There’s a pervasive argument that the internet is collapsing into an endlessly fragmented labyrinth. Jasmine Bina, the founder of Concept Bureau and co-founder of Exposure Therapy, thinks there’s more to that story. According to Bina, the chaos we see at the surface is a signal that culture is evolving. Bina helps world-class leaders navigate the shifts happening in human beliefs, values and psychotechnologies.
In our conversation with her, she explained how, in the age of social media, top-down, hierarchical structures are being destroyed and replaced. Power is being redistributed, shifting from the bottom up. Everyone now has the ability to cultivate a platform and a following at their fingertips. Voices that would’ve been drowned out are filling our feeds, loud and clear.
Bina argues that this power inversion rewrote the rules of trust. People trust influencers over government agencies and media, and are feeling increasingly skeptical of authority figures. People are only sharing their true, unfiltered feelings in online subcultures and private spaces where they have the safety to be vulnerable.
That’s where marketers need to look if they want to understand where culture (and their audience) is going next. Social intelligence is one of the most important tools we have for uncovering conversations emerging at the edges of culture. For finding the deep, meaningful insights that tell us what consumers actually want and need.
It only felt right that we hosted such a prolific cultural futurist here at Social Futures. We hope you find this conversation as mind-blowing and brilliant as we did.
What are you seeing from the edges of culture that are reshaping how you engage with your audience?
