MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Social scientists are alarmed. Marketers and brands are even more panicked. We are witnessing a peculiar crisis. Not financial, not political, though those are there too, simmering like a pot no one remembered to turn off. Concerningly, the predicament is social. And not just “social” in the sense of awkward dinner parties or who ghosted whom. We’re talking about a full-blown epidemic of vanishing friendships, evaporating hangouts, and a generation that, quite literally, increasingly prefers to stay in their rooms.
Psychologists call it social withdrawal. The Japanese, who name things with devastating precision, call it hikikomori. In the West, it’s referred to as “staying in” and posted about as if it’s self-care. Whatever the label, the trend is clear: the youngest generation is opting out of the very thing that makes us human: each other.
Arguably, this goes beyond a typical teenage phase, such as wearing bad eyeliner or getting regrettable tattoos, but is a progressively widening pattern. According to the Survey Center on American Life, the number of Americans, especially young ones, who report having no close friends has quadrupled since 1990. Harvard calls the loneliness spike a public health crisis. Across the world, young people are lonelier, sadder, and more isolated than their great-grandparents, who at least dared to endure world wars together.
Should we despair? Or should we have our panic in check? Perhaps not just yet. Anthropology, psychology, psychiatry — even the dusty pages of history — offer real answers. In Japan, reclusive youth are gently coaxed back into society via cooking groups and outdoor badminton. It’s therapy disguised as social awkwardness with snacks. In Singapore, mental health teams knock on doors (with permission, one hopes) to reintroduce recluses to activities such as schooling, employment, and sunlight.
Psychologists, ever the cheerfully stern bunch, point to parent-focused interventions: retrain the adults, and the children might just come out from under the blanket. And history, that old wisecrack of a discipline, reminds us that the invention of the juvenile court was itself a clever social hack to get a troubled generation back on track.
Curious marketing minds would ask what works in all of these. Soft landings. Trust. Credence is the most valuable currency. Communications that don’t feel like a campaign or a conversion funnel (a term I find deeply unsettling—equal parts plumbing jargon and psychological entrapment—as if we’re luring people down a drainpipe of desire until they pop out converted, like sinners at a tent revival or leads in a spreadsheet).
Which brings us to brands. Yes, we — peddlers of products and curators of curated experiences. If people are emotionally brittle, overstimulated, and more comfortable talking to a chatbot than their friends — what’s our next move?
I deduce the answer is not louder ads. It’s not mood boards featuring smiling, ethnically ambiguous youth high-fiving over iced lattes. The probable answer is emotional fluency. Intimacy. Showing up not just in people’s feeds but in their feelings.
Brands must reduce the shouting and start whispering. Build community the way one builds trust: slowly, awkwardly, with snacks. Host spaces that feel less like digital malls and more like living rooms. Devise occasions where people want to linger rather than escape with an invented emergency text.
Crucially, talk like a person. A real, emotionally intelligent person. Not a regurgitated lump sum ChatGPT tosh, not a brand pretending to be a person who went to therapy once.
Some already do this well. Glossier, Inc. fostered Slack-like tribes who spoke more to each other than to the brand. Rapha transformed bike gear into a lifestyle movement, complete with clubhouses and real rides. Duolingo‘s owl became sentient and, disturbingly, funny. They share a common thread. They created communities, not isolated or fractured sets of customers. They employed clever, resounding branding and marketing with an intentional end in sight: meaning.
If marketing and branding are to matter, both disciplines must become a conduit for modern belonging. Not just churn out mindless, pervasive visibility, but endeavor for greater resonance.
We have a challenging task to untangle: a post-pandemic generation marked by digital fatigue and fractured attention. Given that, shouldn’t we strive for emotional branding and community-driven marketing that isn’t seen as a fleeting trend, but rather as essential to our survival strategies?
Today, ‘community’ is a vital policy and a competitive currency. Brands that understand this will not only survive but also remain relevant. This might be a future beyond brand strategy. It could be the future driven by the power of human connection.
In doing so, they might help seduce the young ones out of lonely bedrooms.
About The Writer
Ric Gindap is the creative and strategy director of Design For Tomorrow, a top branding, strategy, and design agency based in Manila, Philippines. DFT is also registered in Singapore and collaborates with clients from Manila to Melbourne and Munich. Diverse projects have been completed from Bangkok to Berlin, and he has recently completed brand programs in Tokyo, Vienna, and Copenhagen.
