Maybe the viral moment isn’t dead… maybe it just got too personal?

Remember when the internet felt shared?
When we all laughed at the same Chewbacca Mom…
or argued over that dress (was it blue or gold… I can’t remember)…
or debated marriage and fidelity with Coldplay and their hi fidelity.

Are those days gone?

That’s the big question in The New York Times’ article, Is ‘Going Viral’ Dead?
And it’s something I share with audiences all over the world when I talk about how we’ve moved from The Attention Economy to The Intimacy Economy.
That article reinforces a massive shift I don’t think many companies are truly paying attention to.

Viral feels nostalgic right now… intimacy is its evolution.

We’ve moved from The Attention Economy to something smaller… quieter… more personal.
In The Attention Economy, success meant scale.
Everyone saw the same thing… everyone reacted the same way.
The metrics were big, loud and public.

But in The Intimacy Economy…

It’s the opposite.
Two people can have the same interests and still live in completely different digital worlds.
Different memes… different moments… different truths.
Our FYP page on TikTok are fingerprints.
Shaped by invisible algorithms that know our curiosities better than we know do.
And how TikTok got there was in a shift from the traditional social media model of “the social graph” (who you know and how that scales) to “the interest graph” (what you love and how that scales infinitely more).

There’s no longer a “main character” of the internet… there’s just your main character.

And maybe that’s better…
It’s more intimate… less public… more personal.
I care less about what everyone else is obsessed with… and more about what deepens what I already care about.
Because in this new world, connection isn’t about millions of impressions.
It’s about how deeply one message can land… and where it leads me next.

Generative AI has only amplified this shift.

Businesses can now speak to consumers in ways that feel more human… more direct… nearly one-to-one.
The big stuff isn’t broadcast… it’s whispered.
It’s the grid zero of Instagram… the drop… the collab… the limited edition…
And this means marketers need to rethink everything they believe about how attention works.

The bigger idea…

You and I can experience the same brand and feel like the message was made just for us.
That’s not manipulation… that’s intimacy at scale.
And it’s the closest we’ve come to a world where marketing actually feels like a relationship.

I keep coming back to this idea of vibe content (more on that here).

Content that simply moves me… whether it came from an LLM or a whip-smart copywriter.
It no longer has to scream for attention… it hums in harmony with the audience’s mood.
It doesn’t matter how it was created… it matters if it resonates.

That’s The Intimacy Economy.

The shift from “look at this” to “this is for you.”
From viral reach to emotional proximity.
And while it might sound smaller… it’s actually more powerful.
Because when you can still reach everyone… but do it in a way that feels like it was made just for me… that’s something… different.

And this is where Generative AI can help companies do so much better.

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