I don't make New Year predictions, but....

What I got wrong about 2023, and my hunch on what 2024 has in store

Welcome, friends, to Eliza Filby’s Newsletter. Stick around and you’ll find all my latest insights, essays and research into contemporary society - how we can understand the world of our parents, ourselves and the future world of our kids.

In this week’s newsletter:

• The ONLY VIDEO you have to see on the Generation Gap
• What I was wrong about in 2023, and what I think 2024 might look like

Here’s a new year treat for you….

It’s such a good piece of satire on the generation gap that you almost forget it’s an advert for lamb.

This time last year I sat down and made some predictions for 2023 and this week I’m revisiting them, because I think it’s good practise to hold yourself to account. As for the future, I cannot tell you what will happen to interest rates or geopolitics, but here’s what I predicted last year and what I think will dominate in 2024.

1. Be Nice To Grandma

Last year I wrote on the new benign era for Boomers:

“In short the generational power dynamic (and therefore society’s cultural war) is changing in our workplaces, in the home and inevitably in politics. Boomers still have all the money and assets but oddly we have ceased to berate them for it. The real political challenge however will be to convince Baby Boomers to vote for their children’s and their grandchildren’s interests rather than their own.”

I still believe this to be true and expect it will continue to be the case in 2024. The sting has come out of the generational war (see advert above). Generally speaking, we are becoming less ageist across the board, more conscious of using such labels to divide. Although, the cynic in me still feels that brands’ use of older role models is because they are realising that this is where the money is.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in politics in the great year of the ballot. In 2024, half the world’s population will vote in elections. But in the US and UK at least the battleground will not be Gen Z but mid-life Millennials currently in their building years, thwarted by high interest rates and inflation. In the UK, Labour is clearly making a pitch to struggling but aspirational millennials with notes on childcare, tax and housing. While dyed in the wool Tory Boomers just have to read the following statement and fume:

2. Weathering the storm

I wrote this last year:

“Permacrisis was word of year for 2022 for a very good reason but I predict it will lose currency in 2023, not because things will get calmer but because people will become used to the chaos and learn to protect themselves from it.”

The word of the year in 2023 was Rizz , which potentially means that I wasn’t wrong on this point.

3. The Great Reorganisation

I wrote this last year:

“The best workplaces will begin to prioritise mandatory office days, an emphasis on more humanised (i.e. face to face) management and learning, thoughtful implementation of AI and automation, regulation of information overload, better hybrid tech, and yes, layoffs where excess fat is revealed.”

This is where companies were in 2022, but there are still some long-covid problems lingering across all levels: especially to do with lost learning and social etiquette amongst Gen Z, the lack of management skills with younger millennials, the level of disaffection and health issues with the over 50s. Covid sped up human interaction and business, but the greater infiltration of AI will, paradoxically, call on us all to slooooooooow them right down. We will all need to get better at relationships, face to face interaction…. the things humans are best at, as that will be the thing that will make or break the success of a business (when the rest of work is automated).

The big office trend for 2024: office mentors (or as one CEO put it to me, office babysitters) whose entire job description is to nurture young talent, demonstrate good communication skills and client etiquette, and offer bespoke support. The only problem is that this outsourcing of care, similar to having a babysitter, could end up as a sticking plaster over the issues if it doesn’t also report up the chain on how processes and culture should change and improve.

So, here are some thoughts on 2024:

1. Will Gen Alpha please stand up: the oldest among Generation Alpha (2010-2025) are hitting their teenage years. As with most things, the Kardashians are leading the way with their offspring North West, 10, and Penelope Disick, 11 garnering millions of views on TikTok. The eldest Gen Alpha is 14 and life’s is currently about mullets, Chat-GPT-completed homework and complex skincare routes. Watch them burst out of their algo-silos to mock Gen Z, reject their millennial parents and re-cast the world in their image in 2024. And see a moral panic emerge about their attention spans, tech dependency, future prospects, and how they’ve been parented.
2. Nothing is true. AI generated video will pose a challenge to the creator economy (will influencers still be able influence in an age of deepfakes?) and of course politics but will also begin to infiltrate the workplace. Misinformation, conspiracy and gossip, the likes of which we have long seen on Fishbowl and other professional platforms, will start to complicate internal comms incredibly, especially when conflated with disruptive video/audio generated AI.
3. Side Hustled? The key indication that something is successful is when governments start to tax it. So it follows that from the 1st of Jan in the UK, sites such as Depop and Ebay are now legally obliged to report any significant transactions. The threshold for side hustle earnings is set at more than ￡1,000 a year – above this, online sellers must register as self-employed and file a self-assessment tax return. Selling stuff tax free, especially on TikTok shop, has been one of the major ways that young people have been able to navigate inflation and amass a bit of financial independence. But the bigger story here of course is the mindset shift evident amongst younger generations who now naturally think beyond the one salary model, laud passive income and multiple streams of revenue. How companies compete or potentially integrate this phenomenon is a really interesting question to which I do not have the answer…. Happy January and thanks for reading

Eliza