#12 The Personal Brand is Dead
W/C 20 June 2022
Hello and welcome to #12. It’s Cannes week and I’m writing this from sunny…London. It’s hard work, but someone has to do it. I’m sure there is a joke that any team or person who has one a Lion has to always mention it. As it happens I did work on campaign that won a Lion. I didn’t really know how much of a big deal it was, I was working in a non-profit, having worked in football talent identification and another non-profit before, I was just glad Twitter wanted us as a case study on their business site but the ad agency and media agency were excited. Tbf we did save lives. Anyway, that was ten years ago. Ten whole years. A decade. Which considering that was my third or fourth job means I am old. So it’s not even real anymore. Those are the new rules of digital.
Now, on to the #content.
1. Tumblr is hot again
I know, did it ever go away? But from a mainstream point of view, yeah, it did. But the internet is all about niches now. Tiktok is in essence a giant niche machine with scale. Does that keep it niche or not? Tumblr’s look and feel has been trending for awhile, in Jan vogue did a piece on it - tiktok has revitalized a certain Tumblr style and pushed it into the mainstream. This is a great piece on the platform, the challenges and indeed, what’s been going on since it was last in your mind. Worth a read.
2. Gen Z don’t want a personal brand, they want privacy
The next-gen is always the better gen. Yes, Gen Z, millennials, boomers, whatever they are called is mostly a bullshit way of putting lots of people into a box. But, this IS a good piece. In essence, privacy is king and anonymity is hot. It may sound a little playful how I put it, but the reasons are not so much playful, they’re fair and actually slightly worrying.
3. Meta building something pretty interesting
We kind of forget the age of tech we live in because we consume so much. But this is pretty amazing, Meta is building a tool to make photo real avatars. I mean, yes it could be used for all sorts of ills, but it is amazing technology. The classic social media dilemma.
4. When Elon Met Twitter.
No comment. But…all sounds normal. 👀
One quick web3 thing.
It’s basically a fire everywhere. 👇🏼
Odds and ends, basic links, a little commentary. In wine terms, low intervention links.
The rise in venting about work, people are tired of corporate bullshit
Snap is testing comments in Spotlight, a paid model AND restaurant recommendations
Facebook algo changing to be more TikTok - of course
Found this in a productivity Reddit, tools for literally every situation you may need to think about
I’ve spent most of the last 7 months figuring out how to be productive (tldr: tools, intention, mindset, sleep, belief). But this is a good read on rituals which resonated with me
Adieu.
I liked this. Steve Kerr won 9 NBA Championships as a player and coach, I often take from sport in my own leadership/coaching style. I think these all stand up, apart from 4 perhaps. Also worth reading 11 rings a book by Phil Jackson The Who won 11
Bonus.
Been watching The Lazerus Project on Sky, it’s got a great cast and it is a little on the nose dialogue wise but it is a fun romp, with a lot of pace. It also has some interesting ideas on time travel and what can make someone turn perhaps bad or question what is good. Worth a watch, get past the really literal and fast episode one and it’s good fun.
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 then, you have that kudos.