The death of brand shitposting: Why Gen Z now craves substance over sarcasm

For a hot minute, every brand thought the secret to Gen Z’s heart was speaking like them. Duo the Owl set the bar with its unhinged threats about missed Spanish lessons. Wendy’s perfected the art of roasting. Duracell jumped on TikTok with genuinely wild content that had nothing to do with batteries and everything to do with chaos.

If you look at Brita, they’re still all-in on unhinged, and they are so adamant about this strategy that it actually still works. Question is, for how long? Brita is a prime example of a brand that trusts their agency partner. They provide full support to let their agency’s team play (which is not easy on either side), and it shows. But that type of trust is very, very hard to cultivate and even harder to maintain.

Look at Duracell’s feed now – as a fan, I’m very sorry to say it’s currently a confused mix of slightly unhinged, oddly educational, and straight-up bunny ads. That magic is gone on social, and maybe it’s because Duracell is all grown up and partnering with the likes of Lionel Messi. Alone, these disparate ingredients might work just fine, but when you mix them all together, the only thing they power is strategy soup, and underlying that, a lack of clear value.

Time as the ultimate currency

Here’s what’s changed: Gen Z hit peak scroll fatigue just as AI started flooding their feeds. When your attention is being pulled in seventeen directions by algorithms designed to hijack your dopamine, brands that waste your time understandably become the enemy.

The shitposting era had its moment, but as with all things on social, it was a mere stop on the merry-go-round. With rare exception (see Brita), Gen Z grew tired of brands trying so hard and awakened to the fact that they want brands not to be like them, but to serve them.

This shift coincided with something else: Gen Z has entered their peak earning years. They’re not just doomscrolling before bed for entertainment now. They’re researching purchases and passions, building careers and making life decisions that track towards tangible goals. And let’s not forget Gen Alpha. They are even more protective of their time (and privacy), and expect value from the brands they follow while offering less outward participation back.

Value is the new authenticity

Sad as it may be, the era of the witty, unhinged social media teams may be over. The brands that are winning now are the ones teaching something, inspiring or evoking emotion, and connecting people to communities and topics they care about.

This pivot toward educational content serves a dual purpose. Brands now face the challenge of reaching their audience on organic social while building authority for generative and answer engine optimization (AEO). Educational content strategy addresses both needs simultaneously.

The more authoritative content a brand creates in its space, the better LLMs can understand what they are and offer. Educational content serves current followers while positioning your brand as the definitive source when someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity about your category.

The age-old creator question

This transition gets more complex when you factor in the creator economy. Gen Z values learning through people they trust, making creators a continuing key element for brands to factor into their strategy. Creators are far from over, and simply may be evolving into more of an educational value space versus the old days of pretending they weren’t hired for an ad. Gen Z intrinsically understands the creator economy, and they care more about extracting value from every nanosecond of their time than knowing they’re watching a paid partnership.

The attention economy’s new rules

The old playbook was about capturing attention. The new one is about earning it. And the best way to earn attention in 2026 is to respect it.

This means making longer-form content when you have something to say, and creating resources that people will bookmark, save, and return to weeks later. Under Armour bet big on a pivotal marketing shift with the launch of Lab96 Studios, creating a content series engine for high-quality, cinematic storytelling of all forms centered around its athletes.

This value-driven approach also means accepting that not every piece of content needs to go bonkers in how it performs. Truth is, the content that builds the strongest brand authority often doesn’t. Answering questions, solving problems, and adding value to conversations that matter to your audience is precisely the kind of (seemingly) unglamorous work that builds lasting influence–both with human eyeballs and LLMs.

The next chapter: building expertise

This shift requires a fundamental change in how brands approach content creation. Instead of chasing viral moments and trends, it’s time to energetically focus on building expertise in your category. There’s a very freeing feeling marketers and agency teams can experience by letting go of pretending to know it all. Literally ask your audience what they want to learn, and they will tell you.

Education over entertainment is an often uncomfortable but strategic transition that will allow more brands to become the authoritative voices in their verticals, positioning them to shape important conversations and offer people something to think about after their phones hit the nightstand.

Remember, authentic is a word. Service is a way of life.