Popcorn Faith

Sometimes the posts just write themselves . . .

Two weeks ago I picked up the 1993 edition of Popular Biography while visiting a local library. Stumbling across random books is indeed one of the joys of the library that the internet cannot yet duplicate. (The nation's notables from the 1940s to 1990s were conveniently located next to the copier where I was doing some business).

I opened directly to a page that stopped me in my tracks: the entry said it all "Popcorn, Faith." Listed as a futurist, Faith Popcorn is paid millions to spot trends and help her corporate clients cash in.

For a new product to be successful, she has argued, it must be "on trend" in at least four of the ten areas outlined in her best-selling book The Popcorn Report: Faith Popcorn on the Future of Your Company, Your World, Your Life. In that book, she warned compaines to keep up with the trends she has identified or be left behind in the ever more competitive scramble for consumer loyalty.

. . .

Faith Popcorn lives by herself in a ranch house on Long Island that is decorated with western and Indian artifacts. Her home's amenities include a swimming pool. "I don't go in it," she explained to Suzanne Slesin. "But I love the idea of pool parties and serving lemonade." She also maintains a rustic cottage as a summer weekend retreat. In the New Yorker interview Popcorn admitted that she herself has succumbed to prevailing trends, such as hiring a personal trainer for her morning workouts. "I'm so embarrassed," she told the interviewer, "You realize it's horrifying and then your realize you're doing it."

Fittingly, that quote is the end of the entry.

Today, my new favorite futurist popped up again in my life. The following front page headline from the Washington Times caught my attention (in the same library where I first found Faith): "Material world told to spend less, be happy: Pope, Wal-Mart hail new culture of thrift"

Yes, the Pope is quoted, as is pollster John Zogby, but the real source of wisdom is Faith incarnate:

Consumption for consumption's sake is dead. [At least until the next trend.] Humanity it evolving from conspicious to "conscious consumption," with the traditional concept of consumer becoming an "anachronism," Miss Popcorn said. [Oh, that it were true.]

Tonight more lower case popcorn faith can be found at Christianity Today where we learn that, for a reasonable fee, your church can be rated by a secret shopper---just like major malls and fast-food outlets.

There's so much stuff here, you can pretty much write your own blog post. Feel free to take a crack via the comments. Will you focus on the obvious irony or prophetic nature of her name? Will you observe the juxtaposition of the trend analyst living in a Long Island house decorated in the temporally and geographically distant past? Might you focus on the rise of non-consumption being expressed by the master of consumer trends? These and so many more options are staring you in the face. Have fun.

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