April 2025 Trend Report
4:52am– Attend Cake Picnic
Welcome to neuewave!
We are so excited to dive deep into the online trends circulating this month. Here at neuemotion, we know that culture moves fast and that we live in a world of infinite corners, communities, and subsections of conversations online, making it hard to hone in on what “everyone is talking about”. The internet is always a hotbed of evolving trends, and this report highlights a few key ones we have seen shaping our online world.
From brands' attempts to connect with younger audiences through language to the captivating appeal of extravagant lifestyles– we will try to tackle everything we have seen across the popular feed. By examining these diverse phenomena, we aim to understand the driving forces behind today's dynamic social landscape and spark conversations about how online behavior responds to the world around us.
Before we dive in, a quick and exciting announcement: our agency, neuemotion, has received its first Webby Award nomination for our "Ask More of AI" campaign with Salesforce! 🥳 We're thrilled to receive this recognition and would be incredibly grateful for your support in the People's Choice Award – your vote can help us win!
OKAY. Shameless plug out of the way. Let’s get into the key trends we have seen circulating this month.
🤞 Does Every Brand Need to Be Your Bestie?
The internet is awash with the question: "What Gen Z intern wrote this?" This sentiment encapsulates a growing skepticism surrounding brands' attempts to connect with younger audiences through overly casual—often forced—language. Brands feel the pressure to show up authentically– I mean, 86% of people say authenticity matters when deciding what brands they like and support. There are many avenues to authenticity for a brand, but an increasingly common route is attempting to meet younger generations where they are, tapping into emerging slang and phrases to, quite literally, speak their language.
But where do we draw the line? Is it more important to speak authentically to the brand or to the consumer? Does every brand need to talk like your bestie?
Yes. Well, sometimes.
Gen Z is the most distrusting and hyperaware generation toward branded content, yet they remain loyal to brands that foster genuine relationships and validation. Some might argue that by incorporating their slang into campaigns and social feeds, brands aren’t just speaking their lingo but showing that they understand and value them.
Many go beyond talking like Gen Zers and speak to them as casually as if they were friends. Brands are doing this not just for authenticity but to meet the content needs of modern consumers. Anecdotally, the content that many young people engage with online seamlessly blends with posts from their friends and non-business accounts. This leads to a difficult paradox for brands trying to find the sweet spot: how to speak Gen Z’s language without being inauthentic to their own brand identity.
How this shows up on social:
While many try to use language to appeal to Gen Z, these attempts to incorporate their slang are often met with skepticism and viewed as inauthentic relatability attempts. The significant engagement with content mocking brands for doing this often falls flat for younger audiences.
It’s hard to focus on one brand because… they are all doing it.
We’re left scratching our heads.
For example, Zillow's recent attempt to engage younger audiences through colloquialisms like "content girlie" and "SLAYEDDD" on TikTok exemplifies the challenges brands face in navigating evolving online language.
Zillow's efforts to appeal to Gen Z are particularly perplexing given that their primary audience comprises individuals actively seeking to purchase homes, a segment in which only one-quarter of Gen Z currently represents. Moreover, even for the segment of Gen Z casually browsing Zillow or hoping to enter the market, the adopted language fails to align with the inherent seriousness and the imperative of trust that characterize both Zillow's brand reputation and the significant financial undertaking of purchasing a home.
No hate at all to this “content girlie” who is hyping up someone online, but giving in to the pressures to use Gen Z slang online may prove ineffective in genuinely connecting with Gen Z, who are often quick to identify forced or inauthentic attempts at relatability, while simultaneously diluting their established brand image and perceived trust.
While brands strive for relatability, the line between genuine connection and cringeworthy appropriation is tough to walk. This begs the question: how can brands forge meaningful connections without sacrificing their integrity in a landscape saturated with manufactured intimacy?
📼 Nostalgia to Promote the New
The use of nostalgia to launch and promote content continues to dominate social feeds this month. Now, you might say, "come on, brands have been relying on nostalgia forever!" and while that's technically true, it's recently taken a new angle.
Different from Newstalgia, where you take old things, modernize them, and redistribute them in modern culture (think the Barbie craze or Taylor Swift album re-records of 2023), this repackaging of the old aims to tap into hyper-specificity and personal connections rather than just trotting out an old reference.
How this shows up on social:
In the case of "Sunrise on the Reaping,"—the prequel to the Hunger Games that sold over 1.5 million copies in its first week—the book leverages established fan loyalty built upon familiar characters and a well-known world to introduce a fresh narrative and rekindle excitement. This has allowed the franchise to capitalize on existing emotional connections while simultaneously attracting new audiences through the promise of expanded lore.
The resurgence of the beloved Hunger Games franchise has led to an onslaught of online content, as fans deep dive into world lore and rewatch movies to connect with one another again. Modern meme formats like “What’s your favorite horror movie?” allows users to relive hyperspecific moments from the franchise’s toughest scenes and creates the perfect storm of nostalgia just in time for the arrival of a new story.
While not drawing on a pre-existing fictional world, Benny Blanco and Selena Gomez's album rollout campaign strategically utilized nostalgic elements of Gomez's past work and had the internet buzzing as fans had exclusive access to personal memorabilia.
The "12 Days of Rare Stuff" campaign leading up to the album release offered fans access to personal memorabilia and experiences at remarkably low prices (like her Wizards of Waverly Place wand that sold for $4.00 USD) and fostered a sense of intimate connection, nostalgia, and exclusivity. Additionally, the couple’s "Spring Breakers" anniversary screening stunt—in which they watched Selena’s old movie with fans and played an exclusive snippet of their unreleased Charli XCX collaboration—created genuine excitement and fan engagement by bridging the gap between nostalgic joy and new eras.
This trend isn’t just for Gen-Z. Millenials are currently riding the high of “recession pop” with a recent splash of Kesha and T-Pain into their TikTok algorithms promoting new music.
💎 Extravagance: The Trainwreck We Can't Look Away From
In an era defined by curated perfection, the allure of exuberance and even chaotically elaborate lifestyles is undeniable. Figures like Ashton Hall, Brigette Pheloung, and Alix Earle have garnered massive followings by embracing their lavish, semi-ridiculous, and largely unattainable lifestyles. This is also why the "mob wife aesthetic" became such a dominant online microtrend, with its unapologetic embrace of opulence and drama, as it further illustrates this embrace of lavish living. This fascination with spectacular lifestyles reflects how intriguing unattainability presented as aspiration is among social media. While many emphasize authenticity and connection with audiences, there is also a shared intrigue in watching something that feels so opposed to many of our realities. It's a trainwreck we can't look away from.
How this Shows Up on Social
Did you think we were getting away with a trend report WITHOUT talking about our Saratoga Water and banana facial king, Ashton Hall?
Well I hate to break it to you, but we must. Hall's viral content revolves around his meticulously detailed and extravagant morning and night routines, characterized by an extreme level of dedication, often involving early wake-up times, elaborate self-care rituals, and precisely timed activities. It’s fascinating, it’s strange, it’s unpleasant to watch, yet became a cultural phenomenon; brands like McDonald’s and Duolingo got in on spoofing his morning routine, meaningful conversations were sparked about masculinity in modern society, and Google searches for “Saratoga Water” went up 2400%.
Despite their inherent strangeness, the viral sensation surrounding Hall's hyper-specific routines highlights our collective intrigue with realities far removed from our own, suggesting that in the digital age, the opulent unattainability holds an equally powerful grip on our attention than the pursuit of the perfectly relatable.
🍰 Sweet Treat Nation
Were your feeds inundated with a ton of content about dessert this month? The recent surge of sweets-focused content flooding feeds – from trending sounds and viral brownie ball recipes to elaborate cake picnics – feels particularly resonant in the current climate.This trend appears to be today’s reflection of the 2023 Joyconomy trend, where consumers gravitate towards positive channels for connectivity, showing resilience, innovation, and joy in the face of continued hardship and social anxieties. This has manifested in many ways over the years– the emergence of bolder color palettes in fashion and design, increases in adult hobbies, and more playful branding elements.
Amidst a backdrop of social and political unrest, the desire for wholesome community connection is demonstrably on the rise, and in a world increasingly dominated by digital interactions, these new dessert-centric trends offer a tangible and accessible way for people to connect over something positive and hopeful in times of uncertainty, highlighting the surprisingly profound role of shared sweet experiences. (yes, dessert is that deep!)
How this Shows Up on Social
“Cheesecake.
*Ding*
Apple Pie.
*Ding*”
Do I even need to go on? If you have opened a social media account in the last month, you certainly know what viral sound I am referencing. This trending audio of people showing how much they love different desserts by doing a variety of different things is one of the dessert-centric trends that have brought people joy and positive reasons to connect with one another online this month– with over 370,000 videos posted to TikTok featuring this sound.
And to take the dessert love into real life, a viral cake picnic that was held in San Francisco last week blends the IRL connections with social, where 1300+ bakers of all skill levels came together to share their creations and share about it online. This event, born from a simple desire for connection and communal happiness, resonated with online audiences and sparked plans for similar gatherings in other cities. This phenomenon highlights a growing appetite for offline, community-driven experiences that foster a sense of shared humanity and give people joyful reasons to come together.
That’s all for April!
To wrap it up, the internet's throwing a lot at us right now, huh? But then again, that’s what keeps it fun … right? When you zoom out and look at everything – from the dessert craze with its silly sounds and real-life meetups, to the nostalgic trips, those wild lifestyles that keep us glued, and even brands trying way too hard – there's a common thread. Everyone online seems to chase a bit of joy and want to share it with others. Whether it's the comfort of something old, the shared laughter of poking fun at extreme lifestyles and try-hard brands, or just bonding over a love for cake, they all collectively paint a picture of a complex online landscape where sharing joy with others is paramount in capturing and retaining audience attention and engagement.