Vampires are over, argues Neil Gaiman. (Via the Guardian, who rather oddly suggest the similarly over-exposed zombies as a replacement)
posted by Artw on Aug 5, 2009 - 275 comments

Andrew Gelman recently posted this strange trend in baby naming originally posted on Laura Wattenberg's blog in 2007. Why do so many boys' names now end with the letter "n"?
posted by srs on May 14, 2009 - 156 comments

What leads cultural tastes and practices to be abandoned? (.pdf) A new PNAS paper by marketing professor Jonah Berger and organizational psychologist Gael Le Mens argues that the faster a trend rises, the faster it's likely to fall, at least as regards longitudinal data of first names given to American children. (Via the Baby Names Blog.) Berger has written before on the drive to non-conform; a 2007 joint paper with Emily Pronin and Sarah Molouki (.pdf) shows that "people see others as more conforming than themselves.... placing more weight on introspective evidence of conformity (relative to behavioral evidence) when judging their own susceptibility to social influence as opposed to someone else's."
posted by escabeche on May 5, 2009 - 42 comments

Wikirank is an analytical tool that measures the popularity of trending topics on wikipedia. You can compare up to four topics and generate nifty embeddable graphs.
posted by peacay on Mar 26, 2009 - 9 comments

Ever spend a few moments during the day idly mucking about with your cellphone? You're part of a new trend known as micro-boredom - which now presents "a significant opportunity for a publisher to exploit readership and advertising consumption". Get away from the bombardment of advertising and find some sacred space, or just turn off the phone.
posted by divabat on Dec 30, 2008 - 30 comments

What's in a name? The Puritans and Victorians thought names could convey virtue onto whom they were bestowed; in Zimbabwe this is still a popular practise. Some names are thought to be 'high-end', some 'low-end' (even neighbourhoods) and our perceptions of what makes a good name changes in time. Meanwhile there are some human names that seem to suit dogs well.
posted by mippy on Dec 17, 2008 - 61 comments

RjDj "is a music application for the iPhone. It uses sensory input to generate and control the music you are listening to. RjDj is mainly listened to with headphones. Think of it as the next generation of walkman or mp3 player." l Michael Breidenbruecker initiated the project, now joined by a team of musical and technological thinkers and coders l "What it’s really about is a new approach to how to listen to music, how to develop musical tools, and how communities own and share that work." [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Nov 17, 2008 - 21 comments

DesignFilter: Walking house designed to beat the floods [pics and vid] l Wearable Gadgets [pics and vids] l Backpacks l Commuting by JetPack l Blog Designs l Twitter Clapper l and for Halloween, some awesome [whoa] carved pumpkin designs.
posted by nickyskye on Oct 31, 2008 - 13 comments

All hail the energy drink! Potentially dating back as far as early 1900s Scotland, the energy drink has evolved from a nasty-tasting "health tonic" into a brightly-colored and supercharged fuel for body and/or mind. [more inside]
posted by deusdiabolus on Sep 10, 2008 - 40 comments

Lord of the Memes : Now that MeFi has taught me how to beat the hipsters, how do I beat the poseurs? David Brooks says "prestige has shifted from the producer of art to the aggregator and the appraiser;" the cultural elite are early adopters and, more importantly, early discarders, of culture. [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk on Aug 7, 2008 - 70 comments

Web Designer Wall is the personal weblog of Nick La who is N.Design Studio. He talks about design ideas he has, design tutorials from Photoshop to CSS, etc., and trends in modern web design. (see previous)
posted by netbros on Jul 3, 2008 - 7 comments

Irritated and indifferent -- consumers in the Expectation Economy. [more inside]
posted by tkolar on Jan 23, 2008 - 20 comments

NewsFilterFilter: What Kind Of News Do People Really Want? A recent study by the Pew Research Center For The People & The Press analyzes 165 separate surveys of Americans' news preferences (conducted over a period of 20 years). One of the findings would have been obvious to most Mefites: "Polarizing social issues involving family, sexuality, patriotism and God engender the highest levels of attention." Crime, health and politics have consistently received mid-level attention. Tabloid and entertainment news (Paris and Britney, this means you), science and technology, and "foreign" news? Meh, not so much.
posted by amyms on Sep 4, 2007 - 47 comments

A (rather beautiful) subway map of web trends. Similar, previously. Via Strangemaps.
posted by WPW on Jul 21, 2007 - 16 comments

Data analysis, brought to you by Big Blue, is following a trend. Data has never been more social. Geeks and statistics groupies used to be isolated, but the internet is changing that. Ever pine for a pile of Excel spreadsheets? Have you tried running an ANOVA on a year's worth of traffic data? You're not alone. New sites add sociability to cold hard facts; take a look at the "YouTube for data" or IBM's Many Eyes. Both sites induce squeals of delight from anyone who's ever felt Tuftian. What's next? One word: infornography. Please, keep your Standard Deviation jokes to yourself.
posted by Monochrome on Jan 25, 2007 - 16 comments

Pizza in Three Dimensions "Every few years, a product comes along that completely changes its category. As the iPod has revolutionized the way people interact with music; as cell phones and wireless internet access has altered the way they communicate, so, too, will the way they approach eating change with the introduction of Pizzacono, the first dramatically new way to consume pizza in recent memory."
posted by sportbucket on Nov 3, 2006 - 93 comments

"Two years of twisting my back for 15 bucks an hour as an artist's model convinced me that modern sketch classes weren't nearly as sexy as they were cracked up to be."

Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, hosted in Brooklyn and with branches around the World , gives artists the chance to draw burlesque performers like The World Famous *BOB* , Dirty martini , and Amber Ray , and make real pretty pictures . A return to glory days? Or just another tired trend?

Oh, and there is a book.

(Possibly NSFW if your job doesn't like pasties. )
posted by juliarothbort on Oct 29, 2006 - 39 comments

Google Trends now includes chart information about what people are listening to while using Google Talk. Some genres have questionable entries, but it's still fascinating for chart followers. Mind you, I don't remember signing off on sharing that information when I got the new version of Google Talk...
posted by beaucoupkevin on Oct 10, 2006 - 25 comments

Meal Assembly ... a new trend in figuring out what's for dinner. You go to a professional kitchen and assemble any number of meals, then bring them home and freeze them. Like a salad bar, but more diverse. They provide all the ingredients and the basic recipes, and cut out the shopping, the leftover ingredients ... (and maybe the creativity?). The upside is low cost (as low as $3 a portion), and better portion control. Coming soon to a suburb near you.
posted by crunchland on Sep 6, 2006 - 128 comments

Timeline of Trends and Events (1750 to 2100). Large image, lots of info. Via digg
posted by sourwookie on May 27, 2006 - 51 comments

Google Trends is really cool. Yes, it's yet another google project, but you can compare so much pointless stuff with it!
posted by blacklite on May 10, 2006 - 122 comments

Emory University study describes the Millenial Generation An interesting comparison of Gen Xers and the so-called Millenial Generation, born since 1982, from Emory University. The M.Gen kids apparently want to do good, as long as there is a clear structure and leadership that tells them how and what to do . . . oh, and don't question the leaders. Really. Why would you?
posted by pt68 on Mar 2, 2006 - 67 comments

In the "debate" over the War on Drugs, there's a lack of nice quantitative data presentation in one place. Brian C Bennett aims to rectify that. From trends in alcohol initiation relative to legal age limits, to investigation of the deaths classified by CDC as marijuana-induced. There are lots of charts, as for cocaine purity over the years, or treatment admissions, or arrest trends. The site map is your quick guide to the 2000 charts & articles.
posted by daksya on Feb 27, 2006 - 18 comments

"More cowbell!" is the new "Freebird."
posted by mrgrimm on Dec 20, 2005 - 57 comments

An*l Bleaching Cream ... courtesy of the Village Voice. (no photos, but one would have to say, NSFW)
posted by R. Mutt on Jul 13, 2005 - 55 comments

Greenlighters are an emerging underground movement of sexually promiscuous teenagers, including bisexual, homosexual, and heterosexual members. Members of this movement wear a green polo shirt with the collar up, indicating that they are open to pretty much any sexual adventure. When someone comes up to them and puts the collar down, they are "collared" and will go with that person and do whatever sexual act they ask. Transfer of money is not usually involved. Some parent groups are starting to get involved - urging parents to go through their kids clothes and confiscate green shirts and polos. Supposedly this has been going on since mid-2004 and may be related to the "chavs" in Britain somehow.
posted by Maxor on Jul 2, 2005 - 116 comments

Sails to harness Vox Populi winds : "Technology is changing politics" [ not to mention journalism ] intones the well connected Personal Democracy Forum, and everybody's leaping into the "Blogging vs. Journalism" fray. Dan Gillmor, author of We the Media, has quit his job after receiving seed money from Mitch Kapor and from Omidyar Networks, to found the for-profit "Grassroots Media Inc." : Gillmor's got a hand, as well, in the noble and name studded OurMedia.org : "We'll host your media forever — for free.....Video blogs, photo albums, home movies, podcasting, digital art, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads"

Meanwhile, SusanG - in her most recent recently released investigative piece into the Jeff Gannon/fake journalism scandal notes her research group's effort "now encompasses so much more than Gannon" and announces future stories will post under the organizational name of ePluribus Media

"We're the People ! No you're not, we're the People ! No way ! We're the...."
posted by troutfishing on Mar 28, 2005 - 110 comments

Mapping the Global Future: Report of the National Intelligence Council's 2020 Project. Explore alternative futures, by creating own scenarios for global changes within the next 15 years.
posted by Gyan on Jan 14, 2005 - 9 comments

Black British Style at the V&A. Now with Create-a-tag!
posted by Dick Paris on Nov 15, 2004 - 3 comments

Trendwatching. "Vast groups of immigrants now travel back and forth between their old and new homelands", "the fast growing class of products and services that cater to consumers' need for simplicity", "no-frills chic", "light versions of countries or societies, stripped of annoying 'features' like crime, bad weather and excessive taxes", "the obsession of ordinary citizens wanting to leave ‘something’ behind in print, audio or imagery", online access everywhere, the C Generation (where C means 'Content' - and that's not a reference to how they feel).
posted by iffley on Aug 19, 2004 - 9 comments

Mutual Funds - Out, Google's IPO - In. Letting Your Boyfriend Videotape It - Out, Letting A Major Network Videotape It - In. Segway - Out, Honda Ruckus - In. A sampling from the Washington Post's List for 2004...
posted by bluedaniel on Jan 2, 2004 - 21 comments

Damn La Difference! Europe (and apparently Japan) seem to be going through a Dickies craze. You say work wear; we say American blue-collar chic. You pay $20 for an industrial shirt; we pay $100. Should we call the whole thing off? [More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Oct 21, 2002 - 38 comments

At least they ask before they track your web usage. We're all familiar with Neilsen ratings and how a few select families get to decide when 20/20 will finally end. I guess it was only a matter of time before they came sniffing around looking to track popular websites. People who sign up get gifts, prizes and free technical support - at least that's the deal for Canadians.
posted by Salmonberry on Apr 1, 2002 - 4 comments

Weblog tracker weblogs.com is going to change. In the new version, weblogs have to send an XML-RPC or SOAP 1.1 message to weblogs.com to indicate an alteration.
posted by tsja on Oct 3, 2001 - 13 comments

Google Zeitgeist charts the popularity of certain search queries on Google (via Slashdot). Of course, it'd be more interesting to track your own keywords, and you can. I stumbled across this partially hidden Google feature last night. (More inside...)
posted by waxpancake on Jul 6, 2001 - 23 comments

U.S. reports steepest annual violent crime drop Incidents of violent crime plummeted nearly 15 percent in 2000, the steepest one-year drop since the federal government began keeping track in 1973. Last year's data continue a trend that began early in the last decade. From 1993 through 2000, rapes dropped 60 percent, aggravated assaults fell 52.5 percent and motor vehicle theft dropped 52.4 percent.
posted by frednorman on Jun 13, 2001 - 32 comments

Boingy boingy boingy. Has anyone had any experience with these? The movies on the website look pretty cool.. and it would seem that doctoring those videos up would take some considerable effort, so I'm guessing it's not a hoax?
posted by PWA_BadBoy on Apr 9, 2001 - 22 comments

Oh Mullet! As if the mullet was restricted to just rednecks from Virginia or something...the mullet is worldwide baby.
posted by j.toronado on Jan 17, 2001 - 3 comments

"Her bra-topped collection of Madonna rejects are pure fashion overkill," says Mr. Blackwell of Britney Spears in his 41st. annual list of Hollywood's Worst Dressed. The archive of his previous lists reads like a time capsule of tinsel town's weird and wacky trends.
posted by tamim on Jan 10, 2001 - 24 comments

Too Much Information? Heavy information overload: the world's total yearly production of print, film, optical, and magnetic content would require roughly 1.5 billion gigabytes of storage. This is the equivalent of 250 megabytes per person for each man, woman, and child on earth.
posted by faithnomore on Oct 24, 2000 - 15 comments