And most brands end up on the wrong side of it. Somewhere between the rise of chronically online marketing teams and the desperate hunt for algorithmic clout, a lot of brands forgot what they were actually supposed to be doing. The result? Corporate finance providers in heated Twitter spats with fast food chains. Veterinary clinics posting chaotic meme content for people who will never book an appointment. The internet doesn't need more noise. But today, the question is whether brands have finally figured that out.

TechCrunch reports that Nobel laureate John Jumper and Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer led the exodus, heading to Anthropic and OpenAI respectively. They were followed by two more Gemini contributors just days later. Alphabet shed roughly $269 billion in market cap across the week, which was one of the largest non-earnings-related wipeouts in tech history.

With both Anthropic and OpenAI eyeing IPOs, the lure of pre-IPO equity is proving very hard to resist. Google spent over $2 billion acqui-hiring Shazeer back in 2024. He lasted less than two years.

If you thought Apple's price hikes were bad, Microsoft decided to pile on. CNBC reports Xbox console prices are rising from August 1, also citing the global memory and storage chip shortage that's currently sending the entire tech industry into a spin. The company says storage and memory prices have more than doubled and expects them to double again by fall 2027. Consumers are officially being squeezed from every direction.

And finally, a reality check for every brand currently slapping "AI-powered" on everything they make. A new Fractl and Search Engine Land study found that consumer trust in AI search dropped from 82% to 54% in just one year. However, usage kept climbing. The share of consumers who say heavy AI use would reduce their trust in a brand nearly doubled from 20% to 39% in twelve months. Among Gen Z, that number hits 54%. Looks like the AI honeymoon is officially over.

And I’m sorry to say, that most of them end up being the latter.

Over the past few years, the rise of what people call corporate irony has fundamentally transformed the landscape of modern brand communication. For a long time, leaning into self-deprecating humour, industry inside-jokes, and sharp internet culture was an elite, highly effective strategy for breaking out of the sterile professional echo chamber.

It acted as a massive relational shortcut. It proved a company was run by real, self-aware humans rather than faceless algorithmic entities.

Because tell me why I just found my corporate finance provider in a heated public comment-section argument with Wendy’s? Or worse, why is my local veterinary clinic posting hyper-specific, chaotic memes about dot cakes for dogs?

In a desperate bid to capture fleeting internet clout, an alarming number of brands have completely lost the plot. They've transformed their professional business pages into full-scale meme accounts. And, in doing so, they've traded their core institutional authority for a handful of likes from people who will never buy their product. They have forgotten the golden rule of modern marketing. Well, my golden rule, for anything really; discernment.

When analysing how modern companies attempt to navigate internet culture, their output generally falls into three very distinct categories.

Understanding where your content sits on this spectrum is the difference between building a premium legacy or looking entirely foolish.

1. The algorithmic clout chaser (a.k.a. lost in the sauce)

This happens when a brand assigns its entire social media strategy to a single isolated intern with zero executive oversight.

The goal shifts from driving business outcomes to simply "jumping on the trend" at all costs. There is no filter, no alignment, and no brand strategy. It results in total substance loss. And it leaves the company looking like a hollow meme aggregator that lacks basic commercial credibility.

2. The forced corporate cringe

This is the downstream consequence of a committee trying to reverse-engineer a viral moment. A legacy institution notices a trend. It filters it through three layers of compliance and executive massaging. Then it releases a hyper-polished, painfully late version of an internet joke. It feels deeply unauthentic, uncomfortable, and sooo despo. Kinda like the visual equivalent of a politician trying to perform a trending dance to look relatable to youth voters. Eughhh.

3. The perfectly poignant operator

The gold standard. This is a brand that deploys irony with absolute precision and elite discernment. They don't jump on every passing audio trend or comment-section war. Instead, they wait for the exact moment a cultural conversation naturally intersects with their core business truth. When they speak, the humour is sharp, perfectly aligned, and deeply poignant. It highlights their authority in the field, instead of undermining it with a cheap joke.

It means having the confidence to look at a massive, viral global trend and say: "This is hilarious, but it has absolutely nothing to do with us."

True brand trust isn’t built by trying to be everything to everyone at all times. If a neighbourhood veterinary clinic wants to use humour, the wit should stem from the real, hilarious, and heartwarming realities of pet ownership… not an esoteric pop-culture reference that belongs on a personal Twitter account.

If an accounting firm wants to use irony, it should expose the absurdities of tax season. This preserves their professional integrity while showing they understand their clients' pain points.

It’s very easy to spot manufactured vulnerability, and even easier to spot a forced joke.

The thing is, people don't really need their financial institutions or healthcare providers to be full-time comedians. They need them to be highly competent, reliable partners who happen to have a sharp, human pulse.

The corporate irony movement has been an incredible tool for humanising the market, but the novelty has officially worn off. The future belongs to the brands that know how to edit themselves.

So BEFORE you jump on that trend, ask: does this project our core expertise, or are we just desperate for an applause emoji from strangers?

It's a powerful reminder that sometimes, the ultimate display of brand authority isn't speaking up every time the internet laughs. It's knowing exactly when to stay out of the conversation 😊

-Sophie Randell, Writer

The trending sound is a high-pitched, wheezing belly laugh that is completely uncontrollable. Creators are using it to capture that specific moment where your friend is already losing it, completely unaware that you haven't even gotten to the actually devastating part yet.

Some of my favourite examples:

Film yourself lipsyncing to the sound and add your "they're already laughing but haven't heard the worst part yet" moment as on-screen text.

A few ideas to get you started:

-Devin Pike, Copywriter

🤣Yap’s funniest home videos Oops the fridge is broken
✨Daily inspo It only has to make sense to you
😊Soooo satisfying Concrete smoothing
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight No meat meat sauce

Hey Aroha!

If I were you, I'd start by connecting with people in your industry. Try to send 10 connection requests every day to begin building up your network. The next thing I'd do is comment on other people's posts. Look for posts that already have other people having conversations about your industry in the comments. When you comment, your response will show up in your network's feeds, so it's a good way to start getting your name out there.

Another advantage of commenting on other people's posts is you get to see what conversations are happening around your industry right now. You can use that information as inspiration for your own posts, which will mean you'll know what you're writing about is relevant right now. The more time you spend interacting with people on the platform, the faster you'll grow your network.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.