Gen Z’s ‘Creative Maximalism’ is reshaping influencers and brands' storytelling

New Delhi: A new report from the YouTube Culture & Trends team, created with research partner SmithGeiger, has revealed that India’s Gen Z (aged 14–24) is defining a new creative language online, Creative Maximalism, that is changing how creators produce content and how brands need to engage with young audiences this festive season.

The study analysed hundreds of trends across top global markets and surveyed thousands of internet users aged 14–49. The findings underline that today’s teens are not only consuming content but also actively creating, remixing, and curating it.

Gen Z’s cultural clout

• 66% of 14–24-year-olds in the US agree that people their age have a big impact on what others talk about online, compared to less than half of adults aged 25–49.
  
  
• Gen Z spends 26% less time on TV and films (44 minutes less per day) and 54% more time on social platforms and UGC (50 minutes more daily) than the average consumer (Deloitte Digital Media Trends 2025).
  
  
• 60% of Gen Z say they’ve picked up habits, traditions or rituals from online creators.
  
  
• 62% use slang from videos or memes.
  
  
• 59% credit online content with shaping their personal style.
  
  
• 58% admit their sense of humour is shaped by the internet.
  
  

This generation is the first to grow up in a borderless, fully participatory media ecosystem, where content from Seoul, São Paulo or Paris is as familiar as homegrown entertainment. The report notes that the youngest members of Gen Z were born the same year Gangnam Style went viral, marking the start of an era where foreign languages and cultures became selling points rather than barriers.

Creative Maximalism: The new language of Gen Z

The report identifies four defining qualities of Creative Maximalism:

1. Audio/Visual Complexity – Fast, layered, information-rich edits inspired by gaming, anime, and machinima. Example: Skibidi Toilet by @DaFuqBoom (46.3M subscribers), which has sparked 4 million related uploads globally.
   
   
2. Narrative Co-Creation – Fans expand stories via remix culture, mods, fan-lore and art. Projects like SCP Foundation, Backrooms, and 2025’s viral Italian brain rot are built collaboratively by audiences, evolving into massive decentralised universes.
   
   
3. Internet Referentiality – Heavy reliance on memes, inside jokes and niche subcultural references. Cat Meme universes and “summer emotes” from Fortnite highlight how context-driven humour resonates with Gen Z.
   
   
4. Global Influence – Gen Z consumes and creates across languages and geographies, with AI tools and auto-translation lowering barriers. Examples include Japan’s Nani Ga Suki (AiScream) trend, Brazilian phonk music, and South Korea’s viral animated series Alien Stage.
   
   

Case studies of participatory culture

• “EPIC: The Musical”, an Odyssey-inspired project by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, grew from a college thesis into a viral community-driven franchise with over 115 million views across 30 songs. Fans created their own animated music videos and theories, expanding the narrative beyond the creator.
  
  
• The absurdist meme series Italian brain rot, built with AI-generated characters and surreal audio, has seen over 450,000 uploads in 2025 alone, turning into one of the year’s biggest cultural phenomena.
  
  

What it means for brands

The YouTube report notes that this shift is already influencing mainstream marketing:

• Nutter Butter adopted maximalist meme-driven styles in its social campaigns.
  
  
• The NFL used maximalist video techniques in its schedule release content.
  
  
• Hollywood studios are scouting YouTube franchises like Skibidi Toilet for film adaptations.
  
  

For marketers, the takeaways are clear:

• Embrace digital-first worlds where young people spend most of their time.
  
  
• Adopt maximalist storytelling formats that pack multiple layers of visual and cultural cues.
  
  
• Co-create with creators and communities, rather than relying on one-way communication.
  
  
• Think global, act hyperlocal — today’s audiences are comfortable with cross-cultural references.
  
  

The report concludes, “For as different as all this may seem, young people are still driven by the same timeless motivations, forming identities, building communities, and seeing their lives reflected in what they consume. The difference is that now, they expect to shape that culture themselves.”