Combined messages are the brand new regular. Final week noticed the Sundance Institute kind a union and 1000’s of layoffs at Paramount and YouTube. It additionally introduced two occasions that time towards the long run: ZCON and Sq. Peg Social.
Cognitive dissonance has develop into an important ability set. (F. Scott Fitzgerald had a nicer method of placing it: “The take a look at of a first-rate intelligence is the power to carry two opposed concepts in thoughts on the identical time and nonetheless retain the power to operate.”) This week, I’m selecting to give attention to the optimistic.
Now in its third 12 months, ZCON is a two-day, invitation-only occasion in Los Angeles that facilities on (sure) Gen Z and the individuals who love them. That assortment of attendees included creators (in fact) in addition to CEOs, CMOs, and studio executives.
Periods included “Rewriting the Guidelines of Branded Leisure” and “The New Hollywood.” Auli’i Cravalho (“Moana”) highlighted her impatience with the previous methods (“We’re advised that we’re too younger, to attend our flip”); Owen Thiele (“Adults”) premiered “Lady Room,” a present co-created with Amazon Prime for TikTok and for Instagram; and Paralympian Ezra Frech declared, “Gen Z is essentially the most inclusive era of all time,” reframing incapacity as an effective way for manufacturers to resonate with customers.
Held on the LA Protect (a lush oasis off Hollywood’s scrabbly St. Andrews, the road made well-known by Jane’s Habit), the house flowed with brilliant and glossy 20-somethings with vitality and company. This era isn’t intimidated by the eye of main manufacturers, nor essentially impressed by it. They anticipate it.
For a very long time, festivals had been floor zero for younger individuals who needed to show their worth as sizzling commodities. Seeing so many younger creators (and the creator adjoining) echoed related teams on the Sundance Movie Pageant and SXSW. In fact, ZCON and Sundance are very totally different; model partnerships are the lifeblood right here, not distribution, and the occasion is owned by UTA.
If Sundance is powered by pick-me vitality and SXSW by VC hustle, the invite-only ZCON is doing one thing else altogether. It isn’t a tentpole a lot as an extension of an ongoing dialog between founders and types. A Gen Z nonprofit already is aware of that, say, Amazon’s international inventive director is dying to know what they’ll do subsequent, and growth execs are on watch.
Overseeing all of it is Olivia Frary, the pinnacle of UTA Subsequent Gen. She based ZCON in 2023 as an extension of her Gen Z advertising and marketing firm, JUV Consulting, which UTA acquired in 2024. (Of be aware: She created JUV in 2016, whereas in highschool.)
“For years, each single particular person on our staff would finish a name by simply saying, “If there’s somebody that you’d need us to satisfy, tell us,” she mentioned. “Even after we had been tremendous startup vibes, we might all the time sort of stress that was the most effective factor you can do for us, no matter for those who needed to rent a Gen Z consultancy. A variety of [those connections] are displaying up right here that knew us after we had been these loopy youngsters.”
Now those self same youngsters are shaping not solely the tradition, but in addition the way it’s bought — at the least till Gen A comes alongside. And if historical past is any information, nothing might be extra cringe to that era than being referred to as an influencer.
For now, this cohort is having fun with the primacy a lot that ZCON individuals eagerly embraced a day “recess” that featured a cavalcade of bubbles and dancing with a dwell DJ. Cringe to anybody else; right here, it’s what occurs earlier than the ultimate panel, “What Does a Happier Web Look Like?”
I’m going to wrap with a tease about digging into Sq. Peg Social, the inaugural, invite-only mentorship program created by Lars Knudsen and Ari Aster — a collaboration between established filmmakers and rising voices.
We previewed it this summer time; almost 1,800 utilized. In the long run, 37 writers, administrators, and producers spent 4 days in direct mentorship with the creators behind not simply Knudsen and Aster’s movies (“Eddington,” “Midsommar,” “Beau Is Afraid”), but in addition “One Battle After One other,” “Iron Claw,” “Roofman,” “Insurgent Ridge,” and extra.
Subsequent week, I’ll share each the chief and filmmaker rosters (each are lengthy and spectacular; anticipate a number of tales). It could be the snarky/lazy factor to distinction the variations between Sq. Peg and ZCON (Artwork! Commerce!), however in fact that they had extra in widespread than not. Each are declarations of group, nonetheless self-selected.
As a result of irrespective of the place you land on this courageous new world, one factor’s sure: Nobody will make it alone. (Bubbles stay optionally available.)
