According to Sprout Social, Lore was the social media word of the year. If stories are what drive and shape our society, lore represents something even more powerful: a body of traditional, cultural or historical knowledge and stories about a specific subject.

While lore has always been a powerful form of cultural currency, why is there such an allure to cult-like branding today? Maybe it’s no surprise, considering the state of uncertainty we seem to be living in now. We are all seeking a sense of certainty, belonging, and purpose – something that lore, and even cults, can offer. It’s about finding something to believe in, and something bigger than ourselves to belong to.

This translates directly into the relationship between brands and consumers. In this conversation, the panel explored modern fandom through the perspectives of academia, K-pop, sports and editorial. If you missed our livestream, here are some takeaways.

01 BRAND FAITH IS BUILT TOGETHER, NOT DICTATED FROM ABOVE

Kyungin, whose research explores consumer brand faith through the examples of Tesla and Apple, shared an interesting perspective: brand faith is co-created between the brand and its consumers.

She outlined three phases in the development of brand faith. It starts with Phase 1: Enchantment, where people are drawn in by a brand’s vision, storytelling and promise. This moves into Phase 2: Doubt / Reflection, where consumers develop strong beliefs but begin to question and reassess their faith. Finally, in Phase 3: Justification, consumers move beyond their doubts and find renewed faith in the brand’s purpose and future potential.

As Kyungin explained, the element of hope plays a particularly powerful role:

We found that people find faith in brands that create stories of hope tied to the future or contributing to creating a meaningful future. They are linking their existential needs and existential satisfaction…

[Brands] need to have strong storytelling to deliver that hope for the future. They also need to consistently provide high quality products, which deliver those gospels or stories..

02 YOU CAN MANUFACTURE LORE, BUT YOU CAN’T FAKE AUTHENTICITY

For every piece of lore a brand leans into or adopts as part of its identity, where does it originate? If not every brand has a dramatic, one-of-a-kind founding story to tell, can lore be deliberately manufactured? And if so, how?

Shreya, who has worked closely within the K-pop industry, offered an interesting perspective through the lens of K-pop:

It can be manufactured, but it really is a two-line tent pole: the manufactured lore, and the authenticity of the product itself, which in K-pop is the artists. The lore has to work in tandem with the authenticity of the artist.

This took me straight back to my own K-pop era in high school. One of the first K-pop groups I really invested in was EXO. As teenage fans in China, we learned that each member was a celestial being from an exoplanet, sent to protect the balance of the universe, with their own powers and personalities woven into the story.

As a brand, or K-pop band or group grows, the question of dilution inevitably comes up: how do you evolve without betraying the original lore? Shreya noted the distinction: dilution means moving away from the original cause, while evolvement is about making the world you’ve built more accessible to others.

You can build brand lore from the bottom up, no matter what level you’re at.

I do think lore can evolve overall... there’s this idea of accessibility. Any cult brand, if you really think about it as an organism, should want to grow. Ideally, if you’ve trained your disciples well enough, they should want to grow as a group on their own.

There’s cultness, which has this gatekeeping quality, and there’s true disciple-hood, which is about growth.

Another great example in K-pop is BTS. Over the years, I’ve met so many BTS fans, and what has consistently stood out to me is how welcoming they are, always eager to share why they love the group and what makes the members so special. There’s very little gatekeeping. Even as BTS has grown into a global phenomenon, longtime ARMYs (the name for BTS fans) don’t necessarily see newer fans as outsiders. They stand in the same arena, screaming and sharing the same love for the group.

This brings me back to something Shreya shared about what she has learned from K-pop fans:

if you truly meet a disciple of any group, they’re not gonna turn you away and say, oh, I’m not sure this is for you. They’re gonna welcome you in, invite you into the lore, teach you the teachings of that group and really have you want to be invested from the jump.

The strongest fandoms would invite people in, instead of keeping them out.

03 FANDOM IS MORE THAN SOMETHING YOU BUY; IT’S SOMETHING YOU DO.

Sport is its own kind of arena: an almost ritualistic experience for both players and fans.

Similar to K-pop, there is so much lore surrounding each player, particularly when you consider the years of training, physical discipline and everything that goes into their performance throughout the season. So much of the lore lies in these backstories: the journey, the sacrifices, the setbacks and ultimately, the achievements.

As Phil mentioned, for sports fans, the physical act of gathering together and experiencing a game is almost ritualistic. And perhaps this is exactly what we need, especially at a time when chaos seems to be the only constant. At the same time, there is an undeniable unpredictability to the game itself. Fans walk into an arena with hope, a powerful sense of hope that can sometimes feel harder to find in other areas of life.

There is something interesting about this balance: the familiarity and comfort of a shared ritual, alongside the unpredictability of what might happen next. And even when the outcome is uncertain, fans keep showing up, carrying that hope with them because they are already so deeply invested in the lore.

Team sports such as football and basketball are where lore and fandom are so tightly intertwined. Even as someone who isn’t much of a sports fan myself, the ritualistic experience of watching the World Cup and the NBA (Knicks in five!) in New York City this summer has been truly phenomenal.

Phil also pointed out an interesting paradox emerging in global culture at this moment.

If you take the football shirt, it doesn’t necessarily belong to football anymore; But also football has left the shirt.

It’s being traded as a commodity, this fandom, people starting to mix and match different clubs and different players, following players over clubs.

The challenge is how do you create a kind of like engaged investment in that fandom when it’s being traded as a commodity now on a surface level.

04 STOP SELLING PRODUCTS, START BUILDING CULTURAL MEANING

Dazed’s very own branded content editor, Habi Diallo, shared that the effective branded content succeeds when it leads with authentic, human-centric storytelling rather than overtly pushing a product, thereby weaving the brand naturally into the cultural conversation.

Most of my time is spent trying to find that middle ground between an organic Dazed point of view and the branded content. It’s always gonna have an in-partnership tag, but you don’t want it to stand out beyond that because then it defeats the purpose which is to have young people read about these events, products or activations naturally. And that’s what our audience has always been: young people who are interested in the world.

Habi also shared that one brand she genuinely has faith in is Miu Miu, largely because of everything the brand does beyond its products. From the Miu Miu Literary Club to its conversations with female creatives, authors and filmmakers, these initiatives extend the brand into culture in a way that feels authentic and deeply rooted in Miuccia Prada’s own interests and worldview.

IF YOUR BRAND DISAPPEARED TOMORROW, WHAT WOULD CULTURE LOSE?

Ultimately, all of this comes back to the fundamental and existential needs of people – the desire for belonging, purpose, certainty and hope.

Not every brand needs to become a cult, and belief isn’t something that can simply be engineered. But brands can create the conditions for it: by knowing what they stand for, making something genuinely worth believing in, and giving people a reason to become part of a bigger story.

As our conversation came to a close, one question from the conversation remained: If your favorite brand disappeared tomorrow, what would culture actually lose?

This might be the real measure of Brand Lore.

You could also watch our full recording here on our Dazed Studio Youtube

“I want to see more investment in community and infrastructure: there seems to be no third spaces left for young people to enjoy themselves on a budget.”

—Gen Z Respondent, Parafaith 2026

Burnout from content overload is real. According to our recent Parafaith research, young people now spend more on experiences (44%) than on things they can own (33%). We’re not the only ones noticing a shift. Google searches for “how to digital detox” have risen 110% since the beginning of this year, while “how to touch grass” became a breakout search this summer. “Run club” has hit an all-time high, “walking club” a 10-year high, and searches for everything from mahjong lessons to floral arranging classes are climbing too.

“I started playing chess again because I wanted something that gave me a reason to be somewhere. And it worked. I’ve met more people over a chessboard than in a bar.” 

— Gen Z Respondent, Parafaith 2026

It seems the internet is increasingly being used to figure out how to spend less time on the internet.

“I’d kill for a concert where phones are banned.”

— Gen Z Respondent, Parafaith 2026

Brands have unsurprisingly noticed. Global experiential marketing spend reached $138.9 billion in 2025, up 8.3% year on year, and is forecast to grow another 10.3% in 2026. From fashion pop-ups and branded run clubs to dinners, listening sessions and increasingly elaborate festival takeovers, the brand experience has become a much bigger part of the marketing mix.

More events don’t necessarily mean better experiences. As more brands move into physical space, the interesting question becomes what actually makes something worth leaving the house for. For retail in particular the opportunity isn’t simply to add an activation to a store. It’s to think differently about what the store is there to do in the first place.

(Youth) respondents spend more on experiences (44%) than items they can own (33%). 

 – Dazed's Parafaith Report, 2026

That was part of the thinking behind Notes on Being, our global project with H&M, which turned stores across London, New York, Stockholm and Berlin into very different kinds of cultural spaces.

Shygirl brought the world of CLUBSHY to H&M’s Regent Street flagship with a live DJ set. In New York, artist and filmmaker Martine Syms created a more intimate exchange through a limited-edition zine at Times Square. Gabbriette became the muse for a life-drawing session in Stockholm, while in Berlin, COUCOU CHLOE transformed the store into the perhaps inevitable combination of a fashion drop and mini-bakery.

There was no copy-and-paste experiential formula, each activation responded to the artist, the city and the community around it, giving people a different reason to come through the doors and spend time there.

Did you know that Dazed initially started as an underground party?

Experiential might be having a moment but events aren’t exactly new territory for us at Dazed.

Dazed Studio has a dedicated events team and has been bringing people together IRL for decades, alongside our editorial platforms and creative studio. From intimate brand dinners, talks and artist-led gatherings to exhibitions, parties and multi-day programmes such as Dazed Live, creating physical spaces for culture and community has long been part of what we do.

That experience comes from the same instinct that has shaped Dazed editorially: understanding which people, scenes and ideas are worth paying attention to, knowing the communities forming around them, and finding the right format to bring those worlds together.

Stay up to date with Dazed Studio here and check out the project with H&M here.

Last week, Dazed Studio hosted our latest Beauty Breakfast at WSA New York, bringing together Alex Peters, Beauty Director at Dazed, Lindsey Okubo, Associate Director of Narrative & Brand Strategy, Laura Pitcher, US Editor at Dazed, and Izzy Farmiloe, Global Head of Strategy, to talk about what’s changing in beauty and where it could go next. 

I came with an open heart and star-face pimple patch on my face, feeling that “beauty” is somehow far away from me, and left recognizing that we’re all already partaking in beauty everywhere. 

In this panel unpacking current aesthetics and behaviors, one tension kept coming up:

On one side, beauty is becoming more optimized: more scientific, measurable, preventative and precise. On the other, there’s a growing appetite for character, play, imperfection and things that simply feel more human or, as we put it on the morning:

OPTIMISE ME < ——> LET ME BE WEIRD

The interesting part is that these things aren’t mutually exclusive. We can want better skin and crooked teeth, clinical efficacy and fantasy, botox and strange makeup. Beauty culture is becoming more contradictory, more personal and harder to reduce to one dominant ideal.  Here are six things I'm thinking about after the conversation.

01 EXPANDING DEFINITION OF BEAUTY: BEAUTY IS BOUNDLESS, THE LANGUAGE OF YOUTH CULTURE 

Beauty is increasingly difficult to separate from the rest of culture. It’s fashion, health, wellness, identity, politics, heritage and self-expression.

As Alex said:

Even in your rejection of a trend, you’re still engaging with beauty culture and you’re still expressing yourself.

Perhaps the biggest shift is that beauty is becoming less about reaching a single ideal and more about deciding what beauty means to you.

02 FROM FACE TO BODY: BEAUTY IS ABOUT WELLNESS AND CONTROL 

Beauty’s convergence with wellness is not only about looking better, but also about feeling some sense of agency. Young people are putting increasing energy into health, nutrition, fitness, skincare and self-care at a time when much of the world around them feels difficult to influence. 

As Izzy mentioned during the talk:

There are loads of forums about young people talking about politics, and it’s shifted to nutrition and health because we’ve got something that young people can control. It gives them a sense of agency, you can actually see results and that's powerful.

Beauty, health and wellness are becoming part of the same conversation: how do I feel better, understand myself better and have some control over my own life?

03 THE QUANTIFIED SELF: MAXXING IN BEAUTY CONTINUES

Optimization is becoming increasingly specific. Jaw angles, facial symmetry, sleep scores, skin diagnostics, biological age. The language of measurement is moving deeper into beauty.

As Laura put it:

Beauty’s really becoming more and more about mathematics. Every time I think, ‘This is the most specific thing ever,’ there’s something else to hyper-analyze.

Looksmaxxing is only one expression of a wider shift towards seeing the self as something that can be measured, understood and improved.

04 BRING BACK 'REAL' CHARACTER: BEAUTY GETS LESS SERIOUS

The counterpoint to all that optimization isn’t necessarily “anti-beauty”. It’s character.

Human imperfections are more valuable, as AI makes polished images easier to create. Things that prove we’re human could become more desirable: crooked teeth, unusual features, ageing, mistakes, texture, strange makeup. Laura talked about audiences becoming frustrated by veneers and “Instagram face” on screen, while Alex pointed to the response to the expressive beauty of Doechii and Zara Larsson. 

Perfection is definitely not going away, but it's not the most interesting thing in the room. Don’t be afraid of the 'extremes' – beauty is about having fun, being playful, and taking risks. 

05 EXTREMES & POST-SURGERY AESTHETICS: BEAUTY IS ABOUT BEING “LEGIBLE”

Simultaneously, extremes mean something completely different in “optimization track.”

As Alex mentioned during the panel,

The aspiration is to have it look like you've just had surgery and for people to think that you've done it.

Today,  the “post-surgery” aesthetic becomes aspirational: you look so good that it seems like you’ve already had surgery. As audience member Daniel brought up during the Q&A, while surgical procedures remain expensive, beauty and medical products are increasingly mimicking their results for consumers who cannot afford the process. Take the Kim Kardashian SKIMS face mask, for example, which promises to create the appearance of a lifted, sculpted face.

In this sense, beauty becomes a social status symbol. The visible signs of having invested in your appearance can signal access and the ability to optimize yourself, whether through surgery, treatments, or products that imitate them. The aspiration is beyond looking beautiful: to look like you have already invested in becoming your “best” self.

06 BEAUTY BECOMES  INVISIBLE: BREAKTHROUGHS AND THE RISE OF NEURO-COSMETICS

Beauty innovation is moving beneath the surface. From biotech and longevity to breakthroughs in hair loss and regrowth, skin health and neuro-cosmetics, science is shifting the focus from how we appear to what is happening inside the body.

As Izzy discussed at the breakfast,

From looking healthy to proving you’re healthy, science becomes a new beauty language.

Alex pointed to EXIST, the new brand from material scientist Lauren Bowker, which launched with a lip balm using an ingredient experimented with in space, alongside innovations such as temperature-responsive hair colour.

In beauty, there's often you get stuck to a formula or to certain hero products… But I think it's so cool to be broadening the scope, using these space ingredients and also just experimenting and having fun again. I think I just love to find joy in products… I always just want to be like, "Yeah, I want hair dye that changes color in the heat." How cool is that?!

Neuro-cosmetics push this further, with products making claims around mood, confidence and emotion.  What if the next beauty status symbol isn’t what’s on your face, but your biology your hair, health, biological age, even your DNA?

SO, WHAT’S NEXT?

Probably not one thing but beauty is becoming more scientific and more emotional. More optimized and also more individual, more invisible in some places and deliberately visible in others. That contradiction feels important. Could the next beauty statement is doing less? 

It goes back to the point mentioned by Izzy during the breakfast,

The middle is where beauty gets boring.

Walking out from the room, I wondered, am I being honest about my skin condition with my little star face, or am I trying to hide the imperfection? Am I being vulnerable, or am I just catching up with the cool trend? At the end of the day, it’s a mix of functionality and aesthetics that’s always impacted by my surroundings. 

Hosted by Bunny Kinney, Executive Creative Director and Bryony Stone, Dazed Studio’s Commercial Editorial Director and with an introduction from Jefferson Hack, CEO and co-founder of Dazed Media, the preview was compiled from 35 years of editorial intuition, insights from our latest youth culture report, Parafaith and a constant dialogue with our Dazed Media audience of 138M worldwide, covering everything
from cultural trends to editor’s predictions, emerging global talent to an exclusive first look at New Idols, our Autumn print issue of Dazed.

In case you missed it, here’s a round-up of everything we covered on the day.

“Gen Z are hungry for the coming-of-age they were denied by the pandemic and the political tumult of the past decade.”

— Ted Stansfield, Dazed Editor-In-Chief

The Trends We're Watching Out For in 2027

01. CHAOS THEORY

80% of youth question the sources or truth of what they see online. 

Source: Future Lores, Dazed Studio Insights, 2026

AI has become the single biggest talking-point in culture today. Over 1 billion people use the ChatGPT app every month, and LLMs have become embedded in every part of our digital lives. Hate them or love them, everyone is using them. So where does this leave brands today? As young people become increasingly AI literate, they’re moving away from overly-polished content, and instead gravitating towards unfiltered expression from the individuals and brands who honestly reflect the messiness of real life. 

Case In Point: Telfar, a brand turning luxury fashion’s rules and restraint upside down with UGC, meme culture and viral stunts.

02. NOSTALGIA-CORE

“Youth are not rejecting the past, they are remixing it.”

Source: Parafaith, Dazed Studio Insights, 2026

If the future feels unstable, the past becomes a place to live. From archival fashion to analogue technology, we’ve long been obsessed with looking backwards.

Next, in a bid to differentiate themselves from visual monoculture, youth are remixing their everyday reality through the lens of now-expired forms of technology, from digi cameras to retired iPhones. 

Case in point: GUESS dropped an OOH campaign shot on the IPhone 5C. Featuring a cast of it-girls including Amelia Gray and dancer Lexee Smith Star as ‘Guess Girls’, this is influencer culture, turned inside-out.

03. BETTER (DIS)CONNECTED

Only 10% of Gen Alpha respondents use social media to “meet new people”. 

Source: Parafaith, Dazed Studio, 2026

Digitally-native youth are rebelling against the demands of constant connectivity by deleting apps, ghost-posting and throwing phone-free parties. Next, we predict that the ultimate flex will become being less connected,  or even offline altogether. The goal? To spend more time in the physical world. 

Case In Point: Lost Property, a night of lectures hosted by Letty Cole, born out of her frustration at young people having so few spaces outside of traditional educational institutions to explore their intellectual interests in the company of others, away from their phones.

04. JOYMAXXING

73% of UK youth prioritise work-life balance over constant hustle. 

Source: Parafaith, Dazed Studio, 2026

After years of tracking and self-improvement, the pressure to constantly optimise is becoming exhausting. Youth are pushing back on the idea that every habit, hobby or experience needs to have a productive outcome or feel curated. Next, they just want to have fun.

Case In Point: Fashion East x Nike, at a Fashion East activation at the adventure playground Lulu Kennedy has been taking her daughter Rainbow to for years, Fashion East encouraged guests to tap into their childlike spirit.

05. WEIRD SPORTS

“Once upon a time people were born into communities and had to find their individuality. Today people are born individuals and have to find their communities"

Source: Youth Mode, K-Hole, via Parafaith

Sport is no longer simply something youth play or watch. Post-pandemic, hyper-localised sports communities and collectives have become new forms of subculture as young people search for ways to be part of something bigger than themselves. Now, we’re seeing the rise of increasingly niche sports subcultures as a mode of signalling identity: cliff-jumping, calisthenics, parkour, archery, motorsports, rally-driving, BJJ, self-defence, urban hiking, mixed martial arts, horse-riding, chess clubs, skate, mahjong and backgammon nights.

Case In Point: Merrell teamed up with birdwatching collective Flock Together’s Ollie Olanipekun and Dazed Club for a guided walk on North London’s Parkland Walk.

06. NEW GODS

“I don’t trust institutions, but I still want meaning.”

Source: Gen Z Female, Brazil, via Parafaith, Dazed Studio, 2026

In an era defined by global conflict, economic uncertainty and information overload, young people have lost faith in institutions. Instead, they’re turning towards spirituality and philosophy to build new systems of belief.

Case In Point: Tinder is now using Zodiac Compatibility to bring users better matches using astrology.

07. META REALITIES

100% of Gen Alpha respondents said they played games online. 

Source: Parafaith, Dazed Studio, 2026

Our latest GTA Dazed cover is evidence that gaming can produce that rarest of things — a monoculture moment. From the pandemic craze Animal Crossing to the new GTA VI, what was once dismissed as a solitary, sedentary pastime has become a powerful engine for community and self-expression. Beyond connection, games offer a space to rehearse (or perform) versions of life that can feel increasingly out of reach IRL, from homeownership to running a farm or raising pets, building families and experimenting with adulthood.

Case In Point: DAZED’s New Idols x GTA Cover Story. In their first print appearance globally, Grand Theft Auto VI’s protagonists Jason Duval and Lucia Caminos cover our New Idols issue. Our best-performing cover story since we started recording website data.

Our Editors Predict

We asked Dazed editors, “what do you think youth culture will be craving in 2027?”

Intimacy & Connection

“As AI floods our feeds with infinite content, the most valuable thing online will be what can’t be generated: subculture, intimacy and actual human connection. From streaming’s supremacy to the rise of the finsta, 2027 will be less about building an audience and more about building a world people want to belong to.” 

— Marios Mystidis, Head of Fashion & Social at Dazed 

Exxxtreme Beauty

“Clean girl make-up is over, with people growing bored of the minimalist look. We’re also entering an era of hair extremes, super long or super gone. Lastly, Looksmaxxing, it’s all anyone can talk about. Men are participating in beauty culture more than ever before and it’s not a secret.”

— Alex Peters, Beauty Director at Dazed

Gen Alpha Stars

“Gen Alpha’s heady, distorted tastes are increasingly shaping pop culture, with the first true Gen Alpha breakout star potentially on the horizon (Could it be Dazed cover star North West?).”

— Solomon Pace-McCarrick, Music Writer at Dazed

A First Look at 2027's Best New Talent

Ahead of the Dazed100 launch, we put together a preview of emerging global talent. The list included London based sculptural artist Ella Lynch, breakout model Billy Blanchard (and Dazed cover star) and the DJ Iyesha, responsible for “rat party” a club night led by and celebrating QTIPOC, Sex Worker & Trans+ communities. Consider them our ones to watch.

Our Dazed Autumn 2026 Issue

We ended up titling this issue “New Idols” because our cover stars are just that. 

From 13-year-old pop culture scion North West, who is already forging a career of her own and is photographed in this issue by Gus Van Sant, to V, the “fashion diva” of BTS who has spent the past 13 years at the pinnacle of pop music and is shot for the magazine by Erika Kamano. 

We have Ethel Cain, one of the most visionary musicians of her generation and an icon to queer youth around the world, photographed by Jet Swan, and cover stars Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval, the protagonists of Grand Theft Auto VI. In a global exclusive, their creators at Rockstar Games lift the lid on making the first GTA in over a decade.

When every brand has a collaboration as part of their marketing strategy, what makes one actually worth caring about?

This week: what makes a good collab now, PSL's, that little green owl does something clever, larping-opps and more.

In 2017, Supreme × Louis Vuitton felt huge. Two worlds that weren’t supposed to belong together suddenly did. The high-low ceiling crumbled. I even had a fake wallet from the collection [REDACTED]. Fast-forward and collaboration has become almost mandatory. Brand × brand. Brand × celebrity. Brand × IP. Platform × platform. Hello Kitty everywhere. The problem isn’t too many collaborations, it's too many collaborations that make perfect sense.

In an algorithmic culture that rewards what’s familiar, compatible and immediately legible, collaboration risks becoming recommendation culture in physical form: if you liked this, you’ll probably like this. So what actually makes a good collaboration now?

01 / IT CREATES A TENSION

Good collaborations shouldn’t just combine two audiences. They should create something neither side would have arrived at alone. The original power of collaboration was the surprise: why are they doing that? When every brand is chasing “good taste”, perhaps we need more bad taste, weird combinations, niche references and ideas that don’t arrive culturally pre-approved.

THE TEST: On a scale of 1-10 how unexpected is it?

02 / IT GIVES YOU ACCESS TO A WORLD

The best collaborator isn’t necessarily the person with the biggest audience. It’s someone with a world people want access to. eBay’s Stoop Sales with people like Anna Sui and Julia Fox weren’t interesting because their names appeared next to eBay’s. They gave people access to their closets, taste and cultural universe. UGG has done something similar over time through Palace, Telfar, Hood By Air and Willy Chavarria. Together, the collaborators tell you something about UGG’s taste.

THE TEST: Are you borrowing someone’s reach, or opening up their world?

03 / IT CHANGES WHAT PEOPLE CAN DO

The next era of collaboration goes beyond product. Spotify × Depop connects music discovery with style discovery. A song can lead to an artist, their clothes, an aesthetic and eventually an entirely new community. The most interesting partnerships increasingly create new behaviours, access or infrastructure, rather than another limited-edition object.

THE TEST: If you removed both logos, would there still be an idea?

04 / IT SOLVES SOMETHING MEANINGFUL

When egg prices surged, The Ordinary sold cartons at an “ordinary” price. It was funny because it was culturally timely, but useful enough to mean something.

That’s perhaps the bigger opportunity: instead of asking what can we make together?, ask what can we make better together?

THE TEST: Does this add something to people’s lives beyond novelty?

OUR READ

Collaboration is no longer about borrowing cool. It’s about building cultural reach.

In a fragmented landscape, brands need ways into communities they can’t reach alone. Collaboration is one of the most powerful tools they have but the answer isn’t more unlikely pairings for the sake of novelty. Make it make sense, just not too much sense.

ASK AN EXPERT

Jack Self, architect, strategist, editor-in-chief of Real Review and founder of SRC

What makes a ‘good’ quote on quote brand collaboration?

ON OUR RADAR

A COLLAB WITH REAL LIFE, HYPER LOCAL & ACTUALLY GIVING BACK

Nike Street Race To Pay Rent 

Rents due… again. Nike turned New York’s housing crisis into the premise of a street race, offering two winners up to $4,000 toward a month’s rent. Held in NYC’s LES, the event brought together hopefuls and spectators, turning our gaze directly at the daunting financial reality that New Yorkers face. While the prize resonated with participants—one winner said it would cover his $3,800 rent—while others called it a “lowball” given Manhattan’s soaring housing costs. The result was a distinctly New York activation that connected Nike to a real, culturally charged pressure point of life in the city.

IT AIN’T THAT SERIOUS BUT IT’S REAL 

Duolingo’s SS27 Phonetic Collection 

Love to hate it but the little green owl does it again, with the help of designer, Megan O’cain. Stepping into something a bit more high-brow, with this seven-piece collection Duo helps us to pronounce some of fashion’s most notable names. From “air-mess”, to “loh-eh-vey”, to “zhee-vahn-shee”, we’d like to say there’s no longer an excuse for mispronunciation. While the collection itself isn’t necessarily aesthetically aspirational, it signals that Duolingo recognizes the importance of being able to talk the talk; as if speaking “fashion” is that easy and it’s all not that serious. 

A MEETING OF THE MINDS: ARE WE REFINING OR DILUTING? 

PUMA x _J.L-A.L unveil their latest collaborative footwear model: the CELL GEO 1 CAGE J.L-A.L.

Evolving from their previous sold-out CELL GEO, this new silhouette introduces a striking geometric design inspired by the geodesic dome structures of architect Buckminster Fuller. We know our sneakerheads love design, and so by default, architecture too right? Things get interesting when “something originally imagined at the scale of buildings is reduced down until it can fit around a foot,” says Arkangel. For us, while it’s an ambitious design push and product innovation is always on the agenda for footwear brands, the shoe itself doesn’t feel very Puma, it just feels “futuristic” and thus, quite ambiguous and less ownable. In an era of abundance and cross-pollinated inspiration and aesthetics, concentration rather than dilution is the name of the game. If something is a “push” is it really expanding your design language or is it pushing your IP too far outside of itself?

A COLLAB THAT LETS YOU LARP 

Elf Beauty x Alta 

Elf Beauty has signed a contract with Alta as its first beauty partner. Alta (an AI-powered digital closet and personal stylist that lets users digitize their existing wardrobes, generate personalized outfit recommendations, and virtually try looks on an avatar of themselves) users will be able to try on Elf Beauty products on their avatars and add these products to the outfits they build. It’s not about doing so so users can find out what the product will look like on themselves, but offers an opportunity to experiment with a lewk, to discover without investing. While the world and how you present yourself in it feels consequential, spaces to larp are more than welcome. 

BASIC STRATEGY, STRATEGIC RESULTS 

Starbucks x Martha x Belmont Cameli x PSL 

A friend told me that they’ve already had 3 PSL’s, shamelessly. I asked, from Starbucks? Another shameless: yes. While Starbucks isn’t necessarily a brand to revere in this day and age, they’re sticking to what they know as summer’s on its last legs and kids are heading back to school. To promote the PSL this year, they’ve teamed up with Martha Stewart and Belmont Cameli, “everyone’s favorite campus athlete” (according to Starbucks) taking ownership of all things BASIC. While no one wants to be called “basic”, awareness is everything and Starbucks fully leans into this ownership narrative with a kind of collab that is semi-brilliant because it’s strategic: welding real-world/divine timing of the season, with sure-to-resonate talent, with a product icon; the outcome: a reluctant, but undeniable head-nod.

THE PROVOCATION

WHAT ROLE DOES BAD TASTE HAVE IN CREATIVITY THESE DAYS? 

When IP becomes the medium rather than the merchandise, the question isn't just what brands are selling via collab-ing, it's what kinds of creativity they're making possible. If collaboration has become the initiative through which culture discovers itself, what happens when the things being connected are increasingly familiar? 

Something to think about until the next Echo Chamber.

The Echo Chamber is Dazed Studio’s bi-monthly read on the signals, shifts and stories shaping youth culture now.

YOUR FOLLOWERS ARE NOW YOUR MEDIA PLAN: UNPACKING THE MEANING BEHIND ADVOCATIVE MARKETING

When people become the billboard, the next era of cult brands isn't about reach it's about recruitment.

We’ve been thinking a lot about cult brands at Dazed Studio recently. Not because cult brands are particularly new but because the conditions for creating them feel newly relevant. For the last decade, brands have been obsessed with building audiences: followers, reach, impressions, engagement.

As everyone is immersed in their own echo chambers, the internet becomes more fragmented, there is less of a mass audience to reach. Culture now moves through lots of smaller spaces at once: group chats, niche communities, creators, fandoms, and IRL scenes. The next era of marketing might be less about audience building and more about advocacy building.

We’re calling it Advocative Marketing: creating brands that people actively want to represent, recommend and bring into their own worlds. You can see it in the proliferation of merch. Restaurant caps, gallery totes, branded running clubs, beauty bag charms, sports jerseys, niche T-shirts. 

People are quite literally turning themselves into media space for the brands and worlds they want to be associated with and arguably, that endorsement is becoming more valuable. In an internet filled with paid content, AI content and increasingly sophisticated advertising, seeing something on someone you actually know, or someone whose taste you trust, carries a different kind of weight. The ambition, then, isn’t simply to acquire more consumers. It’s to create more followers but not just the kind on social media, we're talking about brand loyalists.

THREE SIGNALS

01. PEOPLE ARE BECOMING THE MEDIA

Merch used to be the thing you gave away at an event. Now some of the most culturally interesting brands are treating it as a media channel in its own right. The Erewhon tote, the Palace jacket, the Chateau Marmont cap, the obscure restaurant T-shirt brought home from a holiday: these things work because wearing them communicates something beyond the product itself. They tell other people what you know, where you’ve been and what you’re part of.

OUR READ: The value of merch isn’t impressions, it’s endorsement. If people genuinely want to wear your brand, they are choosing to advertise it for you.

02. WHO WATCHES ADVERTS ANYMORE? MOSAIC MARKETING IS THE NEW NORM*

Culture moves between private chats, feeds, creators, communities, newsletters, events and real life. Something can feel enormous within one world and be almost invisible outside it. That changes how brands build relevance. Being everywhere matters less if nobody cares enough to carry you from one space into another.

OUR READ: In a mosaic media landscape, people become the connective tissue. Advocacy is what allows brands to travel between communities.

*Coined by Eugene Healey, Brand Strategist

03. CULT BRANDS HAVE FOLLOWERS, NOT JUST CONSUMERS

People don’t simply buy into them. They follow them, collect them, talk about them, queue for them, wear them and introduce other people to them. It’s why we’re interested in cult brands again now. Not as a blueprint for manufacturing hype, but as a way of understanding what creates genuine belief and belonging around a brand.

OUR READ: Perhaps the metric brands should be paying more attention to isn’t just how many people bought something. It’s how many would tell somebody else about it without being asked.

DAZED STUDIO DIALOGUES NEXT EVENT, WEDNESDAY SEPT 30th 

THE NEXT ERA OF CULT BRANDS

For our next Dazed Studio Dialogues we’re exploring what cult brands can teach us about building brands people actually believe in. Why do some brands inspire devotion while others simply sell products? Do brands now need followers rather than consumers? What creates genuine advocacy? And importantly, does cult status actually translate into commercial success?

We’ll be bringing together people from cult brands, an expert on cults and belief, and Dazed’s Gen Z perspective to unpack what the next era of cult brand building looks like. More soon.

WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE CARE ABOUT RIGHT NOW

YILIN, JUNIOR STRATEGIST, CULTURE & INNOVATION DAZED STUDIO ON WHAT MAKES A CULT BRAND

#01 What did you last stand in a queue for and why?

Mimi’s Froyo. Last night I lined up for a froyo with my friend, we all crave it but also it’s a quality time hanging out and just chatting while waiting in line. It’s a sweet treat but also feels healthy and you can personalise it with the toppings you like.

#02 Is taste becoming more valuable than creativity?

No. "Taste" as a word is so overused today, especially now that AI is everywhere and everyone has become obsessed with taste.  But taste is so layered; the preferences are shaped by your social surroundings, and choosing a certain taste is an active signal it shows which identities or social groups you want proximity to. Your intention and taste comes through in the thing you consume and create.

#03 What makes a brand worth believing in, name a brand you ‘believe in’ now

Da Wang – As a Chinese person based in New York, I like integration of traditional Chinese elements such as patterns and material into the design. Also the fact it’s a New-York-based brand so I got to see more pop-ups/ events. I also like my friend’s brand, Tangren Worldwide. She's a Chinese queer person, and  I want to support her cause more. 

THE PROVOCATION: HOW MANY PEOPLE WOULD MARKET YOUR BRAND FOR FREE?

We’ve spent years measuring how many people brands can reach. Maybe the more interesting question now is how many people care enough to pass them on.

This week: why a less powerful Fashion Week might need better patrons, what Dazed audiences are telling us about cultural extremes, the rise of Y3K, human alternatives to AI and why Spotify is entering its yearning era.

As cultural power moves away from traditional institutions and towards smaller scenes and communities, brands need to rethink what it means to support culture. 

“I think brands have a lot of interesting and positive roles to play when they’re positioned more like patrons… taking care of art and artists that people actually care about.”

— POSTPOSTPOST, Parafaith Report

Fashion Week isn’t what it once was. Its cultural grip has loosened, attention has fragmented and a show no longer guarantees relevance. Yet for emerging designers, it remains an important route to buyers, editors, talent and audiences and an expensive one.

With Fashion Month around the corner, there’s an opportunity for big brands to use their scale to support the people still making it matter. Our Dazed Tastemaker research finds that Gen Z see established brands that work with emerging talent as more influential and culturally relevant. Support can mean funding, but also space, access, production, introductions or amplification.

THREE SIGNALS

01. SMALL BRANDS, OUTSIZED INFLUENCE

Some of Fashion Month’s most coveted invitations aren’t the blockbuster shows, but smaller independent brands building distinct worlds and communities around them.

OUR READ: In a fragmented cultural landscape, scale and influence are no longer the same thing. Supporting smaller players gives established brands a meaningful relationship with the people shaping what comes next.

02. ACCESS IS A CURRENCY

Money matters, but emerging brands need more than funding. Bigger brands can offer networks, spaces, production expertise, talent connections and amplification resources that can be just as valuable as a cheque.

OUR READ: The most meaningful sponsorship might not be the most visible. Ask what your brand can unlock, not just what it can fund.

03 A CALENDAR RESET: FASHION DOESN’T ONLY HAPPEN DURING FASHION WEEK

More designers are creating off-calendar shows, product drops, pop-ups and community moments rather than relying solely on the traditional fashion calendar. As luxury expert Adam Burack told us: “You want emerging brands to say that this brand didn’t just throw some money at me, or gave me a bunch of shoes or sunglasses, they actually educated me on how to get to where I want to be.”

OUR READ: Cultural moments increasingly belong to the communities that create them, not the calendars that contain them. Supporting emerging talent means showing up beyond Fashion Month too.

INSIDE DAZED

What 30m+ culturally curious people are telling us is most interesting to them this week.

1. The next generation of tradwives is already spawning

2. Dominatrixes photographed on their own terms

3. Horoscopes August 2026: Get ready for some drama!!

4. ‘There’s flesh everywhere’: Inside Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex

ON OUR RADAR

Y2K → Y3K

Y3K is gaining traction among Gen Z and Gen Alpha, swapping Y2K nostalgia for chrome, futurism and alien aesthetics. Are we finally ready to imagine the future again?

#FREETHEEMPLOYEE

Gap and Staples are letting employees create content from the shop floor, turning staff into brand creators. As polished brand voices lose their grip, could employees become the most credible brand channel?

ASK A RANDOM GUY

Screw ChatGPT: ChatTJB lets you ask questions that are answered by an actual human, Tucker Bryant a former Google employee. The demand for the platform has already required volunteers.

THE CIGARETTE WITHOUT THE CIGARETTE

Boy Vienna’s cigarette incense borrows the look and ritual of smoking, minus the smoking. What happens when the aesthetic of rebellion outlives the behaviour?

A BIG DAY FOR YEARNERS

Spotify’s User Notes lets listeners attach personal memories to songs, turning streaming into a more emotional archive. Are we craving technology that helps us remember, rather than recommend?

THE PROVOCATION

WHAT CAN YOUR BRAND GIVE CULTURE THAT MONEY CAN’T?

The most meaningful cultural partnerships aren’t necessarily won by the biggest budgets, but by brands that know what else they can offer access, knowledge, infrastructure, platforms or people.

If cultural relevance can’t simply be bought, what can your brand help make possible?

Something to think about until the next Echo Chamber.

Lindsey Okubo, Dazed Studio

The Echo Chamber is Dazed Studio’s bi-monthly read on the signals, shifts and stories shaping youth culture now.

Every decade has a defining consumer question.

The 2010s asked: How do we connect?

The early 2020s asked: How do we optimise?

Today, a different question is emerging: How do we make sense of the world in such polarising times?

In a recent conversation for our Parafaith Dialogues series, humanist chaplain and author Greg Epstein suggested we’re moving beyond what many described as “late-stage capitalism” into something he calls “early apocalypticism.” 

It’s a provocative phrase, but it captures something we hear repeatedly across our own research. Climate uncertainty, AI reshaping work and identity, political instability, shifting ideas around family, gender, success and community.

Consumers aren’t just navigating change in one part of life, they’re questioning almost every system they’ve inherited. When everything feels uncertain, people begin searching for something more stable. It’s not necessarily religion but ritual, community, shared values, spaces that create a sense of belonging. That’s what Parafaith is exploring.

One idea from Greg particularly stayed with us. He argues that if you want to understand what people truly believe, don’t ask them. Watch what they do. Where do they spend their time? What do they return to every day? What do they devote their attention to?

Technology has quietly become one of the most powerful organising forces in modern life. For many people, it shapes daily rituals, relationships and even decisions once reserved for family, faith or community. Yet while technology occupies more of our lives than ever, loneliness continues to rise. Consumers have more access, more information and more convenience, but many still feel disconnected and it’s that tension creates an important question for brands. Not how do we capture more attention? But: How do we create genuine moments of meaning?

The brands building long-term relevance won’t simply understand culture, they’ll help shape it. That doesn’t mean replacing religion or trying to manufacture purpose. It means recognising that consumers are increasingly looking for experiences that feel human, participatory and rooted in shared values. The opportunity isn’t to become another platform demanding attention, it’s to become a place people want to return to.

This conversation forms part of our ongoing Parafaith Dialogues, where we’re speaking with leading thinkers exploring how belief, technology, identity and community are being redefined.

If you’d like to discuss what these shifts mean for your brand, we’d love to continue the conversation.

Listen to the full conversation

Explore the Parafaith report

When the old systems lose authority, what takes their place?

Trust in institutions is shifting. AI is changing how we access knowledge. Online communities have become spaces of belonging. Consumption has become a way of expressing values. Across youth culture, new belief systems are emerging.

We’ve launched our latest research study PARAFAITH, The Future of Youth Culture report.

Rather than asking what’s next?, we asked a different question:

What do young people believe in now? How are they behaving? And what does that mean for the future of culture?

Inside the report

PARAFAITH explores the changing values, behaviours and belief systems shaping a generation.

Across five chapters and sixteen cultural shifts, the report examines everything from spirituality and self-optimisation to AI, identity, community, consumption and ethics revealing the deeper forces influencing how young people live, connect and make decisions today.

How we built PARAFAITH

Understanding culture requires more than tracking trends. Over six months, Dazed Studio combined quantitative research with qualitative insight and cultural analysis to build a richer picture of youth culture today.

Our research included:

• A global survey of more than 2,000 young people, aged 16-28, exploring what they believe, how they’re behaving and where they’re placing their trust.

• Qualitative focus groups uncovering the motivations, contradictions and emotions behind the data.

• 30+ interviews with leading voices across youth culture, technology, psychology, spirituality, media and academia.

• Ongoing analysis of emerging cultural signals, online communities, behavioural shifts and global conversations shaping the next generation.

Together, these perspectives form a strategic framework designed to help brands, organisations and leaders understand not just what’s changing but why.

Why now?

Culture moves at extraordinary speed. Every day brings another trend, aesthetic or headline but the values shaping a generation don’t change overnight.

At Dazed Studio, we believe cultural research has to evolve: agile enough to capture what’s happening in real time, rigorous enough to identify the deeper shifts that will define the years ahead.

PARAFAITH is our contribution to that conversation.

Purchase the Full Report

Explore all five chapters, sixteen cultural shifts, original research, expert perspectives and strategic implications over 244 pages.

PURCHASE THE FULL REPORT

We hope PARAFAITH sparks new conversations about the future of youth culture and we’re looking forward to continuing them through talks, events and future editorial over the coming months.

Purchase a Specific Chapter

01 Identity, 02 Media, 03 Society, 04 Culture, 05 Icons.

PURCHASE A CHAPTER

Thank you for reading, and to everyone who contributed to the research, challenged our thinking and shared their perspectives throughout this process. Stay tuned for Dazed Studio Dialogues next episode, coming soon.

What do young people believe in now?

From fashion to fandoms, astrology to AI, today’s cultural participation isn’t just expression, it’s belief.

Join Dazed Studio for the launch of Parafaith, a new report exploring how Gen Z is constructing meaning through culture, rituals, communities and participation in an increasingly uncertain world.

Featuring Laura Pitcher, Grace McGrade and Ruby Thelot, this conversation explores the new architecture of belief and what it means for brands hoping to remain culturally relevant.

Tuesday 7 July | 10am EDT / 3pm BST / 4pm CEST

Reserve your place here.

This week, we hosted an exclusive, closed-door boardroom session at WSA, Dazed New York, gathering brand leaders for a sneak preview of our upcoming research. The room debated the cultural shifts driving Gen Z and Gen Alpha, exploring how young people are actively bypassing traditional institutions and finding new forms of meaning in an increasingly unstable world. We are keeping the deep data, our proprietary "Cathedral Brand Building Model," and actionable brand strategies locked in the vault until the official release. However, to give you a taste of the provocations shaping the future of brand building, here are a few things overheard in the boardroom.

Overheard at WSA, Dazed New York:

On the craving for human connection:

“Presence is a form of rebellion and attention is a kind of devotion. Intimacy is golden.”

On the changing face of influence:

“We don't trust the big box, 10-billion-follower person anymore. It's the rise of the 'stealth influencer' someone who hasn't built their career on social media but proves their taste through their actual life. You trust them because they're an expert in their field, not because they're trying to monetize it.”

On new forms of community:

“People are showing up to run clubs because they can dip in and dip out. The bar is lower. Belonging is becoming less high-stakes—you don’t have to make it your entire identity.”

On the search for shared reality:

“Is Love Island our Hunger Games? What does tuning in every night say about modern human behaviour and our need for fandoms?”

On the paradox of AI:

“Young people are outsourcing intimacy to code, not because they want to, but because the human world feels harder to navigate. But its least trusted uses are emotional advice and culture-making.”

On the desire for positive friction and escape:

“We’re seeing a counter-movement against overstimulation. People are looking for quiet places to tune out, even brands like Sephora are testing 'quiet hours' with low lighting, no music, and no screens.”

On brand survival:

“The middle is dead. In a fragmented culture, brands don't win by pleasing everyone. They win by standing for something specific. People want clarity, not neutrality.”

The full "Parafaith: Reclaiming Meaning in the Age of Re-Enchantment" report officially launches the week of July 7th. It unpacks how youth are assembling meaningful belief systems through culture rather than doctrine, featuring global survey data, deep-dive chapters on taste, aura, and anti-heroes, and actionable strategies for becoming a brand that truly matters. Stay tuned.

Sign up for the launch webinar event July 7th here.

Having recently moved to New York, one thing that surprised me was discovering that people actually use Trader Joe’s totes here. I’d seen the global obsession from afar: the resale listings for $10,000, the limited-edition colour drops. People in the office say they witness two huge queues in the stores: one for groceries, one for the tote bags.

Some of the tote’s biggest fans live in places where Trader Joe’s doesn’t even exist. From London to Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei, the bag has become a small but recognisable symbol of American culture: part souvenir, part status symbol. Its appeal stems from its functionality.

The tote’s appeal reflects two broader shifts in consumer culture: the rise of utility as a status symbol and the elevation of everyday consumption into culture. Just as gorpcore transformed hiking gear into fashion, “little treat” culture has transformed groceries, snacks and daily rituals into sources of identity and aspiration. In an era when large luxuries feel increasingly out of reach, small purchases are carrying greater emotional and cultural weight. “Price per wear” has become a more important measure and in this context, functional products aren’t just practical, they’re cultural capital.

Like the L.L.Bean Boat & Tote before it, the Trader Joe’s tote has become attached to a particular vision of American life. Think Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s effortless 90s chic, East Coast prep, and the enduring appeal of looking as though you’re not trying too hard. It’s practical, understated and quietly aspirational.

There is a post-luxury significance to the fact that this is a Trader Joe’s tote, not a Whole Foods or Erewhon one. Unlike luxury brands, Trader Joe’s has built cultural capital through affection rather than aspiration. It evokes a version of middle-class American life that feels accessible, optimistic and distinctly human: a little quirky, a little nostalgic, and untouched by the polish of luxury branding. Founded in California in the late 1960s, the retailer has always carried a slightly bohemian sensibility.

At a time when brands are busy trying to manufacture cultural relevance, the Trader Joe’s tote is a reminder that the strongest cultural symbols often emerge organically from everyday life.

SIGNAL #1 THE LOCAL SOUVENIR IS BACK

What’s happening: The Trader Joe’s tote functions like a souvenir from America. Similar dynamics are driving demand for Erewhon merch, ‘I Love Paris’ t-shirts, city-specific apparel and hyperlocal brands.

Why it matters: In an increasingly digital world, people want tangible markers of real-world experiences.

For brands: Place matters again.

SIGNAL #2 THE MOST DESIRABLE BRANDS AREN'T TRYING TO BE GLOBAL

What’s happening: Trader Joe’s doesn’t have international stores. That’s part of the appeal.

Why it matters: Global availability can increase scale but reduce mystique.

For brands: Being locally rooted can create more cultural value than being universally accessible.

SIGNAL #3 UTILITY CREATES DESIRABILITY

What’s happening: From L.L.Bean bags to Salomons, Carhartt and technical outerwear, products built for function continue to acquire cultural value.

Why it matters: In a world saturated with marketing, consumers are increasingly looking for proof. Utility has become a form of credibility. The products generating the strongest emotional attachment often have a clear purpose beyond aesthetics.

For brands: The strongest brands don’t just tell people they’re valuable. They demonstrate it.

WHAT’S HOT INSIDE DAZED

What our audience was actually paying attention to this month

HOT ON DAZED DIGITAL

1. The rise of the intellectual tattoo 

2. An arresting portrait of ‘that moment right after teenagehood’ 

3. 10 of the hottest Instagram accounts fusing art, sex and erotica 

4. Less cool, less cold: A new kind of nightlife is taking over Berlin

5. Why so many young people are training to be death doulas

HOT ON DAZED SOCIALS

INSTAGRAM:

1. Nobody wants to be famous anymore 

2. A new kind of nightlife is taking over Berlin

3. Why does hot weather make us so feral? 

What it tells us

This month, Dazed audiences were drawn to stories about identity, intimacy, nightlife, mortality and the rejection of conventional fame. Together, they suggest a move away from polished aspiration and towards things that feel more physical, personal and human.

STAT OF THE WEEK

YouTube wins

Average daily viewing time on YouTube has now overtaken Netflix globally.

AN OPINION WE CARE ABOUT

The analog revival did not take place, it was performative

An interesting take by Eugene Healey 

STAY CURIOUS 

If the most culturally powerful brands are the ones people actually use, what happens when utility becomes the new luxury?

What young people are really using Reddit for and why brands should pay attention.

Reddit has eclipsed TikTok as Britain’s fourth most visited social media site, according to a new report by Ofcom, with Gen Z largely responsible for pushing the online forum from the edges of the web firmly into the mainstream. This is especially true of Gen Z women, who now account for one-third of all Reddit users in the UK. In the US, Reddit's largest and most mature market, the ratio has also changed rapidly, from predominantly male, to reported 50/50 split in 2025. Canada and The Philippines are also experiencing a surge in female users.

In the last two years, Reddit has undergone unprecedented growth globally, from around 50 million daily active users in 2021, to 116 million in 2025.

We spoke to young people who frequently use Reddit to understand how they engage with the platform and why it’s become such an important space for them.

Gen Z women are shifting perceptions around who a Reddit user is and what the platforms means to them

For a long time, Reddit users were assumed to be reclusive, male gamers who indulged in the platform as a chaotic realm of extreme niches and conspiracies. And there was some truth to this reputation, as Reddit’s own COO Jen Wong acknowledges, “Reddit started with this perception, rightfully so, for a male skew – gaming and tech as the anchor”. 

Today the user base is drastically changing, with Gen Z women turning to the platform disillusioned with traditional sources of information and seeking crowdsourced knowledge. Reddit shifts things from one-way communication to an open, expansive dialogue with multiple perspectives engaged at once. 

Speaking to Raven, she shared that she first started using Reddit looking for answers related to her endometriosis. “Women’s health remains so under-researched and underrepresented,” she says. “When I’d go to the doctor, it felt like they still didn’t understand what I was saying. But on Reddit, people were having the same experience with their doctors and endometriosis.” 

Subreddit communities provide young people with what they’re lacking elsewhere – a rare place to feel truly heard, understand they're not alone in their experience, and learn from others going through similar things at various stages.

“Reddit is the first place that I found other women who were having exactly the same experiences as me and it really helped me through my [endometriosis] operation.”

– Raven, 24

Why are so many women joining Reddit?

The most passionate fans gather in subreddits, providing brands with invaluable insight into their true feelings, gripes and opinions

Last year we saw a host of brands and celebrities start up a Substack, the self-publishing newsletter platform that’s experienced a dramatic increase in popularity due to the openness and intimacy it facilitates. Hinge was one of the first brands to do so as part of their ‘No Ordinary Love’ series, created in partnership with Dazed Studio. “Substack has become a place for meaningful discussions about dating and relationships,” said Jackie Jantos, president and CMO at Hinge, “so bringing No Ordinary Love to the platform felt like a natural fit.” 

Following a similar logic, we’re now seeing brands use Reddit as a place to connect with people in an unexpectedly open way. This is especially true of brands that foster fandom.

“I think there’s something about the simplicity of the site that makes it feel more honest as well. In a similar way to the Substack of old. No frills, no distractions, no theatre. Just people talking.” 

– Nina, 27

“I like reading people’s honest opinions. I feel like Substack’s so curated but Reddit can be so short form, like “this is my opinion, take it or leave it” and that’s also how I feel about what I write on there.”  

– Raven, 24

Map of Reddit

Earlier this week, Arsenal FC announced the launch of their official Reddit channel, positioning it as a source for "exclusive content and breaking news” and offering fans “a behind the scenes view of the club, including Reddit AMAs (Ask-Me-Anything) with players and club figures.” Since launching on the 3rd February, the channel has already shared candid videos from the pitch-side and boot room, as well as inviting fans to an AMA with centre back William Saliba via the pre-existing r/Gunners subreddit which has been running since 2008.  A brand presence can work incredibly well if there’s an active, pre-existing community, but trying to form one from scratch may not be as well received, rather, thought of as superficial.

Reddit enables brands to candidly connect with customers, but they must be careful not to impose themselves, or risk backlash

Arsenal's arrival follows brands such as Oatley, Notion and Sonos setting up official brand channels. For Oatley, they saw Reddit’s open forum as a perfect place to debunk myths about sustainable food choices, hosting an AMA led by Oatly’s sustainability director. However, in true Reddit style, Reddit users decided they would set the agenda, taking the opportunity to ask questions around Oatley’s own investment, packaging and climate footprint. 

Reddit can be highly valuable for brands looking for honest and direct feedback, providing an opportunity to respond to any misinformation circulating or customer frustrations. But they also must be prepared to respond to questions as honestly and directly as they’re asked, and remember that anything too manicured will likely be read as contrived. 

“I use Reddit to fuel any of my conspiracy theories or general distrust I have for institutions of power. Also to do background checks on companies, like are there any weird allegations or claims etc.” 

– Lexie, 27

Sonos’s presence on Reddit has been particularly successful, indeed 74% of Reddit users say the platform influences their purchasing decision, so having a hand in such influence themselves is a smart move. But despite the prestige and polish of the Sonos masterbrand, it understood that to have a legitimate and useful presence on Reddit, it needed to embrace the pre-existing codes. 

u/KeithFromSonos is a Sonos employee who’s been a beloved part of the r/Sonos subreddit for over two years, responding to fiddly customer queries, alongside sharing his film recommendations (he’s a “sucker for A24 flicks”). His top (or most upvoted post) comes after it was announced that Sonos had laid off 100 employees. 

Rachel Karten, a social media consultant behind the popular Link in Bio Substack, interviewed Keith himself. His advice to brands outlined that they should, “think of the subreddit as a bar or cafe, you are a guest in this community-built space. Be friendly, don’t go from table to table shaking hands and getting involved in conversations. The Reddit community “regular” of the subreddit comes first. Not every engagement needs to be “how can I fix your problem or sell you a thing?””. 

“Reddit definitely feels more authentic and real, opposed to TikTok where the content feels staged or performative. And you can get what you want from Reddit and then leave, whereas TikTok is designed to be very addictive which I hate.”

– Charlie, 27

“It’s such a wide range of things that I post about. I can post about endometriosis and I can post about Heated Rivalry and no-one will know that it’s actually me.”

– Raven, 24

What this means for brands 

Know trust can’t be performed – Gen Z women are building belief, advice and validation in spaces brands don’t control. Indeed, 74% of Reddit users are not on LinkedIn, and 39% are not on Instagram. 

Listen before you leap – Start by observing the subreddits where your audience already lives. The most valuable insights come from what’s being said without you.

Show up as human – Real people, not brand voices, receive the best response. Engage employees, experts or fans who can speak candidly and stay for the dialogue.

Let the community lead – Drop the marketing script and follow Reddit’s own rhythm. Prioritise authenticity, utility and humour over high production polish.

Use Reddit as an early-warning system – It’s where hype brews and backlash begins. Monitor discussions to sense what’s resonating or falling flat before it spills elsewhere.

Reward curiosity, not just loyalty – Contribute to subreddits or AMAs that genuinely add value, help demystify your brand or category, and invite honest feedback.

For younger generations, news is no longer the final word on truth, but the opening move in a collective game of interpretation. We spoke to our Gen Z audience to get their take on the recent Beckham controversy and why it’s created such a universal media moment. 

Earlier this week, Brooklyn Peltz Beckham posted a series of scandalous Instagram stories that quickly flooded every feed, whether you cared or not. Amongst his grievances, he accused his parents of prioritising “Brand Beckham” to the detriment of their personal relationship, and claimed that his family "values public promotion and endorsements above all else". 

“The Beckham’s are like the monarchy, they’ve preserved a certain image.”

– Sofia, 25

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Part of why the drama spread so widely is because the Beckhams uniquely straddle the old and new codes of media. As strategist Zoe Scaman wrote, “Brand Beckham was built in a different era. Glossy magazine covers. Controlled access. Everyone on message. That architecture doesn’t survive when your adult child can blow up the entire narrative in six Instagram stories.” The Beckhams are both a family and a corporation, and there’s something in that ambiguity that appeals to Gen Z’s desire to deconstruct culture as a means of understanding it. Information is no longer passively received but something to actively participate in. 

Instantly, memes and theories were circulating group chats, Brooklyn’s Instagram statement used as raw material to analyse rather than something take at face value. As Günseli Yalcinkaya wrote for Dazed back in 2022, “pop culture’s been slowly dying for a while now”, but the Beckham drama finally offered something for everyone to gather around. 

“There was no cold, hard evidence of anything shocking but everyone is so desperate to talk about it. Everyone is gagging for something to gossip about. Because it’s such a mainstream story and everyone knows the Beckham’s that’s why it’s united everyone."

– Emilie, 25

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In an algorithmically splintered landscape, it’s rare for one narrative to dominate. Yet, the Beckham saga pierced through because it conjured the perfect conditions for debate. For young people, distrust isn’t just a reaction to the media anymore, but the default setting. 

“I can’t really trust anything I see in the media from either side of the feud -everything feels strategically planted.” 

– Mina, 24

It’s no coincidence that reality TV continues to dominate young people’s viewing habits. Shows like The Traitors tapping into their desire to hunt for clues, scrutinise micro-expressions and construct elaborate theories. So, when celebrity drama spills into real life, they don’t respond as fans, but commentators. The success of YouTube cultural critics like Mina Le and Nicole Rafiee exemplifies this shift and highlights Gen Z’s love of the lore.

“The most interesting thing isn’t the statement itself, but the response to it”

– Emilie, 25

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The Beckham saga is what fragmented media looks like in practice. Without a single source of truth, it takes the shape of parallel stories unfolding simultaneously. What it ultimately reveals is a shift in how meaning is produced for younger generations. Stories are no longer simply reported and accepted, but heavily negotiated, while morality is aestheticised into memes.

“Not going to comment on the potentiality of Posh grinding on her own son as that's just none of my business but the memes are funny.”

– Mina, 24

The Beckham saga isn’t just celebrity gossip, but a glimpse into a shattered media landscape where truth isn’t fixed and meaning is crowdsourced. Drama is not only a means of escape, but raw material to be remixed and played with.

"This has been my Super Bowl."

– Sofia, 25

What Brands Can Learn from the Beckham Saga

1. Don’t deliver a story, start one
   Gen Z treats information as improv material. Drop seeds and tempt them to interpret, remix and expand, rather than just consume.
   
   

2. Truth is a group project
   When everything feels like a PR strategy, truth can’t simply be claimed. Let multiple perspectives coexist and show your working. 
   
   

3. Embrace the mess
   The Beckham saga proves that imperfection travels farther than polish. Brands that show tension, contradiction or unfinished edges cultivate curiosity. 
   
   

4. Lore over launch
   The best stories today unfold like fandoms, episodic, referential, full of easter eggs. Leave gaps for people to fill. 
   
   

5. Design for debate
   Virality is only flash in the pan, but participation is sticky. Give people something to discuss about, not necessarily controversy, but complexity and nuance.

The SenseMaker Insight Panel - Hear Live & Direct from Gen Z

On Tuesday, Dazed hosted its first UK Brand Summit at Mason & Fifth in Westbourne Park. The event showcased a public-facing version of SenseMakers Insights product, our Studio Insights research tool that gives brands direct access to frontline perspectives, real-time reactions, and grounded cultural intelligence.

Strategy Director Izzy Farmiloe was joined by four Gen Z tastemakers - Aarony, Gracie, Habi, and Shel - to unpack what truly matters for brands seeking cultural relevance. Here’s what they shared.

Meet the Panellists

Show that you’ve done the groundwork - know your audience

Aarony was keen to emphasise that brands need to genuinely understand and engage with their communities, rather than just broadcast superficial marketing.

"I really like when a brand knows themselves and knows their audience... I feel like Diesel's been doing it for me with their Durex collaboration… Take the time to know who your audience is: understand if it's girlhood, or if it's skaters, or something like that, that they enjoy. Be in those spaces, know where they hang out, what they are interested in, how they express themselves." 

- Aarony Bailey, Filmmaker and Photographer

Ethics matter - more than you think they do

Gracie and Aarony both mentioned that youth expect brands to have clear values and speak out on political issues, with silence no longer being acceptable. Panelists also criticised performative activism, and called for brands to provide tangible financial support to communities. Focus on purpose, not just product.

Gracie brought in a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream as an example of a product that spoke to brand relevance:

“Ben & Jerry's has been very vocal in terms of their solidarity with Palestinians, with standing up for trans rights, and for democratic rights… It's all well and good being like OK, I can put a rainbow packaging on my Coca-Cola bottle, but if you're not actually doing anything to help anybody - people are actually going hungry, people are not being able to make ends meet - distributing your wealth is the start to making people interested in your brand."

- Gracie Brackstone, Artist

"I don't personally have time for someone who doesn't have an opinion or isn't using a platform to share or to enlighten people about certain topics... if you have something to say, I admire that so much more than complete silence."

- Aarony Bailey, Filmmaker and Photographer

"I'm particularly interested when artists are really outspoken in a really genuine way, and passionate about their ideals... Chappell Roan came out and was talking about the music industry... Billie Eilish made a comment about there being a lot of billionaires in the room, and to share your money."

- Shel Kaplan, Community Manager, Dazed

Be transparent

Habi and Shel drew attention to the fact that young consumers research purchases carefully and want to know exactly where their money goes.

"I will take a longer time to buy something, if that means I get to actually dig deep into where my money is going, like who is making these clothes, where did they come from, what are the materials." 

- Habi Diallo, Branded Content Editor, Dazed

"One thing that's like a conception of our generation is that we actually spend a lot more time researching and being intentional with purchase decisions." 

- Shel Kaplan, Community Manager, Dazed

Community creates brand accessibility

Despite being digital natives, panelists valued real-world experiences and community-building over purely online engagement.

"When young people are putting those stickers on their laptop and they're in like a library or something, they're more likely to attract the type of people that have similar interests to them. I had my Dazed tote bag when I was at Leeds... That just like kind of naturally brought me to people that I wanted to talk to... People are desperate to go outside and be among people and actually speak to people or just find people that have shared interests. That’s why I think Lucila Safdie’s film club means something." 

- Habi Diallo, Branded Content Editor, Dazed

"I've found that sense of brand and community so strong amongst streetwear brands and skateboard brands like Palace... to be around so many different types of people within those generations. When things are so online at the moment I feel like it's such a beautiful mixture of creating connection." 

- Aarony Bailey, Filmmaker and Photographer

It’s the small brand gestures that matter, too

Small, thoughtful touches from brands are remembered and valued as signs of genuine care.

Aarony brought in her Diesel's wash bag gift that came with a bikini she had bought for a holiday last year, to illustrate this point:

"Brands don't actually look after their customers anymore. Like I remember buying an iPhone several years ago, and I would get stickers, a charger, headphones - we don’t get that anymore. I used to also collect stickers gifted to me from Glossier. I feel like that's kind of been lost a little bit." 

- Aarony Bailey, Filmmaker and Photographer

Habi also highlighted that small gestures can be touchpoints that widen your brand's accessibility:

"Most people who are familiar with her and love her brand are not necessarily going to be able to afford £700 jeans, but they can take their friends and go to the cinema and watch a film, and maybe leave with an object that makes them feel like they're a part of something."

- Habi Diallo, Branded Content Editor, Dazed (on Lucila Safdie giving out headbands and stickers at her film club)

The bottom line

What emerged clearly from the panel is that brand relevance for Gen Z isn't just about polish or aesthetics; it's about integrity and intentionality.

Whether it's a free sticker that sparks connection, a film club that builds community, or a public stand on human rights, young people are looking for brands that understand their values run deeper than their purchasing power. They're willing to research more for brands that demonstrate genuine care - not just for their customers, but for the communities and causes that matter to them.

"Brands need to look around and register the social climate that youth are absorbing every day online - political polarisation, silencing, economic struggles and an ever-growing climate emergency. They should ask themselves: 'How can we engage with these issues and prove to youth that we are on their side, we support them through their struggles, support their passions, their hope for the future? How can we bring youth together with our community?'"

- Mina Polo, Junior Strategist

To learn more or schedule a demo of our SenseMakers product, contact the Dazed Studio team or izzy.farmiloe@dazedmedia.com to learn more about our services.

Dazed Studio’s big winners

In a time of great uncertainty, culture is craving the past. From reissued sneakers to vintage filters and reimagined logos, nostalgia has become a dominant force in brand storytelling. The desire for comfort, familiarity, and shared cultural memory is driving a renewed fascination with the past; we now even have a word to describe it - anemoia, the longing for a past one hasn’t even experienced.

The line between resonance and regression is thin. Audiences can tell when nostalgia is used as emotional shorthand rather than authentic connection.

“I am becoming so disenfranchised with companies using our nostalgia as a pure cash grab…I feel insulted by the bastardisation of this beloved franchise and feel like studios are treating us like cattle because of our love of our favorite childhood media. Just to make a few extra dollars.” 

- WormTimeBebe, r/nostalgia

When handled carelessly, weaponising nostalgia in marketing can feel like exploitation; when done right, it can reignite meaning, trust, and belonging. How can brands use nostalgia in a culturally relevant way? Here’s what Dazed Studio thinks:

Community-inspired nostalgia

Case Study: Zohran Mamdani's NYC Mayoral Campaign

"In the wake of Zohran's amazing win, I've been seeing a lot of content analysing (and giving flowers) to the design identity of the campaign. It's such a good example of design being used for purpose, and it was very rooted in nostalgic visuals. It was a statement in itself that said we're tired of corporate, grey visuals and we want something human, relatable and local. It was rooted in its context, taking inspiration from signage, store fronts and more. This made it feel familiar and naturally NY. I liked the idea that when the printed ephemera like posters and stickers were circulated, they were returned back to the place they were inspired by."

- Lilah Francis, Associate Creative Director Dazed Studio

Zohran Mamdani’s NYC mayoral campaign used nostalgia as a design strategy. The campaign’s visual identity borrowed cues from the city’s everyday vernacular: hand-painted storefronts, corner delis, and neighborhood signage, creating a look and feel that felt instantly familiar to New Yorkers, as well as harbouring a distinct Bollywood feel. It was a deliberate rejection of the polished, corporate design language typical of political campaigns, instead embracing something warmer, more human, and unmistakably local. In doing so, the campaign showed how nostalgia can be used to reflect and celebrate the character of a community.

Accessible Nostalgia

Case Study: Telepathic Instruments - The Orchid Synth

Telepathic Instruments

“I love the way Telepathic Instruments introduced The Orchid to us - through a step-by-step tutorial starring Matt Berry that acted as a 90s synth tutorial. The aesthetics of the campaign and the communication style made me want to find and circle one in an Argos Catalogue. It sparked my curiosity in a very childlike way, they had my attention for the entire 12 minutes - pretty impressive nowadays.” 

- Mina Polo, Junior Strategist, Dazed Studio

Tame Impala’s Telepathic Instruments launched The Orchid earlier this year, a synth that re-charges retro aesthetics with contemporary purpose. The synth’s burnt-yellow casing, minimalist single-octave keyboard and retro “performance mode” labels nod clearly to classic analog instruments of the 1970s and 80s, yet beneath the surface it delivers modern tech (16-voice engine, chord-logic matrix, built-in speakers and MIDI) that meets today’s creative demands. This blend of past and future means The Orchid becomes a cultural artifact as well as a product, helping the brand tap emotional identity and modern creative aspiration of even the most amateur musician in one go.

Nostalgic Product Design

Case Study: Nothing Phones & Headphones

“They do a really good job of marrying nostalgia and really accessible tech.” 

- Louise Grosjean, Junior Art Director, Dazed Studio

With its transparent design language and stripped-back interface, Nothing is redefining tech nostalgia for a generation that never lived through the early days of consumer electronics. The brand’s phones and headphones channel the tactile minimalism of 2000s devices: visible circuits, LED glyphs, clicky feedback, evoking an era when technology felt more physical and less algorithmic. This taps into Gen Z’s “offline movement”, a cultural desire to reclaim presence, reduce noise, and reconnect with the real world (whilst not going total-Luddite).

Nostalgia through consistent branding

Case Study: Tunnock's

“Tunnock’s doesn’t need to manufacture nostalgia, it’s baked into their brand DNA. By never chasing trends or refreshing for relevance, they’ve become a timeless icon. Their packaging, tone and product design have barely changed for over 70 years, and that unwavering consistency has built trust, affection and a kind of emotional permanence that most brands try (and fail) to recreate through nostalgia.” 

- Izzy Farmiloe, Group Strategy Director, Dazed Studio

The Scottish confectionery brand has built enduring cultural relevance by staying remarkably unchanged; its signature red-and-gold foil wrappers, retro typography, and no-nonsense tone have become instantly recognisable symbols of comfort and heritage. Still a family business, Tunnock's relies on consistency to nurture long-term emotional bonds; that steadfastness has transformed simple products like the Tea Cake and Caramel Wafer into cultural icons, demonstrating that sometimes its powerful to merely never lose sight of who you are.

Generational Nostalgia

Case Study: M.A.C's Lipglass Air Campaign

"It re-engages audiences from that time but it was also a cult product for a reason - I was angry when my fav product was discontinued. You become quite loyal to a brand and the aesthetic plays into 00’s. It helps a brand gain relevance in a modern day - bringing back the archival product."

- Iddy De Viell, Head of Commercial Beauty, Dazed Media

M.A.C’s Lipglass Air campaign breathed new life into one of the brand’s most iconic products by tapping into generational nostalgia. Featuring models alongside their mothers, the campaign celebrated the shared memories and emotional connection tied to the Lipglass product. By reintroducing the cult favourite through a contemporary lens, M.A.C re-engaged long-time fans while introducing the product’s legacy to a new generation.

Reviving a 00s icon

Case Study: Palace Total 90 Nike

“The casting, the collaboration and the product itself is brilliant. That trainer is so iconic from the 90s/00s - partnering with Palace pulls the whole thing together with authenticity. The activations; the skate park and football pitch worked so well to make the whole partnership feel real and 360.”

- Dan Fitzgerald, Executive Director, Commercial & Studio, Dazed Media

The Palace × Nike Total 90 collaboration has revived one of football’s most recognisable silhouettes, fusing early-2000s sports nostalgia with the irreverent energy of contemporary streetwear, and has brought back the Total 90 through a collaboration that bridges football, fashion, and youth culture.

The takeaway for brands

Start with truth, not just simply a trend. Ask: what memory, feeling, or cultural moment are we reconnecting with, and why does it matter now? Nostalgia should deepen a brand’s story, not distract from it. Build from real emotion and lived experience, and layer it with modern purpose.

Tapping into nostalgia is about finding meaning in the familiar and using it to move culture forward. When brands borrow from the past without intention, they risk feeling exploitative or insincere. When nostalgia is rooted in community, craft, and authenticity, it becomes a powerful tool for connection. The most successful examples don’t simply replicate old aesthetics; they reimagine them through a contemporary lens, translating shared memories into new cultural relevance.

5 cultural currents shaping how we think at Dazed Studio.

It’s been tough to know where to look in 2025. 

Estimates predict that in late 2025, the average person is consuming around 100GB of data every day. To put that in layman's terms, that's 33 hours of HD Netflix streaming, over 2,300 hours of standard-quality music streaming, or 60-200 hours of video calling.

It’s having an impact on our brains - we’re overwhelmed, inundated. “Meta-stress” as a phenomenon (stress about being stressed by our environment) has surfaced as a direct result of constant connectivity and notifications, especially among young adults - even resulting in a 30% rise in attention disorders (such as ADHD diagnoses) amongst adults in recent years.

This week, Dazed Studio is bringing insight and inspiration to you through personal recommendations. This is our counter to the clutter: where intuition, curiosity, and creative chaos lead the way.

Human-made > AI made; finding beauty in the imperfect

“I've been rewatching Alan Yentob's Imagine series it’s nostalgic, pre-algorithm, and I love the lo-fi picture quality. The content still stands. Also William Kentridge’s ‘Self Portrait as a Coffee Pot’ — it’s human-made, fun, and you can feel the hand.”

- Lilah Francis, Associate Creative Director

Youth culture is craving the tactile, the human, the unpolished. After years of frictionless feeds and generative perfection, “human-made” feels like a new luxury.

The brand strategy:

Reveal your process through storyboards, behind-the-scenes, handwritten notes, and sketches. Authenticity now means visible authorship.

Folklore, history & the mystical

“I feel like we are in a culture where we don’t know what to trust anymore. That’s probably led me more into my obsession with the mystical, the magical, and things that sit outside the contemporary discourse of current events and more towards the historical, ancient, speculative, pseudo-religious category. I take more comfort and interest in attending online lectures at Treadwell’s Books about mythology, Welsh folklore and witchcraft.”

- Bunny Kinney, Executive Creative Director

Amidst socio-political inundation and hearing arguments crafted from logic, mysticism feels like a form of resistance, a refusal to accept algorithmic logic as total truth. Folklore, mythology, and the “grey areas” of belief reconnect us to intuition and imagination.

The brand strategy:

For brands, this signals a shift toward symbolic storytelling, mythic design, and emotional depth over merely data-led certainties. Create campaigns that feel contemplative rather than declarative — ambiguity can invite emotional engagement.

Big ideas in small doses

“I’ve been reading these microscopic books - there’s one called Gaia and Philosophy, and the other is called The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. They are really big thoughts but very small - it really helps my ADHD mind to grasp really difficult concepts.”

- Louise Grosjean, Junior Art Director

We’re drawn to micro-forms that make macro ideas digestible, from slim philosophical paperbacks to the looping textures of ambient music. This is culture as sensory minimalism: calming, repeatable, grounding.

The brand strategy:

Brands can embrace sensory minimalism by delivering deep, resonant ideas through calming, digestible formats that honour attention as a limited and emotional resource in our contemporary digital landscape.

Peer to peer platforms and moral media

“In terms of platforms, I think Novara Media is the one sticking out for me atm. It's quite refreshing to hear a news source that won't sell out to right-wing grift. Novara reminds me that decentralisation still matters; crowdfunded, not invested, and still with moral clarity.”

- Harvey Wood, Junior Designer

“I’m really enjoying following The Progressive International’s work - it’s inspiring to see activism and young political leaders advocate for and achieve change, and I love that Art of Internationalism aims to make art communal. I’ve also found Forensic Architecture’s investigative reports so relevant and important - potentially now more than ever, given the amount of disinformation online.”

- Mina Polo, Junior Strategist

Within a media landscape that is marred by disinformation, trust is a new premium. Audiences increasingly gravitate towards independent, values-led media and peer-powered platforms.

The brand strategy:

Brands, too, can learn to speak with conviction; take a clear ethical stance and show how you live by it, transparency is creative currency.

Recalibration and slow consumption

“Ambient music is huge for me right now, it's the only way I can consume something - I still get the satisfaction of listening to great music but I don’t get inundated with words. The Malibu album is a good example of this.”

- Louise Grosjean, Junior Art Director

“Pre-algorithm culture had space to breathe.”

- Lilah Francis, Associate Creative Director

We’re seeing a collective craving for deceleration; the next wave of creative energy isn’t about pace; it’s about taste and attunement.

The brand strategy:

For brands, this means building less around reach and more around resonance. Create opportunities for learning as aesthetic experience. Brands could host bite-size lectures, 10-minute listening sessions, or ambient learning playlists.

Simplicity and a desire for quality

“I keep thinking about Perfect Days, Wim Wenders’ quiet film about a Tokyo toilet cleaner, something that’s really stayed with me, which is a rarity these days. Honouring your work and doing one thing really well I believe is inspiring. The film captures a kind of quiet resistance to modern culture’s obsession with optimisation, speed and self-importance. The film is simple, honest, and beautifully crafted with a great soundtrack. I think that it mirrors a wider cultural yearning for slowness, texture, and authenticity in an over-designed world"

- Izzy Farmiloe, Group Brand Strategy Director

The brand strategy:

What if the most radical thing a brand could do was to say less and mean more? Strip away the noise. Focus on substance, craft, and continuity over hype. Build equity through behaviour, design, and real-world presence, not just messaging.

The takeaway for brands

Culture is recalibrating from overload to intentionality. Youth are craving humanity over AI automation; symbolism over strategy; curation over noise.

To connect in this new landscape, brands must trade attention-hacking for attunement, building presence, not pressure.

“The freakier gore, creature, and alien aesthetic we’re seeing in nails feel connected to a kind of ‘third space’ beyond masculine and feminine identities. Young people aren’t confining themselves to being perceived one way or another, instead, they’re mixing and matching body adornment and beauty practices that suit them in the moment.”

– Cam Cronin, Nail Tech & Creative Strategist

This week we dive into one of youth culture’s biggest global phenomena: nail art. Once a symbol of class, rebellion, and self-expression, nails have always carried meaning far beyond decoration. Now worth $24.56B and set to grow to $36.27B by 2032, the industry is booming as Gen Z turns nails into armour, affirmation, and aesthetic code. I spoke to Dazed Studio’s creative strategist (and nail tech) Cam Cronin on what nails really mean to young people today and what brands can learn from it.

Nail Power: A timeline of style, status & resistance

"Refugee camps of Vietnamese Americans resulted in this burst of entrepreneurship and the cropping up of Vietnamese salons, starting in California...that lowered the price of nails, making it more accessible for everyone[...]Hip-hop and culture has a contribution to pushing the conversation forward, with people like Flo-Jo, the track star, who was known for running with those crazy amazing nails."

- Tembe Denton-Hurst, Dazed Digital

Can we just talk about... Florence Griffith Joyner’s nails

What nails reveal about Gen Z priorities

01: Self-Affirmation

Nails are no longer just beauty maintenance, they’re part of a wider body adornment ecosystem (alongside tattoos, piercings, hair). They act as armour, ritual, and self-affirmation.

"Instead of considering nails as a routine beauty maintenance treatment, for many it’s part of a body adornment ecosystem… you could be the most unkempt version of you and still feel in control if your nails are done."

– Cam Cronin

02: Nails As A Form of Armour

Nails become protective layers, often done before moments of scrutiny.

"I frequently have clients who make sure to get a fresh set before visiting family or other events that might leave them in need of some support."

– Cam Cronin

03: Creative Experimentation Gets Weirder

Gen Z are pushing the boundaries of what “beautiful” means. From chrome to bruises, fish eggs, mould, and landscapes, nails are a canvas for experimentation.

"People are getting weirder with their tastes and letting the meaning of beauty be interpolated into pure creativity."

– Cam Cronin

04: Self-Esteem Boost

Nail care mirrors the psychological benefits of makeup, offering uplift, extroversion, and positivity. This matters in a generation where self-esteem is in crisis.

"People who receive nail care feel more extroverted, prefer being in public and interacting with others. These results such as increased positivity, relaxation, and positive mood were similar to the psychological effects of using cosmetics reported in previous studies." (Uyama et al., 1990; Sato, 2020)

05: Symbolic Communication & Connection

Nails act as social signifiers and coded language.

"For many queer people it can be a form of flagging your identity to others in the know."

– Cam Cronin

How this shows up in culture

• Y2K frutiger aero futurism.

• Playful characters: Snoopy, Smiski, Sonny Angel, Miffy.

• Mediterranean motifs: fish, fruit, Spanish tiles, olives.

• “Short nails = confident baddie.” (Ashley Sim, TikTok).

• Gothic, medieval & Catholic aesthetics fused with emo/goth.

• Technicians are experimenting with ‘dirty-core’: these gross, disgusting styles – Marggie Nails,

"Chrome chrome chrome — silver dominates, but the ‘nails as jewelry’ theme is continuing to trend."

– Cam Cronin

"Marggie and that anti-manicure look, the typical point is to beautify the nails, and then it’s like, ‘OK, so we can do the opposite, like, make it look worse than it is’. Make it look bruised, make it look broken."

- Tembe Denton-Hurst, Dazed

What brands can learn

1. Think beyond beauty: ritual & resilience

Frame nails (and wider beauty) as tools of affirmation & armour. Campaigns can spotlight the emotional depth of beauty rituals.

2. Celebrate imperfection & the ‘messy middle’

Gen Z aesthetics embrace the weird, organic, and imperfect. Move beyond polish-perfect shots into raw, playful, and exploratory storytelling.

3. Tap into emotional uplift

With self-esteem at historic lows, position nail care as a small act of daily empowerment and mood-boosting ritual.

4. Spotlight nails as cultural storytelling

Nails are cultural canvases, whether flagging queer identity, referencing heritage, or nodding to fandoms. Treat nails as micro-media for identity.

5. Champion emerging talent

The most exciting trends are bubbling up from grassroots nail artists...

Emerging Talent to Watch

Thams Does ClawsAll Hail Thy Nail

Texto Dallas

Serenadidem

You San

A special mention as context and inspiration for this newsletter: Róisín Tapponi's piece on nails in Real Review Issue 12 + strategist Rhianne Patent’s reflections on nails as semiotics of identity.

Last week, Dazed Studio hosted our first ever Brand Summit at the WSA building in NYC. Across three events, what constituted the "new cool" in the digital age was discussed, with opinions shared from both seasoned professionals to Gen Z creatives.

On Thursday evening, Izzy Farmiloe was joined by four culture shapers to discuss Taste, Tension & Trust in the Age of Anxiety. Here is a recap of their conversation:

Dazed's Culture Shapers: The Brand Summit Thursday Panel

Emily Sundberg, Founder & Editor, Feed Me

Emily Sundberg is the writer of Feed Me, a newsletter that combines business news, media gossip, and New York culture with over 100k subscribers. She also directed a documentary about a private island in the Hamptons called THE END, and writes for GQ, New York Magazine, and ELLE. Her daily texts are on business and culture, with New York City treated as "an epicenter of culture"; she describes herself as observing and writing about "how different groups of people spend money" and consumer behavioural patterns.

Whitney Mallett, The Whitney Review of New Writing

Whitney Mallett is a writer, editor, and publisher. In 2023, she founded The Whitney Review of New Writing, a magazine of literary criticism which engages an expansive definition of writing, bridging the worlds of books, performance, visual art, and design. She regularly contributes to many other magazines as well as writing commissioned texts for artist catalogs. Her larger creative practice spans video, spoken word, performance curation, and contributing to the critical discourse as a guest panelist, speaker, and interlocutor. She co-edited the book, Barbie Dreamhouse: An Architectural Survey.

Fran Tirado, Editor-in-Chief, Them

Fran Tirado is the first trans editor-in-chief of Them, Condé Nast's LGBTQ+ publication, and the founder of Doll Invasion, an organisation that galvanises trans people to experience Fire Island. They are currently fundraising for their annual initiative.

Bunny Kinney, ECD of Dazed Studio

Bunny Kinney is the Global Executive Creative Director of Dazed Studio, based in London. A multidisciplinary creative, he works as a filmmaker, writer, and curator, with extensive experience across beauty and luxury fashion brands. For the past decade, Kinney served as Creative Director of NOWNESS, and the Founding Editor of Dazed Beauty. His exhibition, "Virtual Beauty," is currently on show at Somerset House, examining the impact of digital media and technology on contemporary notions of identity.

Can a brand really be cool?

Our panelists covered a vital topic for brands - how they can be culturally relevant. Responses from our panel were divided, but having a point of view was a unanimous consideration regarding brand cultural relevance.

"Cool in its purest form is the antithesis of mass consumption... if you want to be cool, you should resist the urge to [create] mass movement, mass consumption, mass appeal."

- Fran Tirado

"Does a brand have a point of view? We know we can be patrons of things, and we're signaling our own awareness of a lot of stuff , and know that we can put it in something valuable. "

- Whitney Mallett

"I think that consumers are so much smarter and more aware than ever. We are writing about brand campaigns with the same enthusiasm that we were writing tabloids, 15 years ago. Everybody is so aware of it - you see the comments - people are saying 'give the social media manager a raise'... I think it's a little bit harder to be cool because people aren't just accepting what they're being sold."

- Emily Sundberg

The death of authenticity

Amidst the demands of virality and the attention economy, brand authenticity has lost its meaning.

"There's this thing that happens with authenticity, or vibe, that is a kind of bankruptcy of language. I think that more and more in the democratisation of the internet and information on the internet people are really waking up to that. Everybody's allergic to the brand, and allergic to things that feel they're packaged too well. They're too clean, they're too crisp, they're too...varnished, if that makes sense."

- Fran Tirado

"I do think authenticity has obviously become this buzzword that is used and it sort of makes my eyes roll... But when I think about it on a personal level, I'm like, well, you know, how am I authentic? I feel like I am authentic when my insides are kind of like my outsides, for lack of a better term... I'm not hiding or concealing some part of my myself or I'm not saying one thing and doing another."

- Bunny Kinney

Anxiety and nostalgia are driving consumer behaviour...

"Do all these people actually miss going into the office and having a briefcase... Or do you miss a different version of New York where there was a bit more privacy and maybe a bit more breaks between when you're on and when you're off of work?... Everything being sold to us is supposed to mediate your anxiety... all of that is done with the keen awareness of feelings of anxiety and seeking comfort through spending money on things."

- Emily Sundberg

... and ragebait, too

From Sabrina Carpenter's Manchild cover to the new American Eagle "Good Jeans" ad, chaos was described as cutting through the attention economy:

"I think we have so much noise in our media matrix that a lot of brands are turning to chaos branding. I do think sometimes they very intentionally throw stuff out there to be like, why did they really do that? It's just to get your attention because it's a fight for attention."

- Whitney Mallett

"I can't fathom for a second that there wasn't [someone] in that boardroom looking at those advertisements of a blonde, buxom white girl who is sort of the ideal of a different era, and they're saying, cool, we're going to have this geneticist, eugenics pun or whatever. Maybe they weren't thinking that deeply about it, but they were certainly anticipating that it would get a negative reaction or provoke a reaction."

- Bunny Kinney

"We're experiencing a very clear death of the truth...And I'm here because I want to write the truth. I believe in the truth and ragebait isn't the truth. It's just not. But sometimes realities really makes you mad. And I think sometimes there's that overlap with them..."

- Fran Tirado

Why physical media matters

Following along from the insights we shared with you last Friday from our Wednesday SenseMakers panel, Izzy probed the culture shapers on their thoughts on physical media, and why they thought it was having a renaissance.

"For me, [physical media] is very important. I chose not to have a digital thing. I think it slows down the cycle of consumption, and that was intentional. It is a different way that people engage with it. I think that I let people be a little spicier because I don't think it's immediately going to get screenshotted... if you're publishing in a daily cycle versus a six month cycle. It's just a different conversation you're having."

- Whitney Mallett

"I'm massively into going to the theatre. I go to the movies all the time, I go to readings, I go to things like that... they're the only sacred spaces where you aren't allowed to use your phone. It's like a taboo... I want more places like that where you can't - if you look at your phone, you're that guy, and I don't want to be that guy."

- Bunny Kinney

Thank you to our brilliant participants across our public events, and to everyone who joined us in the audience. Until next time!

Six things we learnt about what cool means to young people

On Wednesday, Dazed Studio debuted our live SenseMaker panel format at Day 02 of our U.S. Brand Summit in NYC, bringing together six Gen Z creative tastemakers to debate what “cool” means today and what matters to them.

Group Strategy Director, Izzy Farmiloe, hosted the conversation, and was joined by Simone Ruth, Laiyonelth Hurtado, Yawen Yuan, Basem Tash, Yilin Ye and Gwendolyn Boykins.

01: Physical media is cool; digital addiction isn't

A key theme that surfaced amidst discussions of coolness was the resurgence of physical media.

Basem reflected on why he has found pleasure in using a now-antiquated piece of technology:

"I recently bought a refurbished iPod classic... I want to start having routine regarding my online consumption - say, on a Sunday, I leave my phone at home for an hour or two, I go to the park, and I only have this music... it's just me wanting to listen to music without having to use my phone."

- Basem Tash, Graphic Designer & Recent Parsons Grad

Yilin has found buying physical zines purposeful and inspiring: 

"It's easier to carry. Also, on the reason why I wanted to buy it - it's not that I can't find this information online. It's because I wanted to support those who made these zines. They take a lot of creativity and work to create."

- Yilin Ye, Creative Technologist & Dancer

"I bought a book that I read on Kindle because it was so good that I cried. So I thought I should have it in hardcover, even though I probably won't read it again for a while, but I just thought it would be important to have with me."

- Yawen Yuan, Writer & Student at Columbia University

02: Nostalgia is (still) cool; hype isn't

We’ve all heard it - Gen Z is obsessed with nostalgia. It has shown up in cultural trends: the labubu craze, buying an iPhone 5C for the 2014 aesthetic, and y2k revival. But maybe it’s more about seeking solace in a simpler time?

Simone spoke on how nostalgia has inspired her professional endeavours:

"I'm constantly yearning for, I guess, the feeling of nostalgia, whether it's in the work that I create or the music that I produce - I'm always listening to old things. It is a testament to where I got started as a creative, because it’s where I'm very comfortable, where I run home to when it comes to just my work and like my output in the world."

- Simone Ruth, Founder of mission-driven music label Global Crisis

The whole emphasis on trends, labubus, just buying things that ultimately become fried to a point, and then we start to hate them, is so uncool."

- Gwendolyn Boykins, Founder of slow-fashion brand Nostylguh

03: Taking pride in your heritage is cool; cultural appropriation isn't

In our research for our big report, launching in the Fall, we’ve taken stock of the growing importance of the local and the regional in popular culture, and the increasing move towards non-Western cultural influence.

Laiyonelth brought a beautiful and meaningful addition to the discussion:

"For my “cool” item, I brought this bag. It is a traditional bag from Colombia called a carriel, and it used to be worn by countryside men to carry seeds and different things. It was really nice to reconnect with a part of my heritage… People have more of a sense of appreciation for heritage and culture and tradition; I think that's the coolest thing for me - preserving those ideas of the value that there is in heritage altogether."

- Laiyonelth Hurtado, Artist & Activist

But what was uncool? Cultural appropriation.

"When brands or designers culturally appropriate, glamorising cultural tidbits without recognising where they come from and giving them proper credit."

- Basem Tash

Aestheticised, algorithmised and appropriated: Welcome to the ‘habibification’ of house music - Dazed MENA

04: Advocating for something you believe in is cool; staying silent isn't

Izzy asked the panel who they believed were culturally relevant, and political activism surfaced as a unanimous thought within the group:

"I'm thinking of Bad Bunny, who everyone loves right now, and Willie Chavarria - how he's been using his passion and his platform to truly advocate for the immigrant community here in the States and also to send messages of dignity and social justice altogether."

- Laiyonelth Hurtado

"When you have that power, when you have that resource, how about using that platform to show what you really care about?"

- Yilin Ye

05: Embedding sustainability into your brand is cool, overconsumption isn't

Gwendolyn shared her biggest "uncool" - overconsumption; but our panelists had found several sustainable brands that they feel comfortable purchasing from.

"My biggest uncool is overconsumption. When you are intentional with your purchases, you stay with them longer."

- Gwendolyn Boykins

"Santos By Mónica is very big on sustainability and building community here in New York. And they really show how sustainable fashion can be both luxurious and fun and cool."

- Laiyonelth Hurtado

06: It's cool to care and foster community

"I find Komune (LES) so cool. I think they seem like they care. They had a market for designers to sell, and they didn't charge them, and everyone just sold their clothes and mingled with each other. It was all good vibes, free drinks... It's not something that's fake where they're trying to harvest customers. It's just getting to know each other."

- Gwendolyn Boykins

"Topicals, a skincare brand, is very good at really showing that diversity is not a token, it's not something performative. I think there are a lot of brands that try to market to people according to what's trendy - we're seeing it right now with the rollbacks of diversity and inclusion. I think that is so uncool, because it shows you how much brands don't care. And for me, there's nothing cooler than caring."

- Laiyonelth Hurtado

Thank you to all our amazing participants and attendees at this week’s U.S. Brand Summit - it was great to see so many of you there!

If you are interested in using our Dazed Studio SenseMaker product for your brand research, email izzy.farmiloe@dazedmedia.com.