SuperAwesome’s new research is built on more than 500m opt-in digital signals that revealed the role of teens in defining culture.
SuperAwesome has unveiled new research which finds that content that wins with teens reaches four times as many young adults as young adult content reaches teens, upending conventional marketing wisdom that younger audiences look to older consumers for cultural inspiration.
Unlike most youth research, Culture Makers: How Teens Define Fandoms, Trends & Spend shows what 13-24 year-olds actually watch, search, share and buy across platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Chrome, Safari and Roblox. The study combines over 500m opt-in data signals from 1,900+ teen and young adult devices, and pairs that data with linked surveys and more than 100 in-depth interviews with US teens and young adults.
Instead of looking up to older demographics, teens are actively shaping culture themselves. With content that wins with teens travelling up to young adults, 76% of young adults say they watch content that seems made for a younger audience, with shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty proving popular with the 18-24 demographic.
This gap holds across a range of platforms too. On YouTube and TikTok, the videos teens love most reach young adults just as widely as they reach teens, and sometimes more (1x more on TikTok and 1.4x more on YouTube). Whereas the videos young adults love most lose between a third and nearly half of their audience among teens.
Meanwhile, young adults are nearly eight times more likely to search for explanations of cultural references, showing they’re working to keep up with a digital culture that teens are shaping. This is partly driven by life stage. Teens operate in discovery mode, sampling and scanning more channels and content than young adults do, and sharing what they find with friends in real time.
Culture Makers shows teens are not only influential cultural participants, but that they often originate the content themselves. This shift is already reshaping mainstream entertainment. Creators now take ideas straight to audiences, and teens are often the first to find them, share them and carry them into the wider culture. 71% of teens trust creator recommendations over random ads, and creators often spark the ideas teens go on to share, with much of that sharing happening out of public view.
The research also highlights the varied teen purchase path. While 74% of teens buy things they have seen on social media, only 15% complete the purchase within the social app itself. Instead, they typically use one or two shopping apps, such as Amazon or Walmart, rather than buying directly from social platforms or using multiple brand retail apps. 37% of teens also discover products online but complete their purchases elsewhere, highlighting how discovery and spending often happen both digitally and in person.
At the point of purchase, teens use either their own spending power or their family’s, with teen influence driving household purchases across everything from snacks to entertainment. 73% of parents are likely or very likely to buy what teens ask for, while 41% of purchases are teen-decided but parent-funded.
The central revelation in the Culture Makers study is that it’s teens – not young adults – that are fueling culture creation, content sharing and driving influence, which presents an opportunity for brands to rethink how they identify and engage in cultural trends.
Download the full report here.
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