Gen Z cares about cultural signals
Recent YouTube pieces argue that younger audiences judge content first by cultural relevance and format rather than by institutional authority, and that platforms like BeReal are now leaning on influencers to attract Gen Z. The conversation emphasizes that discovery and trust can be mediated by creators and social context as much as by editorial accuracy. (youtube.com) (youtube.com)
Younger audiences are sorting content by whether it feels native to their feeds before they sort it by who published it. (services.google.com) Google’s 2025 YouTube Trends survey found 66% of United States users ages 14 to 24 said people their age have a big impact on what people talk about online. The same report said that age group was more excited by new creator content than by new television shows or movies. (services.google.com) The report describes Gen Z’s “cultural literacy” as being built inside creator ecosystems, iterative formats, and direct audience relationships on YouTube. It also said less than one-third of young people felt traditional media did a good job depicting social media, video games, school, and family life. (services.google.com) That shift is showing up in news habits too. Pew Research Center said 21% of United States adults regularly get news from social media news influencers, and the share rises to 37% among adults ages 18 to 29. (pewresearch.org) Pew’s late July and early August 2024 survey of more than 10,000 adults found that people who use news influencers are not only looking for headlines. Among that group, 90% said they get basic facts, 87% said they get opinions, 87% said they get funny posts, and 83% said they get breaking news. (pewresearch.org) The Reuters Institute put the same change in platform terms in June 2024. Its Digital News Report said big platforms were shifting attention away from publishers and toward creators, while pushing video and more engaging formats to keep users inside their apps. (reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk) That helps explain why an app built on anti-polish suddenly made room for public figures. In January 2024, BeReal said brands and celebrities could join as “RealBrands” and “RealPeople,” starting February 6. (techcrunch.com) At the time, TechCrunch reported BeReal had 23 million daily active users, up from 20 million it had cited in August 2023. The company pitched the move as a way for fans to see behind-the-scenes moments from notable people rather than polished promotional posts. (techcrunch.com) BeReal still markets itself in 2026 as a place for a random daily two-minute posting window, front-and-back photos, and “meaningful connections” with friends. Its own site says the format is meant to reject filters, staging, and uploads. (bereal.com) The argument running through these reports is not that institutional accuracy stopped mattering. It is that, for many younger users, format, creator voice, and social context now decide what gets opened first. (reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk)
