Why Barbenheimer Conquered the Internet

Despite bad optics for Hollywood and a bad run for movie-going, Barbie and Oppenheimer smashed box office records. These were specific, original, auteur-driven films with strong political stances, meta-textual conceits, and non-traditional structure. Hardly guaranteed hits.

But the internet delivered us Barbenheimer’s monster through the sheer, unbeatable power of memes, audience interest, and community intelligence.

But why?

Barbenheimer is actually a prime example of the creative rules I lay out for the teams I work with to develop content.

So what are the rules and how did Barbenheimer hit them?

1.) Ideas > Stories

I’ve harped on this a lot in blog posts. Maybe too much. But I think it’s important, so much so that it is my #1 rule for social content, and I think Barbenheimer illustrates my point. Barbenheimer didn’t hit because of the plots of these movies, nor, even, the dialog or the stars or the elements that matter once you’re actually in the theater. It hit because of the idea of contrasting vibes and aesthetics. Juxtaposition and non-sequitur. Powerclashing. That’s it. It’s all anybody wanted and, importantly, it’s all anybody got. Just the uncut, raw idea of the Barbenheimer powerclash.

This powerclash provided a platform for myriad UGC executions that drove the entire phenomenon. Ideas gave audiences the chance to project their own stories onto the brands. And voila.

2.) Be Visual

This is particularly important for brands to understand because they’ve got an uphill battle. Creators can now get away with longform content because they have fans. Brands don’t have quite the same luxury, even from loyal customers. The best way to counter “ugh, an ad” is to deliver a great visual as quickly as possible. That’s going to hook a viewer and take them past that critical 5-second threshold, and encourage them to give you a chance to prove your worth.

This means things like story, dialog, performance, text, etc are all largely extraneous to our goals in this particular creative discipline. They matter insofar as they deliver craft and logic and value once the audience is there— but only after they’ve been won, their interest earned. We can’t get ahead of ourselves.

Barbenheimer was driven entirely by visuals because the brand identities for both movies were extraordinarily, uniquely, wildly visual. Pink vs Black. Dresses vs Suits. Smiles vs Frowns. Insert the meme photo of the pink house and the brooding black house on Malibu beach. The power of visuals alone brought the community onboard and gave them an easy way to understand and interact.

3.) The Idea is the Headline

“Tiny Hamsters Eating Tiny Burritos,” “Guy Catching Laptop With His Butt.” Content needs to sell itself in its headline. Audiences have to know why they’re engaging before they engage. That headline needs to be damn good, which means the idea needs to be damn good. If you can’t pitch something must-watch in that space, you need a new idea. Yet again, this tells us that we can’t bury our lede in story or witticisms— we must win audiences before they ever engage.

Your idea must be worthy of a headline.

The internet is like the Cheesecake Factory. A giant, enormous menu within a tacky but completely entrancing space. Whatever it is you’re making is up against everything else on the menu— and they don’t all have to include the same vegetables we do— so you better have a really good title in order to get somebody to look at the actual ingredients.

Barebenheimer, again, nails this. It’s all right there in that pithy title. It tells you what’s invovled and how it works in one single word. “It’s Barbie and it’s Oppenheimer but combined into an unwieldy funny joke.” There you go— the idea is the headline. And at no point were Gerwig or Nolan’s stories involved beyond the aesthetic significance of their styles.

4.) The Content Must Deliver On The Headline

This is how we stay honest when we script, design, or execute. You’ve got to live up to the promise of that headline, that premise. Cut to the chase, trim the fat, get to the point, and get out.

If you’re going to make a video called “Tiny Hamster Eating Tiny Burritos,” then by god you better get to showing that.

Barebenheimer, in that one word, is an immaculate example. Make your non-sequitur execution and that’s it. No additional context, no additional story, no additional prologues or artful maneuvers. Just the good stuff.

5.) The Content Must Deliver ONLY The Headline

Very much related to the above but important enough it gets it’s own rule. I’ve talked at length about an old video with a title like “Man Plays Soccer With Lions.” Beautiful headline. Easy example of “idea as headline.” But then they botch the whole thing by making us watch through minutes and minutes of establishing shots before getting to the reason we clicked play in the first place.

This is about keeping disciplined. Avoiding “filmmakeritis” that adds flourish and embellishment where only idea is ever needed. Stay focused.

Barbenheimer’s elegance here is that there is no room for anything else. A lot of brands would make the mistake of adding something on top of the meme itself— when all we want is the uncut pure meme. We weren’t talking about Gerwig vs Nolan, we weren’t talking about Mattel vs Atom Bombs. We were talking about Pink Whimsy and Blacky Broody. That’s it.

Of course, ultimately, Barbeneheimer was lightning in a bottle. A frenzy of audience-driven passion that reaches well beyond the control or even the wildest dreams of any marketing team. Can that lightning ever be recaptured? I don’t know. But these rules are how you’d catch it.