Remember when social media was fun? Zennials are comparing today’s desperate and fragmented social media landscape with the hopeful internet of the early aughts. It will shock no one to discover that Zennials rank the bifurcated social stratosphere of 2026 unfavorably, even lower than the days of MySpace’s Tom, when Mark Zuckerberg looked more human in Madame Tussaud’s wax figurine than IRL. Even the Cambridge Analytica election scandal of 2016 feels less dystopian than the present reality while we’re staring down the barrel of World War III and listen to former leaders in the field of artificial intelligence warn us about AI’s impact on our futures.
However, the lack of serotonin appearing on our screens is just the tip of the iceberg. Members of political parties have historically followed different news sites but, nowadays, social media amplifies the partisan divide. Algorithms feed users more of what they like to see and, not only are we being fed different narratives depending on our political party, but recent data show we aren’t even using the same platforms. We are living separate realities and in parallel universes, and none of them intersect.
Let’s look at the social media divide, it’s impact on culture, and what it means for the retail industry going forward.
Why is social media so powerful? And the answer is: Your social media feeds are amplified by your personal biases, excluding alternative facts, perspectives, and possibilities.
What Determines Platform Use?
It’s getting harder for social media users to hear from folks on the other side of any party line. Sophisticated algorithms expose people to feedback loops of the news they want to see––we hear from people who believe what we do and all other content fades into the background. In this insular environment, social media users on both sides of the spectrum are becoming radicalized and violent extremism is surging. Young people are ushered into extremist group memberships by everyone from our political leaders to video games, all supported by unhinged confirmation bias.
Not only have information gaps widened across platforms, but social media platforms themselves are being built and acquired along the tenets of party lines. The left wing has Threads and Blue Sky, the right has Truth Social and the Musk-owned “X.” Last year, Pew Research Center found that 4 out of 5 social media users don’t use X at all. So, the most contentious news and “Manosphere” narratives are being disseminated on a platform where only 20 percent of Americans tune in.
Facebook and YouTube still attract older users. Gen Z’s social media behavior is highly bifurcated by gender, so we’re also seeing a difference in male/female/nonbinary usage of different platforms. CNS Maryland reports, “Women, according to Pew’s survey results, outnumber men on Facebook and Instagram. Men have a slight majority on X and Reddit. Adults under 30 tend to use YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat while older adults are mostly on YouTube and Facebook.”
Erosion of Trust
Retail is traditionally affected by cultural, societal and political trends. It’s a tough time to be an industry leader when consumer behavior is asymmetrical. America has become terrifyingly polarized. You can clearly see the trajectory from a 1958 National Election Study when 73 percent of Americans trusted the federal government “to do the right thing,” versus the 17 percent who can say the same about the federal government today. Trust in local government, on the other hand, now stands at 65 percent.
The federal government is also chipping away at citizens’ trust when it comes to the retail business: 51 percent of small businesses report that federal regulations are actively hurting their growth, and 69 percent of these businesses note they pay more per employee to comply with federal rules than their large-scale competitors do. Make no mistake: across party lines, we’re all watching the rich get richer with the highly funded support of many public officials who once vowed to protect the working class.
Americans’ preference for the local can be seen in the retail ecosphere, with 37 percent of today’s Americans identifying “big business” a main threat to the country’s future. This sentiment hit a record high in Gallup’s tracking this year, suggesting a distrust of total, centralized retail power. We’ve already seen Amazon pledge to keep prices low just to hike them . . . what happens to prices when the behemoth has few retail competitors left? This sheds light on why Americans across the political spectrum support regulations that aid small businesses.
The Rise of Ideological Aesthetics
The digital rift is bringing on a new era of community-building in the retail industry where aesthetics often reflect ideologies. There are brands chasing AI-generated perfection at all costs, and others favoring imperfect, intentionally human visuals with a low-fi feel. You can find a similar trend in the imagery of women’s bodies, with anorexic silhouettes and highly edited photography making a comeback on one side of the spectrum, and body/gender/differently abled positivity gone haywire on the other.
Anyone who claims aesthetics are still about beauty and taste need only look at the rise of conspicuous plastic surgery. What is considered attractive or desirable has become nearly as bifurcated as the social media feeds that inspire us to purchase. Brand aesthetics aren’t just about attractive design anymore; today, they serve as boundary markers for in-group identification. As brands choose social media platforms, models for their ads, and the trends they want to sell, they’re telling consumers: You are safe here, because you are like us.
The Social Media Divide
For retail marketers, the challenge of reaching customers across media platforms has become an exercise in prediction. Platforms are age and demographic-specific, and personal ideologies seep into the mix, complicating outreach from non-partisan brands. Most of the polarizing noise comes from a small percentage of loud voices. But the media platforms consumers choose reflects their worldviews, and the technology reinforces these perspectives tenfold. To reach next gens, brands and retailers need to understand the message behind the products they have on their shelves, and the ethos of the core audience of the platforms on which they operate. The era of the retail generalist is over, for now, and the resounding question from customers and followers alike now is “Which side are you on?”
