Dear Fellow Trend Curator,

For the non-obvious stories this week, we’ll explore the futility of debates, why immersive entertainment is a trend to watch, whether celebrities should feel compelled to advocate for something, how momternships can help make workplaces more inclusive and the widely ignored big idea from Uber’s latest announcement.

Enjoy and stay curious!

Should All Celebrities Be Advocates?

Earlier this month, a campaign on TikTok known as Blockout 2024 was launched as a response to tone-deaf social media posts from celebrities and online influencers about the over-the-top fashion choices from the Met Gala. The movement encourages people to “block all the celebrities, influencers and wealthy socialites who are not using their resources to help those in dire need" and has been described as a "digital guillotine."

When one online influencer tried to explain her silence by saying she doesn’t speak on Gaza because she is “not informed enough to talk about it in a meaningful and educational way,” she was attacked even more harshly. The belief of the movement seems to be that anyone who has a significant platform has an obligation to speak up.

Deciding what should matter for someone else is always a losing effort. Should celebrities be compelled to speak up about causes that they know little about simply because they are important in the world? Should all of us do the same?

How Airbnb “Icons” Illustrate the Future of Immersive Entertainment

The future of entertainment will be driven by more immersive experiences. This week, there was a story about how the Meta Quest VR headset will be accessible by passengers on long haul flights. The possibilities to tie this into tourism, destinations and the overall travel experience are vast. Also this week, Airbnb has been getting some attention for their new Airbnb Icons series of overnight experiences that create legendary moments for people to buy.

Among the initial 11 experiences is a full recreation of the house from the Pixar film Up! which actually floats 50 feet above the ground, a night in the X-Men mansion and a private comedy show with Kevin Hart. The photos from this collection are worth skimming and the experiences will have you dreaming about what to do if you ever find yourself with a bunch of excess cash. Of course, like many extremely high end products, the prices for the experiences are not listed so you’ll have to use your imagination for that too.

Momternships and How To Fight the “Motherhood Penalty”

This past Mother's Day one recurring story was about the impact that motherhood has on careers of women. One survey found that two-thirds of new mothers have considered leaving the workforce due to the cost and stress of childcare. Many others leave the workforce by choice to be at home for their kid(s).

Regardless of their reasons, when moms do come back, they face a motherhood penalty that makes it harder to get hired, lower wages, and more bias in the workplace. This is a problem we can solve. Two years ago marketing agency Mullen Lowe launched a popular "momternship" program to help professional moms reenter the workforce. This year, in an effort to expand their program across the industry, they came up with the clever idea of sending flowers to high ranking moms working at other agencies wrapped in the resumes of moms looking to break back into the industry.

We need more programs like this not only for moms but for others who have taken time away from work, such as stay-at-home dads, those dealing with a long illness, full-time caregivers or people who choose to go back to school. Long gaps in a resume are not always a red flag or a negative. Sometimes what a person learned during their time "not working" can make them an even better employee and resource if and when they do decide to come back.

How To Overhaul Presidential Debates? Stop Pretending it's a Debate

This week both political parties agreed to hold a Presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump. Many observers are already criticizing it as a waste of time and unlikely to change anyone's mind. They are probably right, but what if they weren't?

The idea of giving the public a chance to hear directly from candidates in an unfiltered way is an important one.

Unfortunately, it's an ideal that the modern debate format rarely lives up to. Instead, these televised debates are filled with one platitude after another in a quest to make and say that things that satisfy a politician's base without turning off too many undecided voters (if they even exist anymore) or making too big a gaffe (which I once heard entertainingly described as a moment when a politician accidentally tells the truth).

The problem with debates is that the "winner" is often declared based on things that really don't matter.

So we focus on things like who had the better body language or the better soundbite "zinger" to attack the other person. A real debate is an exchange of ideas and an argument by someone who has a position and is willing to take a stand behind it. That never happens in most political debates.

So what would it take to make debates actually useful again?

Imagine if we skipped the naïve idea that pitting two presidential candidates against one another on stage was going to be a debate at all and instead turned this into a real time interview.

Read my full article about this idea and why I think it could work here »

Uber Caregiver Is A Golden Opportunity … If They Get It Right

Earlier this week Uber made an announcement about their future roadmap of offerings and the one getting the most attention is the ability to book a shuttle with friends to attend a concert or some other live event. The announcement that should be getting the most attention was mostly ignored.

Uber Caregiver is a new feature of the app that will allow caregivers to create a secondary account where they can organize rides on behalf of someone else, and eventually use this service to organize grocery delivery and medicine pickups as well. This could transforms the lives of many caregivers and the people who rely on them.

What if you could book the same driver every week and pay extra for them to spend an extra 15 minutes unloading groceries and talking to someone? Or only allow drivers who have the highest ratings for empathy and customer service to be Uber Caregiver drivers?

All of these could foster more human connections, create a premium service model for Uber drivers and lessen the considerable load on caregivers who struggle to find time to do everything. In every way, this would have a much bigger impact on our culture than being able to book a party bus with your friends. We just need to give it more attention so that Uber sees the opportunity as well.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories …

Every week I always curate more stories than I'm able to explore in detail. Instead of skipping those stories, I started to share them in this section so you can skim the headlines and click on any that spark your interest:

• The Wind Industry Is Ready To Build Turbines on the Ocean

• The SXSW Festival Is Coming To London!

• Saunas Are The Next Frontier In Fighting Depression

• The Future of Dating Is Your AI Dating Other People's AIs and Hooking You Up With the Best Matches 

• People Are Creating Deepfakes of Their Dead Relatives 

How are these stories curated?

Why does this edition look different?

If you’re a longtime reader of the newsletter, you may have noticed that this week’s edition visually looks a bit different than usual. I’m testing a new email platform and I’m curious what you think about it. Can you let me know with a quick vote in the poll below?