Of all the fascinating stats I have to share this week, one blew my mind more than any other.
There are a whopping 209 people named John Dick on LinkedIn. 209!
Surely, several of them are duplicate accounts or bots, but still. That’s a lot of Dicks. There are five in the Pittsburgh metro area alone. I’m not even including the multitude of Jon and Jonathan Dicks, because, let’s be honest, J-O-H-N is the superior spelling anyway.
I feel like we should form a support group. They run a remarkable gambit of jobs – from truck drivers and church pastors to doctors to college students to engineers at Google and Amazon. I’d love to ask them all how they’ve dealt with it throughout their lives. I’m sure their childhoods were as torturous as mine, maybe worse.
My dad taught me and my sister (it was way worse for her) at a young age to get ahead of it, to be in on the joke. If you’ve ever seen me on a speaking stage, you know that my go-to Dick schtick is something along the lines of “Hi, I’m John Dick…yes, that’s my real name…I certainly didn’t choose it…but I’ve forgiven my parents for it.” Invariably, it draws a roomful of chuckles and sets a lighthearted mood for the rest of the speech. Pro Tip: Self-effacing speakers who can pull it off without humble bragging are ALWAYS better than the alternative. That’s a slam dunk for me.
Maddie got with the program when she left for college. She gleefully wears a t-shirt around Ann Arbor that says, “Don’t be a dick,” the irony of which is lost on 95% of the people she sees on campus. Among those in the know, hopefully it makes her seem less pretentious, more embraceable. Her Instagram handle is “Maddie-Dick-Pics.” I wish I’d thought of that.
Noelle isn’t there yet. High school is still too judgy, too conformist. She’s not as gregarious and freak-flag-flying as Maddie, but her drier and sharper sense of humor will serve her just fine when she’s out in the real world. She’ll find her own way to handle it.
Anyway, maybe I’ll get around to sending connection requests to all 209 of my fellow John Dicks. I’m sure we’d have lots of stories to share. Maybe I’ll even learn a few new tips or jokes while I’m at it.
Misery does, indeed, love company.
Here’s what we’re seeing:
Americans are feeling slightly less stressed about the holidays. Likely a function of improved consumer confidence compared to this time last year, U.S. adults are reporting mildly improved holiday stress levels than they did in 2023. Millennials are especially more chill, year-over-year. The one big exception is Gen Z, 70% of whom say they’re more stressed – up from 65% last year. Gift-buying is, by far, the biggest source of holiday anxiety across age groups. This year, holiday angst is compounded by post-election stress, which we ask about separately. Forty-seven percent of Gen Zs say their stress levels have increased in the wake of the election, versus just 13% who said it decreased.
We might see those stress levels rise further over the next couple weeks because people are still way behind on their holiday shopping. In our 3 Things to Know this week, we learned that despite a massive turnout over the Black Friday weekend, fewer than 50% of U.S. shoppers have completed more than “a little” of their holiday gift-buying (over 1/3rd haven’t even started). It’s not unexpected, given the shorter season and the pre-election shopper paralysis, but it reminds retailers to stay on their toes. We also discovered that, long after the COVID lockdown, telehealth is alive and well, particularly for mental and behavioral health services. Finally, we looked at the modest rebound in movie-going over the past three years after the pandemic cliff.
Hispanic Americans are particularly late getting started on their holiday shopping. Among 5 key insights we uncovered about Hispanic consumers this week, over 1/3rd have yet to even begin their gift-gathering (as of Dec 10th), a level nearly 20% higher than non-Hispanics. Despite that fact, they’re also much more likely to say they plan to spend more this year compared to last year – which all means retailers should expect a concentrated onslaught of Hispanic shoppers in the next two weeks. We also found that they’re more likely to take on debt, more likely to shop at department stores, and way more likely to buy gifts for themselves along the way.
The Value Menu Wars garnered a lot of attention in 2024. We did something new this week (admittedly stealing the idea from Spotify) – where we analyzed the over 400 studies we published since January and ranked those that had the highest readership across our website and social channels. Surprisingly, none of the top 5 had anything to do with politics. Number one was our study on the QSR value menu onslaught, followed by our pieces on the downward trend in wedding spending. Our data on Gen Alpha parents bolstering the beauty industry, summer vacation planning, and emerging breakfast trends all made the list. Check it out here.
As the potential TikTok ban gained more steam in the courts, consumers are increasingly indifferent about it. In a more far-reaching study about social media, we found that fewer U.S. consumers favor legislation banning TikTok than they did a year ago, though a plurality still do. Meanwhile, TikTok Shop is growing at the same time, with twice as many consumers reporting use of the platform than we saw a year ago, with 1 in 3 users having either already bought Christmas gifts or intending to do so on TikTok Shop this year. Perhaps burying the lede, we found that Instagram has now supplanted YouTube as the top social media platform among Gen Z adult daily users for the first time.
More awesomeness from the InsightStore:
- Younger workers are struggling to develop skills (see: remote work) and two other key workforce insights;
- The nostalgia trend is driving an uptick in Advent calendar purchases this year;
- 37% of Americans think Die Hard is a Christmas movie (it’s not), but they tend to be happier overall (I’m still happy).
The most popular questions this week:
Do you consider yourself to be photogenic?
Generally speaking, how organized are you?
Do you believe that a person’s name can influence their personality?
Do you personally listen to a lot of holiday music this time of year?
Have you finished your holiday shopping yet?
How often do you reheat food in the microwave?
Answer Key: Sometimes; Terribly; I swear I wrote the intro before seeing this question…but yes; Nonstop; Lol. See above re: organization; Pretty much every day.
Hoping you’re well.
JD
