Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, what were the kids up to this year?
I'll tell you in a supersized version of Toby's Trends. It's Tuesday, December 30th. Let's ride. Let's ride. Now everyone's second favorite segment on the podcast behind Neil's numbers is Toby's Trends. It's where I take a deep dive into the business world and emerge with a trend that will have your grandparents going, now how did you get so smart?
For this special holiday week episode, the team and I went back and combed through every trend we talked about this year. Some of them are random. Some of them fit into a broader theme, but all of them will make you feel smart if you bring them up in front of your friends. So, Neil, are you ready to have your mind blown? Let's do it. But first, a word from our sponsor, Public.
Neil, I have to talk to you about something.
Toby, for the last time, I do not want to hear about your golf trip last weekend.
No, no, no, no. It's public. Before on public, you could build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, and crypto. But now, in addition to that, they have generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI.
You can type in any prompts like AI-powered supply chain companies with positive free cash flow or defense tech companies growing revenue 25% year over year.
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Chapter 2: What food trends emerged in 2025?
It was so spicy. I couldn't stomach it, but people were filming themselves eating this type of ramen, spicy ramen, as well as a bunch of other spicy foods. And people just love the reactions. And I think that is one of the inspirations for why people are so obsessed with spicy food right now. There are obviously different grades of spice.
I think people are, you know, who knows what spice tolerance most people have.
Chapter 3: Why is creatine experiencing a resurgence?
It's probably not 2X, 3X, 4X for this ramen, but it does seem to be like a huge wave.
No, you're right. Mukbang, which are just live stream broadcasts of people eating spicy foods, is an enduring trend of the internet. As long as the internet is around, I think we'll still have mukbangs because it is just compelling content. But also, the business case, Dave's Hot Chicken, was started just a few years ago.
A PE steak was bought apart in that company, valuing it at a billion dollars. So clearly, this is just... The thing that's resonating in the restaurant industry right now, if you want to go viral on social media, you have to have a little spice in it because young people just love this stuff. I could not be more opposed to this trend. I can do this vanilla. Literally.
I mean, you said one X spice. I'm like half an X spice. So I'm a little bit of more. I've been getting better, though. You know, I can do sriracha at this point.
I think people just want to feel things.
Yeah, that is true. The youth want to feel. So I do think it's enduring, though, because, you know, spice is a it's a great it's a great trend. Okay, we've talked about what food you were all eating, but now it's time for a little night out on the town. What were the trends that dominated going out with friends this year? Perhaps nothing was more divisive than this trend about bar tabs.
There is a growing cohort of Gen Z bar goers who simply refuse to open a tab. Their version was the subject of a New York Times article that chronicled how many 20-somethings were opting to close out after every single overpriced Allagash white rather than keep their bar tab running.
One explanation for their tab trepidation is that younger drinkers consume less alcohol, so they're fine with one and done transactions. Mainly, though, they just don't like carrying the mental weight. It increases anxiety in me when I leave a tab open, a 26-year-old beer sales rep told The Times. Neil, what the heck is going on here? What do you think about this shift in bar etiquette?
Maybe it's the 34 year old in me, but I hate this trend. I think you should leave a tab open because one of life's great satisfactions is you're at a table with all your friends and someone goes, hey, can I have another round? Or like, I'm going to go up to the bar. Does anyone want anything? And then you just say, yeah, I got a tab open. Just put it on my tablet.
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Chapter 4: How is caviar becoming a mainstream food?
In it, they noted that the book industry skews heavily female with a 2023 study from Lee and Lowe finding that 71% of publishing's workforce are women. There is also the famous stat cited in many an op-ed that men account for only 20% of the fiction market compared to 80% for women.
But it turns out that that stat is basically made up, according to Vox, and the gap is not nearly as yawning as you might think. The closest thing they could find was a 2017 survey from the UK that found women bought 63% of fiction while men bought 37%. So women probably do read a little bit more than men and probably read more fiction, but nothing crazy.
Neil, this was one of my murkier trends, the great case of the mysterious novel-reading men, and I can't wait to talk to a novel-reading man about it.
Well, it seems like we do need more performative males out there, at least carrying a book around to make it look like you are. I'm going to defend my fellow men here and just say that nobody is reading anymore, male or female. Reading for pleasure in the United States has fallen by more than 40% over the past two decades.
That's according to an analysis of the US government's American Time Use Survey, which tracks how people read. spend their time. The proportion of people in America who read for pleasure on an average day fell from 28 percent in 2003 to just 16 percent in 2023. So whether you're a guy or a girl, it seems like no one is reading much at all anymore.
I'm glad you mentioned. You mentioned performative males and performative reading though. That is something that the New York Times article talked about, about why people may not be reading as much anymore because they're afraid of looking like a performative person in public as it's been dubbed on social media.
So there are some accounts fully dedicated to this where it's pictures of performative males usually reading a book that is conspicuously something that might appeal to the opposite sex in a very public setting. There are truly some performative people out there, but sometimes you just want to grow up and read an actual good book. So you are right, though.
This is a trend that is not confined to a single gender. It is just something that is happening in our very social media-obsessed world. It's hard to find time to read anymore. I've been in a little bit of a reading drought recently.
What was the last book you read?
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