The META Trending Trends: 2024
Analysis of 70+ Global Forecasts → 14 Most Reported Social Shifts
A Prologue —
Stalling to complete this annual meta-analysis of the most reported cultural trends, I decided to go back in time and flip through some old 2018 reports. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time traveling. Those reports, now published over half a decade ago, read eerily similar to what’s being forecasted for 2024.
Perhaps this was just some lingering bitterness after spending a year speaking on how trends have lost all meaning.
To test my perception, I created a simple quiz: 2018 or 2024? “Can you tell when each of the following trends were published?” To make it even easier, I clustered four trends and their descriptions together, which were all 2018, or all 2024.
Before starting the assessment, the nearly 200 global cultural research and strategy professionals rated their confidence in this task a solid 6.5 out of 10.
However, after finishing the quiz, but before seeing their results, when asked again, that average confidence dropped -27%.
They felt what I did.
Turns out you were better off guessing 50/50 than genuinely attempting to determine if a trend was published in 2018 or 2024.
What’s happening?
01. On one hand, maybe this isn’t a knock against trend regurgitation, but a mark against our own patience. Trends aren’t meant to have a 365-day shelf life. It takes time for change to gestate. Also, the topics forecasted in 2018 (ex. new family structures, fondness for the physical, and mainstreaming psychedelics) are still budding today, and therefore still legitimate to report on. Expecting new movements and norms to track at the same pace as our memes and headlines is unrealistic.
02. On the other hand, maybe culture really is stuck. Our media and creative industries, mirrors of culture at large, are experiencing a stasis. Other researchers are dubbing this phenomenon Stuck Culture, The Age of Average, and Cultural Flattening. Franchises hog the box office while nostalgia is our only shared feeling left. The homogeneity is suffocating. Artists and creators, meant to inspire, find themselves captured by algorithms, metrics and financial incentives. Our new obsession, AI, isn’t intelligent as much as it is incredible at guessing what should come next based upon the past. It’s a tool to usher in our future, yet built upon the average. How symbolic.
Perhaps both hypotheses can simultaneously be true. We’re impatient and cultural change is stagnant. I was fine accepting these explanations until one more experiment...
In partnership with scenarioDNA, a cultural research and advisory firm, we inputted seven years of trend report executive summaries and reported trends into their patented Culture Mapping tool — a semiotic and linguistic system to quantify and map phrases into one of four language quadrants:
1. Residual (ubiquitous, but fading)
2. Dominant (accepted, now expanding)
3. Emergent (rising experimentation)
4. Disruptive (agitating expected norms)
After analyzing thousands of pages of text, we learned that every year since 2018, the overwhelming majority of trend reports’ language fell into either the Dominant or Residual quadrants. Only a few individual reports found their way into Emergent or Disruptive quadrants.
* Wouldn’t that mean the META Report is also dusty... therefore useless? Not necessarily. The tension of the META Report is summarization... but also elevation. As a result, after inputting seven years of META Report language into scenarioDNA’s tool, we found a +62.4% increase in Emergent language and +256.7% increase in Disruptive language when compared to the original reports’ content.
META is an effective balance for distillation and provocation.
An Unfortunate Reality
Bad news: The foremost experts in cultural analysis are reporting concepts and phrases which are statistically commonplace.
Even if we are unfairly impatient, organizations which are proclaiming to be able to identify and analyze change are, semantically, just discussing the past. Fantastic.
We’ve lost sight of what it means to be brave.
It feels like our facilities for riskiness and imagination have atrophied.
The pandemic was a global pause to re-think our future and innovate. Instead, we just grasped harder onto the familiar.
In an attempt to recalibrate, I drafted five strategies to ignite some audacity. How may we overcome this plague of timidness at the risk of an eternal present?
01. Consider the limitations of market research.
Data can only take you so far. Over-intellectualization is a curse. Instead: Make culture by partnering with and augmenting existing communities’ efforts. Foresight as Activism. The market research market cap exceeded +$81B last year and is rapidly still growing. Confidence via analysis is justified, but there’s the risk of over-analysis paralysis. Stop relying upon the old for answers to the new. We can post-rationalize many more good ideas than we can pre-rationalize. By considering yourself as an observer of culture, you neglect your responsibility as a critical contributor. Accept that you too are a part of the system. Get off the sidelines.
02. Value the process.
Feeding trend reports into a GPT as if it’s a crystal ball is virtuous. But don’t expect it to yield anything more valuable than a curious human capable of sensemaking. Can ≠ Should. AI augmentation is a future requirement, but remain mindful of what’s outsourced. Going forward, we need more demanding journeys than we do mindless shortcuts. Shortcuts rarely yield fun, stories or lessons. If it's easy, it likely isn’t worthwhile.
03. Get over being wrong.
Over a decade of digital footprints hang over us as if we can’t change. Remember: We can. Trend reports play it safe pumping existing hype with business on the line. But foresight isn’t about prediction, and it’s more than preparation. It’s choice. Instead of predicting and being wrong, more valuable: imagine what you want to see. You can’t be wrong in that. After all, a good futurist provokes and admits that they don’t have the answer. Manifest. Possibility > Probability.
04. Be willing to have your most fundamental beliefs challenged.
Better, be eager and question them yourself. For YouTuber Ordinary Things, “The real danger of modern times isn’t that we’ll fail to tell the fake world from the real one, but it’s that we’ll know the world is fake and choose to live in that one anyway because it’s comfortable.” How ironic. We finally have access to all the information in the world, yet so many today choose to avoid hard truths, contradictions and disagreements. Only two out of 50 trend reports acknowledge their previous work. We have to reflect if we’re to grow.
05. Get weird.
At a moment of algorithmic-recommendations, bumper sticker takes, and AI re-generated averages, the atypical sets us free. AI is often programmed to play a normie. Its hallucinations are the feature, not the bug. Soon, proof of humanity will be a zag. Zagging breaks us out of the recursion loop of reporting on what’s already trending, comments about comments, franchises about franchises, and AI speaking to AI. We’ve begun to deprive ourselves of the novel, idiosyncratic and interesting. Zag. Please.
All these things are hard.
But if we’re to see change in our trend reports, culture at large, and most importantly, our own lives, doing the hard thing has never been more necessary.
Q: WTF are META Trends?
A: META Trends are a distillation of all of the year’s reported trends — an annual meta-analysis answering, ‘What are the most-mentioned trends across 70+ global cultural forecasts?’
No ChatGPT. Just three months and some coffee.
This META report is a reflection on the most frequently reported trends, and commentary on the practice of trend forecasting itself.
The intent from my first META Report in 2017 was that we can leverage reliability (all available reports) as a proxy for trend forecast accuracy.
But over the years I’ve found significant systemic flaws in the reports — bias, lack of methodology and risk, toxic positivity, hype, etc. “Accuracy” now has an asterisk.
Still, META Trends provide significant value, exposing the collective’s outlook (with a ~3yr horizon). META Trends must not be considered the final product, but the beginning.
The edges are the sharpest, and the fringes are the future.
Don’t act upon uninspiring futures.
So... Three ways to approach The META Trends Reports:
Consider all that’s reported as table stakes – catch up
Interrogate what’s presented — consider all other angles
Use this report as a filter — consider what’s not discussed
META Methodology
Read 70+ 2024 global reports and parsed 550+ trends in Excel 1
Analyzed each trend description and manually identified themes
Named 14 META Trends (i.e. largest themes or “trending trends”)
Designated keywords to represent each of the 14 META Trends
Used NWO.ai to score each collection of keywords for a ranking
“Corp Rank” = published reports’ trend mention frequency vs.
“NWO.ai Rank” = NWO’s proprietary score for keywords 2
Analyzed keywords to quantify biggest and fastest growing
Determined media breakdown based upon keywords’ presence online
Applied The Overlooked Framework to interrogate each META Trend:
Outside = What is an outsider’s POV or experience?
Other Side = What is the inverse or contradictory tension?
Dark Side = What is the malicious or distressing angle?
Back Side = What is the devious or stigmatized twist?
Quiet Side = What is not being talked about?
Long Side = What are the long-term implications or effects?
Inside = What is the internal or personal impact?
Old Side = What are the historical roots or deeper origins?
Input META Trend write-ups into Stable Diffusion for spec art
Your Invite
Share this report to increase cultural fluency
Reach out for a bespoke mapping workshop or talk
Our Intro
“Imagine the world is like a big, busy playground.
There are a lot of different games going on, but all the rules keep changing, which can be both confusing and exciting.
Countries and organizations are like the older kids on the playground who decide what games to play and how we should play them. But now, even they’re finding it hard because the playground is changing so much.
Some parts of the playground now are getting too hot or too wet because we haven't been taking good care of it. Everyone is starting to play in their own way and a new toy this year is distracting everyone.
At the end of the day, those older kids need to start thinking carefully about how to make the playground fun and safe for everyone.”
— All 2024 trend report executive introductions summarized and explained to a 5-year-old via AI
The 14 2024 META Trends:
01. Global. Burn. Out. 🔥
Compounding collapses and anticipatory anxiety demoralize
Corp Rank: 1/14 3
NWO.ai Rank: 8/14
3YR Growth: 8/14
Biggest Keywords: war, disaster, nuclear
Fastest Growing Keywords: climate emergency, withdrawal, detachment
Keywords: permacrisis, degrowth, suicide, civil war, eco-anxiety
Drivers: lack of control or progress, loneliness, infobesity
Breakdown: 14% Search / 72% News / 7% Social / 7% Sci.
What if: Disorder was seen as a shared experience for cohesion
Imagine if: Orgs helped channeled rage into community service?
To Play: Don’t ignore the exhaustion/doom/weirdness of this moment
Human Needs: stability, faith, respite
+ Related Dives: Aspirational Stability & New Age Rage & Prepping
02. AI Colonization 🤖
Hype invites AI to infiltrate, wipe out and rule all our structures
Corp Rank: 2/14 4
NWO.ai Rank: 1/14
3YR Growth: 2/14
Biggest Keywords: AI assistant, creativity, skill
Fastest Growing Keywords: decelerationist, accelerationist, LLM
Keywords: AGI, self-aware, post-human, interface, co-create, neural
Drivers: access, novelty, capitalism, minimizing cognitive loads
Media Breakdown: 20% Search / 69% News / 3% Social / 9% Sci.
Imagine if: We learn we were better off with the human doing it
What if: We grew from seeing the flaws in AI as flaws in ourselves?
To Play: Make work outside the average
Human Needs: mastery, purpose, evolution? (singularity)
+ Related Dives: Lil Miquela & Screen Angst
03. Late-Stage-Wellness 💊
In a world aflame, when everything is “wellness,” nothing is
Corp Rank: 3/14 5
NWO.ai Rank: 2/14
3YR Growth: 3/14
Biggest Keywords: heal, holistic, longevity
Fastest Growing Keywords: therapy speak, Ozempic, zen
Keywords: no alc, (hyper-)optimize, breath, biotech, immortality
Drivers: McMindfulness, identity, innovation, coping, mortality
Media Breakdown: 11% Search / 77% News / 5% Social / 6% Sci.
Imagine if: Mental health edu. in schools is all we really need
What if: Optimization is anti-human, denying natural states?
To Play: Empower acceptance as much as betterment
Human Needs: confidence, security, prosperity
+ Related Dives: The Ozempic Effect & Psych Edu
04. Play Time 🪁
The fun and frivolous serve a dire purpose: distracting relief
Corp Rank: 4/14 6
NWO.ai Rank: 10/14
3YR Growth: 10/14
Biggest Keywords: joy, dream, bright
Fastest Growing Keywords: mischief, childish, optimism
Keywords: dopamine, hedonism, hope, indulge, messy, comfort
Drivers: anxiety, anti-hustle, costly adulthood, over-structure
Media Breakdown: 5% Search / 82% News / 9% Social / 4% Sci.
Imagine if: We crafted our routines and curiosities from kids’
What if: We brought back some good ol’ (safe) mischief?
To Play: Urge what feels fun — rules need not apply
Human Needs: catharsis, lightness, awe
+ Related Dive: Nihilistic Hedonism
05. Environmental Vaporware ♻️
Pledges become lip service as we fail to act upon this abstraction
Corp Rank: 5/14 7
NWO.ai Rank: 4/14
3YR Growth: 1/14
Biggest Keywords: travel, plant, fashion
Fastest Growing Keywords: green city, ethical, urgency
Keywords: eco-theater, green-wash, carbon footprint, water, COP28
Drivers: cognitive dissonance, behavioral momentum, money, apathy
Media Breakdown: 4% Search / 86% News / 7% Social / 3% Sci.
Imagine: More audacious demands and shaming of people, not brands
What if: We designed the ESG Olympics with multi-country teams?
To Play: Bite-size the issue by working on one realistic piece
Human Needs: results, peace of mind, participation
+ Related Dives: Dark Philanthropy & Politicization of Transpo
06. Consensus Collapse ⁉️
AI and social disintegration multiply competitive realities
Corp Rank: 6/14 8
NWO.ai Rank: 14/14
3YR Growth: 14/14
Biggest Keywords: truth, trust, faith
Fastest Growing Keywords: hallucinate, deceive, deepfake
Keywords: unreality, moral, scam, dupe, dis-info, mainstream, psyop
Drivers: AI, tribalism, nefarious actors, CPU’s, hard truths
Media Breakdown: 11% Search / 74% News / 8% Social / 7% Sci.
Imagine if: Truth becomes moot – life’s lived by gut and feels
What if: Faith-based communities run the world? (Already here?)
To Play: Be open to and swallow a hard truth, not just your truth
Human Needs: cultural synchrony, cohesion, vindication
+ Related Dive: Betty Crocker’s Egg is a Myth
07. Age Play ⏳
Post-nostalgia, longing for comfort and wisdom, the ancestral guides
Corp Rank: 7/14 9
NWO.ai Rank: 11/14
3YR Growth: 12/14
Biggest Keywords: senior, age, heritage
Fastest Growing Keywords: lineage, history, old fashioned
Keywords: mature, gerontocracy, provenance, roots, vintage, gray
Drivers: fear of the future, doubt, distrust, booming boomers
Media Breakdown: 9% Search / 81% News / 8% Social / 3% Sci.
Imagine if: We obsess over the past so long, nothing defines “now”
What if: Native, indigenous practices were cheat codes all along?
To Play: Re-contextualize lessons from legacies
Human Needs: familiarity, direction, assurance
+ Related Dives: Midlife Revolution & Future Nostalgia & Old-Phobia
08. Airplane Mode 🌲
Straining effects of digital inspire life away from screens
Corp Rank: 8/14 10
NWO.ai Rank: 9/14
3YR Growth: 7/14
Biggest Keywords: traditional, simple, physical
Fastest Growing Keywords: reality, retreat, touch grass
Keywords: analog, tangible, outdoors, unplug, minimal, meet-up
Drivers: enshittification, addiction, boredom, anxiety, doomscrolls
Media Breakdown: 5% Search / 82% News / 9% Social / 5% Sci.
Imagine: A global 12-Step program for healthy digital abstinence
What if: Governments mandated digital sabbaths?
To Play: Remember what was lost to screens. Bring that back.
Human Needs: nature, slowness, sex
+ Related Dives: Audience Capture & Extremely Online & IRL Escapism
09. Economic Erosion 🐷
Mindful of money, mobility sails away with status codes upended
Corp Rank: 9/14 11
NWO.ai Rank: 5/14
3YR Growth: 4/14
Biggest Keywords: market, debt, luxury
Fastest Growing Keywords: ZIRP, shrinkflation, thrift
Keywords: inflation, house, children, marriage, retire, austerity
Drivers: inequality, layoffs, costs of living, anti-work, markets
Media Breakdown: 12% Search / 73% News / 10% Social / 6% Sci.
Imagine: A world of 70-year-old singles still working
What if: The nuclear family and 9-to-5’s were unsustainable fads?
To Play: Normalize new markers of modern achievement
Human Needs: mobility, pride, status
+ Related Dives: Fractional Work & 4 Day Week & Micro Income
10. The Human Touch 🖐🏼
Humanity dons a halo as all things alive, warm and honest get revalued
Corp Rank: 10/14 12
NWO.ai Rank: 3/14
3YR Growth: 5/14
Biggest Keywords: personal, live, gentle
Fastest Growing Keywords: ethical, heartfelt, civil
Keywords: genuine, peach fuzz, hand-made, compassion, friendly
Drivers: AI, collapse, division, isolation, screen/remote fatigue
Media Breakdown: 7% Search / 80% News / 11% Social / 2% Sci.
Imagine: (Even more) eye contact practice videos and cuddle therapy
What if: By emulating machines, we atrophy our best qualities?
To Play: Celebrate the ambiguous, artistic, vulnerable, and unknown
Human Needs: soul, empathy, intimacy
+ Related Dives: Modern Religion & Memento Mori
11. Niche is Nice 🔗
Post-scale and online, (a sense of) home is found in the obscure
Corp Rank: 11/14 13
NWO.ai Rank: 12/14
3YR Growth: 13/14
Biggest Keywords: exclusive, community, member
Fastest Growing Keywords: collective, Long Tail, cozy
Keywords: fandom, fragment, meme, closed, cult, squad, dark forest
Drivers: declining friends, lost rituals, algorithms, feed fatigue
Media Breakdown: 4% Search / 85% News / 9% Social / 2% Sci.
Imagine if: Fandoms run economies (i.e. Swifties, BTS)
What if: The internet wasn’t meant to get this big or important?
To Play: Discover and support the existing goals of a community
Human Needs: affiliation, social contracts, safety
+ Related Dives: Distributed Trust & Gentle Gaming
12. Conditional Invites 🌎
Divided, diversity is contested: responsible inclusion vs. performance
Corp Rank: 12/14 14
NWO.ai Rank: 13/14
3YR Growth: 9/14
Biggest Keywords: victim, justice, equity
Fastest Growing Keywords: antisemitism, oppressor, peak woke
Keywords: in-group, DEI, meritocracy, affirmative action, rollback
Drivers: politicalization, corp. austerity, tribalism, tiredness
Media Breakdown: 13% Search / 69% News / 6% Social / 12% Sci.
Imagine if: Class solidarity with the 1% was achieved
What if: Identity politics has no end?
To Play: Embody values, don’t parrot them
Human Needs: involvement, importance, acceptance
+ Related Dives: Bimbos & The Retirement Crisis
13. Sportsing ⚽
Sport culture serves entertainment, camaraderie and globalization
Corp Rank: 13/14 15
NWO.ai Rank: 6/14
3YR Growth: 6/14
Biggest Keywords: team, rival, play
Fastest Growing Keywords: NCAA, athletic, represent
Keywords: sports-wash, compete, fashion, values, recreation, live
Drivers: division, (counter) online gaming, legal bets, streamers
Media Breakdown: 5% Search / 83% News / 9% Social / 3% Sci.
Imagine if: Politics were decided by sport or accessible alts
What if: Passive spectating stifles active unorganized play?
To Play: Rally a team with metaphorical jerseys and goals
Human Needs: (religious) belonging, opponents, localism
+ Related Dive: Natural Awe
14. Ego-nomics 🔐
Indifferent to data, individualization trades custom in for isolation
Corp Rank: 14/14 16
NWO.ai Rank: 7/14
3YR Growth: 11/14
Biggest Keywords: targeted, privacy, facial
Fastest Growing Keywords: predictive, personalize, curated
Keywords: algo, unique, for you, segment, feed, analytics, DNA
Drivers: hyper-individualism, AI, capitalism, surveillance norms
Media Breakdown: 5% Search / 85% News / 6% Social / 4% Sci.
Imagine if: Algos become our cigs — customized = unhealthy
What if: We could never return to a one-size-fit-all way of life?
To Play: Offer minimal viable resonance w/o segmenting infinitely
Human Needs: resonance, specialness, indulgence
+ Related Dives: Self-Made & Cultural Synchrony
About the author:
Matt Klein is a cultural theorist and strategist. He advises brands, investors, the press and philanthropies on how to strategize around social change. Unrelated to the META Trend Report and ZINE, he is currently the Head of Global Foresight at Reddit and Resident Futurist with Hannah Grey VC.
Complete META Trends Series: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 & 2023
Related Pieces: 5 Year & 7 Year Reflection & META FAQs
NWO.ai Experiment Series: Quantifying, Spotting New, De-Biasing
This piece is an educational review and does not infringe upon any copyright material as covered by Fair Use, Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107.
Analyzed Reports: Accenture, Adobe, Bacardi, BBC R&D, BlackRock, BOF x McKinsey, Bompas & Parr (Food), Bompas & Parr (Public Leisure), Bumble, Canvas8, Canvas8 100, Cavnas8, D&AD, DEPT, Dentsu, Depop, Diageo, Euromonitor, Foresight Factory, Ford, GWI, Human8 x Space Doctors, Klarna, Marian Salzman, Mind Body + Classpass, Mintel, Mintel Beauty & Personal Care, Mintel Food & Drink, NEXTATLAS, Nourish, Ogilvy, Pantone, Pinterest, Statista, TikTok, Trend Watching, WARC, We Are Social, We Are Up, Webby Awards, Wonderhood, Yelp, WGSN
NWO.ai’s proprietary “Impact Score,” which was used for our “AI Ranking,” calculates global signal volume, volume change, sentiment, search interest, source reach and diversity, etc. across news publications, social media, patents, academia, lyrics and even sci-fi film scripts
Global. Burn. Out.:
Everything Happens So Much – BBC R&D
Shifting Global Systems – BBC R&D
Absolute Overwhelm – Canvas8 100
Deep Immersion – Canvas8 100
Fury Road – Canvas8 100
Rage Rave – Canvas8 100
Gen Agitation – Canvas8 100
Deepening Fragmentation – BlackRock
Common Tongue – Trend Watching
Negative Fuel – Human8 x Space Doctors
Cultural Detachment – Canvas8
Rogue Actors – Canvas8
Gun Violence – GWI
Post-Growth Paradigm – Soon
Decade of Deconstruction – Accenture
Investing in Me – Ford
Age of Polarization – WARC
Death Goes Green – Salzman
Restoring the Missing Middle – Salzman
Progressively Polarised – Euromonitor
The New Nihilists – WGSN
Fragmented Future – BOF x McKinsey
Hyper Lonelysad – We Are Up
Drum Beat Doom – We Are Up
Collapse of Meaning – We Are Up
This is Polycrisis – DDB Latina
AI Colonization:
Virtual Companions – Trend Watching
Drafted by AI – Trend Watching
Factual Healing – Trend Watching
Skills for All – Trend Watching
AI Excitement & Concern – GWI
Tech-enhanced Tastes – Bacardi
Humanity x AI – Foresight Factory
Ask AI – Euromonitor
AI-Influence Goes Hyper-Personal – Ogilvy
The AI Boom – BBC R&D
AI Glint in the Eye – D&AD
Great Interface Shift – Accenture
The Race to Outpace – Webby Awards
Resisting the Imitation Game – Contagious
Beaut-AI – Mintel Beuaty & Personal Care
AI Wary – Ford
Unlocking Potential of Gen AI – WARC
A New Way of Thinking – Nourish
AI Design – Shutterstock
Gen AI's Creative Crossroad – BOF x McKinsey
Gen AI's Evolution – DEPT
AI: Intelligence Revolution – BlackRock
Controversial Intelligence – DDB Latina
AI Co-Creation – WGSN
AI Assistants – WGSN
Late-Stage-Wellness:
Smoothie Nation – Yelp
‘Sober Curious’ – Yelp
NeuroGlow – Mintel Beuaty & Personal Care
Custom Care – Canvas8 100
Meta Goop – Canvas8 100
Therapy Speak – Canvas8 100
Limited Libations – Bacardi
Life Wellbeing – Soon
Staying Sharp – Nourish
No More For Me, Thanks – Nourish
Gen Zen – Salzman
Mindfulness Camps – Salzman
Friends and Culture Rx – Salzman
Neighborhood Healers – Salzman
Longevity & Wellness-Washing – Foresight Factory
Wellness Pragmatists – Euromonitor
Zenthusiasts – Statista
Psychic Waves – Adobe
Conscious Wellbeing – Diageo
Hyper Optimal – We Are Up
Brandcare – Trend Watching
Head to Glow – Pinterest
Betterment Burnout – Bumble
Consider-date – Bumble
Play Time:
Mischief Mode – We Are Social
Little Treat Culture – NEXTATLAS
Age of Messiness – NEXTATLAS
Meh-diocrity – Accenture
Hyperbolic Foods – Bompas & Parr (Food)
Dopamine Decor – Yelp
Interior Expressionism – Klarna
Vacation Mode – BOF x McKinsey
Make it Big – Pinterest
Melty Mashups – Pinterest
Kitschens – Pinterest
Radical Optimism – Wonderhood
Get the Party Started – Mind Body & Classpass
Delightful Distractions – Euromonitor
Neo-Hedonism – Diageo
Rizz – Oxford Word of the Year
Joyfulness Coaches – Salzman
Why So Serious? – Canvas8 100
Positive Perspectives – Mintel
Manifesting Manifestos – Human8 x Space Doctors
The Case for Hope – BBC R&D
Ode to Joy – Dentsu
Delirium Indulgence – DDB Latina
Environmental Vaporware:
Sustainability & Responsibility – Foresight Factory
Greenwashed Out – Euromonitor
Sustainable Influence – Ogilvy
Ethical Spenders – Statista
Betterment Brands – Diageo
EVolutionary Sustainability – Ford
Sustainability is Coming Home – WARC
Putting a Dent in Car Culture – Salzman
Making Cities Cool Again – Salzman
New Green Reality – Mintel
Climate Urgency – BOF x McKinsey
Fast Fashion's Power Players – BOF x McKinsey
Sustainability Rules – BOF x McKinsey
Climate: The Fundamental Challenge – BBC R&D
Pay it Forward – D&AD
People And The Planet – DEPT
Global Boiling Point – Canvas8
Sustainability on Display – Trend Watching
Eco-Boosters – Trend Watching
Off-Grid Guerrillas – Trend Watching
Green Theater – Trend Watching
Investing in Climate Resilience – BlackRock
Bioderadable Denim – WGSN
Consensus Collapse:
Synthetic Reality – Canvas8
Cyber Vigilantism – Canvas8
The Future is Now – DEPT
Hallucinate - Cambridge Word of the Year
Fake New World – Contagious
Media's Trust Problem – GWI
The Trust Algorithm – Ford
Extended Reality & Spatial Computing – BBC R&D
Ubiquitous Computing – BBC R&D
Postreal Curation – NEXTATLAS
Meta-Worlds – Soon
Augmentation for All – D&AD
Expanding Reality – Diageo
Big AI Blur – We Are Up
The Magic in the Machine – Dentsu
Collapsing Truth – DDB Latina
Age Play:
Boomer Scrolling & Shopping – GWI
Boomers Go Boutique – Mind Body & Classpass
Innovative Aging & Blending – Bacardi
Age Reframed – Mintel Food & Drink
Nostalgic Color Palettes – Shutterstock
Gen(erational)-Blend Romance – Bumble
Preserving the Past – D&AD
The Time Keepers – WGSN
Drawing Wisdom from the Ancients – Salzman
Jazz Revival – Pinterest
Eclectic Grandpa – Pinterest
Retro Active – Adobe
Legacy Link – Canvas8 100
Seniors Doing It for Themselves – Salzman
Age Tension – DDB Latina
Airplane Mode:
Mass X-Odus – Wonderhood
Silent Walking – Wonderhood
Notes of Nature – Bacardi
Error 429 – Accenture
End of Social Media? – Contagious
Banishing Biophobia – Salzman
A Is for Analog – Salzman
Attention Layering – We Are Social
The Offline Internet – We Are Social
Purer Pleasure – Canvas8 100
Hands-on-Fun – Canvas8 100
Dirt Flirts – Pinterest
Outdoors Reinvented – BOF x McKinsey
The Simple Life – We Are Up
Economic Erosion:
Caviar Bumps – Yelp
Where's The Love? – Accenture
Lazy Luxe – Depop
Value Hackers – Euromonitor
Quest for Quality – Statista
Quiet Luxury – Shutterstock
More Than Money – Mintel
Economic Polarisation – Canvas8
Cute Coins – Pinterest
Future Proofed – Trend Watching
Sharing is Daring – Human8 x Space Doctors
Messy Realism – Canvas8 100
Counter Capitalism – Canvas8 100
Eating the Rich – We Are Up
The Human Touch:
Post Representation – We Are Social
Being Human – Mintel
Way Beyond Authenticity – Bompas & Parr (Food)
Polarised Personalisation – Bompas & Parr (Public Leisure)
Intuitive Intimacy – Bumble
Peach Fuzz – Pantone
Hyperreal Photography – Shutterstock
Real is Radical – Adobe
Authentic – Merriam-Webster Word of the Year
Relearning How to "Human" – Salzman
Big Talk – Pinterest
Hyper Personal – We Are Up
Apricot Crush – WGSN
Niche is Nice:
Infinite Niche – Canvas8 100
New Believers – Canvas8 100
Peak Parasocial – Canvas8 100
Fan Voyage – Canvas8 100
Everyday Fandom – We Are Social
Decentralized Networks – Human8 x Space Doctors
Belonging Amongst Fragmentation – Foresight Factory
Relationship Renaissance – Mintel
Fandom Fashion – Klarna
Community-Fueled Storytelling – TikTok
Let's Talk, TikTok – TikTok
Memes of Production – Dentsu
Conditional Invites:
Age of Awareness – Soon
Personality Not Gender – Deposit Photos
Deepening Inequalities – BBC R&D
DE&I Rollback – Canvas8
Director's Chair – Human8 x Space Doctors
Everyone Everywhere All at Once – Salzman
Me, Myself & Us – Dentsu
Collective Belonging – Diageo
Third-Culture Cuisine – WGSN
Sportsing:
Sports Quest – Depop
Sportswashing – WARC
2024, The Year of Sport – Ogilvy
Short Form Video & Sports – GWI
Stand Up! – Salzman
Primal Movement – Salzman
MVP (Most Valuable Partner) – Bumble
Ego-nomics:
Code-It-Yourself – Trend Watching
Sensorial Subtlety – Canvas8 100
Trust the FYProcess – TikTok
Hyper Individual – We Are Up
Data Ad-vocates – Statista
Marketing Gets Personal – DEPT
Real-Time Personalization – DDB Latina