How are you doing, fam? I was apprehensive to write anything about the pandemic because personally I'm overwhelmed with all of it. I've been feeling the full range of emotions all at once throughout each day.
But, I figured, why not take the opportunity to take an uplifting approach and be a bright spot in your inbox? Today's newsletter focuses on the potential impacts I foresee happening on culture, consumer behavior and media, with some hilarious memes sprinkled throughout for good measure.
Shared cultural experiences are back. They were well on their way to extinction (which we discussed almost a year ago here) but now that the entire world is experiencing the same thing at the same time, I think that notion might be reversing. And I wonder if a portion of it will stick.
Sure, there is still a massive amount of content available at our fingertips to fragment our attention, but regardless of what show you're watching, the 7.5B people on this planet are currently converging around the same issue, which is infiltrating our news, thoughts, and emotions.
In a silver lining kind of way, I've already seen it creating a stronger bond between humanity—communities rising up to help those in need, coworkers becoming more like family and a growing sense of pride and support for those on the front line.
The Association for Psychological Science reports that "despite its unpleasantness, pain may actually have positive social consequences, acting as a sort of “social glue” that fosters cohesion and solidarity within groups."
Culture has been shocked, and I believe this will be a defining moment for the globe. My guess is that our new worldview will be seen through the lens of "pre and post coronavirus." And my hope is that once this all passes, our collective empathy for each other will continue to increase, stamping out loneliness, anxiety and fear.
Time: People in Salerno singing from their balconies
Social distancing = a new togetherness. I know that I have a newfound sense of belonging—through all of this, I've learned about new places, the populations of different cities, their cultures and seeing people who are worlds apart respond in similar uplifting ways.
Some of us have been literally more together too, working from home with spouses, roomies, dogs and kids. And for those apart, the world has embraced Zooming—a video platform that was originally created for video conference calls—using it to schedule virtual happy hours, yoga sessions, dance parties, art shows, church services and more.
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Our current constraints have led to a massive flourishing of innovation and creativity. The way businesses, schools, healthcare have shifted online nearly overnight is incredibly impressive. The experiences people and brands are creating to find some joy in this bizarre new normal have been amazing and some are downright hilarious.
For example, if you're single and looking for love, you shouldn't be stopped. Riffing off of Netflix's recent popular hit Love is Blind, two roomies decided to start "Love is Quarantine", a virtual dating show taking place on Instagram.
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The media pendulum swings online. Now that live sports, events and just generally going outside of your house are canceled for the time being, our media consumption has drastically shifted to the internet.
Industries like movie studios who have long held onto their archaic point of view of movies first releasing in theaters and then online are being forced to do things differently. Luckily for parents everywhere, Trolls World Tour will skip theaters straight to your TV releasing on 4/10 and Frozen 2 graced Disney+ early.
Brands and agencies are having to rethink media plans overnight in a weird new landscape where coveted supply in programming has fallen off a cliff and events are no longer a possibility. Nimble adaptation and constant monitoring is imperative.
No surprise, there's been an increase in time spent streaming and gaming, but will it stay that way?
Essentially streaming adoption has been forced on the masses, especially for the older populations who don't typically consume media that way. And with more downtime, people are exploring new hobbies and media channels.
My guess is that this behavior will stick to an extent, but that we may see the pendulum swing the other way, with an extreme reversal after the pandemic is over (and then an equalizing of behavior after that).
With many trends, the rise of one has created an equal but opposite rise in an opposing trend. For example, the obsession with social media created a counter behavior of digital detoxing revolution and an analog renaissance (which I wrote about here).
Likely, people will want to get offline and outside more than ever after being cooped up (I know I do!) and there's a chance that the media industry will see these shifts take place.
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Our culture will be forever changed and I'm a big believer that we'll come out on the other side stronger and better for it. We're all in this together and are going to make it through.