WHERE WE’VE BEEN & WHERE WE’RE GOING
The TL;DR: Going forward, this newsletter will focus on helping brands understand communities, build within them, and activate in ways that create lasting cultural equity.
In 2019, we started the Culture Task Force newsletter to track daily trends and help brands stay relevant on social. But in the past six years, what relevance looks like has fundamentally shifted. As we highlighted in our 2026 In & Out List, “trend‑jacking” is out (jumping into fleeting moments has become performative and empty) and brands no longer win by being the 100th account posting the same meme or live‑tweeting the Super Bowl. What’s in is building collaborative brand worlds: a distinct voice, vibe, and cast of characters rooted in the shared passions of your most valuable communities. Speed isn’t a differentiator anymore; clarity of perspective is.
That’s why we’re evolving this newsletter to a weekly format focused less on daily reaction and more on the exploration of people and their passions.. Social marketing has matured from chasing micro‑trends to stewarding macro ones; from reacting to responding with intention. Take, for example, Slim Jim:
Historically, they went viral by jumping into random internet moments with chaotic humor. But their most recent “moment” came from going deep within the Stranger Things community to become a key player in the fan theory Conformity Gate through off-page community engagement. They adopted the language, lore, and in‑jokes of the fandom, to become a character inside the culture rather than a brand commenting on it. That community‑driven relevance is durable in a way trend‑jacking never was.
A snapshot of communities and fandoms to help with community engagement
⛸️ Olympics Fans Find Their Main Characters
What’s Going On: Between figure skating’s “Quad God,” “Blade Angels,” and Chock & Bates — and that Norwegian biathlete who apologized for cheating on his girlfriend on TV — fans of the winter Olympics have no shortage of characters to obsess over on social and it changes nightly as new stars and stories come out of Milan-Cortina.
🇵🇷 Bad Bunny’s Fandom Skyrockets
What’s Going On: After Benito’s vibrant and historic Super Bowl halftime show got over 4 billion (with a b!) views on social, Bad Bunny fans are now in the spotlight while the rest of the world catches up. The halftime show was full of deeply personal IYKYK details and cultural storytelling that fans and critics alike are still dissecting days later.
⚽ Manchester United’s Most Dedicated?
What’s Going On: A Manchester United fan who pledged not to cut his hair until his team won 5 premier league games in a row waited 493 days for them to win 4 straight games — only for them to tie the 5th and send him back to square one on day 494. And he’s still a fan. Now that’s dedication.
Four must-click links that crossed our feeds today.
Moltbook shows what happens when a Reddit-style social network for AI agents goes viral, with bots “talking” to each other.
Even in our hyper-personalized online lives, big shared cultural moments remind us we do still crave and find connection in doing things together.
How AI “slop” is blurring the line between real and fake online.
How the National Gallery of Art’s social team is “rizzing up the internet with art history.”
What’s new and notable in the world of TV/streaming, theaters, and the charts.
TV/Streaming - After fans binge the first six episodes of Love Is Blind Season 10 (Netflix) catch up on the nightly Olympics primetime broadcasts (Peacock.)
Movies - The obvious choice for Valentine’s Day weekend, “Wuthering Heights” (Theaters) is stirring up buzz for both its adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel and the chemistry between Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie.
Music - Charli XCX drops her much anticipated Wuthering Heights soundtrack (Atlantic) and indie fans get Chet Faker’s comeback A Love for Strangers [BMG].
