Why Some Legends Fade—and Others Stay in the Game
There was a time when Elvis Presley was the culture.
The voice. The swagger. The myth. He wasn’t just a musician he was an era. A force of nature.
But today? He’s mostly missing.
You don’t hear Elvis on the radio. You don’t see Gen Z quoting his lyrics. You don’t hear him remixed in dance music or stitched into viral videos. Aside from a brief spark during the 2022 biopic, his cultural presence is barely flickering.
Even with critical acclaim and an Oscar-nominated performance, it wasn’t enough to bring him back into the everyday conversation. The audience looked, admired, and moved on.
That’s the tragedy.
It’s not about musical taste or generational change. It’s about disconnection.
Because Elvis didn’t just vanish he was quietly excluded. Not because he lost relevance… but because no one fought to keep him in the present. No one redesigned the experience of Elvis for the world we live in now.
And that should scare anyone building something meant to last.
Because if Elvis can fade, so can you.
Why Elton and the Beatles Still Matter: The Anatomy of Living Legends
Elvis may have faded but others from his era are still very much alive in the cultural bloodstream.
Take Elton John.
Here’s an artist whose fame easily rivals Elvis. He’s been performing for five decades, released 30+ albums, and sold over 300 million records.
But unlike Elvis, Elton never stopped participating in the present.
He didn’t just tour endlessly he evolved:
He scored The Lion King, embedding himself in the childhood of a new generation.
He collaborated with Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, and Britney Spears.
He built a TikTok presence, adapted to livestream culture, and released The Lockdown Sessions with modern pop artists.
He didn’t treat his legacy like a monument. He treated it like a living organism fluid, adaptive, open to reinterpretation.
Now look at The Beatles.
The band hasn’t existed for over 50 years and yet, they just released a new song in 2023 thanks to AI-enhanced vocals from an old Lennon demo. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr showed up on modern media channels to discuss it, igniting a new wave of excitement not just nostalgia.
Before that, Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary transformed hours of archival footage into a cultural event. You didn’t just watch the Beatles you sat with them. You felt the creative process.
This is intentional relevance.
It’s not that their music suddenly got better. It’s that their presence was re-contextualized. They weren’t brought back they were brought forward.
Then There’s Marvel…
If you want a modern example of what happens when engagement isn’t continuously reimagined look at Marvel.
For over a decade, Marvel didn’t just dominate the box office they defined pop culture. The Infinity Saga wasn’t just storytelling. It was architecture. Characters, callbacks, memes, easter eggs everything was engineered to pull audiences deeper, to reward participation, to make you feel like part of something bigger.
But after Endgame, something shifted.
The emotional payoff was complete but there was no new inciting incident. No fresh tension. No reason to stay connected.
Suddenly, the multiverse felt like homework. The movies became noise. The audience didn’t stop caring they stopped engaging.
And that’s the same trap Elvis fell into:
When the story arc ends, and no one crafts the next one, the audience quietly slips away.
Elvis was treated like a shrine. Marvel lost the plot. Elton and The Beatles? They’re signals still evolving, still engaging.
This isn’t just about music or movies. It’s a mirror held up to:
Startups that launch with buzz but fade by year two
Creators who go viral once and vanish
Brands that cling to "what used to work"
Leaders who rely on legacy instead of momentum
It’s not about being iconic. It’s about staying in the conversation by design.
The Core Problem: The Death of Engagement
We like to believe that greatness guarantees permanence.
That if you build something iconic, something beloved, the world will always show up for it.
But the truth is much sharper:
Relevance is rented. And the rent is due every day.
No matter how powerful your brand, no matter how brilliant your past if you stop engaging your audience in a way that feels alive, they will move on without you.
Elvis didn’t vanish overnight. He just stopped evolving.
Now look around today and you’ll see the same quiet fade happening in real time.
Pinterest – once the future of visual search, now a forgotten inspiration board
Peloton – pandemic darling, now struggling for emotional and cultural relevance
Clubhouse – no loops, no tension, no story = no future
Snapchat – still alive, but culturally absent
It can just as easily happen to Apple, Google, or Meta as it did to Tumblr, Vine, and Myspace— once kings of culture, now digital ghost towns.
Engagement Is the Edge Between Living and Lost
Engagement isn’t a campaign. It’s not a post, a promotion, or a push notification.
It’s the entire system that keeps you alive in the cultural bloodstream.
Without it:
Loyalty erodes
Referrals slow
Brand memory fades
Cultural connection dies out
The worst part? You won’t see the decay in your revenue right away.
That’s why it’s dangerous. You’ll still have traffic. Still get sales. Still be “fine.” Until one day, you're not.
Because in a world where attention resets every 24 hours, a brand that’s merely visible isn’t enough. You have to be present, responsive, and in motion.
Right now, some of the most powerful brands in the world are standing on the edge:
Disney, the gold standard of storytelling, is now grappling with audience fatigue, fragmented franchises, and a streaming strategy still in search of clarity.
Nike, long synonymous with cultural cool, is facing a generational shift and a marketplace full of challengers with sharper relevance and faster moves.
Spotify, the undisputed leader in music streaming, is feeling the pressure from competitors, from creators, and from a cultural moment asking: “What’s next?”
These aren’t cautionary tales yet. But they’re close.
And so is every brand that hasn’t built a system for staying culturally alive.
The Inciting Incident Methodology: How to Stay Alive in the Story
Every unforgettable story starts with a moment of disruption.
A knock at the door. A glitch in the Matrix. A mysterious letter. A chance to become something more.
That’s the inciting incident—the moment that pulls the hero into a new world. And it’s not just a narrative device.
It’s the secret engine of engagement in film, in games, and yes, in business too.
Audiences don’t stay because of your backstory. They stay because they’ve been pulled into a world where they matter. Where something is unfolding. Where they want to see what happens next.
That’s the insight that powers our methodology.
The Inciting Incident Framework is how we help brands stay relevant through three key components:
1. Story Hooks: Make Meaning Feel Urgent Again
Too many brands lead with features and benefits. But people don’t buy features. They buy stories they want to be part of.
Story Hooks anchor your brand in emotional relevance. They introduce tension. They reframe the familiar. They make the audience feel like something important is at stake—and they’re part of it.
2. Game Loops: Turn Engagement into Habit
Once someone’s in the story, the next challenge is keeping them there.
Game Loops create rhythm, feedback, anticipation. They turn interaction into habit. They reward curiosity. They build momentum.
It’s not about manipulation it’s about participation by design. It’s treating your audience not as passive consumers, but as active players.
3. Culture Craft: Build Relevance That Evolves
Culture Craft is the art of staying in motion with your audience.
It’s not trend-chasing. It’s designing for shared meaning in real time. It’s remixable symbols, accessible stories, evolving language. It’s how you avoid becoming a museum and stay a movement.
Together, these three forces form engagement architecture a system for staying relevant, resonant, and culturally present.
This Is the Moment. Don’t Wait for the Obituary.
If you’ve made it this far, you already know the truth:
Relevance isn’t about the past. It’s about what you do next.
Elvis was a king. But he became a statue. Frozen. Revered. Forgotten.
And that’s the fate waiting for any brand, leader, or movement that stops designing for engagement.
You don’t need another campaign. You don’t need a rebrand. You need a reawakening.
Because if your audience isn’t in motion, your brand is in decline. And if your story isn’t pulling people deeper, it’s pushing them away.
The legends that last aren’t the ones with the biggest launch. They’re the ones that master reinvention. They engineer relevance. They architect engagement. They refuse to go static.
You can hope for attention. Or you can build a system that earns it again and again.
And that’s exactly what we do at Inciting Incident.
So here’s the challenge:
If you believe your brand deserves to matter,
then stop waiting to be remembered and start designing to be unforgettable.
Let’s write your next chapter. Before someone else writes your ending.
