Derek E. Baird, M.Ed.

Connecting with the 'Missing Middle': For Gen Z, Diversity Matters

I'm pleased to share that I've written a new piece, Widen the Welcome: How Public Media Can Connect with the 'Missing Middle' for the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.

One of the primary lessons from the latest Cooney Center's landmark research report, The Missing Middle: Reimagining a Future for Tweens, Teens, and Public Media, is that public media can look to the content created by Gen Z, streaming networks, and commercial media as examples of how to connect with the missing middle.

In my Cooney Center piece, I share my thoughts on how public media can widen the welcome to the 'Missing Middle' next-generation public media viewers through cultural alignment, co-creation, and inclusion.

The key to earning the trust of Gen Z audiences is rooted in listening, acknowledging their life experiences, sharing stories that mirror their lived reality, and creating content that widens the welcome to public media through representation and inclusion to viewers of all races, abilities, genders, ethnicities, and orientations.

You can read my full article here. 

 

Dear Evan Hansen, Teen Broadway fandoms, and Mental Health on Tumblr and Instagram

Dear Evan Hansen (DEH) is a social media-centric musical that has been widely celebrated by a show-specific online fan community, known as ‘Fansens’, on Instagram and Tumblr, having won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2017. 

The growth of this fandom, on these platforms, is unique as Fansens have adopted plot points and thematic elements from the musical relating to how social media affects social anxiety, depression, and suicide to create fan art and fanfictions that, in turn, result in a community of care on social media where fans can discuss their own encounters with social anxiety, teen suicide and cyberbullying.

Though most Fansens would not have been able to see the musical performed on Broadway or live in-person, their fanfictions, personal posts, and fan art reflect and refract the difficulties that young people have with mental health, social anxiety, and suicide.

Using both digital methods and post-structuralist textual analysis, written by Derek E. Baird and Jarrod Walczer, analyses numerous fan cultural artifacts collected from DEH-specific hash-tagged posts on Tumblr and Instagram.

In doing so, this article provides a new perspective on the role that fan communities, their artifacts, their use of digital media, and their fan activist and upstanding techniques can play in providing avenues of self-care and modeling positive online support for those dealing with mental health issues.

By examining the emotional resonance between the characters, plot points, and music of DEH, and the fandom that spontaneously grew around it, we maintain that fandom studies scholars can gain a richer understanding of how visual media and fandom can be used to foster unity among young people and combat social issues both on social media and in the corporeal world.

You can read the full article here, or you can read a synopsis of our research over on Medium. You can access the full article on the Journal of Fandom website.

The Gen Z Frequency Translated into Chinese Language Edition

I'm so proud and excited to announce that my book, The Gen Z Frequency, has been translated into a Chinese language edition by Blue Lion Press and Zhejiang University Press.

Just like the original version of the book, the Chinese language edition offers a comprehensive guide for any youth brand or organization trying to reach Gen Z.

"Many books talk about Gen Z, but this is a definitive playbook for modern marketers and business people to authentically engage an emerging generation."

-Stefan Heinrich, Head of Global Marketing, ByteDance (TikTok)

The book covers content creation, connecting with youth culture, online community and content engagement strategies, and tactics such as social media, experiential, emerging technologies (like AR and VR), kids' privacy law, building online communities, embracing youth culture, and much more.

 

 

Case Study: How I Grew A GIPHY Channel from Scratch to 14 Million GIF Views

Like most successful recording artists, the COVID-19 outbreak in March brought everything — live concerts, recording, and fan events — to a screaming halt. After the initial shock of lockdown, Chris Mann got busy creating coronavirus parody videos that unintentionally went internationally mega-viral.

In addition to using Facebook and YouTube to distribute the videos, I also looked at ways to make the video content evergreen, grow his fanbase, allow fans to participate, show his lesser-known comedic personality, and tap into the cultural conversation around the COVID-19 outbreak.

While we had previously used GIPHY, the animated Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) hadn’t been, up to that point, a priority social platform for our digital content, culture, or community strategy.

Fast forward a pandemic and five months later, and we’ve seen the GIPHY channel grow from a couple of thousand GIF views to nearly 14 Million GIF views (as of this post) in just a few months.

Over on Medium, I wrote up a small case study sharing the content, culture, and fandom strategies I’ve learned from growing the GIPHY channel from nearly zero to 14 million GIF views.

Nickelodeon #KidsTogether Guide: Talking With Kids About Coronavirus

 Kristen Bell is hosting a Nickelodeon special with a “kid’s-eye view” of the coronavirus pandemic to address youngsters’ concerns and help families weather the crisis, the channel said Friday.

Bell and her guests practiced social distancing, using video to connect for the hour long program airing 7 p.m. EDT Monday. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, California’s surgeon general, and Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, former U.S. surgeon general, offer advice on how to be healthy, while kids and parents around the country share how they’re coping with disruption.

“I feel like right now, kids’ questions and worries might be getting overlooked,” the “Frozen” star said in explaining why she participated. “I wanted kids to feel empowered to ask questions, and create a place where they are heard.”

Because of the impact of COVID-19, kids and grown-ups alike may find themselves feeling more anxious or stressed than usual. Nickelodeon offers this guide to give kids, parents, and caregivers advice on ways to support each other in these difficult times.

Check out this guide on how to support each other in these difficult times.

 

How The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Will Reshape Online Privacy for Kids’ Across America

Here's my latest piece for Virtual Reality Pop! magazine, this time focused on the new privacy law, California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and how it will impact both publishers and creators of digital experiences for kids, including virtual reality.

The primary challenge for many companies is that to be CCPA compliant, they will now be required to acquire actual knowledge of a users age, and by doing so, it may potentially open them to COPPA liability.

The primary benefit for kids, teens, and families are that the CCPA will give parents and teens more control over what personal data companies can collect from minors.

Trend Watch: How Brat Built An ‘Always On’ Gen Z Media Empire

As TV continues to be an increasingly fragmented medium, entertainment brands are struggling to figure out the best way to reach Gen Z audiences. One company, however, seems to have cracked the code.

Brat, the Gen Z-focused digital studio, and network, already has nearly 2.5 million subscribers on its YouTube channel and is capturing the attention of teens and tweens with original scripted content like Chicken Girls.

Read more of my latest piece on Gen Z, Brat and the future of TV over on Gen Z Pop! magazine.

VR Pop: Gen Z Tunes into Augmented Reality

Here's my latest piece for Virtual Reality Pop magazine! From Disney Studios + Pixar VR entertainment experiences to Google Cardboard and Oculus VR in school, Gen Z's reality now comes in virtual and augmented.

Given that all the big tech giants (Apple, Google, and Facebook) have already baked augmented reality capabilities into their smartphones or apps, the rate at which this always-connected Gen Z has adopted these technologies shouldn’t be surprising.

The Gen Z Frequency: Book Release Day

Today my book ‘The GenZ Frequency’, co-written with Gregg L. Witt, was officially published in the UK and the rest of the world by Kogan Page! The book will be published in the US on September 28th!

‪If I’ve learned anything during the process of writing this book, it’s that Gen Z is going to change the world.‬ Thank you to all the young people who were willing to talk to me during the writing of this book and helping me to tune into the Gen Z frequency. ‬

'The Gen Z Frequency' offers a comprehensive youth marketing guide for any brand or organization trying to reach this demographic, covering fundamental truths, content creation, connecting with youth culture, engagement strategies and tactics such as social media, experiential, emerging technologies (like AR and VR), kids privacy law, building online communities, edtech and much more.

Available on Amazon, iBooks and KoganPage

Infographic: Gen Z and the Future of TV

Gen Z is the first generation that has had access to on-demand television content for a majority of their lives. Yet, questions still remain around how these digital natives actually consume content, as well as what their attitudes are towards video advertising in comparison to Generation X and Millennials. That is until now.

In a quest to better understand Generation Z, Hulu partnered with Tremor Video to survey over a thousand respondents ages 14-50 on their TV and SVOD consumption habits and digital video advertising preferences. 

And, with the help of the Center of Generational Kinetics, the results provide a window into the variance in behaviors and preferences across three generations – Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z.

From binge-watching, to using TV as a social capital, the future of TV is intertwined across a range of Gen Z preferences and behaviors.

Here's some of the key findings from the Hulu Insights team:

• 70% of Gen Z respondents equate “watching TV” with watching via an online source.
• Gen Z is less likely to actively avoid watching advertising and over 50% said they don’t mind or actually enjoy watching TV ads.
• 60% of Gen Z respondents prefer to “binge” a show, watching multiple episodes at a time – compared to only 40% of Gen X.
• Gen Z is driven by a need to be “in the know” about TV in order to be part of the social conversation. 20% have posted about a show… without actually watching it!

Related

• Cornucopia of Children's Content Comes to Streaming Services
• Derek E. Baird Blog Category > TV
• Most Popular SVOD & TV Apps for Kids
• Disney's New Platform Could Be The Streaming King for Kids SVOD

Photo Credit:  Victoria Heath on Unsplash

Trend Watch: Kids, Technology and Privacy

Many parents are under the impression that it's just Google or social networking companies that are tracking and collecting data on their kids.

However, it's not just social and gaming apps who are collecting data on your kids.  There are many unseen players in the kids' media ecosystem--ranging from edtech companies to connected toys and digital assistants (hello, Alexa) and educational marketing companies, who are harvesting data on children and teens.

And while the new GDPR-K regulations (and the forthcoming CCPA) are a step in the right direction, in the U.S. it's time for our COPPA laws to be extended to protect the privacy of all minors.   

In recent years we've seen many high-profile data breaches, some involving children’s personal data, resulting from insufficient protections built into the emerging generation of smart devices and toys. 

Dr. Sonia Livingstone, a professor at London School of Economics, has authored a new study, "Children: A Special Case for Privacy" for the International Institute of Communications, that takes a deep dive into kids privacy. 

"Children’s voices are particularly absent, being rarely consulted or included in national or international deliberations. -Dr. Sonia Livingstone"

As this study points out, it's likely that the technology industry will get better at protecting the data of all its users, but their needs to be a conversation about the bigger issue of the "datafication" of our lives---especially when it comes to kids and teens---how or if their personal data should be used for commercial benefit.

 

LinkedIn For Good: Youth Development and Social Impact Programs

A recent study conducted by the U.S. Health and Human Services shows that youth aging out of foster care have very low levels of employment and earnings. As a result, many of these foster program youth will end up being homeless. It is estimated that there are currently 1 million homeless and displaced youth in America. Research conducted by the Boston University of Public Health found that a majority of homeless youth still have access to social media and technology.

One vital step we can take towards reducing the impact of aging out of foster care is to help them develop job skills, career resources and, most importantly, the mentoring required to assist them to find employment before they age out of the system. Doing so will greatly improve their both their employment and economic opportunity outcomes.

Ideally, this would be accomplished through 1:1 mentoring, but there are also lots of fantastic youth development resources available online, including on LinkedIn. While primarily designed for the wider youth demographic, these resources are especially relevant for youth currently in the foster care system.

LinkedIn for Students from LinkedIn for Good

LinkedIn has put together an impressive set of resources for youth--both in and out of the foster system--who are preparing to enter the workforce. Created as part of the LinkedIn for Good initiative, this set of social impact resources offers everything from tips on how to create a professional profile, to job seeker tips, best practices on how to network, finding a mentor, along with a huge catalog of online courses to learn new skills.

In 2017, LinkedIn for Good programs reached 1 million underserved youth, veterans, refugees, employees and nonprofits as part of their mission to unlock greater opportunity for all.

Instagram Celebrates Gen Z Change Makers at #KindnessProm

In addition to the anti-bullying comment filter announced yesterday, Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced that they are hosting the first ever #KindnessProm to celebrate young leaders who are inspiring their peers by helping kindness, acceptance and support grow on Instagram and in the world.

The prom is for students and “teen influencers” from around the country. It will be a “totally immersive, Instagrammable experience that focuses on positivity, kindness, giving back and community,” according to the Palm Beach Post.  Instead of choosing a prom king and queen, each guest will get a kindness award. Radio Disney Host and DJ Miss Lela Brown will play the music.

One of the teens invited to attend the Instagram Kindness Prom is Kayla Abramowitz, founder of Kayla Cares 4 Kids, a non-profit which supplies DVDs, video games, books, and craft supplies to children’s hospitals.

The Kindness Prom isn’t the first wellbeing initiative from Instagram to focus on teens, bullying, and social media. Last year Instagram launched the Instagram Together campaign which showcased their continued commitment to developing tools that address bullying, mental health, and other topics impacting tweens, teens and young adults.

 

• Related: Instagram pays it forward by throwing a "Kindness Prom" for teen influencers | ABC NEWS

Blocking Bad: Protecting Teens on Instagram

Yesterday, during the annual Facebook F8 Developer Conference, Instagram announced that they had launched new anti-bullying & comment filtering AI technology that will automatically filter out comments that “harass or upset people in our community.

As the number one social network for Gen Z teens, Instagram has been increasingly proactive in developing both technology and wellbeing programs that improve the lives of the teens. In addition, the new comment filter is focusing on protecting teen celebrities and influencers who are often the recipients of brutal attacks in the comment section on their social feeds.

We first got a sneak peek at this new filtering technology last summer when Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom sat down with CBS News to talk about how the social network is betting that limiting hate speech will encourage more expression on the platform.

"Is it free speech just to be mean to someone?" - Kevin Systrom, CEO Instagram

According to Instagram, "This new filter hides comments containing attacks on a person's appearance or character, as well as threats to a person's well-being or health. The bullying filter is on for our global community and can be disabled in the Comment Controls center in the app.”

As teens  increasingly turning to social media platforms, like Instagram, to talk about their mental health and find resources to help them through their personal struggles, it's more important than ever that social media companies realize that they play an increasingly vital role and responsibility in promoting kindness and supporting the mental health of teens in their online communities. 

 

Related: Instagram #KindnessProm

Meet the Tweens of Gen Z

What sets Gen Z apart is an unrelenting relationship with information and technology, and their early independence, born of impatience and the confidence to act. These are the identifying traits of what will be the largest demographic in history.

And yet, their confidence and knowledge often out pace experience...which causes tension between an advanced intellect, and the reality of their actual age and emotional intelligence.

At the epicenter of this tension we find tweens—a complex subset of Gen Z. They are caught up in the turbulent transition from simply being a kid, to fending off the intricate pressures of teenage existence. They are the pivotal middle-ground of Gen Z.  

Tweens pose an interesting dilemma. Kids (5–8) are still largely influenced by and accessed through their parents.

Teens (14–18) are rapidly forming their own opinions and establishing independence from parents, and there are direct channels to reach them.

Tweens (9–13), on the contrary, are the hardest to reach, even while they are actively seeking cues and learning to form opinions. 

Because they are the least accessible, and arguably the most open to influence, tweens are an important puzzle to solve for companies marketing to Gen Z.

Gen Z is set to influence nearly $600 billion dollars of family spending and will comprise 40% of consumers by 2020. To succeed in marketing to this unique segment, any brand that wants in, has to be willing to play by their rules.

My colleague, Gregg Witt and I have co-authored a new book for Motivate Youth.

In this guide, you will learn key insights, strategies, and tactics your company can deploy to improve tween marketing efforts. You can download a copy of Meet the Tweens of Gen Z over on Scribd.