An growing number of Chinese influencers have had it with the distorted, filtered images coming at them from every pixel on their super-app screen. From WeChat to Douyin and Weibo, they refuse to conform to social media’s perception of the perfect body.
https://chinatemper.com/chinese-society/body-positive-influencers
Influencer Scarlett Hao On The Chinese Body Image And Body Positivity
Educators in Britain are embracing the idea that purposeful risky play promotes resilience and builds more self-reliant young people. As a result, public playspaces there are being redesigned or newly built to actively present that risk. What that looks like—playgrounds with access to saws, knives, loose bricks and two-by-fours, and fire—is something that might sound alarms for some parents here in the litigious U.S.
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/risky-play-design
A 2020 survey by Vogue Business found that more than half of its Gen Z participants bought most of their clothes from fast-fashion brands, like H&M, Gap, Zara and Forever 21. Market research firm Mintel has reported that Gen Z, generally seen as those born between 1997 and 2010, also buys more clothes than older generations, with the average Gen-Zer owning hundreds of dollars worth of outfits that never get worn at all. It’s a trend that analysts say is fueled by a social media culture that pressures youth and young adults to never wear the same outfit twice, as well as an industry that has made impulse buying and returning items far easier.
https://insideclimatenews.org/todaysclimate/gen-z-has-a-fast-fashion-problem-thats-bad-for-the-climate-and-equity/
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling previously infeasible capabilities, potentially destabilizing the delicate balances that have forestalled nuclear war since 1945. Will these developments upset the nuclear strategic balance, and, if so, for better or for worse? To start to address this question, RAND researchers held a series of workshops that were attended by prominent experts on AI and nuclear security. The workshops examined the impact of advanced computing on nuclear security through 2040. The culmination of those workshops, this Perspective — one of a series that examines critical security challenges in 2040 — places the intersection of AI and nuclear war in historical context and characterizes the range of expert opinions. It then describes the types of anticipated concerns and benefits through two illustrative examples: AI for detection and for tracking and targeting and AI as a trusted adviser in escalation decisions. In view of the capabilities that AI may be expected to enable and how adversaries may perceive them, AI has the potential to exacerbate emerging challenges to nuclear strategic stability by the year 2040 even with only modest rates of technical progress. Thus, it is important to understand how this might happen and to assure that it does not.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE296.html
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE296.html
The International Committee of the Red Cross, a worldwide humanitarian organization, surveyed 16,000 millennials — adults between the ages of 20 and 35 — in 16 countries and territories last year: Afghanistan, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Palestinian Territories, Russia, South Africa, Syria, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and the United States.
https://www.vox.com/2020/1/20/21070621/millennials-survey-nuclear-world-war-3-red-cross
Widely used as a protesting tool thanks to its encrypted messaging capabilities, party organisers are increasingly using the platform to put on secret DIY raves, recreating all the thrill, hedonism and anonymity of the acid house days.
https://theface.com/life/decentralised-partying-telegram-illegal-diy-raves-london-berlin-paris-social-media-peter-pavlov-open-source-encrypted-social-media-app-instagram-nightlife
“Technology allows subcultures to be even more ephemeral in their nature. They can keep their ideology but quickly switch from one scenario to another or avoid it. And continue to thrive.”
https://www.nssmag.com/it/lifestyle/29677/culture-mapping
The film depicts an Earth rendered uninhabitable by climate change, with the last living humans obese space tourists who communicate solely via video call and rely on meal replacement smoothies for sustenance. There are eerie similarities to much of our current reality, with extreme weather events rising in frequency, obesity rates soaring, Zoom calls taking over our lives, and the rise of meal replacement firms such as Soylent and Huel.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-20/pixar-s-wall-e-dystopian-predictions-came-true
“Luxury brands have taken note that consumers want to be more mindful of what they wear and how they express themselves, especially as the pandemic has caused economic hardship for so many,” says Hannah Watkins, head of printsand graphics at trend-forecasting agency WGSN. She explains that many consumers are looking to live more sustainable lives, an aspect of which may be about buying less. “Opting for a more minimalist approach to branding will also enhance an item’s longevity and cost per wear,” she adds.
https://www.ellecanada.com/fashion/trends/is-being-understated-the-newest-fashion-trend
Generational terms such as Baby Boomer and Millennial have shaped the way we conduct research. But are they helping to predict the future – or holding us back?
https://www.thefuturelaboratory.com/blog/are-we-heading-for-a-post-demographic-future
Analyzing Trends with Tim Stock 