What Does A Gen Z Artist Like in
Art,
Animation and Games? By Neil Blevins Created On: Nov 28th 2025 Updated On: Jan 29th 2026 Software: None
Years ago at one of the large entertainment company's I used to work
for, we were told
about a study on what engages the younger American audience.
At
the time, it was GenZers, who are as of 2025 between the ages of 13 and
28. The purpose of the study was to make sure the company was giving
the audience what they wanted. The biggest take away I got from
the study was the desire of GenZ to have an authentic connection with
the artist. That study
also inspired some parts of my Authenticity in
Art lesson.
Now if you're a lone artist, I highly recommend you make the art you
want to make, and not follow trends or put too much emphasis on these
sorts of studies. But for large collaborative projects that put
millions of dollars on the line such as large films or videogames, I
can understand the usefulness of having an understanding of the
larger shifts in taste of your intended
audience. Obviously you don't want to make art by committee, but not
understanding your audience at all seems like a bad way forward as well.
While knowing the tastes of all GenZs are of interest to big companies,
my own personal interest was a little more focused, what do the Artists
of GenZ want in Art, Animation and Games? And so this article will go
over some of the things I have discovered as a
GenXer trying to figure out the direction the younger generations of
artists are
going (hopefully this won't be my "Ok Boomer" moment).
Trend vs Seismic Shift
There's no official definition here, but for me, a trend is something
that's far too granular to be useful, like "This movie about bunnies
was a big hit, so the audience wants bunnies!" I think this sort of
research is not terribly useful, not only does it lead to over-
saturation very quickly, but frequently leads to the conclusion that
the audience wants to see bunnies no matter how bad the film is, vs
the truth which is they liked that bunny film because it also had a
great plot.
A Seismic Shift is a much larger movement in taste. Like for years,
people did really seem to love super hero films. This of course was
aided by the fact many of the earlier films in the genre were decent,
and their decline seems to be thanks to a number of factors
including the market got over
saturated with too many subscription service series, the intertwined
plots got too complex,
and spectacle over substance. But this is a good example of a much
larger and long lasting phenomena than following a simple and short
lived trend. And that's more what I'm hoping to explore here.
My Own Research
So this year I've had the pleasure to teach art to a bunch of high
school and
college students, and so decided to take the chance to perform my
own little survey about visual trends, how the generation consumes art,
where they go to find it, what styles speak to them, etc.
Here's some notes about my totally unscientific research...
As previously stated, rather than hitting the general
population, the students I spoke to were themselves artists, and so
won't be representative of the entire generation. But I felt this was
important group to poll since they will likely define the path of the
next say 20
years of media.
The students are all born and raised in the USA, west coast to be
exact.
The sample size is reasonably small, but it will grow as I teach
more classes.
They answered the survey on their own, but then some participated
in
group discussions.
While of course it's impossible to avoid any bias (I am not a
professional survey maker, so I don't know all the ins and outs of
random samples), I did my best not to prompt them, and tried
to avoid questions that were too leading. I wanted to understand, but
didn't want to corrupt them too quickly with my own views or the views
I've heard from other students.
Below are the things that came up frequently in what the students told
me...
Lets start with the individual artist, and then speak of film and games.
Question: Where Do GenZ
Artists Discover New Artists?
Answer: Youtube
Yup, not Deviant Art, not Artstation, but youtube. As a GenXer,
Artstation was my favorite place for the last decade to discover new
artists and follow
them. But not GenZers, most had never even heard of
Artstation, and
they'd heard of Deviant Art but don't use it anymore because it's seen
as skewing too young and unprofessional.
Of course this leads to an obvious question, if an individual artist is
making primarily 2d still images, why does the audience go to a video
streaming platform
to find their art? Here's what the majority answers were:
The students are already on youtube for other things like
podcasts and silly videos, so it's easier to stay on a single platform
to follow artists too
Almost more than seeing beautiful art, they like seeing the
process of making the art, for example
videos of speed paintings and procreate time lapses. One reason they
like seeing the process is so they can confirm it's not being made by
GenAI,
the artists I spoke to generally do not like GenAI in the arts as its
seen as inauthentic (as well as environmental concerns, etc).
They also love watching Art Tutorial videos, especially shorter
tutorials (under 10 min) and tips and tricks. They love these because
it lets them discover better ways to make their own art, not just enjoy
someone else's art. They also enjoy art analysis.
So one question I hade was if they want videos, why not TikToc?
Youtube is seen as better
because the videos can be longer form (again though, not too long,
under 10 min is best).
Why not Instagram? Instagram was actually the number 2 answer on
where to discover artists, but more people are leaving Instagram
because of moral concerns about the owners of the platform.
Question: What Sort Of Art Style Do GenZ
Artists Like The Most In Artists?
Answer: Anime / Manga.
Like, by a factor of 3. The second choice wasn't even close. So why
Anime / Manga
over other art styles?
In Anime / Manga you can have crazy ideas that don't make sense
but just work. Like a human can be the best friend of a 6 foot tall
penguin that speaks, and that's totally normal in an anime.
In Anime / Manga, it's very common to see really exaggerate
expressions, and it makes it more obvious how the character is feeling.
GenZ is able to empathize with characters more effectively when their
expressions are exaggerated.
They also love exaggerated movement, big
stretchy bodies. The craziness of the extreme poses is exciting.
The exaggeration gives the impression the artist is having more
fun making it. It also feels almost experimental, how far can you push
things, and that's fun for the audience to watch.
The core of the Anime / Manga style is pretty easy to learn, and
there's lots of resources out there showing you how to do it, so the
learning curve to make your own doesn't feel as steep as other styles.
Basically it's faster to get something decent, even if reaching
perfection is as hard as any other style.
Question: What Can An Artist Do
To Keep The GenZ Artist Audience Coming Back For More?
Answers:
As mentioned earlier, not just showing their art, but showing
their process.
Giving Tips and Tricks that the audience can apply to their own
art.
Have a personality / be authentic. The artist doesn't need to be
outgoing specifically, but they need to at least give a little bit of
information about themselves, what they like, what their influences
are. Bonus points for showing an actual video of them talking once in
awhile. It's no longer enough to just have good art (GenAI can do
that now), the audience wants to love the whole package, art and artist
together.
Perfect art isn't necessary, Gen Z loves seeing other artists who
are their own age or close in age, they are willing to overlook
imperfection in the art if the artist has charisma. Seeing artists
their own age making art gives them the felling of "I could do this
too".
Question: What Sort Of Art Style Do GenZ
Artists Like The Most In Animation?
Answer: Anime
No surprise there, considering what they like best in individual
artists. Here's a deeper dive on the topic as it related specifically
to animation.
A single anime can have multiple art styles in a single show, and
the art style can be
specific to a certain emotion. So even the art style can be a way to
communicate emotion to the audience. If the art style is the same
throughout the animation, it doesn't convey as much emotion. As a
personal example, on the Incredibles, we used saturated colors to make
the olden days of heroes feel exciting, and then used desaturated
colors
in the present when Bob was bored at his job. What the students said to
me was why just use colors to indicate emotional states, they love
using entirely different art styles to do the same thing. A good
example was the second season of Arcane, which had a number of episodes
where the art style shifted depending on the story ebing told (like
Jinx's descent into madness).
Western animation is seen as having too many rounded edges in
their character design. Students prefer the harder,
more angular edges of anime. In simpler terms, western animation is
seen as a circle, eastern is
a triangle, and thew majority of the students I spoke to like the
triangle.
The students feel that western animation is only made by like 3
large companies, whereas there are hundreds of smaller companies making
anime. That means there's more variety in anime. This is a topic that
came up a lot, 3d western animation is seen as being made by large
faceless companies that are factories, while anime is made by smaller
companies that have more artistic control. This impression is made even
stronger by the fact many anime are based on Manga, which are usually
made by very small teams, and so the anime based on the manga feel more
personal, more one creative's vision. The "funny" thing is that a lot
of anime is actually super assembly line
with little
creativity beyond a few key individuals. So it's not that anime is
actually less corporate, but it gives the impression of less corporate.
And so GenZ seems to be saying no to the "corporate" western animation
and yes to the "less corporate" and more diverse eastern animation
style.
In the same vein, the students feel all western 3d animation is
too
similar now, they all have the "Pixar Style", and even old Pixar used
to have more variety to their character design than they do now.
Very few of the students could tell me the director of a western
animation, but they could all tell me the names of directors of various
anime, which may be a sign of how the anime shows feel more "personal".
This was fascinating, I asked students about old western 2d
animation, like tom and jerry, pink panther, disney films, etc., and I
was told that most students don't even realize that there is or was
western 2d animation. I remember when Toy Story came out, pretty much
every 2d animation projects in the west shut down to pursue the trend
of 3d animation. Well, it turns out that this was super effective, so
effective that the new generation doesn't even know there is western 2d
animation, to them
western animation is synonymous with 3d animation. If there was more
western 2d animation with exaggerated expressions, maybe they'd watch
more western animation.
Favorite Projects: Traditional Anime, Arcane, KPop Demon Hunters,
Spiderverse, The Amazing Digital Circus
Kpop Demon Hunters
Question: What Sort Of Art Style Do GenZ
Artists Like The Most In Games
Answer: More Varied
When it came to Games, no 1 art style won out over the others. But a
few larger issues did come up again and again.
GenZ likes indy games. This seems to connect with the whole
wanting to love the artist and the art as a package. If your game was
made by 500 people, then it's big, corporate and faceless. But an Indy
game can be made by a very small team, and if that small teams gives
you lots of behind the scenes stuff, especially during the game making
process, it makes the audience feel like they're a part of the
experience (like they're working with the team making the game), and so
gets the audience more excited.
The one big exception to this is Minecraft. The team who made the
game is small, but it's owned by a giant behemoth (Microsoft), so you
might think it would be classified as corporate. But the
kids don't care, they just don't remember a time they weren't playing
minecraft. They don't even know why they like it, it's just always been
there in their lives. (note: someone on a discord I follow made a good
point, most people's introduction to and interaction with Minecraft is
watching indy creators making mods, or youtube videos of individuals
building things in Minecraft, or building on their friend's servers. So
even if the software is written by a large company, their interaction
with minecraft involves more small creators, which gives it the indy
feel).
Also Roblox, GenZ loves Roblox, but that's because it's a
platform where you can make your own games or mod other people's games,
so it's combining consumption with creation.
Favorite Projects: Minecraft, Fortnite, Animal Crossing, Sky: Children
Of The Light, Roblox
Minecraft
Big Take Aways
So if I have to boil down everything to a few big points,
here's my stab at it.
GenZ artists hate anything that appears big and corporate, they
love things that feel like indie
projects, small teams, individual artists.
GenZ artists want projects that feel authentic, like a real
person made
it. The creator is as important as the final art. They want to feel a
connection to who the artist is as a person, and know they have worked
hard at their craft. GenAI in art should be avoided.
GenZ feels art is a collaborative
medium, not not one of passive consumption, they want to feel like
they're a part of the creation
process. Either by watching the project as its being made, or by
directly contributing to the project with fan art, giving money to a
kickstarter, or talking with the creator to give them opinions. Will do
a talk about MAPs (Multi-Animator Project) at some point.
GenZ artists love Anime because it feels less corporate, you can
really
exaggerate expressions, motion and characters, and has a softer
learning curve.
GenZ artists love stuff that feels a little weird and wacky. Love
varied and
experimental visual styles.
Conclusion
Oscar winning writer William Goldman coined a legendary
phrase about the movie industry: "Nobody Knows Anything". He went on:
"Nobody, nobody - not now, not ever - knows the least goddamn thing
about what is or isn't going to work at the box office." If this is
true, does this negate everything I've said in this article? I feel his
words are more meant to point out the reality that no rules are always
true all the time. If the next
generation likes anime, that doesn't mean they will like ALL anime. Or
that something that's not anime won't make a boat load of money. The
lesson to be learned from his words I believe is that you should never
put all your
eggs in one basket, so take all of this with a big grain of salt.
Personally, since I've been doing a lot of teaching, I find this sort
of research really helpful. My role when teaching is to not turn all my
students into little carbon copies of myself, but to use my 30 years of
knowledge to help them make their stories and ideas better. And so
having a better understanding of how they view, consume and create art
will help me help them achieve their goals. Hopefully this research can
also help others, like if I was film director, I might not say "Let's
make this an anime instead", but I might say
"lets focus on exaggerating the animation and really bring it to 11 a
little more often". Or knowing that GenZers love authenticity, this
seems like the absolute worst time to try make films using GenAI, and
I'd likely suggest lots of opportunities for the audience to be
a part of the process, such as in progress looks into how the project
is going and how it's made.
Hopefully you found this information interesting, and as I continue to
teach
I'll update this article with new insights as I discover them.
