by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | May 13, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
Reform UK, Japan’s landslide, and the AfD surge reveal a global culture war. Here’s what the nationalist realignment means for your books and marketing.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Apr 30, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
a federal grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama, indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on April 21, 2026. The 11-count indictment charges the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Apr 24, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
Pew Research Center Survey Exposes Deep Divides in American Views on Morality Thomas: A Pew Research study just came out about what Americans view as moral and immoral. This matters for authors because every novel has a moral system. Actions have consequences in...
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Apr 8, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Publishing, Writing Craft, Zeitgeist, Zeitgeist 101
Discover the cultural shift in zeitgeist that reflects the changing preferences of American readers.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Mar 14, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Genre Analysis, Zeitgeist
Prescription medications are changing women’s preferences, from who they find attractive to what kind of heroes they want to read in their fiction.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Mar 11, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
AI and tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly are fundamentally transforming the English language. This deep dive explores how AI writing is changing us.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Mar 11, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
The Trump administration is selling the war very differently from past conflicts.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Mar 3, 2026 | Book & Movie Reviews, Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
For the past 40 years, AI villains in fiction have been metaphors for the soulless managerial state that stripped human agency throughout the 20th century.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Feb 17, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
The 2026 Super Bowl featured two competing halftime shows—the NFL’s official Bad Bunny performance and Turning Point USA’s alternative show with Kid Rock—and the streaming data reveals a seismic cultural shift that every author must understand about audience and platform.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Jan 27, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
NHL Pride Drama VANISHES: The Vibe Shift Authors Need to Understand
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Jan 20, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
U.S. government used Times New Roman. It is a traditional serif font. Under the Biden administration, the State Department switched its documents from Times New Roman to Calibri, a sans serif font.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Jan 20, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
Bible sales have reached record highs in the United States and the United Kingdom.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Jan 16, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
The United Arab Emirates just banned Emirates from going to university in the UK out of fears that students are getting radicalized by the Islamic Brotherhood.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Jan 14, 2026 | Culture & Politics, Turnings, Zeitgeist
A fast-food company poised to do very well in the new zeitgeist. I was the fastest-growing fast-food company in the country last year.
by Thomas Umstattd Jr. | Jan 27, 2025 | Culture & Politics, Zeitgeist
Thomas: This is a significant cultural shift, and the acronym is, frankly, awful. It stands for “Affluent White Female Urban Liberal.” It is being used in a way that feels similar to “WASP,” which stood for “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.” That term became popular in...