Cloud Dancer, slow media, and the Millennial comeback

This week, Pantone just announced its 2026 Color of the Year: Cloud Dancer — a lofty, billowy white meant to symbolize calm, clarity, and a return to quiet reflection. It’s serene, fresh, and arrives right as we enter the year of the snake and a 1 year in numerology, offering a collective exhale.

But it also reveals that we’ve hit peak cultural homogenization.

For the last two years, Pantone has chosen neutrals (Mocha Mousse in 2025 and Peach Fuzz in 2024). And it reflects where we are as a collective society, where aesthetics has overtaken authenticity, leaving culture feeling sterile and safe.

And when there’s no color, there’s no individuality, beauty, creativity, or joy. It mirrors what we’re seeing everywhere—identical homes, identical faces, identical brands, identical spaces. 

Yet digital trends tell a different story. We’re craving mess, texture, curation, and expression. That’s why we’re back to analog. Why photo dumps and moodboards have overtaken social feeds. Why bright, nostalgic colors keep resurfacing.

Neutrals belong to a past polished era—not the one we’re stepping into. So while Cloud Dancer brings the calm we need, it doesn’t reflect the cultural shift already in motion: a hunger for color, personality, and creative humanity.

I’ve seen a lot of social, creator, and content folks talk about the concept of “slow media,” “slow content,” and “slow social.” I analyzed the slow content movement earlier this year, but revisited it in this week’s essay as a solution to digital fatigue. 

Brands move quickly, memejacking and trendjacking to grow their accounts. Yes, you can gain engagement and followers, but it does nothing for your brand recognition and recall (sidenote: I really hope 2026 is the year memejacking and trendjacking die). 

The problem is that we’re only being taught how to optimize content to hack the algorithm rather than how to create something rooted in a unique point of view. 

Brand building happens with original thinking, a unique perspective, and storytelling—something we can only do when we slow down and take the time to create something more meaningful. Slow media is all about substance over speed. This means taking a more thoughtful approach to content creation, thinking about how your content is used to build your brand. 

It’s investing in formats like serialized, highly-produced content on social and long-form channels. Slow content is what turns you into an authority and thought leader, giving you the place to sell ideas. 

For the last five or so years, the marketing and consumer focus has been on Gen Z. But we’ve started to see a resurgence in all things Millennial—from the performance selections in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to the relaunch of Juicy Tubes to actors like Christy Carlson Romano partnering with brands like Bath and Body Works. 

Millennials are now old enough to wield decision-making and purchasing power within large organizations (and, not to mention, in politics), with the eldest Millennials in their early 40s and reaching director/VP/C-Suite levels. 

I did a LinkedIn Live a few months ago, discussing how this will affect distribution and content formats, especially from a marketing perspective. Millennials research, buy, and consume content differently from their predecessors, which means that creators and marketers need to think differently about how to reach them. This means experimenting with different content formats, such as podcasts, newsletters, and YouTube. 

I think we’ll start to a focus shift more to Millennial-centric content and campaigns as we hit 2026.

I’ve seen so much online this week about eroding trust. From Beis’s “Fraud Alert” BFCM email to “rage bait” being named word of the year, to fake brand apologies, consumer trust is becoming harder to earn and keep across the board.

The thing with trust is that anyone can build it. It’s no longer just reserved for large institutions and established brands, but for creators. We, the consumers, are the ones who give people (and institutions) that power and build that trust. The New York Times only became what it is today because its readers put their trust in the organization.

But just as trust can be granted, it can also be taken away. And right now, we’re seeing a major transfer of trust from established brands and organizations to creators. Consumers trust creators 61% more than brand ads. More young people are getting their news from social media over legacy media institutions. 

Institutions have an uphill battle ahead to rebuild trust with their audiences. It’s a huge opportunity for creators to emerge and fill the gap, becoming a new legion of trusted sources.

While researching my slow media essay, I read this article in The New Yorker about how it’s cool to have no followers now. The article argued that the more followers you appear to have, the less offline you actually are; instead, it encourages a modest following because it means you’re living more of your life offline. 

I think about this in terms of our own relationship with social media and digital media. Social media has not only woven into our societal fabric but has also become so pervasive that we need to detox from it. 

We’re moving away from being chronically online and digitally detoxing through offline hobbies and setting up boundaries around our technology that add friction and make it harder for people to access us. And when we post online, we get to choose who can see our content. 

There’s also a certain level of jealousy when it comes to living (and making a living) without needing to be chronically online. 

What’s caught your attention online this week? Reply to this email and let me know!