Next in: Storytelling
The hero's journey is out. The living, breathing, evolving narrative ecosystem is in; 3 emerging trend signals to watch.
Storytelling is undergoing a radical transformation, moving away from traditional, structured narratives and into something faster, looser, and interactive. Untrue Crime shows how AI-generated content is taking over spaces where authenticity matters less than intrigue. True crime fans don’t seem to mind if the story isn’t real, as long as it’s gripping.
Then there’s Le Cat Chat, where young French TikTok users are turning meme-driven absurdity into sprawling, audience-driven cosmologies. It’s storytelling without an author, constantly shifting, and based on inside jokes and algorithmic trends.
Micro Drama Mania takes this a step further, with ultra-short, high-intensity narratives designed for an audience that consumes stories in bursts, prioritizing emotional flares over slow-burns.
Are we ready for these three signals to graduate into trends?
Untrue Crime
The AI Crime Wave: When Fiction Feels More Real Than Reality
TL;DR: AI-generated storytelling is gaining traction in spaces where audiences crave intrigue over authenticity. Freed from genre clichés, AI offers an absurd edge that audiences seem to love.
What’s Happening
A few months ago, a YouTube channel True Crime Case Files ran a shocking video titled Husband’s Secret Gay Love Affair with Stepson Ends in Grisly Murder. According to the video, the crime had rocked the community of Littleton, Colorado. The story: Elizabeth Hernandez discovers the lifeless body of her husband, only to unravel a web of clandestine affairs with other men. Did the wife know? Was it the lover? Was the victim’s stepson involved?
At first glance, the channel was doing nothing different from the rest of the true crime market—delivering the kind of sensational content people crave. And they do crave it: 57% of Americans say they consume true crime content (Source: YouGov).
But there was one difference: none of it was real. The crimes never happened. The entire narrative was AI-generated.
What It Means
AI doesn’t create original ideas; it collects data and works out what is likely to be popular. And sometimes, that’s enough. In genres with rigid narrative frameworks—like true crime, where the structure is predictable, novelty isn’t the audience’s top priority; curiosity is. AI grotesqueries feed this curiosity, adding bizarre, surreal details that only heighten the appeal.
AI-generated crime stories also sidestep a major ethical dilemma: repurposing real tragedies for entertainment can retraumatize victims. With AI, there are only narrative victims, no real crimes: no harm, no foul.
What’s Next
We’re heading into a world where comforting familiarity matters more than authenticity, or even content. People take solace in the suffering and occasional redemption of imaginary others. In that world, AI-generated absurdity isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
Read the article that inspired this signal here.
Le Cat Chat
Open-World Storytelling: The First True Gen Alpha Trend?
TL;DR: Traditional narratives with fixed beginnings and endings are giving way to open-ended, participatory worlds where meaning emerges through interaction rather than direction.
What’s Happening
A new form of storytelling is emerging on French TikTok, particularly in accounts like Lakaka Land. Meme-like images of cats with absurd captions, at first glance, appear to be disposable "brain rot" content. A closer inspection reveals something more profound. Each image is part of a growing, interconnected narrative. Characters recur, inside jokes evolve, and what starts as randomness solidifies into a shared cosmos.
What It Means
Gen Alpha is the first generation to grow up fully immersed in algorithmic storytelling. Unlike previous generations who experienced media as linear stories told by authors, Gen Alpha interacts with content as ever-expanding ecosystems. What they see next isn’t defined by what a creator wanted them to see, but by how they reacted to the piece before. For them, the line between audience and creator blurs: memes become mythologies, and inside jokes turn into serialized sagas.
Across digital spaces, from Discord servers to indie games, storytelling is evolving into something decentralized, immersive, and collectively shaped.
What’s Next
The rise of Lakaka Land and similar phenomena (Skibidi Toilet is another example; the toilet people adventures feature multiple official co-creators) suggests that entertainment is moving toward a model where “buying into” the universe of a story is more important than genre, plot or even character.
Watch the TikTok that inspired this signal here.
Micro Drama Mania
Is Hollywood Ready for TikTok’s Influence on Storytelling? The Rise of Hyper-Serial Microdramas
TL;DR: Microdramas are emerging as a new genre of storytelling.
What’s Happening
Bite-sized microdramas are taking over entertainment. These 1-3 minute episodes are designed for maximum emotional punch. It’s all about escalation, cliffhangers, and over-the-top acting. A while back, Variety covered this trend blowing up in China (+260% YoY growth, per iiMediaResearch), treating it like some far-off phenomenon. But guess what? Hollywood is already on it. “Vertical sets” are a hot topic.
These “A+ stories with F- acting” are cheap to make and easy to distribute. It’s a lucrative business and a rare win in the struggling entertainment industry. Shows like My Husband is a Bigshot drop teaser episodes on TikTok or YouTube Shorts. The full series? Paywalled, typically on DramaBox, the leading global microstory app, with 60% of app revenue coming from the US.
What It Means
These vertical videos hook you instantly. And it works. Sound familiar? Yep, Quibi tried this with $1.75 billion and flopped. But unlike Quibi, which bet big on A-list creators, microdramas thrive in the low-stakes, guilty-pleasure niche. Today’s leader, DramaBox (6M downloads in January 2025), features no Spielbergs, no Kevin Harts—just low-cost, high-reward content.
And if history teaches us anything, it’s to follow the money. These shows are cheap to make, easy to monetize, and scalable. It’s the perfect flywheel: more money → bigger talent → more viewers → even more money.
What’s Next
Just like TikTok changed how music is written (the hook matters more than the chorus), microdramas are reshaping storytelling. The format is fast, engaging, and built for infinite scrolling.
And the Oscar for Best Microdrama goes to…? Well, give it a couple of years.
Read the article that inspired this signal here.
The whole Lakaka thing is crazy 😂 I wrote a report on surreal chaos and talked about this new wave of digital folklore.
Super interesting look at le Cat Chat and Skibidi Toilet type of accounts. It's fascinating to see new ways of storytelling emerge to adapt to the new ways people consume content on socials. I reminds me a bit of the absurd memes we had in the early internet days but taken to the next level where they become whole universes.