Fun House 008
Howdy. The internet was on fire last week. Signalgate, vibe coding, Studio Ghibli animations, so on and so forth. As dizzying as it was, it was just another episode of trend exhaustion - the internet's relentless churn of fads that leaves us nauseous. It's the equivalent of a sugar rush, exciting until the crash. Trend exhaustion is a function of content overload - the web is a 24/7 firehose of videos, memes, and hot takes, blasting us until our attention spans compress. We're drowning in a sea of "what's trending," and it is exhausting.
Google Trends is a fun place to spend time. Ironic, I know. Let's take a look at a few trends...
"Studio Ghibli" last 30 days
"Hawk Tuah" YTD
"Brat summer" YTD
"Very demure, very mindful" YTD
The problem isn’t just that trends move fast, but that they move without depth. Most of what passes for online "culture" today is repurposed from something else, stripped of context, and optimized for engagement. Micro-trends explode out of nowhere, dominate the cultural conversation for a few weeks, and then vanish, just to be replaced by the next thing that consumes our screen time before becoming cringe.
This dynamic isn't an accident, but by design. Tech companies thrive on constant content turnover. The faster a trend rises and falls, the more we feel the need to stay plugged in, endlessly scrolling for the next thing. Every fleeting obsession fuels more engagement, ad impressions, and reasons for us to stay glued to our screens. Google's entire search ecosystem rewards recency, which is why searching for a keyword results in AI slop from a website that didn't exist a week ago. TikTok and Instagram push constant novelty because they know that if they let you rest, you might remember that putting the phone away and going outside is an option. Even music streaming platforms encourage micro trends - songs skyrocket to virality via short-form snippets, only to be discarded in favor of the next viral soundbite.
Case study -> Studio Ghibli. It was impossible to spend time on social media (X in particular) last week without seeing AI-generated renderings in the Japanese studio's signature animation style. What once felt like a carefully crafted aesthetic, built over decades of hand-drawn artistry, was suddenly reduced to an instantly replicable filter. This is the fast fashion-ification of internet culture - trends aren't just moving quickly; they're being produced, consumed and discarded at a breakneck pace. And who were last week's winners - i.e. where did value capture occur? Content producers like OpenAI, which drive engagement with their tech, and social platforms like X, that profit from the increased time spent scrolling. An ecosystem that thrives on ephemeral virality rather than lasting impact. Acceleration trumps appreciation.
TL;DR - Studio Ghibli posts, and search interest, are already tapering off significantly in what appears to be another short-lived trend. Onto the next one.
The trend exhaustion framework also provides a helpful backdrop to understand the meteoric rise in memecoin trading volume. Memecoins thrive in the same attention economy that fuels fleeting internet trends. They latch onto whatever is viral at the moment - a catchphrase, a meme format, or even a person, and monetize the hype before it inevitably fades. Just like a trending aesthetic or an inside joke, a memecoin's value is often tied more to its momentary cultural relevance than to any fundamental utility. And by the time most people hear about it, the insiders have already cashed out. Financial speculation disguised as internet culture - proof that in an era where we optimize for engagement, even money itself is subject to the same disposable cycle.
There are a host of consumer crypto startups enabling the trend exhaustion economy. Recently launched Noise allows users to discover and trade trends, onchain. Moonshot identifies trending memes and tokens early via analytics and social sentiment tracking. And of course, Pump.fun enables rapid token launches tied to viral trends, celebrities and meme culture. The attention economy is a lucrative one, and thanks to more robust market liquidity around trends, companies like these will surely do well.
There was a time when the internet felt... fun. Less algorithmic, more weird. You could stumble down rabbit holes and spend hours genuinely learning something, not just passively absorbing whatever the "for you" page deemed worthy that day. Now, content systems are engineered for maximum consumption and minimal retention.
But maybe the real issue isn't just the incentives of internet gatekeepers but how we actually use them. Instead of browsing, we skim. Instead of exploring, we consume. Instead of slowing down, we chase. The result is a digital landscape that's loud, fast and weirdly empty.
Consider this a friendly reminder that the internet is supposed to be a tool, not a treadmill. It's there for discovery, for connection, and for actual enjoyment, not to assist in the meaningless pursuit of dopamine. The sooner we unplug from the constant hamster wheel, the sooner we might rediscover why we liked being online in the first place.
Until then, enjoy the next trend. It will be gone by next Friday when I publish 009.
Surely I'm not the only one who views trend fatigue, content overload and the current state of URL culture in a negative light. There must be others who are equally as passionate about fixing things. The internet needs a course correction, or maybe just a mean reversion.
I think that the next cohort of great consumer internet companies will go back to basics and allow users to experience the internet in an entirely different manner, more resembling the early 2000s web. Those platforms will prioritize organic discovery, depth, and serendipity. The opportunity is massive - as interneters grow weary of the dopamine drip, there's a rising demand for more intentional, meaningful digital spaces. Ones that don't treat attention as an extractive resource. This could mean smaller, high trust communities, new ways to explore content that aren't dictated by vanity metrics, or platforms that reward actual creativity over trend-chasing. Whether it's better discovery (shoutout Lore), more human social networks, or alternative recommendation engines, there are enormous white spaces where new entrants can thrive.
Consumer internet is crowded, but the TAM is enormous because human nature doesn't change - only the systems we interact with. People will always crave connection, entertainment, and discovery, but they're increasingly rejecting the status quo of algorithmic monotony. The startups that figure out how to make the internet feel fun again, more like an actual adventure, will build the next iteration of the consumer internet. The internet has spent a decade optimizing for more, but the real opportunity is to optimize for better.
If you’re reading this I hope you have a good weekend. You deserve it.
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what if there was a launchpad for memecoin launchpads
The contrarian and right approach in a world that chases short-term money and attention is to simply not chase short-term money and attention.
You also can’t ignore it.
The best founders and investors are aware of it and play the game their own way.
You also can’t ignore it.
The best founders and investors are aware of it and play the game their own way.
Silicon Valley rebranded addiction as retention
And made it the most important metric
And made it the most important metric
Tariffing the penguins on Heard and McDonald Islands is so 2025
