Rankin McKay: Creativity in the Age of Culture Consumption

In a world where culture is devoured at lightning speed, Balance strategist and writer Rankin McKay explores the challenges brands and artists face in staying relevant. From the relentless churn of content to the societal “ADHD” reshaping our minds, McKay dissects how creativity must evolve—or risk irrelevance. His solution? Embrace the fleeting, instinctive “dream space” where originality thrives, untainted by trends or expectations. It’s a provocative call to action for anyone navigating the chaotic intersection of creativity and consumption.

By Rankin McKay, strategist and writer, Balance

Culture needs to get eaten.

It’s an energy source that feeds, then is gone – into another form and another evolution.

Not so much dying, as being re-formed, recycled, rehashed and revisited.

This is both a win and a problem for brands and artists. Now we have “content creators” because that is what they are. For the most part, attempts to fill the ever expanding void that culture consumption creates. In an age where the life work of a great artist, born from pain and struggle can be summed up in a few minutes, this is a race they are always going to lose. Enter reality TV and sport. Enter extended Netflix type series that are designed to hook audiences and be cheaply extendable to produce longer engagement times. Greater share of skull at less cost. Which, ergo, prevents something else going into that skull for that period of time.

The problem is not just that we are eating culture at a faster rate than ever before, but that the more we eat the more we want and that the volume required drags down the quality. It’s white bread for the mind.

For brands and artists this brings on an enhanced ageing process. Stop moving, stop evolving and you get old fast. Old, or even worse, irrelevant. It’s not always a traumatic or sudden death either. You just begin to matter less.

For those who seek to ride culture the whole thing is like an aeroplane game where the goal is to fly as long as you can, before the plane crashes. Ideally, not to be even on that plane when its flight parabola peaks. Because from there, the only way is down..

The moment you get too happy. Get too complacent, or even think to yourself that you’ve got it goin’ on, the process of decay has already started and you haven’t even seen it. It’s that true and that scary. That’s what culture eating does.

You change, or you die. Or you try to set yourself up for longevity with some values that can (at least relatively speaking) last. Some brands try to dig in and hold the line. Yet even brands with deep roots need to be tweaked to keep up with the movement of a world that has a kind of societal ADHD and is literally changing the way our brains work.

People live their life cycles, grow, age and die. Opposites attract in ways that can’t always be foreseen and “best practice” is the ultimate badge of mediocrity, because even as you say that, always, the new “best” is just being thought of.

If you want to be original in the culture eating world, you need to constantly, brutally, obsessively, instinctively, blindly and continually go against the trend. Or better yet, remain totally unaware, as copying is a subtle and seductive and ever present danger.

That way, by the time they eat up your culture, you’ll already be on to something new and they’ll be salivating for your next dish. Keep yourself to yourself and never talk about what you’re going to do. That’s the only way you can keep yourself pure.

Yeah sure, advertising and culture itself, are arguably derivative. I believe I’ve heard it said.

The answer? At least the only one I can come up with, is to as much as possible, keep yourself in the “dream space”. This is your mind at its least structured, most instinctive and most free of outside static (AKA data). Often this is expressed in the very first thing that comes into your mind. Just like an actual dream, this “dream space” is fleeting, fragile and usually can’t be prolonged. One reason why artists have historically turned to substances to try and keep the “doors of perception” open longer.

Don’t read the brief too hard, but take in the essentials and build your own filter to ignore the stuff that doesn’t matter. Above all, ignore the client’s ideas about “what they want”. Don’t care what anyone else thinks. But DO think very carefully about what the real problem is – and as you do that, let your dream space do the work.

Joni Mitchell had right the idea:

“But now it’s just another show
And you leave ’em laughing when you go
And if you care, don’t let them know
Don’t give yourself away”