Edited by Jack LeeHoffman and Julia Myers
Dear readers,
Welcome back to the inflection point! In this week's pulse, we break down four trends our AI is seeing spike this week in fashion, space, food, and technology. And, as a bonus, we have a look back on a Defi token we wrote about back in December. So, let’s dive into it!
I. The latest in maternity fashion
NWO.ai has seen an explosion in the conversation for Maternity Fashion. At the beginning of the year, the signal reached a low point but has exploded 4,563% in the last three months, triggering eight inflection points. Inflection points are key moments in time when our AI detects a sudden influx of consumer chatter on a particular topic. So what’s driving the trend? Are people suddenly having more kids?
Not exactly. The conversation is being driven by none other than Rihanna. In late January, Rihanna announced her pregnancy with rapper A$AP Rocky. On February 2nd, Rihanna posted on Instagram a picture of her baby bump wearing a pink Chanel outfit. Then followed up on February 9th with a post showing off her bump wearing a WARDROBE.NYC x Carhartt cropped bomber jacket. The internet went wild with her new pregnancy looks, and continues to be obsessed. One Vogue article even posed if Rihanna is changing pregnancy style forever. A L’Officiel article discusses how celebrities, including Rihanna, Emily Ratajkowski, and Shay Mitchell, are redefining maternity wear by flaunting their pregnancies. For example, the impact score for “maternity crop top” has grown 111%, indicating some consumers may be moving away from traditional maternity clothes and embracing the new trend.
II. Russian sanctions lead to setbacks in a planned Mars mission
Moscow, we have a problem. The European Space Agency (ESA) has suspended a $1.1 billion Mars mission with Russia. The ESA announced last week that it would no longer be able to work with the Russian space agency Roscosmos due to EU sanctions. The ExoMarks mission, initially scheduled for September 2022, looked to send a rover to Mars to investigate potential life on the planet. However, the ESA said that if relations with Russia improved, they could look to reschedule the launch in 2024.
The signal for “Mars Mission and Russia Sanctions” has grown over 3,500% in the last three months, with three inflection points triggered leading up to the formal suspension of the joint partnership. Despite the setback for Roscosmos, Russia announced that it would work on its own mission to Mars, separate from the ESA. Russia already has the rocket, a launch site, and a landing module but just needed the rover from the ESA. The ESA is also looking to continue the mission, but without Russia, the ESA said it could take at least another eight years before they can launch a rover to Mars.
III. Ukrainian Recipe Intrest Spikes
As the Russian invasion of Ukraine stretches into its first month, consumers have been looking up Ukrainian recipes in solidarity with the embattled nation. As a result, the impact score for Ukrainian Recipes has grown 435% in the past three months. Trending dishes include Borscht, a Ukrainian Beet Soup, Piroshki, a baked or fried bun stuffed with meat, and Pampushky, a Ukrainian version of garlic bread. One New York City Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village, Veselka, has seen an outpouring of support by residents. Locals have been lined up around the corner outside the restaurant on weekends to get a bowl of Borscht. According to the owners, they have sold over 8,000 bowls since the war started.
Check out this link to some delicious Ukrainian recipes that we are sure you will love.
IV. Summer of Love
It will be a hot summer, and we're not talking about the temperature. 2022 will feel like the first “normal” summer since the beginning of the pandemic, so people who may have stepped out of the dating pool may be looking to jump back in. Our impact score's forecast shows that dating apps will see exponential growth, particularly Tinder, Hinge, and Stir. The impact score for dating apps exploded 157%. Tinder and Hinge have grown 5942% and 12% in the last three months. And a new app, Stir, launched on Monday by the Match Group, Inc, is also expected to grow significantly.
Stir is a brand new dating app designed exclusively for single parents released this past Monday. Stir's mission is single parents often feel excluded or underserved with the existing dating apps. So it looks like there are now even more options for everyone.
Bonus: A look back on our Loopring (LRC) prediction
We wrote about a potential partnership between Loopring and Gamestop in December. Well, three months later, it has happened. Loopring (LRC), a decentralized exchange, announced a partnership with Gamestop to create an NFT marketplace this week. The price of Loopring was up over 40% on Wednesday following the announcement. We anticipate that Loopring still has room to grow in the long term as the NFT marketplace gains traction.
We hope you enjoyed this week's issue of the inflection point. Stay tuned next week when we tackle even more trends.
Cheers
About NWO.ai
NWO.ai's predictive platform enables leading Fortune 500 companies and government agencies to anticipate and track global cultural shifts by aggregating, analyzing, and producing actionable reports on human-generated data. We are leveraging petabytes of external, noisy, and unstructured data from various sources –including search, social media, blogs, news, patent databases, SEC filings and we are continuously adding more sources. Our mission is to answer the what, when, and most importantly, 'why' behind a consumer trend and enable our customers to detect these shifts as early as possible.
P.S. We're hiring! Check out our open positions and let us know if you'd be a good fit for our team. We're growing quickly and adding several engineering roles to help us decode the anatomy of next.
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