Sean Monahan is a writer and consultant based in Los Angeles. He co-founded 

 (2010–16), the trend forecasting group best known for coining the term “normcore,” and publishes the newsletter 

“I’m sitting in a lobby high above Times Square, waiting with my partner to present a trend report to an Australian television executive. She works for a large media conglomerate. Specifically, a channel famous for its reality TV and – once upon a time – its music videos. It’s very New York – old New York – below. There’s a procession of yellow cabs honking. Traffic cops are blowing their whistles. Even from twenty stories up through LEED certified windows, you can hear the murmur of tourists jostling, see people dressed like Spiderman, the sexy Green M&M, the Naked Cowboy. It’s Christmas, so everyone is laden with Bloomingdale’s Brown Bags and merch from the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. The steam from manholes makes it all very picturesque.”