In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Venues May Get Noise Ratings Next

• China's Weight-Loss Boot Camps Go Viral

• "Ceremonial Cacao" Rises As Chocolate Alternative

• Explainer: Bedside Baskets

• Protein Bars In a Tin

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Tinder Pivots From Swiping To In-Person Events

• Dutch Bros Turns Customer Hacks Into Menu Items

• Tech Brands Now Sell Friction

• Explainer: friendslop

• Barbershops Become An Investable Asset Class

I read about gamified novels, LitRPG (literary role-playing games) and instantly fell down a deep rabbithole. LitRPG weaves the mechanics of video games or tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons into a novel. The protagonist can see their stats or their character sheets, they can interact with them and they can level up.

One of the most successful LitRPG novels is the Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl. My library had 168 digital editions of it, so I did not have to wait a single second before I could borrow it. It follows a protagonist who is forced into a game-like reality controlled by an alien race.

Then I pulled data from YouScan Social Listening ✨to see what the conversations actually look like and who the loudest voices in the fandom are.

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Soft Serve Ice Cream Sees Wild Reinvention

• Rome's Pasta Windows Spark Debate

• Aarhus Pilots City-Wide Reusable Cups

• Explainer: Anti-Blush

• Luxury Brands Turn To Ballet For Prestige

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Croissants Get Stuffed With Ice Cream

• Peanut Butter Invades Every Menu Category

• Japanese Milk Buns Surge At Waitrose

• Explainer: luteal uglies

• Oddbox & Fruits of the Forage Turn Surplus Veg Into Chutney

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Teen Inventors Tackle Microplastic Pollution

• IKEA Designs Furniture For Renters

• Fashion's "Grandma Aesthetic" Goes Mainstream

• Explainer: main character travel

• "Cityboat" Trend Takes Off In China

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Fake Delivery App Sells No Food

• Fancy Dinners Become Everyday Habit

• Study Finds Nearly Half Show Shopping Addiction Signs

• Explainer: affordable indulgence

• Brand Names Matter Less Than Function

"If this is your first time being poor..." this is how Kiki Rough opens her "Recession Recipes" videos on TikTok: bean "meatloaf," chickpea "chicken nuggets," whatever gets a family fed on cheap ingredients and pantry staples.

It got me looking into my own childhood meals, growing up in Germany: Eintopf, Pellkartoffeln mit Quark, Königsberger Klopse. All of them are considered "struggle meals", even though I never saw them as such.

The memories sent me down a rabbit hole and I looked into YouScan Social Listening ✨ data to see how struggle meals and the nostalgia of Oma's recipes are being discussed online.

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Younger Crowds Fill Art House Cinemas

• Bleak Week Builds A Festival On Sadness

• Cars Are Getting Older, Not Newer

• Explainer: carspreading

• Tech Demand Drove Car Prices Up

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Younger Crowds Fill Art House Cinemas

• Bleak Week Builds A Festival On Sadness

• Cars Are Getting Older, Not Newer

• Explainer: carspreading

• Tech Demand Drove Car Prices Up

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Gen Z Feels Nostalgic For Eras They Missed

• Korean Beauty Splits Sun Care By Body Part

• Taylor Swift Sends Sancerre Searches Soaring

• Explainer: chalance

• Gen Z Treats Drinks As Identity

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• London's Late-Night Dessert Cafés Are Booming

• Americans Are Snacking More, and More Often

• Blouge Wine Offers a Simpler Way Into Summer Drinking

• Explainer: workation

• Show and Tell Is Back, and Adults Are the Audience

Dua Lipa's Manifesto Library has opened inside Livraria Lello in Portugal, one of the most photographed bookshops on Earth. It features 100 books that have been banned somewhere in the world, sorted under the headings Control, Voice, Memory and Power.

Whether it is Reese Witherspoon, Oprah or Dua Lipa, celebrity book clubs work by attaching a famous person's taste to a list of titles and that list moves units. But is reading a banned book actually resistance?

So I looked social listening data in YouScan. While much of the conversation focuses on institutional battles, there is a distinct and growing cluster that reveals people bypassing traditional libraries and schools entirely.

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Cash App Turns a Viral Wand Trend Into a Payment Product

• Pill Form Could Widen Access to Weight-Loss Drugs

• Decathlon Pays Cash for Returned Festival Tents

• Explainer: mallmaxxing

• AI Is Powering a New Wave of Return Fraud

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Adults Are Ordering Off the Kids' Menu

• Modular Eating Is Reshaping How Gen Z Thinks About Meals

• Degree Hacking Challenges What a Qualification Means

• Explainer: diet fatigue

• Forgotten 2010s Drama Resurfaces on UK Streaming

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Knix Brings Dads Into the Period Conversation

• Sainsbury's Swaps Brown Eggs for White

• Zest Maps Revives Social Food Discovery

• Explainer zebra striping

• Starbucks Revives the Unicorn Frappuccino for One Weekend

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Americans Tire of Wellness Obsession Culture

• Birdwatching Booms Among Gen Z in Britain

• Privacy Is the New Luxury Signal

• Explainer: analogue bag

• The Snack Tin as a Wellness Ritual

In this week’s edition of Trends & Artefacts, we round up the snackable trends, stats and insights from around the world, including:

• Jeopardy! Casts YouTube Creators as Contestants

• AI Influencer Makes History Viral

• Plug-In Solar Panels Launching in the UK

• Explainer: neighbourism

• Bingsu-Flation Drives Single-Serve Dessert Boom