James Kirkham on the (near) Future and What to Expect for 2025

As we power through the final weeks of 2024, there is barely time to reflect on what has been a year of pivotal transitions. With 2025 already knocking at the door, it promises to be another 12 months of significant disruption and change. James Kirkham has been gazing at his crystal ball and shares five key predictions for the year ahead.

Musk meets TruthSocial

First up has to be Elon Musk. He has become intertwined with president-elect Trump, but let’s forget politics for a moment. The clearest sign of our fractured social spaces will be X (Twitter) merging with Trump’s Truth Social. Imagine the collision: Musk’s chaos machine meets the ultimate partisan megaphone. 

The global town square is dead. Instead, we are hunkering down in echo chambers. While liberal minds seeking clean air will continue to flock to BlueSky, conservatives might cheer on Musk’s hypothetical acquisition of CNN or MSNBC, turning them into a state-backed content factory. Love it or loathe it, this merger will redefine the media landscape, a propaganda symphony conducted by algorithms. Truth? It’ll depend on where you sit socially. 

The year of the Superfan

Leading neatly into my second prediction: the year of the Superfan. This time next year, the idea that there will be a disintermediation between you and your favourite sports and music stars will feel antiquated. Logging into a toxic, ad-riddled social space to follow your favourite artist or athlete will feel as archaic as a MySpace login. 

The era of sprawling, algorithm-driven platforms is over, and the Superfans are taking control. This year will herald the rise of intimate, curated ‘fan-first’ spaces, digital safe havens where stars connect with their loyalists sans trolls, noise, or clunky ads. Think gated micro-communities; authenticity reigns supreme with zero tolerance for toxicity. Fandom 2.0 will change how we define connection.

Artificial Personal Intelligence

Speaking of connection, 2025 is the year we will see AI getting personal. Forget the one-size-fits-all chatbot. You’ll have a bespoke fleet of digital helpers: a career coach, a nutritionist, a therapist, even a wingman on a night out. These aren’t bots; they’re your entourage. 

They’ll know you better than you know yourself, learning your quirks, weaknesses, and aspirations. Forget the Google reflex because your first instinct for every question, decision, or dilemma will be your personal AI hive. Paradoxically, I believe this tech revolution will make us more human, stripping away distractions and helping us focus on what really matters.

LinkedIn leavers 

Back to the socials for my next prediction, and I see LinkedIn heading for an existential crisis. Similar to the teen exodus from Facebook when their parents signed-up, LinkedIn has shifted from being the humble-brag hub of professional prowess to a bloated dopamine factory. It's because those motivational hardship tales are everywhere and the Steven Bartlettification of LinkedIn is driving us a little bit insane. The backlash is inevitable. 

Expect LinkedIn burnout, think rejection therapy groups, memes mocking its heroes’ journeys, and maybe even a scramble for a new professional platform by year’s end. 

The Sea of Sameness hits high tide

And finally, I see the death of the algorithm as the sea of sameness hits its high tide. Spotify Wrapped. TikTok FYP. Amazon’s “You Might Like This.” Every platform is spoon-feeding us more of the same: the same songs, styles, and creators. Novelty is a distant memory. Originality buried under a deluge of convenience. 

In 2025, niche subcultures will rise from the algorithm’s ashes. Expect a renaissance of the quirky, the experimental, and the offbeat as we claw our way back to individuality. The margins will become the new mainstream. 

Plausible or inevitable? Has my crystal ball nailed it, or am I way off? In a year, come back and marvel at how I predicted it all—or, if I missed the mark, troll me on LinkedIn.