The Parasitic Storytelling Crisis

Storytelling has always been central to human existence (1). A simple search on Google for what storytelling is delivers autocomplete suggestions that include: “…the oldest form of education”, “…a powerful tool” and “…an art of self expression”. (5)

Our brains are hungry for stories and it is this mental mobility — the ability to think beyond the here and the now — that makes us unique as humans (2). At a fundamental level, stories allow us to digest information more easily because they connect information to emotion (3). Storytelling involves a symbiotic exchange between a teller and a listener: in the traditional story arc, the build-up of tension leading up to the climax is what gets people to pay attention and connect with the narrative on an emotional level (1).

Today’s marketing reality, however, couldn’t be more different. In fact, certain brands seem to be engaging in storytelling behaviours that benefit themselves (such as aggressively chasing higher Click Through Rates), whilst potentially harming their consumers (at the expense of allowing their audiences to engage with their content in an emotionally meaningful way). As digital consumers, we’re deluged with information across platforms and it’s now affecting our ability to concentrate and even store long term memories. (8) Advertisers chasing ROI from eyeballs could be likened to parasites feeding off their hosts — their customers.

Stories which appear within advertising placements and formats on the Superplatforms (such as Google and Facebook) are shortened to fit into a quick scroll on a user’s mobile device. We are essentially down to 2–3 seconds during which we have a chance to ‘engage’ audiences with our story. Not surprisingly, the modern story arc structure has become compressed and frontloaded, beginning with the highest point of the story and thereby skipping the gradual build-up of tension and an establishment of an emotional connection altogether.

Consider YouTube, the leading video Superplatform’s storytelling best practises: “The emerging story arc starts fast, keeps up the pace, and delivers messaging with unexpected surprises until you fade out — no more build up, climax, and pay off. Go fast!” (6) Rather than cultivate an emotionally meaningful connection, it tells us to hit the audience with the best up front and continue to bombard them at a fast pace until they ‘fade out’ (6). This, at its core, is a parasitic approach to storytelling, because it encourages the storyteller to exploit its host and cause a change in their behaviour in order to enable its transmission, which often affects the host’s decision-making abilities altogether (7).

Over time, this encourages us to adopt an always-on, continuous partial attention (CPA) mindset, where we exist in a constant state of alertness that scans the world but never really gives our full attention to anything. It’s been suggested that this may be harmful to our long-term mental health, because the constant, frontloaded story ‘hits’ increase our stress hormone production (adrenaline and cortisol), which knocks out our feel-good neurotransmitters cortisol and dopamine, provoking a sense of addiction in us that can only be reined in temporality by checking our notifications (8).

Simply put, it could mean that brands that engage in this form of storytelling are nourishing their own interests at the expense of the health of their customers.
Implication for marketers: brands need to approach their communications strategies as symbiotic relationships, where a balance of benefits is cultivated by both parties (the teller and the listener) working together to achieve something positive.

Sources:

1. https://www.wired.com/2011/03/why-do-we-tell-stories/
2. https://blog.brandmegaphone.com/the-lasting-power-of-storytelling-on-memory-22c9fbce9329 3. https://hbr.org/2014/10/why-your-brain-loves-good-storytelling
4. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/features/youtube-playbook/topic/how-to-create-effective-ads/ 5. www.google.com
6. https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/features/youtube-playbook/topic/how-to-create-effective-ads/

7. Libersat, Frederic (1 May 2018). “Mind Control: How Parasites Manipulate Cognitve Functions in Their Insect Hosts”. Frontiers in Psychology.
8. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/14/the-lost-art-of-concentration-being-distracted-in-a-digital-world