IAT s08e51

Fri, Dec 23, 2022 12:52PM • 23:25

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

prediction, ted talk, predicted, crypto, year, rich, read, baggy, alt, people, cassette, meme, molly, friends, platform, target, incredible, vanilla cream, vinyl, grandma

SPEAKERS

Richard Stroffolino, Tom Merritt, Molly Wood

Molly Wood  00:06

Hey everyone, I'm Hollywood.

Tom Merritt  00:07

And I'm Tom Merritt.

Richard Stroffolino  00:08

And I producer Richard Stroffolino.

Molly Wood  00:11

Welcome to it's a thing that weekly podcast supported by that is more than a show. It's the story of two people with a vision where expert hosts meet wild things, and a legacy of craftsmanship and expertise in every episode. Thank you for joining us.

Tom Merritt  00:28

Well, that sounds delicious.

Molly Wood  00:30

What doesn't it though?

Tom Merritt  00:31

What could that have possibly been based on? Shaken not stirred?

Molly Wood  00:35

martini.com rich?

Richard Stroffolino  00:40

You want a cocktail? You ready? Yes.

Molly Wood  00:43

Yeah,

Tom Merritt  00:45

I got one of those in a can steal

Richard Stroffolino  00:48

my air in the copy read like I was drinking while I wrote it. So

Molly Wood  00:52

I actually loved it. I loved it.

Tom Merritt  00:54

Right before the show. Molly said she was wrong forgetting this. So she did.

Molly Wood  00:59

Exactly. Thank you for picking up where I was going, which was all literal all the time. And a hot toddy deep, so it's all working? I think we can all agree

Tom Merritt  01:11

and deed it is. It is our predictions episode where we will check on our predictions from last year on what we thought would become things and then tell you what we're predicting are things are going to be for next year. Rich's there an order of events? Are we just going to do? Are we going to do all the checking first? Are we going to go back and look forward

Richard Stroffolino  01:30

to checking first and then we'll get on you know, people want the predictions? We gotta we gotta keep them on. Gotta

Tom Merritt  01:35

key. Yeah. All right to stay tuned for the actual predictions. But first, predictions may kill you.

Molly Wood  01:43

But you won't know until the end.

Tom Merritt  01:45

Is Molly going to predict a thing? The answer may surprise you.

Molly Wood  01:51

Hope springs eternal. Okay. Last year, at this time, I predicted that in 2022. Crypto would be a big deal.

Tom Merritt  02:03

I mean, you're not wrong.

Molly Wood  02:04

No.

Tom Merritt  02:07

Reason, but I didn't point out huge deal.

Richard Stroffolino  02:10

I will point out it's crypto parenthesis LOL, which I feel like gives you some leeway with the current direction for absolutely actually

Molly Wood  02:18

incredible, right. Like I predicted that crypto would turn into an lol. Which is exactly what happened. I think you nailed it. Unbelievable. I'm giving myself that one for sure. Yeah,

Richard Stroffolino  02:30

I think you should pat on the back.

Molly Wood  02:32

I mean, it was already a pretty big deal is what we're getting at and 2021 In case you weren't paying attention, but like, oh boy, did it become the overarching deal. Yeah, nailed it. Next. Tom, Tom, sir.

Tom Merritt  02:48

A new platform will take the meme crown from Tik Tok. I'll just check myself out now. The platform exists now but is yet to break into mainstream awareness. Molly and rich think it might be Reddit. So to be fair, we contributed to being wrong. Thank you for jumping on my sinking ship. I do appreciate the loyalty.

Molly Wood  03:07

I mean, we got the real.

Tom Merritt  03:11

I don't think it took a meme crown. I don't think anything took anything. Tiktok though. That close?

Richard Stroffolino  03:16

I think I just got for at the core of your prediction was that there was perhaps an interest in other platforms that weren't that, you know, were emerging, right? That would offer something different, which I think we could say be real offers.

Tom Merritt  03:30

Oh, wait, this is a typo. I'm sorry. If you if you undo you, there was some autocorrect that changed my words, a new platform will take the mastodon crown from Twitter, is what I originally had written.

Richard Stroffolino  03:45

You know what? I'm looking at the version history. Yeah.

Molly Wood  03:49

So I mean, I'm just saying if you really wanted to stretch here, you could actually say that that platform is Twitter. You could actually say that Twitter became a bigger meme.

Tom Merritt  04:04

Oh, not not the place for memes. But the place that is it? In fact,

Molly Wood  04:08

a meme itself? Yeah. Hey, I liked your meme.

Tom Merritt  04:11

I like a lot. Yeah,

Richard Stroffolino  04:13

I'm gonna give you half credit.

Molly Wood  04:14

I'm gonna give you half credit because like I said, it exists now but as yet to break into mainstream awareness. Tons of people who don't know anything about Twitter who don't care about it, who aren't on it, or store didn't

Tom Merritt  04:23

think of it as a meme. Right?

Molly Wood  04:26

I'm actually going to give you this one. All right. Thank

Tom Merritt  04:29

you. That's ridiculous, but I'll take it.

Molly Wood  04:32

I like a stretch. I like a good stretch.

Tom Merritt  04:34

All right, rich, what do you got? Well,

Richard Stroffolino  04:36

I don't think any stretch is gonna say my predictions this year. And my first one was a VR or AR game becomes a thing on the scale of among us. And I can't even think of one VR game that was new that I can think of this

Tom Merritt  04:50

year. Yeah, all the big VR games hardware were already big last year. I feel like Yeah, yeah, it's in fact, that's weird. And

Molly Wood  04:56

then it stopped. Yeah, like stopped cold there. What was that one? The was big last year.

Tom Merritt  05:00

Not super natural. Super,

Richard Stroffolino  05:02

super natural. Yeah, beat sabre. But that's like two years old. I think we I remember talking about that when you first got your quest Molly. Yeah.

Molly Wood  05:09

Yeah. Which was like 2020. I mean, that was pandemics. I mean,

Tom Merritt  05:13

not that there haven't been if you're a VR fan and you're like, wait, but this game was was good. Yes, there have been good VR games but nothing on the among us like and BC where

Richard Stroffolino  05:23

where everyone like it becomes Yeah. Not non gaming thing where people

Tom Merritt  05:27

who don't have VR headsets have like, oh, yeah, I've heard of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Stroffolino  05:31

Which I don't think any game even approach that. It's kind of weird, actually. When

Molly Wood  05:35

did have half life? Alyx? Yeah. But not even but not even close to among us. Like not even close. To be clear. Maybe just trying to stretch for you though. Yeah,

Richard Stroffolino  05:46

no, I'll take I'll take the L you know, we have a spectrum of of success in our first prediction, I think, which is beautiful.

Tom Merritt  05:54

All right, Molly, your second one?

Molly Wood  05:57

Well, I did three so maybe I should just do these two together. Yeah, good, dude. Yeah, that's the realize said huge baggy trench coats would become a big deal in 2022. And what really happened is that as we've discussed recently, in a recent episode, huge, baggy puffer coats became a huge

Tom Merritt  06:16

I mean, baggy just became a

Molly Wood  06:17

drag. Overall. Yeah, it really did baggy was like the Uber trend.

Tom Merritt  06:21

I'm gonna give you 1.1 points, because Thank you, it was more than just trench coats.

Molly Wood  06:28

Baggy baggy, was the thing. And then I said that climate signaling would become a thing. Which I think did happen. Yeah. Yeah. Like, remind Net Zero goal. Yeah, this and that. And then actually some real climate stuff like, yeah, inflation Reduction Act and stuff. So that was pretty cool.

Richard Stroffolino  06:45

I mean, John Oliver did a piece deconstructing climate signaling, so I

Tom Merritt  06:50

feel like that you get that? He did. It was

Richard Stroffolino  06:54

all about like, what that carbon neutral goals by companies don't mean anything. Yeah, that was this year, right?

Molly Wood  07:00

Oh, well, hot. Damn. Okay. Yeah, I'm taking I'm taking that one.

Tom Merritt  07:04

My other one was the return of Cabbage Patch Kids as NF Ts, and I got damn close. Oh, damn close with Garbage Pail Kids coming in is NF Ts. Oh, you gotta get

Molly Wood  07:16

a point for that. Oh, good. Point nine. I'll

Tom Merritt  07:19

take point nine of why nine for sure. Because,

Richard Stroffolino  07:22

yeah, like Yeah, so you're at, you're at 1.4. Tom. Okay, your score. I just want to put so and now I for my predictions. i This is why I'm producer rich and not talent rich. Because I just struck out again, I said all milk are all meat boom. Like all milk. Like what is the P milk of milk? I know. I feel like there's been a contraction in that space.

Tom Merritt  07:48

Oh, no, I don't think so. No, no, no, I, I think alt meat has I think you're saying that because it has just become a normal thing that people do. Much like

Richard Stroffolino  07:59

my my argument would be we've seen fast food chains take their alt meat stuff off menus.

Tom Merritt  08:05

But it's also pretty common. Anywhere I've seen I've seen as many add new new things new items without me right

Molly Wood  08:16

there was an alt there was an alt seafood that like literally the FDA just approved all chicken and there was an all chicken whole entire day where that's all they served that cop.

Tom Merritt  08:26

Yeah, don't sell yourself short.

Molly Wood  08:29

That one Yeah, happened.

Richard Stroffolino  08:31

Right? Fine. Yeah.

Tom Merritt  08:33

It was too much of a boom is my as my argument is that it didn't feel like a boon because now it's just like, oh, yeah, there's the meat section in the grocery store. And there's usually an alt meat thing on the fast food menu and like, yeah, it's just become normal life really fast.

Richard Stroffolino  08:49

I'm just kidding. I was false humility. I knew it all along.

Tom Merritt  08:51

Yeah. All right, it's time to get into our actual predictions for 2023 This is where the road and the petroleum substrate meet.

Molly Wood  09:09

All right, I will on Fill color. Very official first prediction, which I'm embarrassed to say is a little bit of a cop out but it's crypto lol.

Tom Merritt  09:22

Ride. Yeah, keep it on read. Let it ride.

Molly Wood  09:26

Increasingly laughable. But also we're going to talk about it nonstop whether we want to or not. I think

Tom Merritt  09:34

I think you're probably right. I think you're probably right. Because

Molly Wood  09:37

it was like the question is, is it going to just are we going to stop talking about it. But

Tom Merritt  09:40

i Whenever Whenever it feels like well, this can't You can't go anywhere from here. That's when the new thing arises. Right? That that's got to whatever this this is good futurism here. Like everybody thinks well FTX has ended crypto. It's like, oh, no, you you don't know what it is. But something's coming. I'm

Molly Wood  09:59

coming. And now people are like, Oh, this is so great for the industry because now there's going to be a resurgence. And we can get back to first principles. God helped me I even had a conversation with some friends. This is my prediction on the pivot pod, who like crypto, you know, entrepreneurs who were like, Oh, the industry is just waiting to see what Elon does with Twitter and Dogecoin. Because if he like makes a payments platform, then all of a sudden it will have utility and be revitalized, like

Tom Merritt  10:29

to keep a company around to be able to do that. But I suppose that's still possible.

Molly Wood  10:33

You know, we've strayed into a whole other level of prediction but during

Richard Stroffolino  10:41

the LOL gives you some breathing room either way

Molly Wood  10:44

over under August. It goes bankrupt or

Tom Merritt  10:50

I don't know. I don't want to give away my predictions for daily tech news show right? thing that I'm going to predict over there and it's not that it goes bankrupt or goes out of business.

Molly Wood  11:02

Okay, love it. Can't wait. All right.

Richard Stroffolino  11:06

lies your prediction time

Tom Merritt  11:08

is vanilla cream, and other off whites will become like a big old trend. It's the baby beige but for everybody Hmm.

Molly Wood  11:17

I like this into this because you know, I've been obsessed with the like the cream on cream tracksuit. I have cream color Hocus. But I love this cream. What a nice way to describe that sounds

Richard Stroffolino  11:33

warm, succulent, but approachable.

Tom Merritt  11:35

I'll be honest, I was looking at somebody's like, here are the hot color trends for 2023 and I saw vanilla cream on there. And I was like oh yeah, no that that in the off whites gonna be big gonna be big this year. Because people are they're going to slide right off that gray blue into the cream. god you're so

Molly Wood  11:55

right. 100% I'm just like, I'm giving like now.

Tom Merritt  12:01

Wow. The weight to the year.

Molly Wood  12:05

Everything about that name is so good.

Tom Merritt  12:07

Yeah. It's tasty. It makes me want to Yeah, the

Richard Stroffolino  12:10

neutral color council should adopt that immediately if they

Molly Wood  12:13

like do we think this is gonna be the Pantone color of the year?

Tom Merritt  12:16

Oh, I don't know about that. Yeah, sure. No,

Richard Stroffolino  12:18

I'll go for it. Yes, Pantone verse purple this year? Yeah,

Tom Merritt  12:21

why not? Yeah, that big. Go

Molly Wood  12:23

for it. Vanilla cream. Yes.

Richard Stroffolino  12:26

Out. And if you pay for a license, you can see it in Photoshop. So work out. All right, my, my prediction is this touches on some stuff that we've seen this year, but I'm going to call it grandma core is going to be a thing. This originates I have this in the bullpen. But I think this is gonna emerge I saw someone wearing on ironically and not like for fitness a glasses chain just around regular glasses, like a a person of not elderly dimensions. And I was like, What is this? So I'm predicting like kind of along the lines of hey, people are doing gray hair. I'm gonna say like grandma chic grandma core. Yeah. Something. I don't know if that's doilies. I don't know if it's glasses, Jane's bowls, putting scarf

Tom Merritt  13:15

in the hair. You know, like the light 60s. You know, Audrey Hepburn scarf. Little, little some prints, some nice prints. I also feel like this goes with the slipper flats handing out Werthers I'm gonna

Richard Stroffolino  13:31

say this is distinct from coastal grandma.

Tom Merritt  13:34

Okay, yeah, that's important point. Yeah. Yeah.

Richard Stroffolino  13:37

But but also inspired by it as well.

Molly Wood  13:41

That's incredible. I love that. And it's totally going to be called grandma core.

Tom Merritt  13:45

It's good. Granny. Granny core. Yeah, has a nice ring to it.

Molly Wood  13:49

That is outstanding. Outstanding. All right, I've got this is random. I know. super random. But I believe that the age of the TED talk, the hegemony, and the TED talk is over. TED talks are over

Tom Merritt  14:07

Mali. Sometimes a prediction can be a wish. But that doesn't mean it won't be coming true. I

Molly Wood  14:15

literally don't even know why this occurred to me, except that I was just I was having a conversation with our producer who's Gen Z. And Rachel. And we were like, you know, TED talks like that. It's I don't care about them anymore. And they've almost become so cliche as to be a bit of a caricature of themselves. I just think as the arbiter of intellectual success. The TED talk is done.

Tom Merritt  14:39

How will we know how will What are the signs that it's over that we can look for?

Molly Wood  14:46

Hmm, perhaps the continued vibrancy of substack Uh huh. I think like your substack will replace her TED

Tom Merritt  14:53

talk. Okay.

Molly Wood  14:55

And then

Tom Merritt  14:56

Is it is it when the you know, welcome to my Ted Talk joke becomes thank you for subscribing to my substack

Molly Wood  15:03

probably, yeah, normally shorthands shorthands are always a dead giveaway. And then when we start to see TED Talks get, instead of sort of inspirational will start to get them. See them get increasingly provocative. Like, like, it'll like red pill a little bit.

Tom Merritt  15:22

And someone, someone coined the term Ted bait. Dude.

Richard Stroffolino  15:30

You're good. More like dead talk.

Molly Wood  15:32

Someone already did. Am I right? I mean,

Tom Merritt  15:34

oh, yeah. If there's a headline TED talks, Oh, yeah. There we go.

Molly Wood  15:41

Then we'll know

Tom Merritt  15:42

and a shot of someone doing a TED Talk to an empty room,

Molly Wood  15:45

I think to go back to Stephen Colbert, if we hear Stephen Colbert say thank you for reading my substack or Yeah, I mean to my newsletter, we will know that TED talks are legitimately over.

Tom Merritt  15:55

I like this one. I like it. It's good. All right,

Molly Wood  15:58

Brando. It's Rando. But sometimes, the fun ones.

Tom Merritt  16:02

Knowing that the 70s and 90s are vying for your nostalgia mind right now. I tried to figure out what 70s trend I thought might be big to go along with gas lines and war in the Middle East. All the great 70s hits. And so I have predicted disco will be huge in 2023. Oh my goodness. Now it obviously be a modern version of disco. It'll be Neo disco or something like that. But yeah, disco is making a comeback.

Molly Wood  16:43

This is love.

Richard Stroffolino  16:46

And I'll be honest, I'm here for it is bold.

Tom Merritt  16:50

It's the Gen Z irony thing where they're gonna like, look, you know, totally want to dress up and Saturday Night Live looking clothes. There's maybe a rise in roller skating. I don't know. I don't know. It already has been around the vinyl divide. The vinyl and cassette thing is already back. My cassettes are actually growing faster than vinyl right now.

Molly Wood  17:12

Considering the roller skating obsession, it's almost just like the next logical leap. This is beautiful, huh? Wow, I love this. And I bet you're so right. Because I was gonna say, earlier in the day, I was thinking like, I'm gonna say that 90, like 90s is gonna give way to 2000s. But that's so close. They're so close already. Yeah, I love the idea that we would actually go like hard. 70s Yeah.

Tom Merritt  17:35

Yeah. And that will preempt. 90s. From giving way to 2000s. For sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, because we're seeing both 70s and 90s right now. So

Molly Wood  17:46

we're oh my god, I love this. Oh, my God, I can't wait for this go. I'm excited.

Richard Stroffolino  17:50

Tom, Tom, my next prediction is is right in the same mindset as you and I actually have used sort of thank for this. I'm gonna say we're gonna see cassettes at major retailers like Target. I just did a search right before the show. There are no at least@target.com I cannot find a cassette. But I think next within the next year, within 2023, you'll be able to go into Target and buy a set from an artist.

Tom Merritt  18:17

I mean, there. There we're at the Glendale target, my friend. I was I was doing research for you. So no, no, no, I think you're fine. You're fine. And she saw

Richard Stroffolino  18:30

a post of you about tell me you found.

Tom Merritt  18:34

I didn't take a picture on the post. I think the post was probably me talking about how I was mad that I didn't take a picture of them. But But yeah, like this. I think this is a very small thing right now of like, well, maybe in the Glendale target we can get away with it. And I think your prediction is that this is gonna go major.

Richard Stroffolino  18:56

Yes, a target.com is my benchmark. I can buy it there. I can buy it anywhere.

Tom Merritt  19:00

Yeah. Oh my god, and I'm pretty sure all the cassettes that I saw were back catalogue. Hmm, okay. Oh, yeah. Wasn't target. It wasn't target. It wasn't target. It was Barnes and Noble.

Richard Stroffolino  19:12

Really? Yeah. They're barely major anymore.

Molly Wood  19:15

Those are just they've just been there. Yeah.

Tom Merritt  19:17

So you're totally safe. Your prediction is totally safe. Yeah, it was Barnes and Noble. And it was next to they they have a huge vinyl section and Barnes and Noble now with like, you know, new and old, and then I was like, Oh, look, there's a cassette section. It starred. It's coming. So that's incredible. So yeah, it's even more like that's the that's the canary in the coal mine. And the next step is

Molly Wood  19:41

target target.com. So I have to

Richard Stroffolino  19:43

give the hat tip to Jackie by way of Tom Barrett.

Molly Wood  19:47

I love this. And my friends. We love you. Yay. We love you. Thank you for supporting and enabling Yeah. Another year of it's a thing. I cannot believe how many years we've been at this, what did we decide? It's like 910?

Tom Merritt  20:07

Yeah, no, that's 2013. That's right. Because the the original it's a thing podcast run began the summer of 2013. Because I started a Patreon for it, we decided at the time not to use Patreon and that Patreon became the de TNS Patreon. Six months later.

Molly Wood  20:26

Wow. And then so there was a there was a low, and it's a thing, but and then we decided to do it as a Patreon so we would ensure that it was a job for us, right like so that we would be committed. We would show up every week, and it has worked and it's incredible. And yes, 2023 will be the 10th. Year of it's a Thank God, we are lucky.

Tom Merritt  20:47

Yeah, no kidding. Y'all are the best. You are the best. And that's that's why rich spends so much time crafting the shout outs for the top level patrons every single episode and this episode is no exception. Rich. What have you crafted for us this week?

Richard Stroffolino  21:05

Yes, our shadows this week are based on the product description of the original Amazon Kindle. I have that

Tom Merritt  21:11

a Kindle still. I lost the charger for it. So it's just stuck on whatever was showing at the end. Yeah,

Molly Wood  21:20

that is incredible. All right. Well, there are three paragraphs and three of us shall we begin? Yes, let's How about Tom taught me middle rich last perfect.

Richard Stroffolino  21:32

I'll be the bottom.

Tom Merritt  21:32

Okay, here we go. Three years ago, we set out to design and build an entirely new class of Miranda Janelle a convenient portable Jake woods with the ability to wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines, and Laura Abel. The result is Andrew Bradley.

Molly Wood  21:49

Thanks to Eric Duncan, a revolutionary new patron technology. Reading Gabrielle Cohen screen is as sharp and natural as reading ink on paper, and nothing like the strain and glare of Lee price. Mike Aikens is also easy on the fingertips. jamesy Smith never becomes hot and is designed for ambidextrous use. So both Morris Jones and Louis St. Amour can read comfortably at any angle for long periods of time.

Richard Stroffolino  22:18

We're very proud to introduce Kevin SIL. And we hope you like him as much as Joe hood does.

Tom Merritt  22:26

Easy on the finger tips

Molly Wood  22:28

easy on the finger tip, you know, did it for me.

Tom Merritt  22:32

That friend of yours sure is easy on the fingertips if you know what I mean. No, don't.

Molly Wood  22:38

Sorry. Once again, it was a Smith our apologies. Thank you everyone for listening. Think thank you to our shout out patrons for putting up with us week after week. And thank you, to all of you for keeping the show going for yet another year. Happy new year. We are so grateful to patreon.com/ It's a thing is where you can join your friends and indeed,

Tom Merritt  22:59

send us your new year things. Feedback and it's a thing that may thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much happiest of New Year's to all of you.

Molly Wood  23:07

Happy New Year. See you next year.