Shifting role of media: From creators to curators

In global youth culture, especially among Gen Z, social media has rapidly evolved from a tool for connection to essentially a digital self, a mood board, and a gallery of our interests. Gen Z primarily consumes and navigates through ‘snippet culture’—TikTok cutdowns, moving stills, clickbait headlines, and more.

Elevating the role of how we curate this information, what value do we place on it, and how do we manually search outside of the algorithm to gain new information? For Gen Z, this means mastering the art of curation to create a cohesive and ‘authentic’ online presence. Being a curator is no longer a title reserved for individuals in the art world; it now involves searching for and putting together the most valuable content creators out there.

Artificial Intelligence plays a pivotal role in this shift. While AI can create content faster and more efficiently than humans, it requires human curation to assemble the most valuable content, which also demands a different set of skills.

“The more stuff AI produces, the more media platforms will be necessary to curate what is worth paying attention to, whether that curation is top-down (editors) or bottom-up (user-generated content),” said Daisy Alioto, CEO of Dirt Media.

In various fields, the shift from creation to curation is evident. In fashion and advertising, brands act as curators of culture. For example, the Marc Jacobs heaven sofa collaboration. The designer’s Y2K-nostalgic streetwear sub-line is bringing together the icons, social media stars, and microcelebrities of Gen X and Gen Z, all united in disharmony. In collaboration with the band Deftones, where they move away from single celebrities to curating personalities from all walks to create a tribe and a school of cool.

“Curation turns items into collectibles, and more often, this value is created by curators, showing the importance of brands becoming curators of their own.” – Ana Andjelic, Brand Consultant