Hopeful Tomorrow

Key Takeaway:

While healthy life extension is raising public interest and VCs or tech companies' attention, in 2023, we expect consumers to embrace long-termism, trust in humanity, and the wellbeing of future generations, while evolving into a hopeful take on the present.

Trend Type: Social & Business

Sub-trends: Longevity & Hopeful tomorrow, Feel-good feeds, Positivy content, Immortality-as-a-service, Gene editing

April, 2023 • Less than 3 min read

Humans have constantly searched for the secrets to eternal youth and long life, having longevity as a standard indicator for measuring health and happiness. Now the age-old pursuit is raising public interest – according to CB Insights, media mentions of longevity terms have more than doubled in the last three years – and attracting new interest from VCs, tech companies, and governments. The prize for founders focused on providing services to live longer, healthier lives could be significant as age-defying consumers would likely be a lucrative source of recurring revenue. Dedicated VC funds like Apollo Health Ventures and Life Extension Ventures have recently raised massive funds to pour into longevity companies. In contrast, Saudi Arabia said in 2022 that it would spend $1B a year on anti-aging research.
In fact, until recently, CRISPR-Cas9 (the gene-editing technology that won its developers the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) has been predominately used as a research tool to understand the importance of specific genes and discover new drugs. In the last three years since the first person received a gene-editing therapy, the technology has been used to treat congenital blindness, heart disease, or sickle cell disease, among others. And while primary use cases are diseases with a single-gene mutation, early research suggests that conditions like Alzheimer’s and chronic pain could also be treated with CRISPR. In 2023, we are likely to see an expansion of gene editing in medicine and other sectors, powering a multi-billion-dollar industry and posing complex ethical dilemmas.
In fact, this future-driven and life-extending mindset – triggered by the pandemic and climate change- applies to personal and consumer goods longevity (please refer to product longevity in the “Green Tech” trend).
App designers are reformulating new platforms to foster positivity. Consumers are looking for positive modes of engagement and emotional support online. More content-based platforms are prioritizing positive customer engagement. And news aggregators and social media platforms are included in this shift. The ubiquity of social media platforms has made negativity in the news and content-based sites more impactful. With news and content cycles being 24 hours and also challenging to avoid because of smartphones, people are more likely to experience stress linked to global social and political issues (and their constant access to them). Now, more are turning to alternatives or “digital detoxing” to mitigate the impact of negative news cycles on their well-being.

Use Cases

Patagonia's Climate Fight

LONGEVITY & HOPEFUL TOMORROW: The billionaire founder of the outdoor fashion brand Patagonia has given away his company to a charitable trust. Yvon Chouinard said any profit not reinvested in running the business would go to fighting climate change. He claimed that profits to be donated to climate causes will amount to around $100m (£87m) a year, depending on the health of the company.

Gas App

Feel-Good Feeds: Gas is the ultimate compliment app. Users are asked multiple-choice questions that are positive and oriented to compliment their classmates and peers. Aimed at teens, the app requires users to designate their school and distributes compliments across its platform while motivating users to continue to compliment others, fostering a positive and cooperative app environment.

Niche App

Feel-Good Feeds: The Niche app is a new concept in social media: creator-owned content, rather than user-targeted content. The decentralized Web3 application consists of members, not users, who engage in communities fostered within the app based on interests and genuine connection. They are incentivized by posting content for positive, like-minded engagement rather than likes and digital promotion.“We see social media getting smaller, more intimate. People are moving towards these networks with like-minded shared interests, backgrounds, or identity,” Christopher Gulczynski, cofounder and CEO of Niche, tells Wunderman Thompson Intelligence. The future of social media, according to Niche cofounder and CTO Zaven Nahapetyan, is a place where “people have options, control, and power in their social interactions online the way they

Somewhere Good

Positivity Content: ‘Somewhere Good’ is a new positivity-focused social media platform founded by people of color. The company recently raised $3.75 million USD to create a platform focused on healthy conversations and positive experiences for underrepresented members of society. Currently, the platform exists in a beta form with an invite-only user acquisition model. With Somewhere Good, the founders hope to create a platform that is not focused on simplistic, digestible content, but rather on innovative forms of digital discovery, playfulness, and positivity. The founder of Somewhere Good, Naj Austin, stated that “current digital solutions prioritize a predominantly white, cisgender, heterosexual experience,” and that her platform is focused on challenging these internet trends and moving them toward a more

Inspired by iceland

Positivity Content: Doomscrolling is a new term that describes the act of consuming a large quantity of negative online news at once and it can be harmful to mental health. During a time of uncertainty, loneliness and travel restrictions, Inspired by Iceland hopes to inspire the opposite with a new interactive site for “Joyscrolling.” The Icelandic tourism site Inspired by Iceland created the Joyscroll site to offer over 75 feet of joyful content that can be scrolled through to elicit positive feelings. As they scroll, users will encounter the sights and sounds of soothing streams and peaceful landscapes. Although people are avoiding traveling for pleasure at this time, the site calculates a user’s scrolling distance and helps them become

Altos Labs

Immortality-as-a-service: Altos Labs, which is backed by Jeff Bezos and counts the Nobel Prize-winning co-inventor of gene-editing tool CRISPR Jennifer Doudna as a director, closed a mammoth $3B funding deal in early 2022. Its stated aim is to “reverse disease” through what it calls “cellular rejuvenation programming” — in effect, hacking cellular processes to interrupt mechanisms associated with aging and tricking cells into re-entering a more youthful, healthier state.

Use Cases

Patagonia's Climate Fight

LONGEVITY & HOPEFUL TOMORROW:

Gas App

Feel-Good Feeds:

Niche App

Feel-Good Feeds:

Somewhere Good

Inspired by iceland

Positivity Content:

Altos Labs

Immortality-as-a-service:

Sub-Trend Sources
Longevity & Hopeful tomorrow: Next Atlas Trend Confirmations and Predictions for 2023
Feel-good feeds: Wunderman Thompson The Future 100
Positivity Content: Trend Hunter Trends Report 2023
Immortality-as-a-service: CB Insights Tech Trends 2023
Gene editing: WEF Trends to Watch 2023