Mainstream culture hasn't disappeared. It just stopped waiting for Hollywood's permission.

The obvious take is that culture has fragmented beyond recognition, that shared moments are over, and that the mainstream died somewhere between cable TV's last gasp and TikTok's infinite scroll. New research from YouTube and NRG says otherwise: mainstream culture has not disappeared, but its meaning has shifted, and shared moments still break through.

The difference is who gets to decide what breaks through, and how.

The new mainstream runs on three signals, not one

YouTube and NRG identify visibility, comprehension and participation as the three signals that determine whether a cultural phenomenon breaks through to mainstream status. Traditional media measured visibility alone. The updated model recognises that being seen everywhere is no longer sufficient.

Comprehension measures shared understanding across diverse audiences, and at its peak, a topic requires little to no explanation, transforming into a cultural shorthand that separates the mainstream from the merely popular. Participation measures cultural momentum through active engagement, and at peak, reflects widespread participatory behaviours spanning commenting, sharing, creating, remixing, and purchasing.

Visibility can establish awareness and participation can generate momentum, but comprehension determines whether an idea becomes understandable and transferable across communities, and in an increasingly crowded attention environment, visibility is abundant while understanding is becoming the scarcer resource.

For social marketers, this reframes how breakthrough works. A campaign that racks up millions of impressions but fails to become shorthand, something people can reference without explanation, has hit visibility without reaching mainstream. The work now is making ideas comprehensible and participatory, not just visible.

Creators and memes now rival Hollywood for mainstream recognition

When survey respondents were asked what lots of people seem to be into nowadays, digital entities like YouTube creators (77%) and memes (78%) were perceived to be as widely known as Hollywood celebrities (79%) and the Super Bowl (83%). Among respondents aged 14 to 44, YouTube creators were recognised by 77 per cent, while memes scored 78 per cent, putting both almost level with Hollywood stars at 79 per cent and within reach of the Super Bowl at 83 per cent, while Minecraft and Roblox recorded 75 per cent recognition, within striking distance of Marvel at 84 per cent.

YouTube and NRG found that 67% of 14 to 44-year-olds are watching more channels "no one else they personally know is watching" compared to five years ago, and compared to 2017, the general awareness of top theatrical releases is down nearly 10%. Yet the percentage of "Big Fans" of those theatrical releases is up 4% since 2017, suggesting culture is trading broad shallow awareness for deep concentrated fandom.

Digital-first signals are among the strongest indicators of cultural significance, with online conversation ranking at 46%, followed by memes and watching content about a subject on YouTube, both at 41%. Forty-two per cent of online 14 to 44-year-olds say something feels worth their time when people they know in real life talk about it, which means offline validation still matters, but discovery and momentum now happen online first.

The practical implication: brands chasing celebrity partnerships are competing on a level playing field with brands building creator partnerships. The prestige gap has closed. A campaign fronted by a YouTube creator with deep community comprehension can now deliver mainstream cultural impact that matches or exceeds a traditional celebrity endorsement, provided it builds participation, not just awareness.

The Backrooms shows what bottom-up mainstream looks like

The Backrooms is one of the clearest examples of this bottom-up model, as what began as a single internet photograph evolved into a collaborative mythology that generated more than 15 billion YouTube views. Kane Parsons began publishing the viral web series Backrooms, based on the creepypasta of the same name, to his YouTube channel in January 2022, and he directed a film adaptation, Backrooms (2026), which was released by A24 to critical and commercial success.

The film received positive reviews from critics and has grossed $394.1 million worldwide, becoming A24's highest-grossing film to date and making Parsons the youngest filmmaker to reach number one at both the United States and Global box offices. The movie from YouTube content creator Kane Parsons initially tracked around a $20M to $30M opening before becoming A24's biggest opening ever at $81.4M domestic and the studio's top grossing pic both stateside ($192.3M) and global with well north of $361M.

The franchise didn't need a studio to greenlight it, a marketing budget to announce it, or a distribution deal to find its audience. It built comprehension through YouTube's ability to turn niche lore into shared understanding, participation through a community that unpacked, remixed and extended the mythology, and visibility as a consequence of both. By the time A24 came in, the hard cultural work had already happened.

The result is a new kind of cultural flywheel: a niche idea can find a community online, that community can build the idea through participation, and the resulting momentum can eventually push it into theatres, stadiums and mainstream entertainment.

For brands and marketers, The Backrooms is a case study in patient community building. The franchise didn't optimise for a viral moment. It optimised for comprehension and participation over years, letting a passionate minority do the work of turning niche into mainstream. That model works for products, campaigns and ideas that can sustain depth, not just a flash of attention.

Participation makes audiences feel like co-creators, not consumers

Sixty per cent of fans aged 14 to 44 say they feel proud when a person or thing they support succeeds because they believe they played a part in that success. 63% of 14 to 29-year-olds agree that being into the same things as other people makes them feel part of something bigger. Because audiences participate in creating, sharing, and amplifying what they love, cultural breakthroughs feel increasingly like shared achievements.

This is the mechanic behind every major fandom-driven success in the past five years. Audiences don't just watch or buy; they build, they theorise, they remix, they defend. That labour creates emotional ownership, and emotional ownership drives the kind of sustained momentum that traditional advertising cannot manufacture.

The shift creates opportunity for social marketers willing to design for participation rather than passive consumption. Campaigns that invite remixing, that reward deep engagement, that create space for fan theories and community lore, can tap into the same dynamic that turned The Backrooms into a theatrical phenomenon. The trade-off is control. You can't script participation. You can only create the conditions for it and then let it run.

What this means for social marketers on Monday

The research makes three things plain. First, comprehension beats reach. A campaign that 10 million people scroll past is worth less than a campaign that 100,000 people deeply understand and can explain to others. Optimise for ideas that become shorthand, not just impressions that pile up in a dashboard.

Second, creators are mainstream infrastructure now. The gap between creator influence and celebrity influence has closed. Budget, partnership strategy and campaign architecture should reflect that. If your brief still treats creators as a cheaper alternative to "real" media, the brief is out of date.

Third, participation is the unlock. The mechanics that work for YouTube creators translate to brand campaigns. Make space for remixing, reward depth over passive consumption, and recognise that the best modern campaigns feel like something the audience helped build, not something they were sold.

Mainstream culture hasn't disappeared. It just stopped waiting for traditional gatekeepers to decide what matters. The work now is building ideas that communities want to carry forward, not messages designed to be broadcast at them.