The internet has relentlessly fragmented culture, breaking every possible idea, interest, or aesthetic into its own niche. Theoretically, it has made the vast information ecosystem feel more attainable and consumable. But in reality, it has siloed us into tailored subcultures, which are relentlessly fueled by our algorithms, until those close-knit communities become completely insular. 

Arguably, the most powerful shared moments were tethered to cinema. Ironic, considering the widely promoted death of the modern movie theater. The first trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day garnered 718.6 million views in its first 24 hours live and built a base of 2.86 billion followers before its official opening. It is also the second-fastest film to pass the $1 billion box office threshold after Avengers: Endgame. The Odyssey saw a similar response to its teaser trailer, with social media chatter across platforms providing equal parts praise and criticism. It pulled in more than 121.4 million views across TikTok (27%), YouTube (26%), Facebook (21%), Instagram (18%), and X (10%), making it Universal’s most-watched trailer of the year, even pulling ahead of Wicked: For Good, which garnered 113 million views in its first 24 hours live. The film has also built a stronger long tail in global box office sales, largely due to its presence in 85 territories. 

Do these numbers represent a true return to a monoculture? Do they reflect a global consumer’s new (or heightened) desire for shared experiences? Or is this merely a case where cultural events fall at the same point in the calendar, creating marketing moments that operate under the guise of collective participation? We asked three experts in consumer behavior, brand strategy, and cultural insights to weigh in. 

Is the Monoculture Really Back?

Our experts break down the headline claim directly, dissecting whether the monoculture has returned, or whether it ever actually went away in the first place. 

Jon Copestake, EY Global Consumer Senior Analyst

“I’m not sure monoculture ever truly went away. Instead, it has evolved into digital monocultures driven by mass meme adoption and viral videos, which have inverted the traditional ‘top-down’ monoculture (where the world aligns behind something big) into a more ‘bottom-up’ model, where generational subcultures that emerged as alternatives to the mainstream became mainstream phenomena themselves. K-pop, Labubus, and brain rot memes are interesting examples of this phenomenon. When the 6-7 gesture makes national news, then a subculture has transcended into something monocultural.

I do partly agree with the idea that top-down monoculture made a comeback in the summer of 2026. The simplest explanation is that there was simply more for people to relate to and align behind than in previous years. Unifying physical events such as the Winter Olympics and the World Cup, alongside major global developments and extreme weather across much of Europe and North America, have created more shared touchpoints for consumers. People are collectively experiencing major events unfolding around them, experiencing them physically but sharing them digitally.”

Anne-Liese Prem, Head of Cultural Insights & Trends, LOOP (ALP)

“From a European perspective, I don’t think shared culture ever disappeared to the extent the monoculture narrative suggests. We’ve had brat summer! We had Barbie and Oppenheimer, and the Eras Tour. What I do think has changed is the architecture around these moments. Look at the World Cup: football was only the center. Around it were politics, gaming, betting, fashion, celebrities, national identity, music, relationships, and endless little soap operas. You didn’t have to be a football fan to find your way in. Taylor Swift’s wedding did the same, pulling in everyone from teenage girls to sports fans and celebrity culture. That’s interesting for brands: the new mass cultural moment isn’t one story everybody consumes in the same way. It's one big event with many different entry points.”

Reilly Newman, Brand Strategist, Motif Brands

“People seem to be gravitating towards a monoculture, but I think the effect of monoculture has become the cause. This stems from the feeling that the World Cup or the newest summer blockbuster movie are attempts to recreate monoculture, rather than the natural byproduct of an event. Whether driven by older generations’ nostalgia or younger generations’ desire for social connection, these monoculture events feel manufactured. Before, these events just happened. Now it feels like we are recreating the events in search of that feeling again or as a social signaling device.”

The Emotional and Psychological Drivers 

Are Gen Alpha and Gen Z rebelling against the digital connectivity that drives their very existence? Or is their participation in culture reflecting how digital supports the activation and transmission of culture once they participate in a shared experience?

Jon Copestake, EY Global Consumer Senior Analyst

“I think the world has underestimated the longer-term impact that COVID-19 had on the digital behaviors of younger consumers. The explosion of digital subcultures we’ve seen over the last few years reflects a combination of the rapid growth of short-form video content and memes that supported young people to navigate periods of isolation and lockdowns. What we’ve seen since is people gradually embracing physical experiences alongside digital ones. Factors like secondhand shopping and nostalgia for the 1990s reflect this, as both digital platforms and physical experiences support the trend.

People experienced the World Cup and Winter Olympics both online and in person as shared experiences. ‘Community-maxxing’ is making a comeback, but digital connections often support it. Physical experiences and activities are gaining traction faster because they are shared digitally and can go viral more quickly. In 2026, this underlying trend towards physical experiences and digital sharing was likely amplified by major sporting events and a particularly hot summer across many Western countries, which encouraged a more outgoing and physically social approach to culture.”

Reilly Newman, Brand Strategist, Motif Brands

“There seem to be two sides of the coin. One side is simply the genuine social connection we gain from these shared experiences, which brings us to the classic psychological forces of intrinsic vs extrinsic motivations. There truly is magic in being at a live concert or a live sports game with crowds of people. This is a healthy, intrinsic sense of belonging; something that you engage with alongside people with similar interests through the given associations. The other side of the coin seems to be using these events as extrinsic, social signaling devices. For example, those friends on social media who got very into soccer this year seemingly out of nowhere. They don’t seek the social connection or even the sport as much as they seek to just be ‘part of it’ so they can say that they were there during that time; social currency via cosplay.”

Anne-Liese Prem, Head of Cultural Insights & Trends, LOOP (ALP)

“I think two things are happening simultaneously. We’re living in an extremely individualized culture that has somehow also become incredibly same. The algorithm promised personalization, yet we ended up with the same beige aesthetics, the same coffee shops, the same faces, the same fashion, the same restaurants. There is boredom with that sameness. At the same time, life has become genuinely complex, particularly economically for younger generations. I don’t think they necessarily want to escape reality. I think they increasingly want simple, pleasurable ways of being together within it. A football match or the new Marvel movie doesn’t have to promise anything profound. You can just watch it with other people and have a good time. There is something refreshingly uncomplicated about that.”

How Brands Can Play the Game

What’s the line between authentic participation and money-grabbing? The panel shares how brands can translate new consumer behaviors into meaningful indicators that support brand strategy, marketing, and experience design.

Anne-Liese Prem, Head of Cultural Insights & Trends, LOOP (ALP)

“Don’t confuse monoculture with mass marketing. The lesson from these moments isn’t to find one giant message that appeals to everybody; it’s almost the opposite. Create enough entry points that different communities can find their own reason to participate. The World Cup can simultaneously be about football, fashion, gaming, national identity, and celebrity culture. The center holds, but the stories around it multiply and move to more private channels like DMs, WhatsApp groups, forums.

I also think brands need to move beyond simply asking how they can get attention around a cultural moment and ask what people can actually do within it. We’ve talked about the shift towards experiences for years. I think we’re now finally seeing people genuinely prioritize them.”

Reilly Newman, Brand Strategist, Motif Brands

“Associations are key to a powerful flywheel. Through association, a brand cultivates alignment by showing a specific audience that it’s relevant. This is the start of what I call the Positioning Flywheel. Christopher Nolan is not only a great director. He has deep associations with ingenious direction, analog techniques, top actors, IMAX/film, lore, and amazing storytelling. The ‘Nolan’ brand created the monoculture event of The Odyssey while only spending the industry norm on marketing. Those who went aligned with the Nolan fan club and what Nolan represents as a creator, plus the wider audience that enjoys high-quality film. Nolan is more than just a movie; he is a category of movie thanks to the associations that generate an event when his movies drop. This flywheel creates the subculture and kinship that follow into spectacular monocultural participation.”

Jon Copestake, EY Global Consumer Senior Analyst

“Monocultures can be homogeneous and exclusive, which can be problematic. There is a balance between subculture participation and monocultural participation that helps define self-identity. Someone might love esports as a subculture with its own distinct community, but use monocultural events like the World Cup to engage with a wider group of people. Retailers and brands need to figure out how best to fit into that equation to serve the communities they feel closest to. 

Retailers have an opportunity to use their physical spaces to strike the right balance between monoculture and subcultures by theming part of their retail experience around emerging cultures. For example, demand for gym memberships is surging, especially among younger consumers. Creating retail spaces to support these communities, whether through apparel, accessories, dietary products, or even having in-store gym experiences, will support this. Equally, promoting around major global events can bring more consumers together around the same theme, as we clearly saw during the World Cup. There’s a combination here between what retailers can sell and how they can frame their experience around different cultural phenomena.” 

The Short-Term Opportunities

Copestake noted that summer tends to drive monocultural events, largely because of holidays and weather patterns. But arguably, the next quarter brings one of the most powerful cultural platforms for brands: the holiday season. And this year, consumers are showing signs they want experiences that feel cozier and more close-knit.

Anne-Liese Prem, Head of Cultural Insights & Trends, LOOP

“There has been so much emphasis on spectacle and creating the next huge cultural moment, but I’m sensing a pull towards something more wholesome and human-scale: dinner with friends, going to the cinema, Christmas rituals, shopping with family, watching sport together. Particularly when the economic reality is difficult for many people, shared experience doesn’t always need to mean an expensive, extraordinary experience. Sometimes people simply want to have a good time together. And as our digital lives become more abundant and increasingly synthetic, physical shared experiences are gaining value. Being somewhere, with other people, without a phone camera, starts to mean something again.”

Reilly Newman, Brand Strategist, Motif Brands

“Holidays are a ‘mode’ where we have agreed to pause, and all come together, for peace, love, joy, and family. From the monoculture of PSL to the playing of classic seasonal music, these associations are great opportunities for brands to lean into to create and trigger monoculture experiences. PSL is a limited-time offering that emerges only when the subtle hint of Fall is in the air; however, now it seems PSL is the actual announcement of Fall, even when it's 90 degrees in California. This association has become a monoculture experience and a trigger for the event. Brands can see the seasonal opportunity as a trigger through association that happens once every year. 

Just as ‘Holiday Mode’ is activated, brands can better associate themselves with these moments to align their audience with this mode. This doesn’t mean their audience is different or has different interests; it means they simply enter a different mode than their standard operating system. You’ll see genuine and manufactured monoculture events lean into the Holiday Mode to benefit from the state. Just as Disneyland creates a wonderful experience around each holiday, this adapts the brand experience to each mode, creating special experiences that align with the Disney fan and the mode they are currently in.”