PARTY IN THE U.S.A

The recent release of Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special on Disney+ has sparked much fanfare, from watch parties in bars to fervent introspection from Gen Z and Millenial fans of the Disney Channel tween sitcom (2006-2011). The series follows a classic double-life: regular kid Miley Stewart is actually pop sensation Hannah Montana but still deals with school-time shenanigans. Child actress Miley Cyrus eventually became a bona fide pop star, and the anniversary special is part concert, part reminiscence of the series’ impact on pop culture and fandom.

OUR TAKE

Brands have tried to harness nostalgia in many ways. Past products are re-released constantly, with messaging invoking the good ol’ days. When done haphazardly, brands run the risk of being seen as only capable of rehashing previous greats, with no capacity for creativity and innovation. Every brand has some level of heritage and history, but how might one utilize the past without being burdened by it?

We believe the key is deep understanding of what makes the brand tick and smart story-telling. The Barbie movie surprised audiences with its combination of tongue-in-cheek humor and the modernisation of Barbie’s image to authentically reflect the multifaceted nature of womanhood. Easter egg moments were also fun nods to old fandoms, as viewers could point out their favorite discontinued toy character depicted on screen. We’ll be watching to see how the Masters of the Universe film and the hotly awaited Harry Potter HBO Max series will fair.

It’s important to use these throwback moments with thought to feel fresh. The CHANEL 25 Handbag Campaign is a short film-esque commercial directed by French filmmaker Michel Gondry, featuring actress Margot Robbie (again!) set to Kylie Minogue’s beloved track “Come Into My World” (also in time for the 25th anniversary of the song). The film follows Robbie’s character going through a day in her life, and doesn’t beat audiences over the head with the fact that it actually recreates the old music video – a true IYKYK moment.

The way your brand uses nostalgia is about how you speak to consumers. It’s a question of brand longevity and whether your story can be seen as evergreen — can you resonate with both existing and new fans?

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A WORLD OF STORIES

In the last Culture Wire, we briefly talked about book merch—logoed T-shirts and caps that signal niche literary interests, letting readers wear the story. This week, we found something that goes even further.

The Boyfriend Book Box reframes each $497 subscription as a ‘gift’ from the male lead in a dark romance, filled with items designed to bring the character to life. More than 20,000 people are already on the waitlist.

Fans don’t just want to consume stories; they increasingly want to inhabit them. In China, romance narratives are moving off the page and into real life. In a fast-growing offshoot of the murder-mystery roleplay format jubensha, players spend hours acting out tragic love stories alongside paid ‘love companions’. The wider industry now spans roughly 168,000 companies, with 72,000 founded in 2025 alone—up 16% year-on-year.

And remember Love and Deepspace? New updates allow characters to call players by name, creating a more personal experience. Some players are even extending character relationships into ChatGPT and DeepSeek. At the far end of the storytelling spectrum, character.ai users are building companions from scratch.

OUR TAKE

To frame this cultural shift as pure escapism misses the point.

Fictional worlds don’t just entertain—they’re where people go to feel understood, explore connection, and experience emotions everyday life doesn’t always deliver. Some Love and Deepspace players say the game fulfills emotional needs they didn’t even realize were unmet.

Back to books. In Indonesia, where the Reading Interest Index jumped from 66.77 to 72.44 in a single year, BookTok is helping revive reading and turn it into a social identity marker. More than half of readers (62.5%) now discover books through social media.

As reading becomes social, spaces are evolving. Jakarta’s Gramedia Jalma bookstore is designed as a third space blending bookstore, coworking space, and café. Singapore’s National Library Board just launched Chapters, a collectible card game that turns 30 years of library history into a playable narrative.

We’ve previously explored how people are pushing back on frictionless consumption in search of meaning. Narrative is what ties it all together. BookTok, bookstore third spaces, and AI companions may look different, but they point to the same shift: in an uncertain world, people want stories they can enter, extend, and shape—not just watch or read.

Referencing literary culture is easy. Building a narrative people want to step into is harder but far more valuable for brands in the long-term.

In China, Mixue turned sales receipts into serialized fiction, sparking a viral craze. Alipay Alipay partnered with novelist Liu Zhenyun to create a Convenience Store Literature Corner, where everyday people co-create stories. Dr. Seuss reframed reading itself as travel with a faux travel agency where every ‘booking’ leads to a book.

The opportunity for brands is clear: move beyond storytelling, and build worlds people can participate in. Because if anything is clear from BookTok to AI companions, it’s that the demand for stories people can live inside is only accelerating. 

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NEW YEAR, NEW APP

Move over, WeChat. This Lunar New Year, some of China’s biggest tech companies turned a cultural tradition into an install prompt, tying red envelope campaigns directly to their AI apps. Alibaba’s Qwen chatbot offered bubble tea at ¥0.01 as part of a ¥3 billion ($431 million) campaign, processing over 10 million orders within nine hours of launch (yes, it was chaotic for the delivery drivers). Tencent’s Yuanbao AI assistant ran a ¥1 billion red envelope promotion with users invited to share links with contacts to win cash prizes; meanwhile Baidu’s Wenxin AI followed with its own ¥500 million push.

Converting curiosity into engagement was also Duolingo’s play at the Super Bowl. The brand launched Bad Bunny 101 ahead of the rapper’s historic halftime show, encouraging fans to learn Spanish phrases from his songs. After 140 million people tuned in to the performance, Duolingo saw a 35% week-on-week jump in Spanish-language learners.

Clearly, there’s no shortage of brands inserting themselves into cultural moments. But there is a gap between using shared moments as a user acquisition funnel and actually earning a place inside those moments. Ramadan is the next test case, with global brands increasingly turning to local artist collaborations, commissioning poets, illustrators and street artists to shape the creative direction from the outset, rather than just endorse a finished product. 

OUR TAKE

Tying red envelopes directly to AI tools to seed adoption at scale paid off: Qwen processed 120 million orders in six days and surged to the top of China’s App Store, while Yuanbao unseated ByteDance’s Doubao. WeChat dominated China’s app ecosystem for years. Now, these AI companies are using the country’s biggest cultural moment to come for WeChat’s crown – and not just among early adopters. Nearly half of Qwen’s orders came from county-level and rural areas, while 1.56 million people aged 60+ made their first-ever online purchase through the app. Now the bigger question is, can that engagement outlast the moment?  

As we’ve previously explored, rituals (such as red envelopes) and seasons help people anchor themselves in uncertain times. But that means that the stakes for brands entering those spaces are considerably higher. Ramadan – the major cultural event for 25% of the world’s population – is a case in point. In both Indonesia and Malaysia, heartfelt family storytelling ranks as the strongest marker of authentic Ramadan advertising, above discounts, influencer campaigns, and celebrity endorsements. 

Ferragamo’s Threads of Light with Emirati poet Fatima AlJarman and Lacoste’s collaboration with Indonesian illustrator Yfana Khadija Amelz (who designed the brand’s full local Ramadan campaign) are examples of brands trying to meet that bar. But this is about more than partnerships with local talent, it’s about when they’re brought in. Inviting an artist to approve a finished brief isn’t enough – when they’re involved from the start, the finished campaign gains a credibility that can’t be faked. 

Brands have always inserted themselves into cultural moments. What’s changed is consumers, who are better able to spot tokenism and quicker to reject it. The seniors using AI chatbots to make purchases, the consumers who put storytelling above discounts and the surge in Spanish learners post-SuperBowl are all part of the same story: familiar moments and traditions can lower the barrier to unfamiliar brands or technologies. Of course, that all depends on the brand earning a place in the moment, rather than just showing up for it.

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TOUCH GRASS

Gen Z grew up online, but in 2025, many sought experiences the algorithm couldn’t deliver. While BookTok continued to drive reading trends, digital recommendations fueled distinctly offline pursuits: book club retreats and book club crafts (up 265% and 558% on Pinterest respectively).  Analog bags and junk journaling clubs are on the rise in the US, alongside once-fossilized hobbies like crochet and zine-making. The trend is playing out across SEA too, with over half of Filipino Gen Z actively trying digital detoxes and Singapore Gen Z four times more likely than the global average to search for ‘pen pals’.

OUR TAKE 

The algorithm can recommend a book, but it can’t replicate the book club. As concerns about the impact of AI on childhood and cognition intensify, the pull towards analog is only likely to grow.

Digital platforms are driving demand for offline experiences. Will you be the brand that actually creates them?

A FANTASY ROMANCE

Over the last 12 months, romance on women’s terms has taken center stage. Remember the cultural obsession with Conrad Fisher from The Summer I Turned Pretty? See also the growth of AI boyfriend apps and otome games — interactive romance narratives where players pursue fictional love interests — which won hearts and wallets in SEA. The momentum shows no sign of slowing: Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights lands on Valentine’s Day 2026, marketed with the tagline ‘come undone’ and a Charli XCX soundtrack.

OUR TAKE 

Escapism? Sure. But when women invest at this scale, they’re not rejecting romance – they’re showing you what it’s been missing. No ghosting, no situationships, guaranteed emotional payoff. Fictional romance delivers what modern dating often doesn’t…

Does your brand or industry treat female desire like an afterthought? How is that changing?

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CAN I MEME THIS?

Is it a meme in and of itself to talk about the current day AI sloppification of memes? To long for when actual human beings would apply finishing touches to the thinking man’s meme? This is one of the questions behind the Great Meme Reset, a call to action that snowballed on TikTok for memes to harken back to our shared humanity, come 1 January 2026. Memes used to serve more as ciphers, with layers of meaning, allusion and backstory to be unpacked. Nowadays, meme-craft can be turned over to AI meme generators that go heavy on throwaway, meaningless imagery to elicit quick bursts of emotion that are then forgotten.

The backlash against pump-and-dump content comes and goes, but it’s clear that people want to feel something again – as well as see the actual human-made qualities of what’s being consumed. This is paramount for story-telling in the entertainment industry, but also for brands that don’t want their customer outreach to get lost in noise. Brand-building is akin to story-telling, and customers want more than just the reductive and sensational.

OUR TAKE

There have never been more ways for brands to engage with customers, but it still feels like everyone is competing for tiny slices of attention pie. Each customer touchpoint becomes a permutation of screens – someone is watching a program on streaming while playing a mobile game and also browsing through TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. There are industry murmurs that streaming executives wonder if content needs to be dumbed down, to outslop the slop. Does this spell the end of prestige TV? Is this why people are nostalgic for prestige memes?

Microdramas can get the short end of the stick, especially when compared to the “serious business” of prestige TV and auteurs. The dramatic plot twists and AI enthusiasm in the visual effects are easy to dismiss. It would be myopic though to forget about why people are drawn to this content  – the emotional beats of the characters and storylines coupled with accessible formats equal a thriving fandom. We’ve covered this before in a previous edition of CultureWire! Microdramas speak to consumers and the love for stories, and shouldn’t all be painted with the same brush.

At the end of the day, people will always be drawn to impactful story-telling. This especially pertains to the reviled advertisement format. Brands are experimenting with cinematic story-telling and movie-making tools to create ads that are short films. Watching ads in theaters before the actual movie starts used to be fun, until the ads got too long. But what if it were a 33-minute story with Hollywood talent and an idiosyncratic director? It no longer feels like just product placement, but a story that feels purposeful and makes it fun to engage with the brand. Thus the ad playbook continues to evolve, as these formats aren’t a magic bullet and won’t guarantee audience engagement. Who knows, movie-rating service Rotten Tomatoes may end up passing judgement on these ads.

Consumers might be as distracted as ever, but the yearning to feel something and feel spoken to remains. Brands have a plethora of tools (this includes AI!) at their disposal – what are you going to say next about your brand?

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CROCHET COMMUNITY

DIY creators are gaining traction with Gen Z eyeballs. Once fossilized hobbies such as crochet and scrapbooking are now celebrated as means of self-expression and sustainability. Crafts can build community, via knitting clubs and zine workshops – yes, zines are back!

OUR TAKE

Brands have noticed and now incorporate this enthusiasm in their strategies: from product collaborations with creators to craft-led at-retail experiences. In the war for attention and wallets, it can be tempting to trendjack crafts as a silver bullet to gain traction with new generations of consumers. Luxury especially is rethinking playbooks, as previously safe bet markets such as Japan and China face economic headwinds.

Luxury continues to grapple with Gen Zs, who demand authentic storytelling and articulation of value-for-money. Consumers are savvier than ever about the building blocks of craftsmanship, with popular Youtube channels dedicated to dissecting (literally) luxury handbags.

Southeast Asia as a luxury market is also evolving. Homegrown brands are gaining prominence, to showcase cultural identity and pride and not just be one of the masses with the same monogrammed product. Those handbags, instantly recognizable when carried by politicians and people in power, are now the topic of scrutiny and public backlash in the Philippines and Indonesia. Young people on social media question and protest these examples of extravagance by the elite, with allegations of corruption and cronyism.

This does not mean that Southeast Asian consumers are rejecting brands and labels. Luxury is still sought after, as emotional resonance is more important than ever. Asian players are now shooting their shot, from South Korean and Indonesian leather bags to Chinese fragrances. Regardless of where your brand is from, consumers want a deeply personal experience across all touchpoints.

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 LAST CAPE STANDING

Regular readers know superhero fatigue has been a running joke for the last few years, so when Superman surpassed US$ 400 M globally this week, you’d be forgiven for assuming capes are cool again. Strong reviews and audience praise for the movie’s hopecore message (one moviegoer said: “I haven’t felt depressed even once” since watching it) helped drive up ticket sales, alongside a relatively unknown but ultimately likeable lead actor and a viral press tour. But before we declare that superhero fatigue is over, there’s a more complex story here…

OUR TAKE

On paper, Superman wasn’t an easy sell. Yet another superhero film in a saturated and stagnant genre, combined with the challenge of marketing a quintessentially American character in an anti-American moment. Ahead of the launch, director James Gunn talked up Superman’s universal appeal: “I’m telling a story about a guy who is uniquely good, and that feels needed now because there is a meanness that has emerged due to cultural figures being mean online”.

You can draw a direct line between that comment and the audience’s embrace of Superman’s hopecore message. The film deliberately leans into positive masculinity – and that resonated with the core young male audience who’ve been served nothing but brooding antiheroes for years. The love is spilling into real life too: Krypto the superdog helped drive up searches for dog adoption, with Google searches for “adopt a dog near me” jumping up 513% after the opening weekend (the more specific “rescue dog adoption near me” rose by 163%) .

But rather than signaling a franchise renaissance, Superman’s triumph tells us something about the current state of culture. With studios remaining committed to ‘cultural backsliding‘ (did you see the identikit Harry Potter stills?), the broader entertainment landscape feels stagnant.

That’s reinforced by our collective inability to agree on a ‘song of the summer’ and an onslaught of AI-generated content (the AI band Velvet Sundown racked up 1 M Spotify plays). Signs of pushback are emerging: YouTube’s recent pledge to crackdown on AI-generated video content highlights that platforms recognize audiences can tell the difference between genuine creativity and manufactured culture.

Against that backdrop, Superman’s success shouldn’t be read as a permission slip to keep recycling IP . Instead, it shows what franchise films now need to do to break through cultural noise. Gunn didn’t just make another superhero film; he had to reinvent what the character could mean against 2025’s political and cultural climate.

The lesson for marketers? Leveraging familiar or nostalgic brand equity now requires genuine reinvention. Whether you’re reviving a product line or tapping brand recognition, audiences expect you to answer ‘why now?’. Rather than falling back on familiarity, justify why a story matters today.

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MOODBOARDING MANHOOD

Forget everything you knew about Pinterest. The platform long associated with weddings, recipes and cottagecore is now going full throttle on men.

For the first time, Pinterest has released a men-only trend report, spotlighting how male users (especially Gen Z) are showing up on the platform. 1 in 3 Pinterest users are now men, and no–they’re not just saving sneaker boards. Top trending searches include “Pilates outfits”, “faded beard styles for men”, “rock climbers”, and “jorts outfit”. In fact, Pinterest just launched a dedicated Pinterest Man profile to house rising trends in men’s style, wellness, and lifestyle.

On the surface, it might look like Pinterest is just playing catch-up with a demographic they previously overlooked. But look closer, and this marks a deeper cultural inversion: a rewriting of gender-coded spaces.

OUR TAKE

Spaces once seen as inherently feminine (fashion, self-care, even moodboarding) are being reimagined for male audiences. It’s the reverse of what we’re used to: think soccer vs women’s soccer. Where masculinity was once the default, feminine-coded spaces are also becoming aspirational as men look for tools and community that can help shape their identity.

Asia has been quietly leading this shift for years, expanding the meaning of masculinity beyond stoicism and strength into something more layered: emotional fluency, aesthetic exploration, and cultural self-awareness.

•  Boys’ Love dramas broadened the emotional range of masculinity in media
• Japanese brand WOLG wants to normalise “masculine makeup” and challenge stereotypes
• Skincare brands like Etude House and Innisfree offer male-specific product lines that are widely embraced by Gen Z
• American-Vietnamese designer Hung La’s label Lu’u Dan reclaims the Asian masculinity narrative, previously flattened by Western tropes

In recent years, young men have often been portrayed as “lost” through mental health stats, manosphere headlines, and a loneliness epidemic too vast to ignore. Pinterest’s move however offers a different narrative that aligns more closely with what is already unfolding in Asia. We’re not just looking at what men are into but rather what’s important to them: self-care, agency and a sense of self.

Much like their female counterparts rethinking femininity (hello brat summer, demure & mindful), we’re also seeing masculinity take on new, sometimes unexpected, cultural forms. From the popularity of aura farming to Minecraft’s box office chaos, led by Gen Alpha boys – male audiences are increasingly shaping and dominating cultural participation.

So what does this mean for brands? 

It’s time to ditch the old pink = feminine, tech = masculine rhetoric and expand your assumptions. If your brand speaks to “women,” ask yourself: what would it mean to open the door to others? And if you’re targeting men, ask: what are your assumptions about who they are and what needs to change?

Brands don’t need to solve masculinity but they can support the process. Whether it’s helping someone rewrite their own identity or giving others the tools to witness, support or even challenge that transformation with empathy – brands can either shape the space or make it safer for others to step into it.

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 LAST CALL FOR CALLS?

From Beans&Beats to Kopicats , Before Midnight , 404 Not Found and Lisette’s , a new social scene is emerging. Across SEA, Gen Z is swapping clubs for coffee shops, attending daytime raves that feature everything you’d expect from traditional nightlife — DJs, dancing, social connection — with a key differentiator: they’re powered by cortados instead of cocktails, and they finish by 7pm. So what’s got Gen Z dancing to a different beat?

OUR TAKE

You’re familiar with the narrative: Gen Z are drinking less. Only 3 in 10 Gen Z Singaporeans drink beer, compared to 44% of the general population. And nightlife is in decline with Singapore’s nightlife revenue falling from S$674.7M in 2015 to just S$284.7M in 2022

But daytime raves are more than a cheaper alternative. For one, it lets you choose spaces that feel safe and emotionally reachable. Loud, overstimulating, late-night clubbing environments were built for people who drink to forget. But Gen Z’s shtick has never been escapism – they want to connect, without the sensory chaos.

Daytime raves offer exactly that. They’re brighter, cheaper, and easier to explain to your parents (a $20 sober afternoon with friends hits very differently from a $100 bar tab). And logistically, they work: people are home by 7PM, no Grab surge pricing, no hangover.

The larger truth is that nightlife, as we’ve known it, was never really made for us.

Asian social culture has always emphasized respite over escapism. When the going gets tough, the practical thing to do is to take a quick break between responsibilities, but never to drown your sorrows. A culture of quiet indulgence – why torture yourself with bitter booze when you could have bubble tea, matcha, or a wellness tonic that even your mom would approve of?

The shift is happening region-wide and while each market adapts to local culture:

• Bangkok: Day raves often blend in wellness, healing, and body movement.
• Manila: The vibe is small-group intimacy (think: more “tagay” than techno)
• KL: Sober raves give young Muslims a social space of their own, and letting mixed friend groups gather without compromise
• Singapore: A nightlife that typically catering to expats, tourists and high-spenders – Gen Z locals are building their own spaces instead

So yes, it’s about wellness. But it’s also about agency and aesthetics. For women and queer folks, who often felt out of place in traditional nightlife, daytime raves feel safer and more inclusive. The lighting at these places is also better and you can actually hear your friends.

So brands, sip on this:

• Gen Z is reimagining nightlife. What other Western social frameworks are they ready to rewrite?
• How can you create third places that match local social patterns?
• With wellness spending easier to justify, how should you price, package, and position your experience?

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Despite lukewarm trailers, widespread online ridicule, and an IP that doesn’t follow a traditional storyline, A Minecraft Movie has just pulled off the biggest box office debut of 2025 — raking in over $160M in the US and Canada alone. Forecasts initially pegged it at a modest $65M, later revised to $85M as buzz picked up. But nothing came close to the reality.

The hype didn’t stop at the cinema. Minecraft daily active players jumped 35% over two weekends, thanks in part to in-game events and the kind of fandom momentum money can’t buy. Online, the movie sparked viral chaos with the rise of the “chicken jockey” moment, where teens reenacted a rare in-game occurrence (baby zombie riding a chicken) by hoisting friends onto shoulders and launching popcorn mid-screening. At the same time, Minecraft: Volume Alpha — the game’s original lo-fi soundtrack — was quietly added to the Library of Congress for its cultural, aesthetic, and emotional significance.

So this week, we’re unpacking how a film that was widely dismissed online ended up outperforming every industry prediction — and what it reveals about how younger audiences are reshaping cultural consumption, participation, and power.

OUR TAKE

The unprecedented success of A Minecraft Movie wasn’t just a box office anomaly, it marked a cultural shift that’s been a long time coming. Gen Alpha, long mythologized in trend reports and think pieces but dismissed due to their lack of spending power, is finally stepping into the spotlight. And they’re not writing haikus about intergenerational trauma like Millennials, or posting shaky-camera TikToks with half-baked think pieces like Gen Z.

Unlike previous generations, Gen Alpha has been immersed in digital environments from birth, with games like Minecraft and Roblox serving as foundational platforms for creativity, social interaction, and self-expression. The screen was never just entertainment — it was where their identities were formed.

Their engagement with media is not passive; it’s participatory, blurring the lines between virtual and real-world experiences. The “chicken jockey” trend exemplifies this shift. What might seem like chaotic theater behavior is, for Gen Alpha, a natural extension of their digital lives into physical spaces. Why wouldn’t you recreate a moment from your favorite world with your real-life crew? For Gen Alpha, content is something you inhabit, not just consume.

Notably, this moment is being driven by young boys — a group rarely spotlighted in today’s fandom economy. While girls have long been the intended audience of pop marketing, Gen Alpha boys are showing up with full meme energy, reminding us that fandom isn’t gendered — it’s generational.

Sure, older Gen Z and Millennials were also at the theater, chasing one last dopamine hit from their pixelated childhoods. But while those generations built culture by remixing the past, Gen Alpha is building it in real time. Their instinct for collective chaos, their comfort in blurring boundaries, and their refusal to separate online from offline points to a future that’s less curated and more communal.
The success of A Minecraft Movie is just the beginning.​ Gen Alpha doesn’t need permission, this world has always been theirs. And now, they’re taking up space. Online, offline, and everywhere in between.

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

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