Safa Arshadullah is a behavioural analyst at Canvas8 with a background in organisational studies and strategic communications. To her, exploring behavioural and cultural insights is a means of learning nuances to better foster equity and justice in the world. Outside of work, you can find her tinkering with her chai recipe, taking meandering walks in neighborhoods she’s never been to, or analysing one of the multiple TV series she’s watching.


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. After years of interviewing celebrities in the most laid-back style – over fried chicken – the two hosts 

 of their virality together and hosted each other as both guest and interviewer. Their shows, boasting cultural icons ranging from 

, feature casual Q&As with celebrities as they eat chicken nuggets or spicy wings. Although they both strike different tones – one deeply deadpan, the other candidly curious – they share the ability to put their celebrity interviewees on the spot with unique questions, creating an informal and unguarded atmosphere that encourages authentic conversation. With chats spanning behind-the-scenes stories from filming to personal anecdotes, the shows’ millions of views and followers across YouTube and TikTok highlight how audiences are continuously drawn to off-the-cuff moments in their entertainment. 

Bustle

According to Jacqueline Rifkin, the co-author of 

‘The Preference for Spontaneity in Entertainment’

 and assistant professor of marketing and management communication at Cornell University, people are drawn to these styles of content for one reason: authenticity. “When we think about parasocial relationships with celebrities and content creators, we think about the role of authenticity,” she says. “We love celebrities, and there are huge fandoms dedicated to major personas like Taylor Swift or Meryl Streep. We want to feel that we're close to them.” 

Interview with Jacqueline Rifkin conducted by the author

 In building that sense of connection with celebrities and online figures, people are inclined toward stories that go beyond the performance or persona.

People are navigating entertainment and content fatigue, especially from 

, with one in five viewers overwhelmed by the number of titles and streaming platforms available. 

CBS News

 Seeking entertainment they can connect to emotionally and that surprises them, platforms that facilitate more 

 are gaining popularity. Canvas8 spoke to Rifkin to understand how spontaneous entertainment can hook audiences and why they’re looking for stories that scratch below the surface.

Why is this topic important to understand?

The entertainment industry is at an all-time high. Streaming subscriptions proliferated during the pandemic, and recently, with the writers and actors strike, it was evident how much we rely on storytelling and immersive things to relax. There's this simultaneous trend where consumers expect more transparency and authenticity from brands, influencers, and public figures. We love to feel like we have a parasocial relationship; we want to feel affected. The people behind the roles are real people; they're not robots throwing out content, so people like interacting with celebrities on social media. The growth in the entertainment industry, paired with the fact that we like to have these immersive relationships with content creators, makes this relevant.

Really successful celebrities can facilitate a feeling of closeness. When Taylor Swift talks, you feel like she's talking to you. A huge part of that is authenticity; it's really real. She's not giving you a manufactured persona; you're getting the truth behind her actions.

What do we already know from existing research?

People tend to conflate and display positive traits, like being warm, friendly, or smiling. These likely boost authenticity because we tend to intermingle positive attributions. When trying to understand what people perceive as transparent and relatable, it's feeling like you're motivated by your own internal desires rather than external pressures.

In our definition of spontaneity, we borrow from a concept called organisational improvisation. Imagine that every interaction occurs on the timeline. Every action happens on a continuum, starting with an origin and leading to an execution. The closer these actions are together, the more spontaneous the action is. So, if you wrote a song and recorded it an hour later, that's a highly spontaneous action. However, if there's a huge gap between the action and the execution, that would be a planned and highly non-spontaneous action.

There are some conflicting beliefs on whether spontaneity is functional or dysfunctional. An interesting paper from the 90s discusses functional and dysfunctional extemporaneous spontaneity. They say that if you're dysfunctionally spontaneous, you're impulsive, you act before you think, and you're not prudent or forward-thinking. Then, they depict the positive, functional image of spontaneity; you're efficient and highly skilled, can react to your environment, and are a master of your craft.

This paper made it seem very binary, so in our research, we ignored the positive or negative aspects. We looked at the temporal gap between when you thought of an action and when you carried it out – as that's what spontaneity is. We overlaid that concept in our research. For example, suppose someone invested their money before they had a chance to think about it versus someone who is a highly skilled investor and saw a good opportunity. In that case, those are both spontaneous, where people have an internal compass to determine the function or dysfunction.

How did you go about conducting your study?

One of my big goals was to understand if there's a quantifiable phenomenon where consumers want to see and award spontaneity in the context of entertainment. If so, I wanted to figure out the underlying consumer psychology and understand when that would and would not be true.

First, we checked whether there's a preference for spontaneity in entertainment by looking at different contexts. An example is an app called Cameo, where you can pay a fee that depends on the celebrity, and that celebrity will record a video message for you. For example, you can say: 'Hi Anne Hathaway. My birthday is next month, could you wish me a happy birthday and tell me a joke?' and they'll send you a video. You're seeing slightly behind the veil there, often at home, recording on their phones. It feels more real and personalised. You can have them wish friends and family members a happy birthday. They know your name, at least for a second.

One of the ways we illustrate a preference for spontaneity in this paper is that we have people choose who they'd want to purchase a Cameo from. We bought them a Cameo and offered them the choice of either a celebrity to write their statements and then record them or to press record on their phone and say whatever came to mind, specifically instructing them not to prewrite their remarks. About 80% of participants wanted a spontaneous Cameo. We did the same thing with participants watching a football highlights reel. We asked participants to watch plays; some were extensively rehearsed by the team, and others the players came up with on the fly. When we gave people the choice, they overwhelmingly wanted to watch videos of on-the-fly plays.

We also looked at BuzzFeed articles, like '15 iconic moments from film and TV that weren't in the script' or '30 Marvel interactions that were totally improvised'. We built the data set with BuzzFeed articles about spontaneity in film and TV, and we matched those with other BuzzFeed articles published on the same day. They have the same amount of time to accrue likes, shares, and comments and were all about film and TV – to keep the content format constant, but some were about spontaneity, actor interviews, or behind-the-scenes facts.

We then became more systematic about why and when a preference for spontaneity might be true. We moved into the lab for more scientifically valid experimental paradigms where we could manipulate the degree of spontaneity and then look at things like interest and psychological underpinnings for what's driving this overwhelming preference. We had a mixture of experiments where we explained to participants they would watch a YouTube video that either contained spontaneity or not and had them rate their expectations. It wasn't about what the video actually contained; it was just beliefs about what this entertainment was going to be like. People often choose entertainment without knowing what's going to happen. We also had experiments where people watched the exact same video and then told them whether it was improvised or not.

In our study comparing Buzzfeed articles, we found that articles about spontaneity were getting double the engagement relative to the control content, which was on the same general topic area and published on the same day. In those tighter experimental paradigms, people are more interested in consuming this spontaneity. We figured out why by measuring authenticity. We asked: 'How authentic do you think this content is? How much do you think the actions that you see in the video are indicative of their true feelings or beliefs?' Their answers represented what they actually value, and we found this robust relationship that when people act spontaneously or think they're acting spontaneously, we see more of their true selves shining through. We found that it really drives the preference for spontaneity in entertainment, that people love to see what they think is the truth behind the performance. Authenticity is super valuable not just in entertainment or parasocial relationships but also interpersonally.

We looked at when this wouldn't be true, as we can't expect these findings to be accurate in 100% of cases. To do this, we paid attention to expectations about quality. We found this interesting double-edged sword where spontaneity creates these beliefs about authenticity, but you don't expect the best performance. We argue that, in many cases, we are willing to sacrifice a little bit of quality to get the emotional truth. By that argument, it's clear that we wouldn't want to trade off authenticity for quality. When the stakes are high, and the quality of the output really matters, the preference for spontaneity goes away. When we think the content creator is incompetent or poorly skilled, the preference response for spontaneity disappears. These are all cases where we're not willing to sacrifice quality.

What surprised us is that in both of those conditions, the clickthrough rates were way higher than the industry averages for entertainment. It got us thinking about the value of behind-the-scenes, whether or not it's about spontaneity. It kind of goes back to parasocial relationships and authenticity. When we think about film and TV promotion, talking about those behind-the-scenes events drums up interest and excitement. That's very classic marketing, a strategic application of spontaneity.

As people place a more critical eye on brands and institutions’ actions, their trust is waning. People prioritise 

 as a rubric for loyalty and engagement, and the rise of documentary series illustrates this shift. From 

 spotlighting top athletes in F1 racing and tennis to American Eagle’s crossover into gaming with a 

, these media formats give audiences a chance to peek behind the curtain and demystify certain topics in 

. Only 33% of people globally think companies and brands are transparent about their commitments and promises, highlighting how brands need to tread carefully around how they communicate. 

Havas

 Small businesses use this behind-the-scenes, documentary-style content to do just that. Videos about packing orders or working on product designs often go viral and boost sales as consumers can make more informed purchasing decisions by 

Capterra

Mashable

Speaking up for the causes they believe in, people are increasingly willing to 

 in the face of tech anxiety to demanding accountability for 

. “Not everyone can leave room for spontaneity, especially in high-stakes contexts like politics or influential organisations,” says Rifkin. “You have to find ways to highlight stories about spontaneity from the past.” 

 By tapping into the existing contexts and lore, brands can double down on what makes them unique – spontaneity might not always make sense. Portuguese wine brand 

 launched a campaign paying homage to historical connections with the US for its audience to stumble upon, while Malaysian coffee chain 

 surprised fellow local brands with treats to celebrate national pride, showcasing unique yet sincere spontaneity.

People show increased engagement when they’re surprised or confronted with something spontaneous, as exemplified by findings in Rifkin’s paper. Facing strained costs of living and fatigue from massive numbers of streaming platforms and titles, 47% of Americans have dropped at least one subscription service. 

Variety

 Creators that are experimenting with new storytelling formats on social media are cutting through the noise, from 

 pushing through the cringe to boost moods or the high-octane story of the 

. These formats show how brands have the opportunity to sidestep traditional, serialised stories in favour of innovative approaches that provide spontaneity, both in content and format.

Keeping vulnerability and relatability at the forefront of content leans into people’s desires for authenticity in the media and entertainment they consume – after all, 61% of Americans find relatable personalities most appealing when deciding who to follow online. 

Business Wire

immerses audiences into creators’ lived experiences and can even change their perspectives on certain topics simply through more emotional understanding. Similarly, 

 campaign highlighted this deep understanding by centring their Gen Z audience’s diversity of period experiences. The creative, taboo-breaking conversations showed how menstrual wear can help alleviate some of their audience’s stresses. There’s an opportunity for brands to effectively ground their campaigns in empathy and audience stories in this way, especially as people continue to trust 

 for its authenticity – whether spontaneous or not.

 global viewers say they’re overwhelmed by the number of titles and streaming platforms available

 of people globally think companies and brands are transparent about their commitments and promises

 of Americans find relatable personalities most appealing when deciding who to follow online

People are increasingly relying on immersive storytelling and entertainment as a means of expressing themselves, their interests, and their values

As people build connections to these stories and the people telling them, there’s a growing interest in insider information and authentic tidbits beyond the performance

As such, moments of spontaneity in entertainment can draw audiences in by cementing their connection to the people on screen

Jacqueline Rifkin is an assistant professor of marketing at SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University. Her research interests include consumer psychology and consumer well-being where she explores how marketing and consumption affect well-being on both an individual and societal level.

Global

Behavioural Sciences

As people turn to parasocial relationships and smaller creator-driven communities to counter mainstream media fatigue, they’re on the search for entertainment that sparks emotional connections. Canvas8 spoke to Jacqueline Rifkin to understand how spontaneity can do just that.

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