Blog: fragmented fandom

Read our latest daily deep dives, hot takes, and exciting updates about the entertainment world. Check out the latest insight from your favourite analyst, or search by coverage areas - music, entertainment and fandom, creator economy and social.

‘Brat’ summer and the dilemmas of going mainstream

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Tatiana Cirisano

29 Aug 2024

music marketing

It has become a rule of thumb that the moment corporate America begins capitalising on a trend, that trend begins to die. Cultural fragmentation has helped niches and scenes flourish, but it has also left large corporations that depend on mainstream products hungry for relevance — and willing to do anything to tap into the zeitgeist, including wringing cultural moments dry.

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‘Song of the summer’ may be dead, but 2024 was the summer of song

Cover image for ‘Song of the summer’ may be dead, but 2024 was the summer of song

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Aug 2024

fragmented fandom

Music streaming

Over the past few years, MIDiA has often remarked at the lack of a “song of the summer” . There was once a singular undeniable hit each summer, one that everyone could agree on, like ‘One Dance’ was to 2016 or ‘Despacito’ to 2017.

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What Drake got wrong — and right — with 100 Gigs

Cover image for What Drake got wrong — and right — with 100 Gigs

Tatiana Cirisano

15 Aug 2024

fragmented fandom

Bifurcation theory

On August 6th , with no prior announcement, Drake unloaded 100 gigabytes’ worth of content, including songs and video clips, to a personal website and directed fans there via his Instagram burner account.

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Did Charli XCX go mainstream, or did the mainstream just go niche?

Cover image for Did Charli XCX go mainstream, or did the mainstream just go niche?

Tatiana Cirisano

13 Jun 2024

fragmented fandom

Consumer behaviour

“ I’m famous, but not quite ,” Charli XCX sings on ‘I might say something stupid’, a moment of honest insecurity amidst the brash club anthems that make up her new album Brat . It is a familiar refrain for the artist, who has spent her decade-plus career wavering between the mainstream and counterculture.

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The crumbling of music media is a disaster for the music industry

Cover image for The crumbling of music media is a disaster for the music industry

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Jan 2024

music journalism

As a former music journalist, I can say that layoffs are somewhat to be expected when you work in media. Nobody gets into this industry looking for stability. But the past 12 months have felt especially grim, with a growing list of mass layoffs and complete shutdowns that includes Bandcamp Daily , MTV News , NPR , Vox Media, and Los Angeles Times , to name just a few.

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Why the Stanley tumbler may be half full

Cover image for Why the Stanley tumbler may be half full

Tatiana Cirisano

16 Jan 2024

If you were not familiar with the Stanley cup a month ago, you likely are now. Over the holiday season, the 40-ounce tumbler rocketed from being a relatively niche item favourited by moms to the Gen Z stocking stuffer sold-out at Targets everywhere, and now it is seemingly inescapable.

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Despite its hyper-futurism, 2023 was a return to the past

Cover image for Despite its hyper-futurism, 2023 was a return to the past

Tatiana Cirisano

21 Dec 2023

From politics to tech to entertainment, the past few years can best be described as unprecedented. In 2023, daily life felt especially futuristic and surreal, with artificial intelligence dominating the discourse.

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Overanalysing our Spotify Wrapped: what MIDiA’s stats say about the industry

Cover image for Overanalysing our Spotify Wrapped: what MIDiA’s stats say about the industry

Tatiana Cirisano

4 Dec 2023

Music streaming

It would not be the holidays without Spotify Wrapped, the ubiquitous marketing scheme that involves Spotify repackaging the vast amount of data it collects about users into fun personalised insights ready for social media.

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Misaligned incentives make the music business a zero-sum game

Cover image for Misaligned incentives make the music business a zero-sum game

Tatiana Cirisano

17 Aug 2023

streaming services

“Pop Stars Aren’t Popping Like They Used To”, Billboard ’s Elias Leight writes in a recent article, in which record label executives stress over the struggle to break new artists. The article (or at least, the headline) stirred up a storm on Twitter — ahem, X — last week, where many users took the opportunity to slam record labels’ misguided focus on virality.

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How live music will change in the next decade

Cover image for How live music will change in the next decade

Tatiana Cirisano

20 Jul 2023

The pandemic sent shock waves through the live music industry — a historic, catastrophic disruption to a decades-old business. But just because touring is back, does not mean that we are in the clear.

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Right place, right time: Taylor Swift's track to the first $1 billion tour

Cover image for Right place, right time: Taylor Swift's track to the first $1 billion tour

Tatiana Cirisano

29 Jun 2023

music marketing

Another day, another record for Taylor Swift. As Wall Street Journal broke down this week, the superstar is now on track to achieve the first $1 billion tour in music history. A billion factors and decisions led up to this moment, with Swift’s songwriting artistry and business savvy high among them.

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What ‘Barbie’, ‘The Idol’, and more say about the future of artists in film

Cover image for What ‘Barbie’, ‘The Idol’, and more say about the future of artists in film

Tatiana Cirisano

8 Jun 2023

Music publishing

2023 is already shaping up to be another big year for music artists in Hollywood. Late last month, Jack Harlow made his acting debut in a Hulu remake of 1992 basketball comedy White Men Can’t Jump . The Weeknd (who is now going by Abel Tesfaye) stars in Max’s controversial new series, The Idol , in which BLACKPINK's Jennie also makes her acting debut.

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A new era of music fluidity is here

Cover image for A new era of music fluidity is here

Tatiana Cirisano

23 May 2023

user-generated content

What do AI Drake, adaptive music, and TikTok open-verse challenges have in common? All reflect a major shift of music consumption from a passive, static, and uni-directional experience to an active, dynamic, multi-directional one.

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Why AI music may make fandom even more important

Cover image for Why AI music may make fandom even more important

Tatiana Cirisano

22 Mar 2023

artificial intelligence

fragmented fandom

Artificial intelligence (AI) was as hot a topic as ever at last week’s SXSW conference, where debate swirled around how human artists will compete with AI-generated music. As more parts of music-making involve AI assistance, this distinction between “AI” and “human” music may soon become as irrelevant as music created on a laptop versus recorded in a studio.

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Spotify’s vertical feed could change music discovery, but not for the reason you think

Cover image for Spotify’s vertical feed could change music discovery, but not for the reason you think

Tatiana Cirisano

9 Mar 2023

Music streaming

Just a few years ago, Spotify’s Rap Caviar playlist was a harbinger for culture. But a lot has changed. Artists want (and need) to build deeper relationships with fans, and gen Z consumers want more active content experiences.

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Is the quality of games going down?

Cover image for Is the quality of games going down?

Perry Gresham

24 Feb 2023

trueachievements

“Things aren’t like they used to be”, a common refrain of anyone over the age of about 25, is a sentiment especially prevalent amongst gamers today. Is this blind nostalgia, or have games really gotten worse? To investigate this, I looked into user rating data from TrueAchievements.

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At the Grammys and Super Bowl, the last hurrah of the mainstream era

Cover image for At the Grammys and Super Bowl, the last hurrah of the mainstream era

Tatiana Cirisano

14 Feb 2023

Rihanna’s performance at the Super Bowl LVII over the weekend was remarkable for several reasons, but most of all was that she had not performed a show at this scale in seven long years. “The wait is almost over”, Apple Music’s Ebro Darden teased in promotions leading up to the big night, and the wait simply being over arguably mattered more than whatever Rihanna decided to do onstage.

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What comes next in the music streaming model makeover

Cover image for What comes next in the music streaming model makeover

Tatiana Cirisano

17 Jan 2023

Music streaming

Independent artists

The independent music community has been rallying for change to the streaming payment model for years. Now, major labels are joining the chorus. Why? The pro-rata model has long benefited bigger record labels, but their cut of the pie is now diminishing due to a number of factors: The growth of independent music, fragmentation of consumption, localisation of music scenes, and the vast amount of music hitting streaming services.

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Music discovery in 2023 is about the journey, not the moment

Cover image for Music discovery in 2023 is about the journey, not the moment

Tatiana Cirisano

12 Jan 2023

Music streaming

Oversaturation was among the hottest music industry topics of 2022. By now, we have all read — and maybe gasped at — the recent estimate that more than 100,000 new songs hit streaming services daily.

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Welcome to the Metaverse, where audience fragmentation reigns

Cover image for Welcome to the Metaverse, where audience fragmentation reigns

Ben Woods

8 Dec 2022

In Ernest Cline’s dystopian novel Ready Player One , the metaverse unfurls as a virtual universe where choice over identity and experience are boundless. Such is the seamless experience of Cline’s ‘Oasis’ that it competes, and wins, when pitted against conventional reality.

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