James Kirkham

The Rewind Economy I wonder if culture isn’t even moving forward anymore, just circling.

We're all experiencing a continuous present where multiple decades exist simultaneously and nothing quite ends.

open.substack.com/pub/thoughts...

Vouch Culture When a friend sends you a restaurant link in WhatsApp and it turns out to be terrible, they've burned social capital. When Google returns a bad result, the algorithm burns nothing.

🤝 Vouch culture
🪟 A room with a window
🎬 Curated Accidents
www.linkedin.com/pulse/vouch-...

My Op-Ed in today's The Australian newspaper: 🚨We're heading towards a world where algorithmic products carry warnings ⚖️ If your model depends on extracting attention or fuelling division, it will not hold

www.theaustralian.com.au/business/gro...

UK. This is your Reform trajectory. Daily Mail, the Express, GBnews, elect Farage. This is the trajectory. You blame immigrants, illegals. Life doesn’t improve, so double down. Get them out. Door knocks. Drag owners from shops. Squads in street ask where your accent is from. This is your trajectory.

Notes on near-term futures Lately it feels as though the news accumulates layering itself on top of everything else alert after alert so you don’t even process events you just manage your exposure to them. You scroll, flinch, h...

Lately it feels as though the news accumulates layering itself on top of everything else alert after alert so you don’t even process events you just manage your exposure to them

www.linkedin.com/pulse/notes-...

Comment: From Tuning In to Choosing In YouTube's victory over the BBC in monthly reach figures marks the moment television went beyond the box, writes James Kirkham

You can see it in YouTube’s rise on smart TVs the type of content that now lives there. This isn’t just kids stuff and Minecraft watchalongs. It’s premium creator formats, longform ints, live streams
www.broadcastnow.co.uk/comment/comm...

Notes on near-term futures Lately it feels as though the news accumulates layering itself on top of everything else alert after alert so you don’t even process events you just manage your exposure to them. You scroll, flinch, h...

Notes on near-term futures 🔭
Mega-Lo-Mania 🏝️
Self-driving stories 🚗
www.linkedin.com/pulse/notes-...

Agentic hymns We used to sing together, didn’t we.

Agentic hymns. From school assembly singsongs to 5 Cantonas at Villa Park, and what we all need right now. open.substack.com/pub/thoughts...

Gen AI licensing, server-side tracking & more: The AI and tech trends shaping 2026

“..Vanity metrics no longer cut it.. instead intimate spaces where human judgment is back..This hasn’t made headlines because it doesn’t suit press obsessed with peaks, but marketing admitted culture can’t just be scaled without getting deep into who it speaks to.”

www.thedrum.com/news/gen-ai-...

The Debate: Should brands like Heineken be able to alter Tube signs? Heineken's temporary takeover of the Bakerloo line has got Londoners riled up. We get two experts to debate the pros and cons.

“As a kid, some of the sharpest, strangest ideas weren’t in galleries but in ads: the swagger of that Hofmeister bear, Weetabix spots that felt closer to Madness (the band) than cereals..” Here’s me in CityAM losing a debate about tube takeovers. www.cityam.com/the-debate-s...

Is the London ‘doom loop’ really our destiny, or are we talking ourselves into decline? | LBC If you spent your entire life scrolling through TikTok and reels or reading certain sections of the British press, you would be forgiven for thinking that stepping outside your front door in 2026 is a...

It isn't about just ignoring the divisive voices on how fantastic London is - businesses and CEOs need to stand up and act positively, too.
www.lbc.co.uk/article/lond...

Is the London ‘doom loop’ really our destiny, or are we talking ourselves into decline? | LBC If you spent your entire life scrolling through TikTok and reels or reading certain sections of the British press, you would be forgiven for thinking that stepping outside your front door in 2026 is a...

It isn't about just ignoring the divisive voices on how fantastic London is - businesses and CEOs need to stand up and act positively, too.
www.lbc.co.uk/article/lond...

INKED IN & ICONIC | Substack A Weekly What's up. Click to read INKED IN & ICONIC, a Substack publication. Launched 10 days ago.

Tuck in, for my thoughts and theories and ideas for days.

open.substack.com/pub/thoughts...

The original Skins shows broadcasters a lesson relevant for today Entertainment marketing should return to a more patient approach: bespoke content experiences designed for specific places, scenes, and sensibilities, says James Kirkham.

Just like 20 years ago, the future of entertainment marketing is again about bespoke content experiences designed for specific places, scenes and sensibilities.

uk.themedialeader.com/the-original...

Speedball 2 I first played Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe round a mate’s house. He had it on the Amiga and I had it on my Atari ST.

🕹️ Speedball 2
⏸️ TiVo Life
🧩 Residue the real deal

"You can record everything and still miss the thing that mattered.. the substance forms later, when people try to account for what they felt rather than what they saw.."
www.linkedin.com/pulse/speedb...

I lost my job, my kids have measles, and Trump's personal Gestapo is randomly executing American citizens. But at least now there won't be any non-binary characters on the new Paw Patrol spin-off.

The Shrug When I left sixth form, I had three A-levels that made no sense together; Biology.

Most people don’t need grand encouragement they just need the absence of casual discouragement. They need permission to try something they’re good at without being pre-emptively told they’ll fail.

thoughtsofaspoonybear.substack.com/p/the-shrug?...

Expert Predictions For Advertising In 2026 - TechRound The advertising industry has always been shaped by technology, but the pace of change heading into 2026 feels different to...

This year audiences are tired of infinite scroll, and algorithmic sameness. AI will sit underneath but its value won’t be in smashing out countless copycat soulless spots, instead to use ai in helping decide when not to need to speak at all. techround.co.uk/business/exp...

The Shrug When I left sixth form, I had three A-levels that made no sense together; Biology.

Most people don’t need grand encouragement they just need the absence of casual discouragement. They need permission to try something they’re good at without being pre-emptively told they’ll fail.

thoughtsofaspoonybear.substack.com/p/the-shrug?...

Band boards Before feeds, before followers, before anyone pretended they could measure culture in real time, there were message boards.

I know there’s a lot going on, but here’s some escapism remembering those band message boards of 20 odd years ago.

open.substack.com/pub/thoughts...

Venezuela now, because he wants the oil.

He wants the oil under Greenland too. And under Canada. He's openly called for them to be part of the USA.

How long before he decides to bomb a couple of NATO members to get his own way?

The USA is a rogue nation.

Sport before algorithms Trans World Sports has finished. I can still remember the feel of that little telly at the end of my bed not much bigger than the Atari joystick I kept next to it as I watched a show which felt like t...

⚾ Sport before algorithms
🌊 Parallax Oceans
✏️ Pillars on a piece of paper

www.linkedin.com/pulse/sport-...

Sport before algorithms Trans World Sports has finished. I can still remember the feel of that little telly at the end of my bed not much bigger than the Atari joystick I kept next to it as I watched a show which felt like t...

⚾ Sport before algorithms
🌊 Parallax Oceans
✏️ Pillars on a piece of paper

www.linkedin.com/pulse/sport-...

The wrappedification of everything December brings a specific kind of vertigo to us all, a season where the act of living is summarised into a slideshow of our own digital exhaust. The 'Wrapped' phenomenon has morphed from that rather ...

The mechanisms of reporting and news have fractured into feeds, fragments and endlessly personalised maps of the world some morsels of truth circulates constantly but rarely coalesce perfectly in the same place at the same time.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/wrappe...

The wrappedification of everything December brings a specific kind of vertigo to us all, a season where the act of living is summarised into a slideshow of our own digital exhaust. The 'Wrapped' phenomenon has morphed from that rather ...

The mechanisms of reporting and news have fractured into feeds, fragments and endlessly personalised maps of the world some morsels of truth circulates constantly but rarely coalesce perfectly in the same place at the same time.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/wrappe...

The wrappedification of everything December brings a specific kind of vertigo to us all, a season where the act of living is summarised into a slideshow of our own digital exhaust. The 'Wrapped' phenomenon has morphed from that rather ...

The 'wrappedification' of everything sees us hunt for our own souls in patterns of how we interact with screens. Our desperate need for anchoring in an increasingly liquid reality.
www.linkedin.com/pulse/wrappe...

The wrappedification of everything December brings a specific kind of vertigo to us all, a season where the act of living is summarised into a slideshow of our own digital exhaust. The 'Wrapped' phenomenon has morphed from that rather ...

The 'wrappedification' of everything sees us hunt for our own souls in patterns of how we interact with screens. Our desperate need for anchoring in an increasingly liquid reality.
www.linkedin.com/pulse/wrappe...

Never mind the knockout, last night’s fight shows that the bout is actually everywhere all at once. 📺 The broadcast still matters but for huge numbers of people it wasn’t the experience, it was… | J... Never mind the knockout, last night’s fight shows that the bout is actually everywhere all at once. 📺 The broadcast still matters but for huge numbers of people it wasn’t the experience, it was just...

Nevermind the knockout, in 2026 we'll see a new sports media role emerge : the conductor www.linkedin.com/posts/jamesk...

Does it echo? Most experiences are still engineered around a single moment, even though real value now accumulates after the room empties and the crowd disperses. That is where attachment actually forms, where peop...

As we move into 2026, the more useful question may no longer be how big something was at its peak, but how long it continued to convert our attention like this. The echo is where that conversion happens. www.linkedin.com/pulse/does-e...

YouTube video by Netflix Breakdown: 1975 | Official Trailer | Netflix

My god this was so up my street. What a brilliant doc. youtu.be/M35kWPGmI1M