Growing up in an age of misinformation sure has its fair share of consequences for our generation. We've grown up under the spreading of misinformation from the highest levels of the government and we've seen how fake news and click-baity articles have driven political divisiveness and prompted searches for the truth that seem to have no answers.

We spoke again with Matt Klein, Director of Cultural Strategy at sparks & honey, who gave us his insight on this search for truth:

There is a massive international push for media literacy today: how do you help any- and everyone assess the validity of what they consume online? The [current] solution is a set of skills like checking domain addresses, source usage, creator's qualifications, intent or bias of the piece, etc.

There are two flaws to this push though:

1. Not every piece of content can be checked in this capacity (ie. TikTok videos), and

2. It teaches the world to be increasingly skeptical (what can you trust today?)

A new source of truth

Yet now a new source of truth is emerging for our generation. A trusted, experience-driven source of truth that is establishing itself as a foothold of validity and reliability amongst more than 15M of us. No, not Google, not Duck Duck Go. Just an Australian guy and his friend from California.

Say hi 👋 to Nick and Xavier (Ivy and X), two artists that met at USC in 2016. Honestly, they have a fascinating background that involves hitting #1 on the TikTok pop charts and being fake doctors. But today we're not here to talk about their history (although I'd encourage you to check out their story here).

We're here to show you how these two became the source of truth, and what that's shown us about Gen Z behavior.

It all starts here: the first episode of what would later become "Fact or Cap".

The concept is that these two guys stitch videos they find and try them out to see if they're true (fact) or, as they like to call it, bullshit (cap). This video was posted on December 15th, 2020. Instantly it became one of their most popular videos, and slowly but surely the two gained more followers. Yet in the last month, they've blown up exponentially.

At this point, anytime you see a video that may not be true, you'll find people tagging @partyshirt in the comments to test it out. You could say their top-of-mind awareness is going sky high.

Now, people fill the comment sections of their videos with high praise for their trustworthiness.

Before we move on, I'd encourage you to watch a few of their videos if you haven't seen them yet. Here's my favorite one (and probably the most life-saving cooking tip you'll ever see).

Klein views these friends as a natural shortcut for viewers on the platform:

A duo like @partyshirt today will of course gain traction as they provide the valuable service of debunking, a resource and time intensive exercise. They're a shortcut for the masses.

Yet Klein points out that the problem @partyshirt addresses is concerning:

We need to take a step back and recognize why these guys are successful in the first place. They’re a solution, yet we need to acknowledge the problem...People are manufacturing tips and tricks for meaningless TikTok clout. People are prioritizing views above being honest. This is a concern. When you have Creators faking kitchen hacks and spreading mild dis- and misinformation just for the hopes of virality, we’re quickly normalizing harmful behavior which can easily slip into more dangerous content.

And while creators are the most relevant example, in this case, similar concerns exist for media sources like Buzzfeed, which live by a click-first, truth-second mentality.

What does this tell us about Gen Z?

Our goal with these emails is not just to show you popular things, it's to explain why they happen and what they tell us about our generation. So what can we learn about Gen Z from these two?

Experience-driven learning

If you are not Gen Z, when you were in school I'd guess that part of your curriculum did not have to do with evaluating whether or not a source was legitimate and the information truthful. Now, it's part of our education. Yet it's not an easy task at all.

A 2019 study from Rutgers University demonstrated students could identify 64.29% of fake news articles and 60.58% of real news stories, yet were not able to accurately assess their own level of skill in evaluating fake vs real news. So in a world of information overload, how do we tell what is true and what's not?

What the @partyshirt fellas show us is the importance of experiential learning for Gen Z. We recognize that people are out for views and clicks, and may not know who to trust. But the one thing we can trust with 100% certainty is our personal experiences.

What's the lesson for companies?

Show, don't just tell.

To cut through the noise, show us the experience; don't just tell us. Here's our process we recommend for finding the experience-driven learnings that will change our behaviors and minds:

1. Figure out what truths you are trying to demonstrate and what behaviors you're trying to change.

2. Brainstorm together with us on innovative ways to show us people doing those behaviors in the channels and formats we want to see them.

3. Watch the results come in :)

Hope you enjoyed this week's edition of The Loop! Big thank you again to Matt Klein for his contributions to this piece - and if you didn't see our last collab, check it out here!