This new emerging cohort of media consumers has some very interesting characteristics. It tends to be younger - Generation Z is pretty heavily present - but it cleaves across all age groups. Though Boomers are much less prevalent, this seems to have much less to do with age and more to do with societal values.
Let's take what I consider to be the most interesting prevailing attitudes of this audience, and see how they relate to one another:
The only "interesting" one I didn't put into the Venn diagram was its pointed feelings toward AI. Cohort Aware dislikes AI slop and thinks it's ruining content and community, yet it has an appreciation for AI workflows and automation. That's something to drill into later.
Cohort Aware dislikes algorithmically-driven content and social media feeds, understanding fully the concepts behind "doomscrolling," and "ragebait," believing those encourage content consumption that resembles addiction. They're also acutely aware of the downsides of the disinformation algorithms can spread.
Let's start to fill in some of the blanks with the characteristics of these attitudes:
Wrap your head around this audience. It wants media, but it wants it a certain way. Curated by friends, not by algorithms. Friend-centric, with fewer opportunities for randos to inject themselves. If the signal-to-noise ratio gets too out of whack with respect to 'outsiders,' this audience has precisely the proclivity to jump ship and move to other emerging platforms.
And what is at the intersections of these four attitudinal characteristics?
Beginning to see the picture? All four of these values are directly at odds with how the modern digital media business conducts itself. Cohort Aware isn't into paying for dwindling content on a monthly basis, putting it at odds with the notion of "You will own nothing and be happy." It doesn't trust algorithms, and has turned to the input of friends to fill the gap left by its abandonment of them. And it knows its platforms are decaying as long as those platforms adhere to the growth demands of late-stage capitalism. It wants to reward independent creators.
If you're a marketer or a paid media professional, your biggest questions might be:
1) How big is this cohort?
2) How big will it get?
3) Over what period of time?
4) If the open web and the walled gardens won't suffice for reaching them, what will?
5) What platforms might they jump to?
Yes, there are lots of questions here, including the weird bit that doesn't seem to fit - it's partial acceptance of AI. Many things to explore in future posts.