Reflex Media and the Strange Content Phenomenon

If you and I grew up around the same time you might remember when Finn the Human found a pair of magic glasses and learned everything about the universe. Finn’s following words, “Everything small is just a small version of everything big,” is just one example of the number of truth bombs sprinkled throughout the wildly popular series, Adventure Time. The fact that my wife and I still watch this show and that it has become the favorite bedtime ritual of our 4-year-old son speaks to key pieces of what defines Reflex Media, this tidal wave of brand-new genres of content that are being devoured by masses of millennials and Gen Z-ers.

Young adults are just old children. We are drawn to the familiar, but we want it in an unfamiliar format. We want the Nesquik and Kool-Aid from our childhood, but we want it in a strange new glass. We want the drama and excitement of the arcade, but we want it all at home. We want to create and participate as much as we want to enjoy the creations of others. The shift from us as children to us as adults has empowered us to develop a rather democratic content ecosystem. Media for the people by the people. Media that gives us new experiences with sprinkles of nostalgia. We are fickle yet loyal. We want to be unique yet we want to belong. We crave authenticity yet we idolize characters. We embrace the weird because we are weird. Some seek it through watching people eat ice cubes, some through watching people squish homemade slime or watching people review the latest popular memes or just chat about their day. We want to be satisfied.

Maybe it was that lady standing in line in front of you in Starbucks watching someone on Instagram methodically cutting bars of soap into tiny little squares, maybe it's that one nephew you have who won’t stop talking about Ninja, Fortnite, and Twitch, maybe you are one of the millions of people who spend their free time watching YouTube videos of people eating food; this wave of strange new content is spreading and if you haven’t noticed you will in short time. More and more brands are using ASMR, the effect of certain stimuli giving you emotive and physical responses. Things like whispering, paper tearing, or fingers tapping gently on a nice smooth surface give people of some sort of primal response. Our brains literally have a reflex that gives viewers chills and feelings of comfort. No wonder as of February 2019, the top non-branded YouTube search term from users in the US was “ASMR” with 2.9 million monthly searches, but Reflex Media goes a lot further than the literal.

It seems to me that people are actively hunting for content that makes them feel something. Something more accessible than the heartbreak in a romance or the adrenaline from a thriller. Either way, we have to work for those responses and endure 2 hours of paying attention. I can search #soapcutting on Instagram and find nearly half a million incredibly satisfying videos of people cutting soap. Do I have any clue why it is so deeply comforting and satisfying to watch these videos? No. Do I care about who had this weird idea in the first place? Nope. I have a hundred feelings in my pocket available at a moment’s notice, in perfectly bite-size pieces. I am a happy consumer. Let’s call it “Feelings as a Service” and see how quickly it turns into the next trendy buzzword. First rule of Reflex Media: deliver the feels, but don’t make me work for it.

Imagine Tom Cruise was available to chat with online for a number of hours every week, that you had an instant way to communicate directly with him. If you are among the large crowd of people who have streamers as their favorite celebrities, you don’t have to imagine. This is your reality. You know that these characters you love are real people, that you can influence them at least to some degree, and that there are plenty of others who feel the same way as you. Not only do you have a relationship with your content, you have a relationship with the creators themselves and, maybe more importantly, you know you are a part of a larger community who shares your interests. After all, Twitch alone averages well over a million viewers per week and about 3 million unique broadcasters per month. To see the social effects of this platform, visit a TwitchCon one year and you will experience extreme passion, community, and competition all blending into a very exciting time. This doesn’t just go for Twitch and video gamers, YouTube sensations, Tiktok legends, and Instagram celebs are all cashing in on their followings via merchandise and meet-n-greets. If viewers want to feel, they also want to feel a part of. Second rule of Reflex Media: content is no longer a one-way street.

This year, one third of the world's population will be 19 years old or younger. Let that sink in. Millennials and Gen-Z have eclipsed the rest in terms of population and overall spending. Genres of content will continue to grow and we will always be able to find what we want to watch or play or listen to. Smart businesses will listen. They will deliver advertisements through methods like lifestyle marketing. Content service providers will define their strategies based on not just who is watching but how they watch. And most importantly, they will be genuine in their approaches, keeping the end customer as the top priority. Third rule of Reflex Media: be real.