What viral fly-brain videos reveal about science in the attention economy

Storytelling is a driving force for modern scientific advancement. Through social media, scientific research has moved from laboratories into the public eye. Platforms like X and Bluesky offer platforms for younger scientists to exchange ideas, collaborate and communicate research. These are the positives.

The side effect, though, is that scientific ideas now compete in the same information environment as politics, entertainment, influencers, startups and current events. These media reward immediacy, simplicity and emotional certainty. Yet science never dazzles overnight. Breakthroughs like CRISPR, AI and renewable energy took years of painstaking research and were built on “unglamorous” basic science conducted over decades.

This creates tension. To remain relevant in an age of short attention spans, scientists must produce interesting “content”: ground-breaking science. When that process is slow, rare and uncertain, scientists are pressured to “reinterpret” their work.

A fruit-fly brain simulation video, for example, swept social media claiming a fly had been digitally uploaded. Although experts quickly challenged the claims, it nevertheless caused a buzz in the online tech hive, where lay technologists marveled at digital immortality while neuroscientists lamented the marketing stunts and sloppy methodologies.

The forces driving this transformation, or the 'Tiktokification' of science, deserve discussion, particularly for their impacts on academic and civil society.

Traditional US funding sources, particularly those from the government, are increasingly difficult to obtain. The success rate for NIH R01 grants has declined in recent years, with some institutes reporting rates close to 10%. Early-career researchers have been particularly affected.

Over the past two years, federal agencies have terminated or frozen thousands of awarded research grants and significantly reduced the federal scientific workforce. This is also happening in Argentina, Japan and South Korea.

Basic science is especially vulnerable because it is often the least glamorous work, despite underpinning later technologies. As the funding landscape becomes less reliable, researchers increasingly seek private sources, including philanthropists, billionaires from the dot-com and crypto booms and newly minted AI centi-millionaires. They also find themselves more likely to make proposals that sound transformative and uniquely fundable.

In the last decade, early-stage investors have also moved further upstream. The combination of public funding disbursement delays and a transformation of the largest VC funds into Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) simultaneously opened a gap in early research development while unlocking new pools of capital for aligned opportunities. Funds accustomed to hunting for the next hot founder or deal can now reach scientific projects much earlier.

The critical difference is incentives: while the government can prioritize discovery for broad strategic or societal goals, private investors carry responsibility to maximize financial returns. This leads the latter to prioritize the hottest sectors such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, nuclear energy, while neglecting longer term or riskier areas of investment, such as healthcare, food insecurity and climate change.

Scientists are thus pressured to adapt to this environment by learning a new game: attracting returns-first investors.

As science adapts to the scrolling economy, it incurs hidden costs in our efforts to advance science and technologies. The first is the distortion of funding and investment. When attention and optics become a currency, resources may flow toward the most dramatic story rather than the most durable scientific path.

The Human Brain Project, which attracted millions of euros, illustrates how visionary programmes can attract substantial resources and attention. That does not necessarily mean they displace foundational research, but it raises questions about how funding systems balance ambitious flagship projects with slower, less visible work.

Private science funders therefore bear responsibility to reward scientific rigour and scalability over empty spectacle, and to value tool-building and foundational work. Particularly when decisions occur outside peer review, scientific quality must be examined carefully enough to separate importance from narrative hype.

Second, systems that reward boldness more clearly than rigour can teach early career researchers that success depends on making every result sound transformative. This has long-term negative impacts on the future of the scientific workforce. When we train scientists, academic institutions should emphasize the importance of stating uncertainty and separating what has been shown from what is hoped. Grant writing classes should teach students responsible use of social media and public dissemination platforms, while institutional communications teams should be held to strong journalistic standards.

Third, exaggerated claims may buy short-term attention but damage long-term trust. If science repeatedly promises revolutions that arrive slowly, partially, or not at all, the public will become more cynical about even genuinely important discoveries. The controversy and misinformation surrounding mRNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic showed how quickly public trust can be damaged when scientific communication becomes politicized.

Scientific results once travelled slowly: from experiment, to paper, to conference, to public discussion. Today, a discovery may become a story before it has fully matured, in a grant proposal, university press release, social media thread or venture pitch. This has made science more visible and it helps scientists recruit collaborators, attract funders and build companies, especially during the current difficult funding landscape.

We therefore should not respond to the attention economy by asking scientists to become less ambitious, imaginative or effective at storytelling. The key distinction is between imagining an extraordinary future and claiming that we have already arrived there without rigorous evidence. Science can thrive in the attention economy only if scientists, funders, media and the public remain conscious of that distinction. The credibility of science ultimately depends on valuing veracity over virality.