 3k subscribers. thank you all for sticking around and sharing, interacting and inspiring me back. this is it for an intro, as there is enough to read. i hope you enjoy! 🫀✨ 1 year ago » 🪭✨The Nexialist #0159 : galáctika | sociophonetics | fio maravilha | tuta gold | hater’s anthem | the life span of loneliness | loneliness | his sweat 2 years ago » 🌉✨The Nexialist #0107 : like our parents | crossing the chasm | the MAYA principle | futures garden | idiolect | flor de maracujá | echolalia | i’m not here to make friends 3 years ago » ❤️🔥✨The Nexialist #0057 : Show Me Love | Multiamory RADAR | Love Languages | PRİSENCÓLİNENSİNÁİNCIÚSOL | Naked Chills | Apocalyptic Pop | Chemistry | Eroticism and Self-care | Connection 4 years ago » ❤️✨The Nexialist #0006 : Valentine's Day | Saudade | Where Should We Begin? | Monogamy, Explained | (Non)Monogamy | Relationship Anarchy | Social Serendipity | Culture of Proximity | Pixelated Love | BDSM Test 🌐meta trending trends 2025
it’s out! Matt Klein’s meta trending trends 2025 is always a highly anticipated moment for me. it’s my favorite release every year, not only because it synthetizes the main reports of the industry, but because it directly invites us to critique e move beyond this stagnation we find ourselves in. every year these reports feels like a déjà vu: apparently people have a hard time differentiating if a trend is from 2018 or the current year.
for me, it’s a great starting points for my projects, to validate things i’m seeing, but also finding blindspots. and even more important than the trends, i think these should be the key takeaways:
brainsparks: trends 2025 (tn#203), rebranding trend research (tn#193), trends are bullsh*t. long live the trends (tn#190), namecore (tn#71), hoardiculture (tn#191), foresight as activism (tn#143) 🤖model collapselast friday i was at the Futures Friends event in amsterdam it was so nice learn new things. model collapse was one of these ideas that i was noticing but had no words for, this ultraprocessed and reprocessed data that is causing models to, in my perception, melt. maybe similar to what is happening with our trend reports?
thank you, nadia piet (founder and creative director of AIxDESIGN). this was one among other terms/impacts caused by ai shared by nadia and other participants. brainsparks: context collapse (tn#25), enshittification lifecycle (tn#106), the age of average (tn#115), the moodboard effect (tn#66) 💿a bestiary of the anthropocene
this reference was also shared at Futures Friends by tina stieger, the founder of the embassy of colour. i was obsessed and had to run to the local bookshop to get one for myself (and luckily i found it). the printed project is beautiful, and also the content and research is impressive (congrats to nicolas nova, disnovation.org and all the contributors.)
brainsparks: art, science, futures studies (tn#210), centaur mindset (tn#106), codex seraphinianus (tn#34), tentacular thinking (tn#34), hypernormalization (tn#210) 🚀technovelgy
technovelgy was also shared at the event, this time by art director/brand designer ali kirby. while the website feels like timetravelling because of its repository look, it houses thousands of technologies and their prediction/reference in pieces of sci-fi. it’s the perfect materialization of the sci-fi / sci-fact argument, where innovations happen in sci-fi before they reach the real world. brainsparks: art predicts (tn#1), how sci-fi has changed (tn#186), sci-fi love (tn#69), sci-fi playlist (tn#17) 🫀abracadabra i have to bring up gaga’s new release, which i’m loving: the gaga-isms, the song, the video, the costumes, the choreo. the track belongs to the upcoming album mayhem, and it is quite interesting that it comes after the track disease (tn#197). i remembered seeing this triangle representation of the word abracadabra and looking it up: the iconic stage magic word of uncertain origin is also an incantation/amulet and it was believed to cure diseases.
i want this tattoo… brainsparks: witches and loneliness (tn#98), disease (tn#197), recession pop is back (tn#184), amusing ourselves to death (tn#208) 🎤madonna-ology
it’s no secret that i admire madonna, so you can imagine how excited i was to learn that the switched on pop podcast released, last november, a series of three episodes about madonna: who’s that girl, spanish eyes and ray of light. it’s the perfect example how pop culture helps us understand the zeitgeist and society. she has one of the longest carreers in the musical industry and shaped what it means to be a female artist. also, she was already doing eras before there even was a name for it. so in their research to make the project, they took a deep dive into madonna studies (or madonna-ology, which is a thing). and they realized madonna has her own musical holy trinity: gender exploration, globalization and spirituality (as you guessed, each episode zooms in in one of these pillars). and it’s just amazing how they explore each one, it made me see things about madonna i had never realised: her kind of emulation of hyperfemininity in the beginning of her carreer, as a performance to play the industry’s game. or even how along her career that she sings about music and the dancefloor as a safe-space/spiritual practice (i mean, the lyrics of vogue are pretty gospel, and music does make the people come together). brainsparks: madonna’s record breaking concert in rio (tn#172) 👠striptease on the last episode of the madonna series, they mention how ray of light was quite a unique album, mixing spirituality with electronic music. they also mentioned we need some of that sound back in the mainstream (or something in those lines). well, when fka twigs’ new album, eusexua, was released last week, i was thinking exactly that when listening to one of my favorite tracks: girl feels good has that vibe. i also loved the new single, striptease, and the lyrics are quite touching:
brainsparks: eusexua (tn#191), the body is art (tn#192), perfect stranger (tn#196) 🧜♀️aquamarine they also mention addison rae in madonna’s podcast, as the tiktok star seems to have done her homework (my words, not theirs). the sound, the choreo, the vibes, it’s all done so well, and this also seems to be a madonna b-side (in the best way possible). the remix with arca, named arcamarine, is also 2 die 4 😜 🩸vendetta i’ve been quite obsessed with this song from myss keta’s latest album, as it’s because its homage to movies, westerns and revenge, with a maximal vibe and what i love from myss keta: spoken-word, narrating thoughts and scenes, with her decadent glamour. first, the sound design is full of movie effects (guns, whistles, cries) making it feel somewhat immersive, and when i hear the mention of kill bill right at the beginning, i has to go dig more. the track features another woman’s voice: vera gemma. she is a well-known italian actress, known for her femme fatale characters. she is also the daughter of giuliano gemma, famous for his work in western-spaghetti movies. so it’s a perfect match. the lyrics starts with: “alright, okay, i'll do this movie. but know that the ending is kill bill. the phone rings, drin-drin, it's revenge calling me.” i felt like i could see the story board. then, gemma starts name dropping mythological figures known for their vengeance: nemesis, kali, beatrix, fedra, the furies, medea. in the end, it’s almost like reading the credits: written, directed, produced, edited, music, costumes, by vera and M¥SS KETA. the end. brainsparks: nevrotika (tn#201), 160bpm (tn#209), they want to be me (tn#197) see you next week, little monsters 🫀✨❓Wait, what is a Nexialist?🔎If you want to see what I’ve already posted, visit the archive and use the search engine. Even I do that a lot.💌I want to know what you think/who you are! Your feedback is highly appreciated; you can e-mail me or fill in this short survey. Thank you! 🙏🏻🔌Let’s Collab?I truly believe innovation comes from bringing improbable areas together, and that’s why I called this project The Nexialist. Some sectors are known to be self-referencing and hermetic. Sometimes, teams are on autopilot mode, focused on the daily grind, which hinders innovation. As a Nexialist, I like to burst these bubbles, bringing references from different areas, and maintaining teams inspired and connected to the Zeitgeist. I offer inspiration sessions called Brainsparks, creative desk research (Zeitgeist Boost), Plug’n’Play deals for workshops and sprints, and other bespoke formats. If you want to know more about this, send me an e-mail with your challenge(s) and we can figure something out together. Check out my website and some work I’ve done below: You're currently a free subscriber to The Nexialist. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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🩸✨The Nexialist #0211
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