Interesting Times, Uncertainty, and Predictions

What might 2024 hold for us?

“May you live in interesting times” is quite famously an ancient Chinese curse, with ‘interesting’ being a catch-all for the many troubles that can plague us. Except it’s not Chinese, and it’s not ancient, according to Wikipedia and experts in classical Chinese. So fun times, it’s also an example of misinformation, misattribution, and the muddled plot that is history.

Whatever the origin, we’ve been living in interesting times. We’ve fought off a global plague. We’re witnessing the implosion of the Middle East. We woke up to the news that the man who’s been impeached twice and is facing 91 criminal charges clinched the Iowa caucuses, the first big milestone in the US Presidential elections. And the rise of right wing demagogues has even hit my belovedly rational home country of the Netherlands.

Last time I shared with you how I fared on predictions for 2023. Looking around the corner and trying to see how 2024 will unfold is…well, it’s not very cheerful, I’ll tell you that.

1. So my first prediction is that dealing with uncertainty will get a lot more attention.

Grit and growth mindset were the drumbeats of the hustle culture aughts, when money flowed much more freely, start-ups become the cornerstone of our economy, and grinding through the tough stuff to success seemed inevitable, if only you had the right level of perseverance.

Those are still important; as I see the growth of my niece and nephew and other next-gen kiddos, the ones who are committed to growth are light-years ahead. But as we face more things that are out of our control, the idea of learning from uncertainty will become a more powerful—and more discussed—tool in our mental toolbox. 

But how do we deal with the unpredictable factors far beyond our control? Michelle Obama wrote about uncertainty in her 2022 book The Light We Carry. Maggie Jackson, the author of Uncertain: The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Unsure, recently wrote in the NYTimes: 

When we meet something unexpected, a neural “prediction error” signals a mismatch between what we assumed would occur and what our senses tell us. Yet our uneasy sense of not knowing triggers a host of beneficial neural changes, including heightened attention, bolstered working memory and sensitivity to new information. The brain is preparing to update our knowledge of the world.

I see more of this conversation in the coming year, and the Gladwell-ification of uncertainty, where the how-to of dealing with uncertainty will become part of the cultural zeitgeist.

2. Thin will be oh-so-in.

Like the 90s heroine-chic and accompanying spike in eating disorders, the 2020s will be the Ozempic era, replete with . Everyone is so over diet culture; diet drugs make thin-ness so much easier, and minus all the moral baggage of almond moms. Oprah already signed up, snack food brands are rethinking how to be in a world full of suppressed appetites, and NYTimes fashion editrix Vanessa Friedman noted a reduction in body diversity on runways. 

With a medicine that can guarantee thinness without the hard work of dieting and exercise, body positivity will have to hunker down and regroup. The hard-won strides made towards loving all bodies and questioning beauty standards will become harder to defend as the new beauty standard is just a few injections away.  However, not everyone has access to these drugs, nor the money to afford the hundreds of dollar a month to use these drugs, so as we see more thin coming out of the media, we’ll also see more discussion around beauty standards and money or class. 

3. Boy Polish

Men wearing nail polish is more and more acceptable, but salons visitors are still mostly women. With Chanel selling boy polish in black and white, and Jason Momoa owning the last Fast and Furious movie with purple nails, this could be the year we see this trend go mainstream and become more accepted.

4. Generative AI will grow up.

We’ll go from novelty to addressing needs. We’ll hit a trough of disillusionment, but unlike the blockchain, which struggled to prove its value beyond speculative markets, AI has already been deeply embedded in our processes and its success came from a fairly immediate evidence of value. 

Gartner has generative AI at the very top of their hype cycle of inflated expectations for 2024. (Note there’s no blockchain on this chart anymore—it fell right into that trough of disillusionment). So it’s up to this year for it to prove its value. Lying in the trough of disillusionment for AI will be concerns about its danger and regulations that restrict its growth, but unlike blockchain it will continue on and prevail.

5. Twitter killers and other new platforms will find it harder to get attention.

2023 saw an explosion of Twitter alternatives as elon musk’s takeover of the company continued to scare away users and advertisers. None of them stuck, and trying to keep up with the latest felt exhausting. People and brands will settle back in to social media’s power players, for now.

HootSuite is already seeing this trend in ad spend on social platforms, with the tried and true TikTok and Instagram seeing growth, and LinkedIn seeing a uptick as well.

Of course even in the space of platforms, nothing is certain. If Trump rises again, TikTok could find itself under fire for being a Chinese-owned platform again. Even the current kerfuffle about this here platform, Substack, and its unconvincing rhetoric about free speech and Nazis is another blow to platforms-on-the-rise. Popular Substack Platformer is one of the many that have already bailed for another newsletter home, seeking a place that’s just a newsletter tool. 

Interesting Times

Going back to uncertainty—part of making predictions is a practice to help navigate uncertainty, and increase comfort with the unknown. As we live in interesting times, the most rewarding way to engage is to keep updating our assumptions, and working to make smarter decisions.