During Coachella this year, I discovered 4 artists I’d never heard of.
(While watching it from my couch, in sweats, with snacks. But never mind that.)
I saved all 4 immediately. Then I spent 2 weeks going deep on Spotify. Albums, playlists, fully down the rabbit hole. My Wrapped will never recover. It was awesome.
You know this feeling.
Just think about the last time YOU were on Spotify.
YOU picked the playlist, the podcast. You were walking, working out, cooking, driving. Doing something you chose to do, in a mood you decided to be in.
This is why 95% of Spotify users don’t regret the time they spend there.
This lack of regret is VERY different from other platforms.
And the good feelings you have while streaming? They transfer to the brands you encounter while you’re there.
And that’s why we need to talk about…
The 1 Platform Where Your Audience Chose to Be
Spotify JUST dropped Culture Next: The Fan Edit.
It’s their 7th annual report on how Gen Z AND Millennials behave on the platform. And I want Marketers to treat it like New Music Friday.
Inside, they crunch the numbers on 761 million users – 483 million of them on the free, ad-supported tier. There’s analysis of 4.2 million songs and 680,879 podcast episodes.
But this year, they did something they’ve never done: instead of treating Gen Z as 1 group, they broke them into 3 life stages: high schoolers (14-18), college-aged (19-23), and early adults (24-29).
I love this, because a 9th-grader and a 27-year-old professional have very little in common. And also because Millennials remember what it was to be treated like a monolith.
By the time you finish reading this, you’ll have a framework for targeting different groups based on their actual behavior, AND what to do with the 1 spooky-scary category brands are totally whiffing on. Possibly because legal keeps telling them “no.” 👻
Let’s get into it.
Where Fandom Gets Built
First, I want to look at the behavioral pattern running underneath EVERY trend in this report:
💡Cultural MOMENTS might start on social. But FANDOMS get built somewhere else.
We often come across things on social media for the 1st time. Gen Z in particular. They see artists going viral on TikTok, catch a video clip of a podcast on Instagram. But that’s just the spark. 🎇
They go to Spotify to go deeper. To build playlists, binge the back catalog – basically, to become a real fan. 🔎 It’s a key place for fandom to take flight.
Millennials did this too. We just had to work a little harder. Sifting through music blogs, the rec from your college roommate, hunting down a song you heard on TV. Now, this mechanism lives on Spotify, at scale.
This matters for Gen Z in particular because they’re the fastest-growing group on Spotify (already over a third of the user base), spending ~2 hours a day there.
💡If you’re a brand, and you’re only thinking about social (the entry point), you’re meeting your audience at the spark…but missing the entire relationship.
Fandom Through the Ages
The problem with trends in Marketing is they can be applied to huge groups without any nuance.
Just look at the shift to video podcasts.
Gen Z video podcast streams grew 90% year over year. High schoolers were up 117%. College-aged up 82%. Early adults up 62%. Millennials up 44%.
So yes, the shift to video is very real. But it’s happening at different speeds.
(That said, if your creative is built for ears only, you might be behind. 👀👂)
Here’s how other trends show up differently at different life stages:
HIGH SCHOOL (14-18): SOCIAL-FIRST, CURIOUS TOO.
92% of their podcast streams go to social-first creators they already follow. Comfort creators, hosts that feel like friends, like The LOL Podcast and Duncanyounot. Their listening is 89% “ritual,” meaning they’re coming back to the same shows every week, versus 11% “viral,” which represents buzzy episodes outside of their normal rotation.
With music, this group does something counterintuitive (literally had to read it twice): they’re SIMULTANEOUSLY the most devoted (highest % of streams going to their top 20 artists) AND the most exploratory, discovering more new artists than any other group.
Fandom AND curiosity at the same time. This window is SHORT.
For viral podcast content, they’re drawn to topics like brainrot, digital addiction, and economic anxiety. Being 16 in 2026 is….a lot.
COLLEGE AGED (19-23): YOUR BEST SHOT AT VIRALITY.
Almost half of streams at this age go to established shows like Therapuss with Jake Shane & Sad Boyz.
But this is also the most viral-curious group: 19% of streams go to buzzy viral episodes that they listen to as 1-offs, like celeb interviews on Good Hang with Amy Poehler or Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett. Plus true crime. A LOT of true crime. More on that in a sec.
Financial strain content also jumps 40x here. Navigating first leases & credit cards, first relationships with zero parental backup. Anxiety got real(er), and content followed.
EARLY ADULTS (24-29): THE MOST DISCERNING GROUP IN GEN Z.
This crew is still loyal, but they’ve developed new favorites. 70% of their streams go to established, credibility-driven shows, like Bill Simmons and Mel Robbins. Comedy-crime stats more than DOUBLE.
Viral 1-off episode curiosity is winding down, but they still check it out in places like Huberman Lab.
MILLENNIALS: LOCKED-IN LOYAL, SKEPTICAL, WORTH IT 💕
We’re 92% “ritual,” with 88% of our streams going to established shows. We’ve found our faves, and we play them on repeat. Earning trust here is much slower. (We’ve been hurt before, LOL.)
We express our viral-curiosity with expert-driven content and/or current events shows like The Journal.
True Crime Isn’t What Brands Think
If you’re afraid of the dark with your Marketing…you might not make it.
Grab a flashlight and let’s look at the spookiest stats:
True crime podcast streams are up 13% YoY for Gen Z (20% for college-aged).
- Teenagers listen to TWICE as much criminal psych content as Millennials. They also like paranormal, conspiracies, cults, and creepypasta content. Testing the edges of what’s real.
- In college, paranormal gets swapped out for financial exploitation & strain and relationship crime. Real-world vulnerability takes over.
- By early adulthood, comedy-crime is where it’s at. Dark humor as a coping mechanism.
- Millennials have moved toward institutional critique. Justice systems. Law enforcement. Healthcare. Wealth inequality. We’re not scared of the dark anymore. We’re angry about the systems living there.
Brands have been treating true crime and “dark” content like they once treated hip hop and emo. Too edgy. Too risky. And they’ve missed entire generations of loyal fans because of it.
What they don’t realize is that this stuff gives people a sense of control when life (and the world) feels WAY out of control.
That’s why true crime podcasts are white space for Marketers right now. The audience is massive. The attention is real. The brands that show up there with the right tone will own it.
1 Question to Answer Before Your Next Campaign
❓ Which LIFE STAGE are you actually trying to reach?
This changes your format, content category, and whether you’re earning a ritual or chasing a viral window.
→ High schoolers: Social-native, parasocial about their faves. Show up with creators they already follow, and make sure you feel like a trustworthy recommendation in that context. Also: video-first = NON-NEGOTIABLE.
→ College-aged: Viral-curious. True crime, finance, buzzy cultural moments. Laughing at the scary stuff. Maybe with your brand?
→ Early adults: Time to try consistent pushes in established, credibility-driven shows. They’re recent grades from viral content to more expert-led stuff, so the bar is higher. Works in your favor, if you clear it.
→ Millennials: Show up in the shows we know and love. Be there every week. Earn our trust. Be helpful. 🫶
2 Signals Worth Watching
Spotify called the rise of Country before it happened. They called Latin music. Now they’re calling Brazilian Funk: the fastest-growing genre with Gen Z, up 55% from last year.
It’s in 6x more gaming playlists than ANY other genre. Also happening? Brazilian Phonk. Not a typo. A Gen Z subgenre that’s a mix of Brazilian Funk, Memphis Rap, lo-fi, and heavy bass.
These 2 are connected to the Aura trend. Yes, Auramaxxing is a thing now. There are 1 million+ aura-themed playlists on Spotify with titles like Aurafarming and Aura Songs. Brazilian Funk/Phonk songs are ALL over them. Aura playlist streams grew 284% year over year among the youngest US Gen Zs.
(And if you don’t know what aura is, that’s minus 1000 aura points I won’t tell anyone.)
Brands that move on cultural signals like these before they become cringe undeniable are the ones showing actual audience understanding. By the time everyone is talking about something, your window has closed.
Let’s recap:
You need strategies for discovery and for building fandom. The spark AND the relationship.
And those strategies need to be informed by the life stage you’re trying to connect with.
Because Gen Z isn’t 1 thing. Just like Millennials weren’t 1 thing. They’re high schoolers watching their favorite creator on video. College students truecrimemaxxing because the world feels risky and naming it helps. Young professionals with Tuesday podcast rituals they haven’t broken in 2 years.
All these people DO have 1 thing in common, though: they’re all on a platform they actually WANT to be on. They’re making intentional choices, in a highly-receptive headspace that can’t be recreated on social.
Get the full download in the Culture Next report. Genre data. Cohort-level insights you can use immediately.
Go see what kinds of fandoms your audience is building.
P.S. If you haven’t looked at Spotify’s free tier recently, look again. They recently rebuilt the free experience from the ground up, and the numbers are in: 483 million listeners (and they’re all in a good mood), more time spent in-app, more focused listening. Better advertiser results.
