It is hard to understate the impact of the coronavirus on culture. Now classified as a global pandemic, this outbreak is already regarded as the greatest globally shared experience in the history of humankind. As lifestyles are being upended, we are tasked with envisioning what life might look like weeks, months, and years from now. In the short term, everyday social interactions are either halting, becoming reconfigured, or being outsourced to the digital cloud. In the long term, young people from Brooklyn to Bangkok coming of age in this time of turmoil and solitude will surely shape and accelerate our future with new digital and hygienic expectations.
To better understand the cultural effects of the coronavirus, we’ve asked our Streetscapers—who serve as Kantar’s network of global cultural correspondents—to share their local perspectives on this international pandemic. Specifically, we invited 20 Streetscapers from different countries to comment on how daily behaviours have changed and what they think the long-lasting effects of the virus will be, and to provide examples of what companies and brands are doing in their local market in reaction to COVID-19.