Today marks a decade of We Are Social’s sought-after trend reports, as we launch Think Forward 2025: The Liveable Web. The report identifies five trends that we expect to play out on social media and online spaces in the next 12 months. Here you can see an overview of each of these trends and discover how Think Forward could help shape your brand’s marketing strategy in 2025.
The internet has become a treadmill of micro-trends, notifications and noise. One in four internet users report feeling overwhelmed by the digital spaces they occupy. And social media – once a place that enriched the lives of users – now exhausts.
Thankfully, a movement is here. New audiences are emerging, determined to reclaim the joy of social. People are pushing back against the prevailing culture of “more” – more content, faster trend cycles, ever higher, more unattainable goals – to make the internet fun again. Growth, acceleration, optimisation – users are increasingly opting out of these pressures in favour of a new web. A Liveable Web. One that separates joy from progress and prioritises slower consumption.
Here are the key trends playing out across The Liveable Web right now, and how brands can tap into this in 2025 and beyond.
Primal Renaissance
After years of cultural sanitsation and emotional suppression, 2024 saw a return to rawness, gore, sleaze and hedonism; the social landscape is embracing messiness again. The last twelve months have seen an uptick in unruliness as young social users connect through chaos. It’s time for brands to get messy, seek out rebel influencers and stand out from the crowd.
2024 may have been a time of chaos, but online spaces have been reclaimed of late as a place for escape and release. A new, more relaxed internet is emerging, with an emphasis on levity and kindness of the internet’s perceived early ‘00s “peak.” Brands can tap into this by embracing randomness and spontaneity, or simply spreading the good vibes.
Example: A less-is-more approach has made Marc Jacobs’ TikTok a must-follow of late. Instead of creating a highly-curated hub world for the label on social, driven by one overarching brand message, the fashion lynchpin has ceded creative control, allowing creators and micro-influencers to pepper their feed with fun, small-scale content.
Intentional consumerism
For the longest time across online and IRL spaces, social status was linked to how much money someone could spend, in flashy displays of financial independence. Now, though, a new wave of social users who value sustainability over splashing the cash are offering up a counter-narrative, that’s gaining traction fast. Brands can lean into this by underlining the meaningful ways your products can become part of consumers’ lives, rather than something to use and discard, as well as focusing on long-term connections.
Example: E.l.f. Cosmetics have eased off pressurising consumers to buy in favour of content, and instead refocused on the happiness their cosmetics offer, leaning into joy-giving behaviours and rituals associated with their products. Their album Get Ready With Music riffed on popular Get Ready With Me (GRWM) social media videos, in which people share their makeup and styling routines in preparation for heading out the door.
Modern Mythmaking
Move over, traditional media; creator-led content now leads the way in responding to (and shaping) popular culture. The result? An Easter egg web in which audiences are digging deeper into entertainment. Hot takes and fan theories rule the algorithms – a reflection of the fact that social users are no longer sitting back, but leaning in, participating, in content like never before. Brands need to pay close attention to social listening to tap into unexpected moments; tease rather than drop announcements and turn viral moments into unforgettable fan-service experiences.
Example: For their AW drop, clothing brand Peachy Den worked with influencer Olivia Neill and director Jake Erland to meticulously recreate a scene from iconic film The Devil Wears Prada. Despite not explicitly calling out the film, fans were quick to decode the video’s references and praise its attention to detail – becoming this meta text that leveraged a beloved film into clout for their brand.
New Intimacies
Audiences’ craving for something more personable – an internet that helps rather than hinders forging long-lasting bonds – has led to new modes of intimacy online. People are participating in fandoms like never before, and research shows they’re doing so for the communal element of feeling part of something bigger than them – a tribe. People are reclaiming the word ‘gate-keeping’ as a valid way of keeping spaces, niches, communities and their aesthetics pure. Brands can nurture their community to create a sense of belonging – and always look for the togetherness angle.
Example: When Stanley Quenchers acquired cult status after going viral, the brand didn’t just stand back. They created content leaning on the idea of their products as ‘collectibles,’ that a community was able to spring out from. A water bottle wouldn’t normally be the sparking point for an online community, but their socials – facilitating bonding and emphasising connection – helped achieve exactly that.
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