Audiences Are Rewriting the Rules of ‘Real’

Sponsored article provided by Twitch Ads

New research from Twitch Ads reveals why ‘authentic’ marketing isn’t enough anymore

For years, digital culture rewarded optimization. Now, young adult audiences are turning away from overly curated “authentic” content and moving towards community-created content that feels “alive.” Twitch Ads set out to map that change, and what it means for brands that still think “relatable” is the finish line.

“Authenticity” has become manufactured

Marketers have chased authenticity for years. They learned how to produce relatability with shaky selfie cams, casual tones, and perfectly timed “unscripted moments.” As more brands adopted the same signals of realness, what once felt genuine started to feel formulaic. People noticed, especially those who grew up watching the format get built.

“For over a decade, digital culture has optimized for scale, efficiency, and algorithms,” says Andrea Garabedian, Global Head of Twitch GTM at Amazon Ads. “But younger adult audiences tell us something feels missing. They aren’t looking for more content. They’re looking for experiences that surprise them, invite them to participate, and help them connect with others. That’s why this research felt so important. We wanted to know what feels real to young adults today and what that means for brands trying to build lasting relationships with this audience.”

To answer that question, Twitch Ads conducted a global study exploring how younger adult consumers define authenticity today and how those expectations are reshaping content, community, and commerce.

What the team uncovered challenged one of marketing’s most widely accepted assumptions. “We knew authenticity was moving,” says Paul Nesbitt, founder of Nebula Foresight, a youth culture and creator economy consultancy that helped conduct the research. “You could see younger adult audiences getting turned off by parts of digital media. At the same time, people across the creator industry were almost sick of using the word authenticity because it had been overused and over-prescribed.”

The research drew on cultural and semiotic analysis, livestream experiments, online surveys, and qualitative research with more than 10,000 participants across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The work found that young adults weren’t simply rejecting authenticity, they already moved past it.

There’s a shift from “authentic” to “alive”

Nearly eight in ten consumers surveyed said social media feels fake, and more than two-thirds said they feel overwhelmed by AI-generated content. Yet these same audiences continue to spend time with creators, communities, livestreams, fandoms, and other participatory experiences online. Young adult audiences aren’t rejecting technology or trends. What these audiences are rejecting is content that feels manufactured.

The research revealed a growing preference for content that feels alive. Across markets, three traits consistently emerged.

1. Surprising: Audiences want experiences that break from algorithmic predictability and show them something they weren’t expecting.
2. Deep: They want opportunities to immerse themselves in communities, conversations, and interests they genuinely care about.
3. Human: They want evidence that real people, rather than algorithms or optimization strategies, are behind the content they consume.

In many ways, these preferences are a response to the realities of modern digital life. “Once the internet starts to feel more manufactured, audiences naturally crave connection,” says Nesbitt. “In live moments, you get humanness, emotion, and richness. That’s why people have always gravitated toward live experiences.” Livestreams and participatory communities provide room for reacting, contributing, collaborating, and shaping what happens next.

A new playbook for brands is taking shape

The Twitch Ads findings suggest that many of the assumptions that guided digital marketing over the last decade deserve another pass. While reach and scale still matter, younger adult audiences reward experiences that focus on creating connections rather than impressions.

As Nesbitt explains, many consumers now experience the internet as two distinct environments. “There is the big space where brands are everywhere and people are scrolling through culture,” he says. “Then there are communities where people are leaned in. That’s where brands need to be if they’re going to build relevance.” For brands, that means moving away from interruption and toward participation.

Across the research, four themes showed up again and again:

1. Content is evolving from “authentic” to alive: Audiences reward experiences that feel surprising, deep, and human.
2. Participation is an expectation: Younger adult audiences want to help shape the experiences they engage with.
3. Communities are engines of culture: Discovery, belonging, and influence are happening inside communities, not just through social media feeds.
4. Creators connect culture to commerce: Trusted creators help audiences decide what deserves their attention, and what deserves their money.

Together, these shifts point toward a new set of rules for engaging adult Gen Z audiences. If the past decade’s “authentic” playbook functioned like a blueprint, the “alive” version looks more like a sandbox, open-ended, collaborative, and hard to control.

What’s next?

This article opens a four-part series on where content, community, and commerce are heading. Next, we’ll explore why participation has become one of the defining characteristics of content that feels alive—and what brands can learn from the communities already putting these principles into practice.