The Loneliness Market

link roundup & is it possible to mass-produce authentic relationships?

In this week’s roundup: innovating connection in the digital age - is it possible?, intergenerational marketing, brand strategy vs. performance strategy, and a non-marketing and very-human essay

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Hi y’all,

As I was writing last week’s brand deep dive, I took a prolonged dip in the zeitgeist soup du jour: the friendship famine.

INTERNET FRIENDS IRL!!! A photo from the time when I did a collaborative workshop/talk/meetup for my community of students to help me design the core elements of my book (and they chose the title, too!)—the book ended up selling thousands of copies and winning awards, so I think we did something very right

Seems like everyone's talking about connection—or rather, the lack of it. This has set off a feeding frenzy in the tech world, with more and more products and campaigns promising to solve loneliness. But monetizing human bonds is a tricky, insidious slope. Can we really app our way out of this? Should we even try?

I’ve been collecting articles that explore this tension between genuine human connection and product-driven solutions. It's a complex issue that cuts to the core of how we relate to each other and the world around us, shaping everything from our personal relationships to the way businesses operate and talk to us.

Ready to nerd out? Here are a few of them:

On friendship and connection:

• "apps won't make you friends :(" by The Trend Report (Sept 2024) —

  • This piece highlights the paradox of using technology to solve a problem it arguably created. The author points out that "Instead of turning to each other (For free!!), we use the master's tools to reinforce the master's house."

• "You can't innovate away loneliness" by Embedded (Aug 2024) —

  • A great take on tech & loneliness. The author observes, "Anything a friend once did, apps do “better.” Instead of a friend picking you up from the airport, you summon an Uber. Instead of taking food to a sick friend stuck at home, they order Instacart. Even Venmo, making the exchange of money digital and therefore more “convenient,” has meant that friends’ shares of the bills languish for weeks unpaid, instead of being  settled up—or forgiven—instantly, IRL."

    You can’t innovate away loneliness

• "The loneliness epidemic has given rise to a new crop of startups" from Business Insider (May 2024) —

  • Soooo many loneliness-fighting startups. It quotes one founder saying, "People are waking up to all these studies that are coming out saying our generation is lonelier than the last." …So there’s an opportunity to make money! seems to be the unspoken part of that sentence. While some ideas seem promising, others feel like they're missing the point.

• "The Loneliness Epidemic and Media Consumption: What Marketers Need To Know" on AdWeek (May 2024) —

  • The headline for this feels… depressing. Look, marketers! Here's how to take advantage of this! The brand/marketing part of me sees the point, but the community organizer part of me wants to cry in a corner, y'know? Living in the modern world is weird.

• Anne Helen Peterson's upcoming book "Friend Group: A Survival Guide for The Loneliest Century" —

  • Peterson, journalist and creator of one of the top Substacks on the platform, says her book is "going to focus on 1) how we got here and why it feels the way it does but, more importantly, 2) how we can make the big and small decisions to foster community and friendship." Sign me up for pre-orders.

For the brand thinkers: