The Digital Fairy

0:01 [Applause]

0:07 hi everyone hi we are from the digital Ferry I'm Rachel I'm Jess but you might be wondering what is the digital fairy who is the digital fairy some think we're just a viral Trend forecasting Tik Tok account and they're not wrong you'll find on our Tik Tok account we'll predict really unhinged trends like pop replacing fashion models or the rise of food culture you may have also seen us referenced in articles about youth culture social media trends and more but with any sort of Internet claim to fame there will always come the haters but that's okay because we took this and turned it into merch t-shirts but anyways back to who we are we are from the digital Ferry a 360 creative agency we we create social first campaigns brand strategies and bvis and we work with Brands like pichen Estee Lauder Adidas dnad and many more but who are we well we are two fairies I'm Rachel and I'm the global insights strategist I lead research as part of the fairy futurist division which is our strategy division. So that means I'm analyzing culture and consumer behavior and Trends it also involves me watching a lot of Tik Tok talks but more serious things like consumer interviews and focused groups and we also give clients recommendations on how to shape their strategy and future planning and I'm going to stop before I say any more buzzwords and I'm Jess the creative lead at Digi so I head up fairy Studios which is our creative Division I work really closely with fairy Futures which is R's division to in the beginning stages to take the insights and form Creative Concepts and from those we execute the ideas would that be campaigns bvis social content events influencer Partnerships or activations the list goes on so today we are here to talk about the art of Being chronically online so this includes our Journeys our processes and also how being chronically online informs the digital Fair's work and values so let's start with us and take it all the way back to where it began we're just kidding jokes aside when we were about this talk and the idea of being chronically online we did look back at our very formative years of being teenage girls on the internet so perhaps like many of you guys here the internet is where our first forray into creativity and self-expression really began and when we retraced our slightly embarrassing digital footprint we really saw how the internet shaped our ways of thinking and working which ultimately led us to where we are here today and there's so many parallels between Jess's journey and mine we were obviously both big Tumblr girlies here are our exclusive screenshots of our Tumblr Pages Frozen in time from like 2014 or something we also both coincidentally made YouTube Vlogs about visiting the UK for the first time.

3:11 So if you want to stalk us hard enough on the internet you might be able to find this footage so I'm going to talk about me now for a little bit so growing up most of my free time was spent online from my 7-year Neopets Obsession that taught me basic HTML coding to checking the cobra snake daily in the early to mid 2000s and reblogging and curating fashion fashion internet Aesthetics on Tumblr to picking up my first DSLR the Canon Rebel T2i to self shoot my own outfit images and videos for my blog spot and YouTube channel and for me. And I cannot believe I'm exposing myself in public right now but from the ripe ages of 12 to 15 I was quoting the devil Wars Prada on my live Journal I don't even know if anyone knows about this platform but I was writing fanfiction I was reposting Christian Luton on my little blog spot website but then during my uni years my cultural analysis DNA really started to show in my Twitter rants where I called love Island a cultural artifact I also called out Pinterest for not having an inclusive enough enough of a platform for users of color and then at some point I had a whole thread about hyp Beast culture amongst Chinese gen Z so all this to say we're here to beat the allegations that spending or wasting time on the Internet is inherently bad so from those golden Tumblr years till present day there's still this stereotype that younger Generations waste time on the internet and are incredibly out of touch with reality or that girls doing silly girly fashiony things on the Internet is invalid or vain but for us wasting time on the internet actually scored us our jobs for example my FanFiction. Basically allowed me to practice copywriting my fan girl Behavior online and my Twitter rants actually reflected how I was analyzing media and culture at an early age and finally my Tumblr fashion days actually helped me observe Runway Trends that's a pretty crucial skill for Trend forecasting and I became a jack of all creative trades through my internet Le interests I learned the basics of web design through playing with HTML for Myspace and blog spot I picked up videography to shoot at Ed in my YouTube videos and I got so into it I Moon it as a wedding videographer for a little bit of time I've also loved fashion photography and learned Photoshop to edit my FIT pcks duh and unknowingly learned mood boarding in our direction through my Tumblr curation.

5:46 So we both took these kind of seemingly vapid or meaningless Trends or skills to use it to express ourselves but also to make sense of the world and that just shows how valuable it is to IM immerse yourselves in Internet culture so like us being chronically online is a core driving force behind the digital fairy in the office all of our fairies have very different interests so sharing our weird internet finds with each other disrupts each other's algorithms and while we're United by our love for the internet our three divisions of strategy creative and casting all Channel this online chronicl in our different ways also because we are from different parts of the the world we inform our work through our colorful like diverse life experiences and cultural heritages and so because of this we established our editorial platform the digiverse alongside our Tik Tok channel to really grow our little corner of the internet and also our youth culture obsessed ♪

6:58 community ♪

7:22 fents have always been around everyone keeps saying that the friend cycle is moving at super fast pace the box and boot is on the ride and has been this forecast was correct yes talk about edible Beauty you noticed that a lot [Applause]

7:46 of Oh thanks thank you thank you guys oh wow so we believe that we have the power to put our internet takes through these editorial Avenues into the universe we see ourselves as Community leaders in the online space where we lead conversations around emerging cultures Niche topics and weird and wonderful Trends and with great power comes great responsibility and we at the sorry did I skip a slide sorry and our responsibility is connecting all these dots together. So that means when we are exploring different cultures and subcultures online we make sure to in depthly understand them.

8:26 But also when it comes to working with our clients Cent it clients it means working directly with these communities or subcultures and also making sure we're authentically representing them so what does that. Actually look like we have digivision which is our mini documentary series produced in a house where we platform subcultures to let them tell their own stories from underground Rave communities like grin to London's Japanese fashion scene to artists like fungal fancy right here who pushes the boundaries of femininity with her grotesque Prosthetics we also have our reports this is where we identify any emerging trends for example like the rise of crime Aesthetics on social media it's also where we predict how these Trends May evolve we love involving our community in these reports so we always get someone to quote and provide their opinion so our readers can really get up close and personal on these topics and our clients in our community Al honestly love using these as free resource so you guys are all welcome to read our reports as well. And we take the spirit of serving our communities directly into our client work so for example we helped launch Liverpool Football club's partnership with Converse in a campaign where we casted and collaborated with members of the fandom who were lesser represented we also worked with Spotify on their Misfits 2.0 playlist The Misfits 2.0 playlist is a playlist with alternative genres like hyperpop Punk and Hip Hop and it really captures the spirit of youth Rebellion which aligns perfectly with the digital fairy so for our social campaign we connected fans to their favorite artists like young blood and ashiko and again helped create this little corner of the internet where the misfit Community can gather and make friends and hang out so for our work with topicals we disrupted the Bland Beauty landscape through our branding and identity work by casting alternative faces of spotty hotties and London's underground community we brought our own vision of beauty standards to life with the UK campaign launch so where does that leave us we believe that internet culture is culture it's something that powers our insight and creative and casting it underpins how we like to work with clients and also sometimes what we want to have for lunch in the office and we're not saying to only look at your phone as a source of inspiration.

10:55 But it's a pretty good tool for you to explore the world you might find perspectives that Delight you surprise you or shock you you might also connect with equally weird internet friends to make equally weird stuff together or you might find yourself in communities that help you feel seen and validated and if being chronically online worked out just fine from a small town girl from waterl Ontario Canada with a 1-hour internet limit and a dream or a big city girl from Hong Kong with a fanfiction story.

11:25 That's probably read by only two people we turn out pretty okay. So from two social media thickos to all of you we encourage you to be proud of your screen time and truly embrace your internet identities and activities and that way you too can turn your memes into dreams thank you thank [Applause]