A lot of marketing is shit.

What is Good Marketing Dot Com?

Just a brain dump with no filter today.

Good marketing is about good communication.

A bunch of sensitive babies worried about bad optics ruined things for the rest of us.

The past few years I haven't really seen anything that's blown my socks off when it comes to marketing. Is marketing dying or have things just gotten boring and predictable? If it does blow my socks off or interest me, it is basically is thoroughly human and weird and specific and DIRECT. Maybe I've been working in marketing too long?! Maybe I've been alive too long, or maybe...

People just got lazy as fuck. and Scared to be weird and awesome? Scared of being cringe? Scared of sharing what they actually think? Why?

That is disappointing because that is what makes things interesting. When we're all allowed to be ourselves and express our interests and weird thoughts. I think the perversion of culture is when people can longer express their individuality when in groups and participating in group communications. We may already be the borg, but can we also, like NOT be THAT borg. Can we be a better, smarter, stronger, and perhaps humorous borg? A borg that likes sex and isn't afraid to be a little off color here and there? A borg that occasionally curses and says what they are feeling? Wait, I think I mean, not the borg. (Yes)

I know there's a lot on this topic so I'll keep my rant high level today. Cancel culture = a bunch of sensitive babies who are more worried about bad optics than actually living the full experience tried to ruin the party for everyone. What it has in common with the borg is it's group think at scale supercharged by echo chambers on social media and FRANKLY, I'm a little pissed off about this one OVERCOMPLICATED PERMISSION SETTINGS ON DIGITAL SERVICES AND APPLICATIONS THAT ALLOW USERS TO MAKE SAFE SPACES SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO HEAR THINGS THEY DON'T LIKE.

Feels more like a culture war than anything and it made a lot of things suck balls. And who is to blame? Well, don't point any fingers until you have all the information because you'll look like a fool when the narrative keeps getting even more and more ridiculous and complicated. I'll take one punch and maybe it's an easy one - Technology companies who didn't have the balls to stand up for freedom of speech and got pressured by government, NGOs, and whiny babies who didn't want their feelings hurt. And UX designers that didn't simplify the requirements and made information basically impossible to find. Yes, YOU Apple. YOU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eZITdhMtmo). Really good marketing (and direct communication) might piss you off. It might make you laugh, but it certainly is not boring. I question a lot of the work I do these days if it's really useful or valuable to someone. It needs to be entertaining. Super honest and direct. Or very, very, very educational and practical. Immediately useful. Immediately invoke a response or get indexed by the reader. Otherwise why bother? And why not all of those things all at once?

If not, why even do it? Cause I certainly don't want to read abunch of nothing and come away feeling like I got brain wiped because I had to listen to someone talk about something that has no value and no usefulness to me whatsoever. I don't want to feel included. I want to find answers to questions and learn new perspectives and insights from individuals who used their own data set, trained on their own learnings, and smush together all the weird sources that ever shaped them into their unique take on something. Why not just let creative marketing folks be their weird selves? Is everyone really that afraid of bad optics? (YES.)

Why? When did that happen and when did everyone get so uptight about everything? And how do you reverse it? How is being "human" in your marketing discarding every part of you that makes you YOU? Why did things really become named the exact opposite of what they are supposed to be there for? Whose dystopian nightmare novel is this and how do I tell them they fell into one of the oldest storylines known to contemporary culture and how they could make so much more money and maximize happiness and human flourishing if they'd inject a little hope and tone down the fear/greed messaging.

When I was trying to grow fifteen years ago I would try to do something every day that put me in an uncomfortable position or challenge myself in some way. I thought that was a pretty good mantra for learning and experimenting. At work this is more difficult to do. Why? Because so much energy is spent into convincing others internally that HOW you want to execute a directive is more important than actually achieving the desired result. There are so many unspoken rules in life, and especially in work. It's an exhausting framework to experience. I kind of wish everyone would just go take mushrooms or something or have a life changing event and just WAKE UP. Tired of being alone on the island of, why are we still doing it this way and what are you so afraid of?