The traditional storytelling is dead!. OK, close to its death.
In these episode, Santiago Durán examines a fundamental shift in modern marketing where traditional, linear storytelling is being replaced by Affective Vibe Construction (AVC).
New Paradigm: This new paradigm prioritizes aesthetic cohesion and emotional resonance over chronological plots to better suit the rapid, fragmented nature of digital consumption. The text explains that "the vibe" functions as a pre-rational signal that fosters trust and community belonging without requiring deep cognitive investment from the audience.
Business Case: Using A24 as a primary case study, Durán illustrates how brands can transform into lifestyle cults by providing consistent atmospheric frequencies rather than structured narratives.
The how to: Ultimately, the sources argue that surviving the modern attention economy requires moving away from being a mere author toward becoming a host of participatory, sensory-driven experiences.
Here are the main critiques:
1. The Crisis of Chronology and Attention: Traditional storytelling relies on a "silent social contract" where the audience grants undivided attention in exchange for a linear arc (beginning, middle, and end).• The "Down Payment" Problem: Linear narratives require an investment of time—a "down payment"—that modern audiences, conditioned by "doomscrolling" and "informational saturation," are no longer willing to make.• Incompatibility with Consumption: The requirements of a traditional narrative (sustained attention and sequential engagement) are fundamentally incompatible with how people now consume content. Users have become "content grazers" who snack on debris rather than sitting for a full meal.
2. The Obsolescence of "Coherence" (Logic vs. Feeling)Traditional storytelling prioritizes Coherence (logical sense and linear progression), which is viewed as outdated compared to Cohesion (emotional and aesthetic consistency).• Rejection of Logic: The "Vibe" paradigm argues that content does not need to make logical sense or follow a plot to be successful; it simply needs to feel right.• Non-Linearity: Because digital consumption is chaotic and non-sequential, a rigid chronological structure feels "old" and creates friction. The audience does not want to be told what happened (plot); they want to be shown how it feels (frequency).
3. The Failure of Top-Down Authority: Traditional narrative building is critiqued as a "High-Specification" model where a brand acts as the sole author, dictating a specific meaning to a passive audience.• Loss of Control: The modern "zeitgeist" rejects prescribed meaning. Audiences no longer want to be passive recipients of a story packaged by a creative director; they want "building blocks" to construct their own identities.• Gatekeeping vs. Participation: Traditional movie studio narratives, for example, relied on exclusivity and gatekeeping. The new model succeeds by relinquishing control and allowing the audience to "vibe-code" the meaning themselves.
4. Operational Inefficiency and "Schizophrenia": From an operational standpoint, attempting to maintain a linear narrative across thousands of fragmented media silos is inefficient.• Scaling Friction: Large enterprises lose billions trying to maintain narrative "quality control" through manual human reviews, which is impossible in a high-velocity environment.• Brand Schizophrenia: Traditional brands often try to adapt their story to the day of the week (e.g., "fun" on Friday, "serious" on Monday). The texts critique this as "schizophrenia, not strategy," arguing that brands should instead maintain a single, rigid emotional frequency.
5. Irrelevant Metrics: Finally, the metrics used to evaluate traditional storytelling, such as "Completion Rates," are critiqued as belonging to the "wrong century." Since users rarely "complete" stories in a linear fashion anymore, these metrics fail to capture the value of "fixation" or "aesthetic recall".
