📈 Biggest trend

Good morning. Today, we look back at the news from July and August, and crown our winner for the Biggest Trend of the year (spoiler: it’s very Canadian). So settle in, and let's rewind to a time when the sun was shining, and you didn’t have to shovel your driveway. 

—Lucas Arender

Meta starts paying its AI team like star athletes. Ruoming Pang accepted a pay package of more than US$200 million to join Meta’s “superintelligence” team. That nine-figure deal was in line with other major hires at Meta, including former GitHub chief Nat Friedman and AI startup founder Daniel Gross. Meta’s superintelligence team now has some of the highest compensation of any corporate jobs in the world, including CEO roles at major banks. (July 11 Edition)

Canadian colleges go broke. After international student visas were rolled back by the feds, universities and colleges were forced to make major cuts to their programs and staff. In Ontario alone, over 10,000 faculty and staff members at colleges were let go in the past year, one of the largest mass layoffs the post-secondary sector has ever seen. One report forecast that the top 20 universities in Ontario could lose $600 million in the upcoming school year. (July 10 Edition)

AI chatbots get into the shopping game. Shopify partnered with OpenAI to launch a shopping checkout system within ChatGPT that will let users search for, browse, and buy products without leaving the app. The idea is to turn ChatGPT into a one-stop virtual shopping assistant that can recommend products based on your taste and budget. Meanwhile, Meta announced that it will now use the data collected from its AI services to target ads to us on Instagram and Facebook. (July 17 Edition)

Couche Tard strikes out on 7-Eleven bid. After nearly a year of pursuing a takeover of 7-Eleven, Quebec-based Alimentation Couche-Tard has abandoned its US$46 billion bid to acquire its Tokyo-based owner, Seven & i. A buyout of 7-Eleven would have immediately made the Canadian company the largest convenience store chain in the world. Couche-Tard execs wrote that Seven & i’s leadership “engaged in a calculated campaign of obfuscation and delay.” (July 18 Edition)

Meme stock mania makes a comeback. Krispy Kreme and GoPro headlined a resurgent meme stock rally, climbing ~31% and ~53% over two days of trading, respectively, despite no change in their underlying businesses. Other seemingly random companies, including Kohl’s, saw similarly absurd spikes in trading. The original meme stock craze saw GameStop surge over 2,700% in three weeks, before a selloff erased US$167 billion in a matter of days. (July 24 Edition)

Winner: Buy Canadian. The Buy Canadian movement swept the land in the wake of U.S. tariffs (and Donald Trump’s yapping about Canada becoming the 51st state). With local producers feeling the impact, Canadians started pushing to buy all that they could from homegrown businesses. American liquor was taken off shelves, grocery stores started stocking more local products, and Canadians travelled in their own backyard in record numbers instead of flying south. If there’s one thing people like more than supporting Canadian businesses, it’s sticking it to the Americans. While the initial wave of enthusiasm may have diminished slightly, many are skeptical that our relationship with our southern neighbours will ever be the same.

Runner-up: Protein. The food fad of the year dominated fast casual menus, cafes, and snack aisles around the world. Starbucks rolled out protein drinks and foams, junk food staples like Pop-Tarts and Doritos launched protein-rich options, and protein-spiked booze even made an appearance. Truly the year of the gym bro. 

Runner-up: Kidults. Grown adults with paycheques and loads of childhood nostalgia helped reinvigorate the toy industry in 2025. Since the pandemic, adults have generated all of the growth in the toy sector, and now account for 28% of all toy sales globally. Demand for Labubu plushies and Pokémon collectibles was particularly high. To each their own!

On July 29, we got our first glimpse of Justin Trudeau with spacefaring pop star Katy Perry out at a romantic dinner in Montreal. The couple has since posted a flurry of lovey-dovey pictures (including with the former PM of Japan) and made their coupledom official on Instagram. Hopefully, Katy can help out young Xav Trudeau with his burgeoning music career. 

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🏡 300%. Property tax hike that the Township of Fauquier-Strickland in Ontario was facing, a reality that forced the small town to dissolve itself. Declining populations and dwindling economic opportunities have led at least 10 Canadian small towns to dissolve in the last 20 years. 

🤖 15.6 billion. Hours that users spent using generative AI in the first half of the year, nearly twice as much as the second half of 2024. People are now using ChatGPT as much as they’re using X and Reddit, and nearly as much as Google.

🍺 73%. Share of Gen Z adults who drank alcohol in the first six months of the year, up from 66% two years ago. That’s the biggest increase of any generation over that span, suggesting that the Gen Z anti-alcohol narrative may have had more to do with early-life financial restraints and pandemic-era social setbacks than taste.

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Kick your feet up, pour yourself something warm, and take on the mini-crossword!

Then, do wintery battle with today’s sudoku.