Archive for January, 2014

In our second installment of The Footaction 50, following up a post on Artists & Musicians, we’re looking closely at the trends that were massive in 2013 and how we think they might evolve, adapt or progress this year. Although not a list of chronological order, but rather more of a laundry list, these are the things that you should keep your eye on.

Style playing an even larger part in artist’s personas. More artists that similar to A$ AP Rocky and Theophilus London. It’s safe to say that style and the way that these artists dress plays a large part in their individual brands. They move, breathe and live fashion just as much as their music. It seems to them that it’s all one in the same. Expect more artists and creatives to be emerge and be cut from the same cloth in 2014.

The NBA try new types of jerseys and possibly taking it too far. On this past Christmas Day, we saw the NBA unveil an alternate jersey (even if it was a special Holiday edition) and we’re still questionable on it. Although the league will only be switching it up for certain days out of the 82-game season, it still might take some getting used to. The kicker, however? They’ll be having nicknames on the back of jerseys for some games — and that’s too XFL for our taste. What are your thoughts on this?

Late Night Television hits refresh; gets younger. The news of Jimmy Fallon taking over Jay Leno’s show and bringing it to New York City for the first time in four decades, while Seth Meyers takes over Fallon’s old show means that we’re seeing a major transition in mainstream media. Late night talk shows are defined by some of entertainment’s most memorable personalities and this change will be surely exciting to witness.

New delivery methods for full-length projects by artists and musicians. These past three years, we’ve seen Kanye West shake up the game with his Good Friday releases — where he’d release one new song every Friday leading up to his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy which shook up the game. Then last year, Jay Z partnered up with mobile company Samsung to sell a million copies of his album to reach platinum status even before it was released for his Magna Carta Holy Grail album. Then, most recently, Beyoncé released her self-titled album Beyoncé without any promotion, no radio single and placed the album on iTunes. We’re excited to see how artists will continue to shake up the game this coming year.

Mobile phones, the Internet and technology. It’s now more normal than ever to have a cell phone and Internet access and many of the systems that our parent’s knew and dealt with have gone through major disruption in the past few years. It’s incredible. Technology is revolutionizing the concept of identity (Facebook, Path), changing the payments world (Square, Bitcoin), democratizing media and news (Twitter) and adapting to new ways to communicate (Snapchat). However, we’ve merely scratched the surface. Also: no hoverboard yet.

40 is the new 20. Maybe this isn’t a trend we actually believe, but can we talk about how Pharrell still looks the same as when he was 20? The term “trend” is how something changes and develops in a general direction, and although his age count is increasing, he develops into more proof of the fountain of youth. Let’s just pretend this one was never brought up.

The Quantified Self. With apps & wearable technologies that measure your life for wellness, health and productivity such as the Nike Fuelband or the Jawbone Up, it will be interesting to see what more metrics can be measured to better our lives. As long as it’s not Google Glass.

The “Selfie.” No secret that the “Selfie” has taken it’s a way into mass culture with the use of Instagram and Snapchat. If these companies are worth billions of dollars and most of the content posted on them are selfies — well, you’ve got a powerful trend happening on your hands.

The Quantified “Selfie.” Pro-tip: the selfie game is real and you should be getting on the level of these guys at the Selfie Olympics. Okay, not really.