Hollywood may be chasing the wrong stars. Young audiences would rather see an unfamiliar actor lead a film than an influencer, while stories about friendship, hope and people like themselves continue to win them over. That is the message from the fifth annual Teens and Screens report by the Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
The report, titled Rewrite This! How Gen Z and Gen Alpha are Redefining Modern Storytelling, draws on a nationwide survey of more than 1,500 young people aged 10 to 24 in the US. Its findings offer a useful reminder to studios and streaming platforms: getting young viewers to click is one thing. Giving them a story worth watching is another.
YouTube takes the storytelling crown
For young audiences, a story no longer needs a cinema screen or a television set. It can unfold in a video game, a short-form clip or a YouTube upload.
Asked which media could tell a story, 72.9 per cent of respondents chose YouTube, ahead of television programmes at 70.3 per cent, films at 70.2 per cent and video games at 68.5 per cent. TikTok led among social media platforms, at 64.2 per cent. Nearly four in five respondents also said short-form videos could tell a story.
The figures suggest that the definition of storytelling is widening. Traditional formats still have an audience, but they no longer own the field.
“The gatekeepers have changed and young people themselves are deciding what they want to watch and what they want to see more of in the content they choose,” said CSS founder and CEO and the study’s senior author and an adjunct professor in UCLA’s psychology department Yalda T. Uhls.
Influencers need not apply
Social media fame may help creators build an audience, but it does not automatically earn them a place in a film or television cast.
Only 16.8 per cent of respondents said they would cast an influencer in a movie or television programme. By contrast, 40 per cent preferred an actor they had never seen before.
The results arrive as creator-led films such as Obsession and Backrooms draw attention to talent emerging from YouTube. But the distinction is important: young viewers may enjoy stories made by online creators without wanting influencers to become the stars of every screen production.
For casting directors, the message is less about follower counts and more about finding the right person for the part.
AI leaves young viewers divided
Younger respondents were more likely to view AI with fascination. Among those aged 10 to 13, 44.2 per cent described programmes about AI as fascinating, while only 9.7 per cent used words such as doom.
The mood shifted among respondents aged 19 and above. In that group, 27.4 per cent identified doom as their dominant emotion, against 17.7 per cent who felt excited.
AI may be finding its way into more creative conversations, but young audiences are not responding with one voice. The report also found that AI ranked sixth among eight media options when respondents were asked which could tell a story.
More room for neurodivergent characters
Representation remains a major concern. Only 2.8 per cent of speaking or named characters in the top 100 films of 2025 had a disability, according to figures cited in the report from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.
Meanwhile, 55 per cent of young respondents wanted to see more neurodivergent characters on screen. That figure rose to the 70s among respondents who identified as LGBTQIA+ or have a disability. Only 22.7 per cent believed that media portrayals of neurodivergence reflected real life most of the time.
The findings point to a gap between what appears on screen and what young viewers recognise from their own lives.
Friendship beats romance
Relatable stories topped young viewers’ wish lists for the second consecutive year. Asked what they wanted to see in films and television, respondents placed hopeful stories about people beating the odds first, followed by friendships and social groups, then people whose lives resembled their own.
Superheroes ranked fifth. Stories about partying, drugs and alcohol came last.
Romance also struggled to make the cut. Some 57.3 per cent of respondents wanted more representation of platonic relationships, while 56.8 per cent wanted characters in different-gender relationships to prioritise friendship rather than turn it into romance. More than half believed romantic relationships were given greater importance in fictional lives than they had in reality.
Preferences varied across groups. Stories about nonbinary and LGBTQIA+ identities ranked 17th out of 18 topics overall, but came first among LGBTQIA+ respondents. Boys and young men put action and fight scenes at the top of their lists, followed by superheroes.
Cinema still has its pull
Despite the shift towards online viewing, the big screen has not lost its appeal. For the third year running, watching a new film in a cinema was respondents’ top choice for a weekend activity when money and logistics were not obstacles. Playing a new video game came second, followed by attending a live music show.
Live-action content also regained its lead over animation, preferred by 58 per cent of respondents against 42 per cent for animation. That marked an increase of more than seven percentage points for live action compared with the previous year.
The report’s findings are not a verdict against animation, cinema or established stars. They are a call for creators to understand the audience before deciding what it wants.
CSS discussed the findings at its sixth annual Teens and Screens Summit at UCLA on 22 October. The event will bring together entertainment professionals, researchers and youth advocates. Higher Ground Productions, the company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama, will receive the second annual Greg Berlanti Social Impact Award.
The lesson for the industry is straightforward: young audiences are already watching across screens and formats. The challenge is to give them characters they recognise, stories they care about and reasons to come back.
