Hopecore, corecore, nichecore… IYKYK
What we can learn about narrative audience from an adult education program and a Gen Z marketing agency
A few months ago, I zoomed with some alumni of an adult education program, and asked: “What needs to change about how the program is currently described?”
A ton, it seemed. The program was a stepping stone, not a “transformative educational opportunity.” They—the alumni—didn’t want to be characterized as “underserved adults,” “adults facing economic hardship,” or “adults in adverse circumstances.” They were wary of labels in general. There should be a mention of how catalyzing the program was, personally and politically. Also, the description was wordy and grandiose while lacking logistical information. It should have included, for example, that the books were free.
A couple alumni added that they wouldn’t have applied for the program if they hadn’t been encouraged by people who’d already participated.
“So, did you have a good experience?” I asked. The answer was resoundingly affirmative. The professors were amazing, the curriculum was amazing, the readings were amazing. Everybody could benefit from the program.
We spent the rest of our zoom workshopping a description that would resonate with prospective applicants to the program. “It should be warm and inviting,” one woman said. “To the point,” another said. They all agreed it should be succinct and easy to read—specifically, “short sentences, no more than three a paragraph.” They also agreed that the description should refer to prospective applicants as “you,” rather than in the third person, because then it would feel like the program was talking to them rather than about them—it sounded “more human.”
The resulting description was a world apart from the original. Not surprising, because the program alumni and the program administors had each crafted it for a different narrative audence. The latter had probably just written the description with a general audience in mind. And, usually, what we think of as a “general audience” is basically… people like ourselves.
While, in the social sector, “people like us” often includes funders and thought leaders, it also leaves a lot of people out. The narrative style and words we choose to capture one audience can serve to alienate another. We know we have multiple stakeholders, and yet our default is to storytell to a single narrative audience.
Each time we tell a story, we need to not only be clear about who our specific audience is, but we should also consider four questions:
What is our purpose in storytelling for that audience?
Is the content of any interest to that audience?
Are our word choices and narrative style resonant for that audience?
Are our word choices and narrative style accessible and inviting to that audience?
for example…
I subscribe to The Screenshot, a weekly newsletter from a Gen Z marketing agency called JUV Consulting, founded by three sixteen-year-olds in 2016. I’m generally not a fan of corporate newsletters, but I read The Screenshot faithfully every Tuesday.
On average, I understand about fifty percent of the content in each newsletter—and that’s a generous estimate. The other fifty percent I have to decipher through voracious Googling. In the past six months of subscribing to The Screenshot, I have learned a paraphernalia of new acronyms (iykyk, tl;dr, wyd), vocabulary (hopecore, corecore, nichecore), and cultural allusions (gymtok, boygenius, scrumdilly yum yum).
So, why do I subscribe to The Screenshot? And, given that their clients probably belong to my generation or older, why has JUV opted to write their newsletter in such a Gen Z specific style?
Beyond my desperation to connect with a younger generation, I subscribe to The Screenshot because is is a phenomenal example of storytelling for a target audience. In general, JUV is super intuitive about adapting their storytelling to serve two very different audiences:
client organizations with non-Gen Z leadership, who want to engage a Gen Z market; and
Gen Zers. JUV’s foundational value proposition is that they know Gen Z because they are Gen Z. They proclaim: “What better way to reach young people than to work directly with us?” Their story depends on the legitimacy of their connectedness with their own generation. So beyond being completely staffed by Gen Z, JUV has also cultivated a community network of over 5,000 GenZers that they regularly poll for market research.
Take this blog article about whether college is worth it for Gen Z, which JUV then summarizes and links to in The Screenshot and on LinkedIn.
The Screenshot is made up of lines like this:
Hey April! Here’s your TL;DR: College—is it still worth it? / Ztat: 49% of Gen Z does not envision themselves graduating with a degree from an institution / Qui-Z: What is the average cost of college tuition in 2022?
In contrast, their LinkedIn post reads:
#College is an incredible opportunity for young people to grow, learn about themselves and develop their #cultural awareness. Unfortunately, for some Gen Z'ers, this is our first year not going #backtoschool. Not only does this bring up a lot of emotions, but challenges us to reflect on our time in college. In a post pandemic world, we cannot pretend that our relationship to college or higher education in general is the same. Our very own Aliza Lopez questions Gen Z's relationship to school—Is investing in college still #worthit?”
In the newsletter—whose audience probably includes members of its Gen Z community network—JUV uses words sparingly. It employs acronyms, stats, and quizzes. Sentences are simple and succinct. On LinkedIn—where 83% of users are 30 or older and includes prospective clients—the language is fuller. JUV uses complex and compound sentences, reflective framing, and formal-sounding phrases like “not only” and “we cannot pretend.”
Both are great adaptations of the original content. And they work. JUV’s storytelling has helped them score clients like Jansport and North Face, and garner attention from media platforms aimed at every generation spanning from their own to the boomers.
long story short…
We have to consider our narrative audiences when crafting our stories. Otherwise, we risk alienating people who are critical to our work. In the social sector, those alienated audiences often are the ones we seek to serve.
In any story, we need to ensure that our style is accessible, whether that’s long, complex paragraphs to speak to an academic journal or succinct bullets to reach people who are short on time and have got a lot on their plate. We need to ensure that our word choices are resonant and inviting, whether that’s biz jargon to reel in a social impact investor or hip language to reel in youth participants for an afterschool program.
And we need to ensure that our content is substantial. Nobody wants to read blog posts that share tired perspectives under the sad guise of innovative thought—more on this in a future newsletter—or social media posts tooting one’s own horn. People want to engage with content that gives them the right information (like free books), is entertaining (like scrumdilly yum yum) or enlightening…
…like last week’s issue of The Screenshot, which analyzes how Gen Z vernacular is “actually African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)…co-opted by non-Black social media users.”
Check it out. It’s a terrific piece of writing—or, as they say, lit.
