Almost exactly ten years ago, I was in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in Canada on a business trip. I remember being at the hotel room, and reading a magazine that I, until five minutes ago, always thought was the Rolling Stone. (I was trying to find a photo of the cover of that particular issue and became very hesitant. It might have been another magazine, like Fortune. I guess it really doesn’t matter where I was reading the story, but this is just a bad habit of mine, bear with me).

What made this particular article so interesting that I still, ten years after, remember it? It was a story about the MTV trendsniffers. Sure, they probably had a better title in the real story, but you know what I mean: the people who work at the MTV and try to see where the youth culture is headed.

And … in 1998, they said that the next big trend was … niceness. And it made me so happy. I thought that there was something I could not only buy into, but also pioneer.

Unfortunately, I think the MTV people got it wrong then. Sure, the Backstreet Boys were nice boys, and Britney used to be so cute, but all in all, I think nice guys and girls have had to step aside. Too bad.