Our latest report, Think Forward: The Liveable Web explores the five key trends set to shape social over the next 12 months. In this blog, we take a look at the trend ‘Modern Mythmaking’ which sees creator-led content leading the way in responding to (and shaping) popular culture, resulting in an Easter egg web in which audiences are digging deeper into entertainment than ever before.
In the recent blockbuster Trap, a pop star finds herself hunted by a serial killer. Locked in a bathroom, she doesn’t call the police; instead, she hops on Instagram Live, asking her fans to find her location. Why? Because everyone knows that, in 2024, when it comes to digital detective skills, the FBI have nothing on a generation of pop culture stans who’ve grown up sourcing clues from the creators they adore. To these digital detectives, pop culture is no longer a passive product to be consumed when offered. It’s something to be actively, energetically engaged with, as part of a holistic shift to a new type of “deep entertainment” that’s bred their sleuthing skills. It’s an era of what you might call modern mythmaking.
What does modern mythmaking look like? It looks like an online landscape in which 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. Creators putting a piece of content out into the world is no longer the end of the story, but the start – an initial volley for audiences to bounce back, having added their own ideas to the narrative around it.
It looks like a puzzle to be solved and shared with other obsessives. The best-loved entertainers in contemporary online culture, from mega stars like Taylor Swift to cult film studio A24, aren’t just leaving discrete prizes for users to find. They’re encoding every aspect of their online identity and every morsel of their digital output with hints that help audiences feel like they’re in on a secret story.
It translates to Emerald Fennell filling their work (and online representations of it) with Easter eggs for fans to find and speculate over (her film Saltburn was laden with fake-obscure references to other films and works of art). And singers like Addison Rae, who’ve been leaning into their online lore in ways that send their fandoms into decoding frenzies (after debate raged online over how indebted Rae is to Lana Del Rey, the star released a video cosplaying as the ‘Video Games’ singer – a fan-pleasing act of curious meta commentary).
Read about how brands like CeraVe, Loewe and Peachy Den are embracing and responding to Modern Mythmaking, and the lessons marketers can learn in Think Forward: The Liveable Web. Download your free copy now for this, and all five trends.
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