#10 Can a bee be a fish?
W/C June 6 2022
Hello and welcome to #10. What a Platty Joobs it’s been, or is that Platty Jubs? I’m going Joobs and I won’t have a word against it. It’s funny how UK IG/Twitter (hunsnet?) basically make it a thing.
It’s been amazing to have such an extended time off - with public holidays across Europe this week too it feels like I’ve finally caught up from holiday.
I’ve been drawn to the subject of failure and regrets recently. I’ve got more than a few failure stories of my own that I’ll share in the coming weeks, one or two I’ve never really spoke about other than over wine. But until then, embrace. And listen to this on regrets from Daniel Pink. It’s genuinely fantastic. Failure is good, the things I’m best at right now are because of things I’ve made mistakes in.
Now, on to the #content.
1. The internet has turned us into Content machines
I think the actions of the last 5-10 years of social internet are now starting to come home to roost a little. From politics to advertising to well, everything. We are just consumers of so much #content (am I part of the problem, 100% yes). What does it mean? Fuck knows. Probably more physical experiences for some and even more digital experiences for others. But this long read lays out some interesting thinking and a few books to read too.
2. TikTok launches 8 episode comedy for $4.99
Oh hi, yes that is TikTok coming for you. Interesting, smart, feels like something Vine would have done 10 years ago, god I loved Vine. Creators and comedy, the story as old as time,’it works, because people love to laugh. I wonder how nervous Ents studios are? Very little comedy other than comedy drama (why does everything have to be drama?). No we don’t want Mrs Brown’s Boys but comedy is much missed. Is there a connection between comedy and vitality?
3. How harmful is social media? Research is more unclear than you think
Weve all come to accept that social and we’ll, digital has to be bad for us. Especially the extreme use of either but research is struggling to find any truth in that nor that we are in an echo chamber. This is interesting but perhaps the conundrum of social is that it’s hard to prove the things we as (heavy) users know to be true. Or are we deluded?
4. How film cameras won over a generation looking to get away from digital
Going to physical experiences after half a decade of over digitsation? Who’d have thought it. Something is happening with physical.
Three management things.
The silent impact of burnout and how to manage it as a leader.
This book on resilience looks great from Bruce Daisley, if you know, you know. Is the result / impact of failure is resilience?
How to deal with failure - told you I was reading about it a lot.
Two quick game things.
A really great deep dive and debate on Battle Passes. If you’re new to them, good place to start.
Netflix Trailer for Resident Evil. Could be good, probably up there with Silent Hill as most scary game I played on PS1/2. Why is there no Dino Crisis remake tho?
Odds and ends, basic links. Little commentary, just pure linkage, in wine terms, low intervention links.
Loads of big updates to iOS, iPad and I want that new Macbook Air M2. Oh, and they are coming for Klarna and every other pay later business too. Cause, why not?
Mr Beast doing Mr Beast, this time Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Less impactful than Squid Game, relevance x timing I guess. Still a casual 38m organic views in 2 days though.
Twitter moving away from spaces, communities and newsletters. Have to say I think the products we’re ok. Spaces seem to be it a moment (Clubhouse also in big trouble) and communities came probably too late. Least they were doing some new things I guess.
Elon keeps Elon-ing. This time he says Twitter misled (doubtful IMO) him. I’d suggest anyone who has been on Twitter long enough or done enough research would disagree with him, but what he says is kinda meaningless at this point. Twitter seem to think it will still go ahead. I think it’s more brinkmanship and noise.
How I montetized my viral Baby Yoda TikTok account , not me - I wish.
Sheryl Sandberg is leaving Meta. There are lots of long reads on her, but this seems nuanced and worth a read. It’s quite interesting to see someone who was as popular and such an icon of leadership 8-10 years ago, kind of just flicker out.
Microsoft CEO on the future of work, a really interesting piece given to MIT
Don’t think too hard about TikTok - kinda agree content-wise, platform wise, we’ll see.
How a Bee can be a fish, in California anyway. If you stayed for the title, here is your payoff.
Time to accept that AI will never think like a human. Never say never, IMO but having worked in an AI start up I think we can be pretty chill for a while.
Great profile on the brothers who built Stripe. Wish I did, love their story.
Adieu.
Thanks for reading, do reply or let me know what you’d like to see more of or less of. Any interesting links/content also appreciated.
Bonus.
I was sceptical about Stranger Things 4 but it has been fantastic. So easy to fall back into the characters, a great story and for Maya Hawke (Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke’s daughter! Honestly, blew my mind) has been again a revelation with some great dialogue between Dustin and Steve. It makes me think this would be what Ghostbusters Academy / Extreme Ghostbusters (if you know, you know) would be like.
All the spelling and grammatical mistakes in this Substack are on purpose to test you, actually. Well done. You got them all. No, I don’t need to know about them, you can have that kudos.