Emojinomics

Why Social Trends Matter for the Economy

Consumer behavior isn’t hiding in spreadsheets anymore - it’s out in the open, written in memes, hashtags, and even Instagram captions. Yesterday’s TikTok joke is today’s shopping cart item, and tomorrow’s billion-dollar market. From “girl dinner” to “mocktails” to the rise of “hot girl walks,” social platforms have become the world’s most unfiltered focus group.

This newsletter unpacks how those cultural blips evolve into business shifts - and why founders and investors who pay attention to social data might just spot the next breakout category before anyone else.

From Memes to Market

Over the past several years, social media has become an unexpected testing ground for consumer appetite, where a single meme or viral phrase can form new markets. Here are three trends that highlight how cultural moments translate into business opportunities.

“Girl Dinner” → Grocery & Meal-Kit Innovation

What started as a TikTok joke about snack-like dinners quickly gained traction on CashApp and Venmo caption. Major grocery and meal-kit brands leaned into this emerging trend, adding snack-sized assortments, charcuterie boxes, and smaller meal bundles. The signal couldn't have been clearer: younger consumers wanted convenience, variety, and affordability. Food companies immediately responded by turning a meme into a revenue opportunity.

“Mocktails” → Non Alcoholic Beverage Boom

What started as a wave of social media content around alcohol-free living has become one of the fastest-growing beverage categories. Non-alcoholic brands like Ritual Zero Proof and Seedlip got in on the action, while grocery stores, bars, and restaurants expanded their offerings to keep up with demand. The cultural signal was a shift toward wellness and inclusivity, and what initially seemed like a niche trend became a permanent fixture in the beverage industry.

“Core Aesthetics” → Fashion, Beauty, and Home Goods

Trends like “Cottagecore” and “Clean Girl” started as simple hashtags but quickly turned into full consumer movements. Cottagecore romanticized countryside living with flowy dresses, floral prints, and rustic decor, while “Clean Girl” focused on minimal makeup, sleek fashion, and a polished everyday look. As a result, fashion and beauty brands responded with capsule collections, seasonal lines, and marketing that tapped into these identities. Even home decor companies leaned in, mirroring the aesthetic through curated products.

These trends show how quickly online culture can reshape markets. For founders and investors, paying attention to memes isn’t trivial, it can mean spotting the next billion-dollar category before it’s obvious.

Social Trends as a Sentiment Index

Most economic data lags reality by weeks or months. But if you want a real-time pulse check on consumer sentiment, Venmo and CashApp are usually the tools to use.

These peer-to-peer payment apps act like unfiltered behavioral datasets, capturing how people actually describe their spending, not how they say they spend in surveys. From emojis to inside jokes, every memo line is a tiny signal of mood, pressure, and cultural shifts.

This is more than internet anthropology. When we aggregate the billions of transactions across these apps, you get a real-time consumer confidence index written in emojis, hashtags, and jokes.

• A surge in “mocktails” reflects the rise of sober-curious culture and a shift in beverage industry economics.

• A dip in “rent” mentions can hint at seasonal rent cycles or broader affordability stress.

• Seasonal bursts of “pumpkin spice” map directly to retail and Q4 spending habits.

Emojionomics means culture as data. If CPI and retail sales show you what already happened, Venmo and CashApp show you how people feel right now. Every “rip my wallet” is a micro datapoint in the unofficial consumer sentiment index.

Implications for Founders & VCs

For founders, social data = free demand testing…
Social finance apps, like Venmo and Cash App, TikTok hashtags, and Reddit forums are behavioral focus groups hiding in plain sight. Instead of asking people what they want, you can observe what they’re already splitting, sharing, and celebrating.

The rise of “mocktails” in Cash App notes (+500%) didn’t just prove non-alcoholic beverages were trending, it hinted at a broader wellness-over-indulgence pivot among Gen Z consumers. Similarly, “girl dinner” (+8,000%) reflects a cultural move toward fragmented consumption: people are building meals out of snacks, not entrées. Both examples would’ve given foodtech and DTC founders early validation for portion-flexible products, alternative beverages, or grocery delivery models emphasizing smaller basket sizes.

For VCs, social chatter as an alternative dataset…
For venture investors, social data is a real-time alternative dataset that reveals category inflections earlier than pitch decks or TAM slides ever will. Think of it like hedge funds using satellite photos of Walmart parking lots to front-run earnings calls.

Emoji clusters = spending signals.
A spike in (groceries) and (rent) could foreshadow a consumer pullback into essentials; a macro shift that might affect BNPL, credit, or savings startups.

Meme virality = category expansion.
The meme “girl math” isn’t just humor; it signals Gen Z’s need to rationalize spending, with potential for playful budgeting apps and creator-led personal finance brands.

Cross-cultural diffusion = global opportunity.
“Delulu is the solulu,” a phrase that spread from K-pop fandom into mainstream Gen Z slang, aligns with risk-taking behaviors (side hustles, crypto, trading) and might foreshadow global fintech adoption curves.

So what does this mean for you? Do you want to win? Because, given these trends:

“The winners are the ones who take memes seriously before they become markets.”

Conclusion

What looks like noise online is often the earliest signal of where money flows next. Social trends are no longer just entertainment; they’re economic indicators hiding in plain sight. For founders, they’re free test markets. For VCs, they’re live feeds of consumer demand curves.

The next billion-dollar startup won’t be born from a government survey - it will come from a meme, a caption, or a trend you scroll past today. The only question: will you catch it early, or watch it go viral without you?