Not always right, but never in doubt
scrutinizing my 2025 predictions
When does the New Year really start for you? For me, it’s my birthday. But I abide by the calendar year for IN/OUT lists. In lieu of a 2025 retrospective (that’s between me + my journal!), let’s audit the 2025 Oracle (linked below ICYMI), shall we?
2025 ORACLE
Happy New Year! (You’re allowed to say this until midnight tonight.) I hope yours was a good one, surrounded by people you love and who love you back. It’s time for my 2025 IN/OUT list! Last year, I predicted that drugstore shampoo + skincare would be IN and designer shampoo + skincare would be OUT, and
Stay tuned: My next letter will include a 2026 IN/OUT list—even if these lists are very much now on cool people’s “out” camp. If you’re nice, I’ll publish it this week.
I’ve broken these out into what I predicted and 1) nailed, 2) missed, and 3) what is still percolating. You can pick and choose what you care to audit. I welcome your thoughts on my assessment—it is biased, after all.
Called it!
IN: Health savings accounts (HSA)
OUT: Pre-existing condition protections
HSAs were the MVP talking point for anyone trying to kill the Affordable Care Act and curb healthcare costs. I’ll spend more time on this in a future letter, but here’s a summary: if you have a high-deductible (i.e., you have to spend $$$$ before your insurance picks up the tab), you can open an HSA. They not only reduce your taxable income, but this rolls over year after year, and you can invest the money and let your savings account grow tax-free. The caveat is that you can only use this account for approved healthcare expenses. Trump broadened the HSA eligibility criteria in 2025, extending the HSA benefit to more Americans. I anticipate that HSAs will stay hot in 2026, given our health insurance premiums will skyrocket now that the ACA marketplace enhanced subsidies have expired. I also think the gen pop is just now realizing HSAs are a thing. We still have pre-existing condition protections, but I’m not yet convinced this will hold.
IN: Streaming drug ads
OUT: TV drug ads
In 2025, Trump signed an executive order on pharma ads that empowered the FDA to send hate mail to top pharma companies and prompted me to write an op-ed in defense of drug advertising. Despite pouring 16% more into traditional TV spots last year, drugmakers saw impressions climb just 7% year-over-year, per Fierce Pharma. You might be thinking that’s not the most efficient use of advertising + promotional budgets, given most of our media diet now consists of streaming and scrolling. Pharma gets that—projected 2025 digital ad spend jumped 13% from 2024 digital ad spend. Expect more traditional TV ad divestment in 2026: experts forecast pharma companies will down-titrate traditional TV ad budgets and up-titrate digital spend.
IN: GenAI research
OUT: Traditional search bar
Even DuckDuckGo pulls up GenAI summaries when you try traditional search. Is nothing sacred?
IN: DTC drugs
OUT:Retail pharmacy
People told me this was one of my hottest takes, but I was unfazed. It’s true that retail pharmacy is still kicking, but DTC pharm-to-table drugs were a big win for 2025. First came LillyDirect, Pfizer4All, and NovoCare. Then came TrumpRX + MFN deals with DTC components. I’m a fan because we can now bypass traditional distro models + middlemen for some drugs and ensure patients (read: not PBMs) benefit from discounts/rebates.
IN: Sleep hygiene
OUT: Doom scrolling
Everyone I know is obsessed with sleep. Only a few of us are getting enough of it.
IN: Maximalism
OUT: Millennial greige
Called it, with more to come in 2026. Fashion-wise, we saw a clear shift towards maximalism in 2025’s runway shows. The New York Times claimed “quiet luxury is a thing of the past.” In terms of design, AD, Elle Decor, and others published on the resurgence of maximalism in interior design. I’m not sure I’m fully sold on the maximalist aesthetic, but I am glad for less millennial greige.
IN: Secondhand Leather
OUT: Veg leather
Until someone convinces me otherwise, I vow never to buy vegan leather again.
IN: Homesteading! hunting + foraging! grass-fed beef from happy cows!
OUT: Vegan diet
Is anyone vegan anymore? All I know is that homesteading, foraging, moon ceremonies, and bartering are all alive and well in the town of Rensselaerville.
IN: Saying it w your whole chest
OUT: Dog whistle
Sometimes the devil you know is easier to manage than the angel who actually hates you or whatever. "The Cruel Kids Table" was the perfect representation of this to me, where interviewees divulged they voted for Trump because they craved the freedom to say words the woke police will cancel you for. The pendulum swung as far in that direction as it could; for the time being, it’s swinging back to pro-social behavior.
IN: Light eugenics
OUT: Social Security
This was the one I left out of the write-up, but shared privately when people asked. Eugenics was definitely trending for a while there in 2025, starting when a Designer Baby scientist did fake skull science on me, escalating with a series of Designer Baby NYT Op-Eds, and reaching a crescendo with the chaotic Nucleus Genomics subway ads. This tempered following a takedown titled, “Concerns about the legitimacy and integrity of Nucleus Genomics.” My position is that polygenic risk scores are a good tool for disease management and personalized patient care. Our environment plays too big a role to be ignored by those building “designer babies.”
IN: Links aggregator newsletters
OUT: Trad media
Long live Feed Me !
Missed!
IN: Beef tallow
OUT: Vegan skincare
Miss, kind of. I tried beef tallow for my skin, but it started clogging my pores, so I went back to my trusted petrolatum-based products for sealing in my skincare at night. It would have been nice if beef tallow worked for me, as my dog licks my face to sleep most nights and employs the same methods to wake me up in the mornings. Alas.
IN: Environmentalism
OUT: Mars
I have no words.
Mixed!
IN: Mexican coke
OUT: Diet Coke/coke zero etc
Mixed. Mexican Coke was prevalent in the NYC and LA dining scene, and Coca-Cola introduced a new SKU sweetened with cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup to the US market; however, the cult of fridge cigarettes held strong.
IN: Caucasus mineral mining
OUT: Gold standard
The South Caucasus is open for business. Trump’s got his eye on those minerals! But I missed the ball on gold—it’s going up UP UP! Odd Lots covered this better than I could.
IN: Candlelight
OUT: Pina pro LED
The best meals I enjoyed this year were candlelit—whether in New York, The Bay, LA, Hawai’i, Helsinki, Glasgow, Edinburgh, or London. Even those in my friends’ and my homes. Even at friends’ weddings. But the cursed pina pro LED light still has a chokehold on the dining scene. Prayers for its downfall will continue in 2026.
IN: Mini cocktails
OUT: Beer
Both of these things proved to be in for me in 2025 (I imbibed in both mini cocktails and beers). But the NYC Restaurant mini cocktail trend changed my life. Before mini cocktails entered the zeitgeist, I’d order a single drink to split with a friend when I didn’t want to commit to 3oz of gin. It always backfired. Our lovely bartenders would still pour two drinks and charge us for one with a wink and a nod. My liver is happier now.
Let her cook!
IN: Fee for service
OUT: Value-based payment
Sidenote: In the US, many doctors are paid for each service they provide: every visit, test, test result readout, phone call, and care event has a fee. The more you do, the more you get paid, so we call this “fee-for-service.” On the other hand, value-based care generally aims to reward doctors for patient outcomes. Keeping people healthy, managing conditions well, and preventing ER visits = more money. The incentive is to deliver efficient, effective care. To illustrate the difference: If you hired a calculus tutor to help you study, you’d pay her by the hour (fee-for-service). However, if you worked out a deal where she only gets paid if you pass your calculus final, that would be a value-based payment arrangement.
No major shifts in fee-for-service or value-based payment models last year, but hospitals are reporting plans to scale up value-based care in 2026, while CMS doubled down on value-based care with its ACCESS model, intending to shift away from fee-for-service. Some might say I was wrong, but I’m still sus. It’s not that I don’t like value-based care; it is one of my favorite care-delivery models. It’s more of an execution/implementation issue. We’ve been hyping up value-based care as the answer to all of healthcare’s problems for like a decade now, but actual implementation has been painfully slow. It’s giving:
when the track record says otherwise.
IN: Natural dyes
Out: Red 40 dye
I’m not so sure that I’m seeing a massive natural dye takeover, but we’re bidding farewell to Red 40 dye. By the start of Q2 2025, the FDA announced plans to cancel Red 40 + other petroleum-based synthetic dyes by end of 2026. Perhaps 2027 will be the year of natural dyes.
IN: Scalp care
OUT: Olaplaex
Korean scalp salons were hot in NYC in 2025, and the NYT wrote about the scalp as the new “it” body part, but I think people are still catching up on this one. The best thing I did for my hair in 2025 was drop $$$ on this Sisley scalp serum (NOT AN AD).
IN: Ancestral farm olive oil
OUT: Burning ur olive oil by cooking above its smoke point
This was something I wanted to apply to my life, and I succeeded. Idk what the rest of y’all are doing with your olive oil, and I don’t think I want to know. It’s better this way.
IN: Interest group politics
OUT: MicroPlastic panic (lost cause??)
Interest group politics is always in, if you’re doing it right.
IN: Recession (for real this time)
OUT: Small plates restaurants (you can’t afford to spend $200 on sardines!)
So we didn’t formally recess last year in part due to the conspicuous consumption of the few. Are we out of the woods? That would be nice. Nevertheless, the vibecession continued in 2025. What I don’t love is that Small Plate Girliepop Restaurants still have a chokehold on the bicoastal elite. Come over for dinner, I’ll pop the tab of a sardine can for us for free.
IN: Cooking at home
OUT: Dining out (see above)
This was more of a personal goal, but I did not cook at home as much as I should have. Better luck next year!
IN: Shakers (furniture, design)
OUT: Silicon Valley furniture brands
Miss? I toured a beautiful Shaker drawings exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum at the beginning of 2025, and I know the Vitra Museum also held a Shaker exhibit this summer, so they’re at least trending up. Despite the furniture industry downturn, Wayfair prevailed per Barron’s.
IN: Digital cameras
OUT: Buying new iPhone
Miss? Wait and see? Anecdotally, I see more young people with digital cameras walking around NYC. And manufacturers are re-releasing old digital camera models and bringing new ones to market (albeit at eye-watering prices). The New York Times wrote about the Gen-Z digital camera adoption in 2023, but I don’t really see other generations slinking around with them. Maybe in 2026? On the iPhone front, do any of you remember this Back Market ad in the NYC subway targeting the polyamorous last year? Why does it feel like years ago? A handful of friends have expressed curiosity about “dumb phones.” Many others have purchased new old iPhones, then shared woes about the iOS. If Twitter dies in 2026, I might opt to buy a dumb phone as my main (I can’t get rid of my work iPhone, or they’ll take me out back and shoot me.)
IN: Word of mouth
OUT: Influencers
Despite the algorithm’s best efforts, the influencer persisted in 2025.
xxsem