Future of Social Life in the 2020s and Beyond

Level 2 - Value Investor

Welcome Avatar! This is going to be a big break from the standard financial posts and instead we’re going to project out the future of social life. If you’re sharp, you can capitalize on some trends and avoid building a castle on sand. If you’re starting a baby food company, best to pause and pivot to pets before it is too late.

While the pets market is stale and something we discussed in detail back in 2016/2017 the extent of the expansion surprised us.

Here, we’ll go over some expected social trends and you can fill in the blanks on what to do from there. For those that don’t want to fill in the blanks we’ve mentioned several on the paid stack and will continue to mention more as they pop up over time.

Part 1: Direction of Social Lives

In the USA, men are being taught to be more like women and women are being taught to be more like men. One of the goals is to create more of an androgynous culture, hence the move to gender neutral bathrooms and push to use of pronouns in bios. Instead of fighting this trend it’s better to go ahead and figure out what the impact will be.

Dating for Financial Reasons: Since wealth inequality (and income inequality) is going to go nowhere but up, you should expect to see a lot of “Looks mismatched” pairs. We’re not going to go through an entire dissertation of what a Looks Match is. Instead we can agree that an overweight guy/girl matched with a thin model guy/girl doesn’t make sense. Similarly, it makes little sense when a guy is dating someone significantly older than him. While there are always exceptions to the rule, the general framework is the same.

This means you’re going to see a lot of men and women dating for economic reasons. While it is quite common in third wold countries, this same dynamic is going to be much more common in first world countries as well.

In fact, you’re already seeing it with the normalization of sugar baby/daddy relationships. It is now spreading to men as well since it is a status signal for wealthy older women to have a “boy toy” boyfriend. Just go to Connecticut if you want to see this live.

Finally, if you’re from a well off family or your parents have a lot of money. Be wary of people suddenly “showing up” if they are single and in the 50+ age bracket.

Pets to Solve Loneliness: We’re not going to tell people if they should or shouldn’t have kids. That’s an individualistic decision. That said, having this tweet below get so much engagement really says a lot. A ton of people are using pets as a way to make up for not having kids.

Originally, we assumed the market would peak once pets replaced kids for women in their 30s. How wrong we were (in a good way!).

What happened to Pets? Guys started to get dogs as well. They were also looking for companionship. Stuck at home with COVID, tired of the dating market that favors only the top 5% or so… Perfect cocktail for Fido.

The result is that pets are not only replacing kids but they are also being used to combat loneliness and depression since the economic needs of a Labrador is significantly lower.

While the initial move was to simply sell dog/cat food, the market is so large that you can sell: 1) pet carry-ons for airports, 2) CBD oil for anxiety, 3) various organic treats that cost more for dogs vs. humans - for no reason, 4) clothing/shoes and 5) psychic services

More Niche Communities: The jungle is certainly a niche online community and this is the future of connectivity in the future. It is highly unlikely that you’ll live in the same city/town as your future peers. Use a good college as an example. Way back 20-40 years ago these connections would actually drive your future career.

Today? Not so much.

More realistically, the people you meet will unlikely be on the same path as you. Anyone who went to a high quality university knows this. Only a few people make it to a top paying career and then another 5-10% of that number are smart enough to realize they need to get out ASAP.

The conclusion from this is relatively clear. If you’re hoping to make connections you got no shot of doing it within the work force. Your co-workers are never your friends. They are immediately cut as potential business partners. Your only solution is online communities/contacts based on your visible skillset.

Expect more and more companies to be built and started by people meeting across the web vs. the standard college dorm stories.

Massively Raised Standards: Since people are growing up on the internet where people post their ideal lives and photoshopped images 100% of the time, expectations will explode while reality remains constant. Since people believe that the ideal world is out there, the expectations are already set.

This means guys will get into “virtual relationships” with an AI based 10/10 model girl. It simply does not matter if the virtual e-girl is real or not. They will prefer to be plugged into this alternative reality since it will generate more dopamine when compared to constant negative interactions in the real world. If you want proof of this, just look up Ashley Madison and the growth of Only Fans. They are one and the same. Men are becoming programmed to be happier with a few drops of attention from a “star” vs creating lasting relationships in the real world.

More Drug vs. Alcohol Use: This really took off pre-COVID and has gotten much worse after COVID. Since Zoomers don’t have a ton of money, they are moving more and more to cheaper highs (on a relative basis). While hard drugs are still expensive, when compared to drinking 5-10 drinks per weekend, the cost is minimal in comparison. The “war on drugs” is far from over. In fact, more of it will be normalized and legalized similar to how weed is about as common as drinking at this point.

Part 2: Positioning for the Future

We’re well aware that there is a cohort of people online hoping to “return to the past”. This is no different than praying for a time machine. It doesn’t exist and never will. Ignore every single person who tells you to “stop selling products that promote the problem”. This is a loser mentality since you are fighting reality. If you want to make it financially, spotting trends and investing your time and energy into them is the way to do it!

Once you accept that as reality, you’ll be well positioned to re-orient your headspace for the future. You’re not going to see kids playing sports outside for 6 hours a day (like you did in the 80s).

You’re going to see kids plugged into their computers 24/7/365.

Video Content: Since the general picture is for people to rely on tech, this means that raw processing power in the USA (human IQ) is likely going to decline. COVID didn’t help and now that kids are able to rely entirely on the internet you’re seeing test scores plummet when in contained environments.

Since people have short attention spans and they can’t tell real from fake, video content will be king. If you have a knack for creating easy to understand videos, you’ll be way ahead of the curve for the next several years.

“Perpetual Youth”: You’re already seeing 40 year olds go to clubs. This is seriously a trend and is going to continue. Since people are not having kids they are spending more and more money on escapism/vanity. This is reflected in degenerate partying and status goods.

Youth is in quotes for a reason.

If you were to target a major city like NYC, Miami or Los Angeles, you could print some incredible numbers by tailoring a drinking/food event around the lonely people in their 30s/40s. Essentially an expensive nightlife venture set up for people past their prime to continue living as if they are 25. Charge a ton to make sure it is fancy since status is what they will use to justify everything.

Online Dopamine: Older people get excited from likes and views but the youth is already accustomed to posting their entire lives on the internet. This means anything that triggers a dopamine reaction from Zoomers will be huge. This includes: sports betting, VR/AI girlfriends, meme coin gambling and of course anything sex related.

Since people will assume that money is made overnight by going viral any sort of sorcery to help improve “luck” will also sell quite well. As an important note: superstition, horoscopes etc are all interrelated to the idea that life is luck.

Mass Immigration: Since birth rates will be on the decline the only way for economies to generate GDP growth is through immigration. This is a touchy topic (we know) but this is also reality. If you want long-term GDP growth you need long-term population growth to continue consumption and demand. Can’t have GDP growth with no customers! This is 10x as true when your entire country is built on leverage and debt.

Mental Health Clinics: Can go ahead and say this is the easiest of all bets we’d make. Since the long-term impact of: 1) no kids, 2) drug/alcohol abuse, 3) transactional relationships (overview here) and 4) loneliness are still playing out… it means the growth of mental health clinics will likely be parabolic.

This will be a hit with both men and women since regret creeps up on everyone differently. Similar to how the punch bowl suddenly goes dry. Hard to know when it hits since the punchbowl is invisible (in terms of volume left).

You could even do this online but the big money will be targeting the wealthy who are loaded to the gills but feel unfulfilled. If you want to do due diligence on the list of regrets, you could interview wealthy people in end of life care facilities.

Don’t Fight Reality!

We realize a lot of these trends are not exciting. People spending more money on pets than baby clothing is a weird trend. That said, there is nothing you can do to stop it.

Remember that the trend is not what you should do, it is something that you should accept as the future and reality. You don’t need to participate in any of the trends, however, you will be in the minority. The vast majority will fall into the categories listed above. There is a reason why OnlyFans is constantly growing.

Some Unrelated Positive News

Outside of these trends, we do want to end on a positive note. The max pain everyone has seen in terms of pricing pressure is likely on the decline at this point. We’ll get some new inflation data tomorrow and from what we’ve seen, prices are not going up more (quarter over quarter). The new pricing reality is largely set and this new higher cost of living environment is finally hitting a ceiling.

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Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of Ex-Wall Street Tech Bankers and software engineers who moved into affiliate marketing and e-commerce. We’re an advisor for Synapse Protocol 2022-2024E.

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