The Webby Awards, an annual international award show that recognizes excellence on the internet, hosted a Webby Talk on online content at our Chicago headquarters titled, “It’s Giving Brainrot,” diving into chronically online culture, how niche internet references are moving into the mainstream media, and how this impacts brands.  

Brainrot is defined as the condition of being terminally online with humor and pathos and is used to describe a thoroughly internet – poisoned state of mind. Young consumers (Gen Z and Gen A) are leading this trend, meeting serious issues with unserious responses. Due to the spending power of these younger consumers, this phenomenon is important for brands to understand in order to appeal to this audience.  

tms’ Ryan Hedges, SVP Strategy & Experience, and JT Andexler, SVP Group Creative Director joined Jordana Jarrett, Head of content from Webby in a panel discussion to dive further into the topic. Read the teams’ insights below.  

Brainrot has been popularized so much so that 1.2 billion views are associated with brainrot content. Authenticity and having a strategic approach that takes ordinary things and puts an in-ordinary twist to it is key in successfully driving activations that pique consumer interests. Keeping this interest requires the ability to inject value for the consumer. The way we define value could be saving time and money, but also the emotional value of making people laugh and cry. 

The next generation is fluent already in this brainrot language and demand we keep up to connect with them. Influencers are a large part of this ecosystem, and brands must ensure their products and brand DNA align with the content creator to avoid inauthenticity. Consumers want reciprocation from the brand – It’s not about being trendier in the moment, it’s when they need help, they want that help. Consumers want to know they are treated well by the brands they’re spending money on. It’s as simple as that. 

Quick and absurd content is shifting culture, with meme and AI culture propelling us further. Algorithms and the regurgitation of content makes it harder for people to get out of their brainrot holes and deeper into what they truly love in this echo chamber of content.  AI will eventually start creating lowest common denominator content which will be very boring and obvious over time, so you need that creative outlet and spark from a person to help facilitate AI, rather than completely automating the process.  

The whole idea of brainrot can be risky for clients – It requires them to put themselves out there and to take those risks, but it’s also really cool. We live in a space where we can embrace this risk: we create content, try it out, benchmark it, learn from it, and learn how we can optimize it to make it better.  

Learn about other expert panels tms colleagues have recently partaken in, such as the CIMA Mobile Gaming Event.