How did I end here?

In the mine we come across some of the weirder aspects of the internet, and have recently had a focus on the algorithmic rabbit holes, doom-scrolling and what else we all fall into from time to time. It is scary when hours disappear but it also has incredible potential. Let's preface this with saying:

The rabbit holes of the internet are amazing!

From hydraulic press videos to explanations of complicated psychological principles, they allow you to get consumed by a sudden interest and come out the other side entertained, with a new-found hobby, knowledge or passion.

Most people have at some point wondered "how did I end here?"

Sure, it seems kind of harmless to start out with a video of how to assemble an IKEA product and two hours later be knee deep in DIY videos.

But sometimes you’re led down different avenues of the internet...

There is definitely some pretty weird stuff out there. From military look-alike e-girls being used as a military recruitment strategy (this is presumably a real thing), to Kanye West telling you that "the holocaust is not what happened", or Andrew Tate trying to convince millions of followers that men have no value unless they’re like him.

There is one possible answer “just don’t watch that, you’re in control of your eyes”, but that is neither how people nor the internet or algorithms work.

The Reward system

We can't really blame the likes of YouTube and TikTok for running an effective business model with algorithms geared towards keeping us and our attention on their platforms. Unfortunately for us, what keeps our attention is pretty archaic. (check out this humorous VLDL sketch for the problem in a nutshell)

It shouldn't come as a surprise that drama, controversy, sex, rapid movement, fear, etc. are all instinctual things which trigger our attention. These do not only work as part of our survival system, our brains also treat absorbing all this information similar to eating - it triggers our reward system

- and the algorithms work with it!

Our news-cycle has worked with negatives like this for ages, but if you want more recent examples there are many of how chatGPT had to be taught and developed specifically not to answer like people would, because it was essentially horrible after having listened to the internet. (more on this here and here)

Adding to this, extreme amounts of information and content muddies the waters, making it difficult to figure out what is and isn’t true, while also moving the bar for what is acceptable. This has been well-documented in relation to both the 2016 US election and the current war between Russia and Ukraine.

In essence, the internet will, powered by mass amounts of data and clever mathematics, give us more content, more controversial content, and more divisive content unless we actively seek to combat it.

I still love rabbit holes

Looking at the above any brand should be a little concerned with how many degrees of separation their content is from the muddled soup of information that is the internet, but in that both lies opportunity and responsibility.

Many campaigns and brands have sought to harness our instincts and habits for good causes as well as profit. Controversy can be a driver for debate as seen in Nike’s Kaepernick partnership, humor works well in Pornhubs “dirtiest video ever”, and Patagonia shocked the world by giving away their entire company.

Not all advertising nor brands should aim to change the world, but I firmly believe we have to consider rabbit holes, communities and information transparency as part of a solid marketing strategy. After all, it should be in any marketer's interest to leverage the mechanism of the internet, while simultaneously feeling sure that their content appears in relation to both relevant, factful and good content.

Given how we’re hardwired, I don’t believe the content trend will go away or even slow down, but I do believe we have the capacity for filtering good from bad if we’re taught how. (a good general read on this and information perception is Hans Rosling’s "Factfulness")

How your brand could and should leverage that power

The above examples worked hard to combine knowledge of trends and human behavior for mass awareness and largescale campaigns, but there is no reason it cannot be done on a smaller scale.

With that in mind here are five simple tips we have found to be important when working with internet culture:

• Be mindful of current trends, and how to potentially flip them to fit your brand
• Understand what, and more importantly, why something triggers your audience
• Consider that most digital trends have multiple layers (no jumping the trendwagon without having done proper research)
• Cater to our instincts, but aim to be better than the average
• Remember that the internet is quite literally a collection of what we put on it, and consists of multiple interlinked communities