VidCon has spent 15 years celebrating the creators and platforms at the heart of online culture. This year, in conjunction with its 15th annual flagship event, the convention is making room for a harder conversation about what that culture costs the people living and working inside it. The convention is partnering with multimedia company Lighthouse Edutainment to program a run of panels at its 2026 Anaheim event focused on social media’s impact on mental health, burnout, cyberbullying, dopamine-engineered feeds, and identity pressures that fall hardest on Gen Z and Gen Alpha. VidCon and Lighthouse shared the partnership exclusively with What’s