Between Spaces: Interstitial Storytelling
Capturing attention and rallying people through social networks relies on a new form of writing, between fiction and digital liveness
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Storytelling is a fundamental practice in our digital worlds. First because the boundary between fiction and reality becomes increasingly blurred, driven by new representations of our identities through social networks. And also because everything becomes commercial and cultural. For a quarter of the planet - Gen Z - shopping is one of their favorite activities for entertainment (ahead of video games) and especially socializing, also building themselves. No wonder groups like Kering or LVMH invest so much in the entertainment industry. We need to build a dream machine, through new tools.
Creating attachment in social networks by arousing anticipation for the next episode.
We may dislike the taste of certain cookies, or the shape of a bag. We may appreciate a song by an artist less. Nevertheless, when we love a store, a café, a musician, or a brand, it is often a global story to which we attach ourselves in social networks. We forgive certain pitfalls in favor of a broader appreciation of the narrative.
Codes, habits, landmarks both comfortable, expected, and yet allowing elements of surprise in our daily lives. Attachment born of a more fragmented, polymorphic storytelling, which brings forth genuine feelings, attachment, the famous parasocial relationships.
As in a series that we stream, it is the next episode that we await in social networks, fragments that belong to a whole, and yet can be freely interpreted, remixed, and understood in isolation.
Interstitial storytelling, the nerve center of the attention war.
discusses in her latest post "Culture GPT" about interstitial storytelling:“Brand stories are today best told through interstitial storytelling, which refers to a series of b that are connected into a web of a wider narrative. A story is told as a series, with each piece of content containing germs of the next story and ending with a cliffhanger. For retail brands, this means releasing collections like movies, starting with teaser trailers, then trailers, then marketing activations, with the role of building anticipation for a collection release, rather than marketing a collection once it is available.”
Ana Andjelic
In other words: the content around stories that impact people are those that manage to intermingle between different cultural spaces, while bearing clear distinctive markers, like a visual code (Tiffany Blue).
The writings of Pietro Terzini shared daily on Instagram are at the crossroads of the poetic, the meme, situations that will challenge us. They straddle different interests and moments that matter, giving them significant strength to be shared, without straying from a guideline. We know what we will find on his Insta, which paradoxically creates conditions for us to never cease to be surprised by his flashes of insight.
Another example: the NewJeans group highlights MINJI in striking contexts: YouTube episodes where the activities of the musical phenomenon during their "rest" days are shared, such as this discovery of archery.
These interstitial narrative spaces have 2 advantages:
tell another type of story and stimulate online conversation
play with algorithms by surfacing this content in countless user feeds based on hyper-specific interests
In social networks, we write and are written to, in short.
The figure of the week: $315M EMV
According to Karla Otto and Lefty, the influencers present at the last Paris Fashion Week would have generated the equivalent of 315 million dollars in terms of media exposure (EMV) for the brands just through their Instagram posts. Fashion! Fashion! Fashion!
The amazing links
Helen Lewis summarizes the indecency in social networks through the case of Kate Middleton, proving that the culture of entertainment at all costs leads to excesses. To read at The Atlantic.
The teams at Infobip deliver their 2024 trends regarding instant messaging.
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To complete, Roland Barthes explored the concept of "fragment" you mentioned in his works "The Pleasure of the Text" and "S/Z" notably.
He viewed fragments as disruptions or openings that invite interpretation and meaning-making, emphasizing the role of the reader in constructing meaning from these fragments. For Barthes, fragments offer glimpses into larger narratives or systems, allowing for a more dynamic engagement with texts and ideas.
Theory which can further explain the appeal towards "interstitial storytelling".