Today we’re celebrating a big milestone: this is the 100th edition of On the dot (🥳). We’ve seen and shared a lot in that time, so today’s newsletter is a special one highlighting the biggest trends since we launched, along with some practical lessons we’ve learned along the way. Put on your party hat and buckle up for the ride.
Thank you to everyone who’s read, supported, or contributed ideas to this newsletter over the last 2 years – here’s to the next hundred.
Scroll down to read about Los Blancos, South Park, and the word that’s featured in 82% of these newsletters (and no, it isn’t “data” or “trend”).
Stats to power your week
⚽ To kick us off… what’s the biggest global trend we’ve seen in the last two years? This one surprised us, but it’s actually support of Real Madrid football club, rising 75% worldwide since Q4 2022. The signings of Jude Bellingham and Kylian Mbappé have really helped here, growing their fan base in the UK and France respectively. GWI Core
🤖 Alongside this newsletter, there was one other significant launch in late 2022: ChatGPT. Since that time, the number of Americans worried about AI has increased by a staggering 139%. Bonus stat: the word “AI” has now appeared in 82/100 On the dot newsletters. Who knew? GWI USA
🔫 In the world of gaming, the biggest trend is for the multiplayer arena shooter PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds. It’s had a 58% increase in regular players, thanks to a ban on the game being lifted in India. If you think that’s a cop-out, we’re also seeing a spike in PlayStation Plus users, rising 34% since the end of 2022. GWI Gaming
🏏 Looking at sports, one of the most significant trends is actually something that’s becoming less popular. With the crypto hype cycle feeling like a distant memory, the number of sports fans who buy fan tokens or digital collectibles (like NFTs) has more than halved. GWI Sports
🖥️ Even by late 2022, some lingering effects of the pandemic remained. We get a sense of this, and how much things have recovered, with one of our biggest workplace trends: the number of business professionals who regularly attend conferences or trade shows in-person has increased by 36% since 2022. GWI Work
What’s behind our radar: 8 trendspotting tips
As well as insights from our data, we also like to keep our eyes on the horizon to identify and share potential future trends. So here are 8 lessons we’ve learned over our 100 editions for noticing what really matters.
The old rule of “see it three times, it’s a trend” often holds up, but context is vital. It may sound obvious, but it’s more valuable to spot it in three independent, high-quality sources – like good trade publications, academic papers, or episodes of South Park (seriously, satire can be a great resource) – than in three social media posts.
If there’s a consensus on what the “next big thing” will be, it’s likely to be wrong (what happened to web3?). Often, going against the crowd is the safer bet. Two of the biggest developments since this newsletter launched – generative AI and GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic) – initially came out of the blue.
Some of the most meaningful trends unfold slowly and almost hide in plain sight. A great example is accessibility, which has been decades in the making. It’s usually better to monitor these slow, lasting trends, than search for something new and groundbreaking.
Cultural flashpoints like Barbenheimer or brat summer have their place, but they come and go. Research on baby names supports the idea that the faster something becomes popular, the quicker it falls. If you feel like everyone around you is suddenly talking about something, chances are they won’t be next month.
Many trends are behaviors or attitudes that move from a social or ethical fringe into the mainstream, with cannabis legalization being the classic example. To stay ahead, it helps to explore areas people might find uncomfortable today, like AI-generated art, the normalization of erotica, and the idea that mental health awareness can do more harm than good.
News stories of people quitting something (whether it’s their job, music streaming, or social media) rarely tell the whole story. Often a few anecdotes snowball into a media frenzy, unsupported by the long-term data. As a rule of thumb, don’t believe the hype until you see a credible chart (👋)
To understand current trends, it’s often better to study old ones. They reveal common cycles, structural patterns and cut through distractions. If we assume there’s a running boom happening now, it might be more helpful to step back and look at the first jogging craze in the 1970s.
And perhaps the ultimate lesson: most things don’t change as much, or as quickly, as we expect. Our craving for change often exceeds the world’s ability to actually do so.
Chart of the week
The most significant techrelease since we launched this newsletter came just a month after – the debut of ChatGPT in November 2022. Two years on, it feels reasonable to say it’s probably the most important piece of consumer technology since the first iPhone.
It reached 1 in 5 of the global online population within a year, a growth rate faster than anything we’ve ever seen (apart from TikTok, which benefited from a pre-existing user base when its owners acquired Musical.ly).
Even more interestingly, ChatGPT now reaches more people than Wikipedia. Of course, it’s not a like-for-like replacement, and while answering questions isn’t actually the main reason people use ChatGPT, a lot do. It begs the question: what other changes will be in store over the next 2 years?
Local lowdown
Maybe Greta’s influence isn’t as great as we thought
We’ve shared a global overview, now let’s get a local look. What’s been the most meaningful change in an individual country since our first edition launched?
There’s a very interesting one happening among teens in Sweden. You might associate Swedish youth with climate activist Greta Thunberg, yet since 2022, we’ve seen steep declines in the number of Swedish 13-15 year olds who are interested in the environment (-41%) or caring for the planet (-31%).
It’s possible the climate activism movement caused an initial spike in engagement, and things are settling back to normal. But even at their peak, Swedish teens were among the most apathetic about the environment, compared to their European peers.
It demonstrates the importance of using solid data to track trends over time – and not just relying on anecdotes – to understand shifting attitudes. We’ve probably mentioned that once before. Maybe twice.
