Tessa Love is a writer whose work focuses on the undertones of culture and human experience. Her work has been featured in Outside Magazine, The Believer, Longreads, BBC, and more. She is also a cultural researcher and trend analyst specialising in youth behaviours and insights. She has produced reports, articles, white papers, and films that have informed the strategies of some of the world’s biggest brands, and she previously served as the editorial director of Western Europe for the global youth insights and research agency YPulse.

From decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs)  run on Discord to city-wide mutual aid groups, people are finding safety and optimism in numbers. For growing numbers of people, collective action is emerging as the only viable solution to compounding crises and deepening alienation.

World Builders

In a hyper-connected world, it feels like everything previously ‘insider’ is more available than ever: from behind-the-scenes access to the lives of public figures to travel experiences immersing people into worlds previously deemed unattainable. But while people embrace this community-based inclusivity and unprecedented access to their icons, they still yearn for touches of exclusivity to define their status.

As the age-old understanding of exclusivity is eroded, people are redefining status for themselves using a broad range of factors beyond solely economic ones. This new iteration of status is often based around increasingly niche and local signifiers – from luxury dupes to the rise of members clubs and closed-community spaces based on shared interests. Status is becoming a mode of belonging and connection with like-minded people.

People are erecting walls of their exclusive communities, relying on more subtle markers of identity. This is apparent with middle-class people fetishising working-class aesthetics, athletes turning to niche sports like padel, and social media groups organising around niche interests – spawning companies. As status-defined micro-trends on social media accelerate, brands face a challenge to keep up. If previously certain legacy items were automatically associated with exclusivity, now people are much more trusting of the UGC-defined vision of what status means. More than ever, speed, knowledge, inventiveness, and being plugged into the community determine what – and who – is in.

Insider Status

Tom Webster is a partner at Sounds Profitable, which is dedicated to setting the course for the future of the audio business. He is a 25-year veteran audio researcher, a trusted advisor to the biggest companies in podcasting, and has been the co-author and driver behind some of audio’s most influential studies. Webster has led hundreds of audience research projects on six continents for some of the most listened-to podcasts and syndicated radio shows in the world.

Gen Z (born 1997-2010)

United States

Media and Entertainment

Communications

Social networking

Variety

Rolling Stone

Adweek

Vanity Fair

Podnews

Interview with Tom Webster conducted by the author

Edison Research

Insider Intelligence

Pew Research Center

The Podcast Host

The Guardian

Sounds Profitable

 is more than just a podcast. Through candid chats on pressing topics, Cooper isn't just setting trends and growing a media empire – she's decoding Gen Z's digital heartbeat. Why are members of this cohort tuning in, and what about this icon is so compelling?