Color swatches for brush pens I got from a local art supply store. ☺️
I officially cancelled my Spotify subscription and closed my account. Now I’m streaming music on Qobuz. I’m planning to write a blog post about migrating from Spotify to Qobuz. If you have any questions about that, let me know.
Marketing jeans
American Eagle is not on my radar. I would not have known about the Sydney Sweeney ads if I didn’t see social media posts about them.
Some people are criticizing American Eagle. Other people are saying the ads really don’t have deeper meaning. As if this is the debate—does American Eagle know what they’re saying with these ads?
Yeah, they know.
Consider that American Eagle knows exactly what it’s doing for marketing and advertising. The controversy around the Sydney Sweeney ads is the point.
Advertising does not happen by accident. American Eagle’s messaging is intentional. And including racist undertones so that people post reactions to the ads is part of the plan.
Is the approach problematic?
Yes.
Does it work to amplify their advertising?
Also yes. 😕
Sunglasses up
For two summers during college, I worked at an amusement park.
I was a photographer. You know the ones who ask if you want your photo taken as soon as you enter the park? That was me. 😉
The photography company was a vendor, so technically photographers were not park employees. But everyone had the same rules when it came to guest interactions.
One of those rules was, “Sunglasses up.”
We worked outside in the summer, so of course a lot of employees wore sunglasses. The rule was that whenever a guest approached you, you had to take your sunglasses off or put them up on your head. Taking your sunglasses off was a sign of politeness, so you could make eye contact with guests.
It didn’t matter if you were talking to a little kid, a teenager, or an adult. Sunglasses up.
It’s been over a decade since I had that job, but I still follow that rule. I take off my sunglasses whenever I’m talking to someone outside. I even do it for something quick, like going through a drive-through.
Is there a habit that you picked up at a job, and it stuck with you?
🍿 Superman (2025)
The new Superman movie is so refreshing for showing Superman as bright and hopeful. I got so tired of the dark and gritty style of the last few Superman movies, because that style doesn’t match Superman’s personality or optimism.
Does anyone use e-ink tablets like reMarkable or Supernote but ALSO love pens and paper notebooks?
Because I see the use case for, get an e-ink tablet and you don’t need a bunch of paper notebooks and pens anymore. But I love my notebooks and pens and do not want to give them up. 😂
So if you have opinions on e-ink tablets, I’d love to hear them.
Mildliner Reference from Rob Knight - A guide to all the colors and sets of Mildliner highlighters.
What’s your favorite music streaming app? I’m looking for recommendations outside of Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
url.town - A directory of all kinds of websites. Curated by humans, not algorithms.
🍿 I saw Ballerina this weekend. If you liked the other John Wick movies, you’ll like this one, too. I’m glad they gave Eve (the main character) an actual backstory and a distinct personality. She isn’t just a female version of John.
One must imagine Sisyphus satisfied.
Why is a bot in the chess.com app trash talking? 😭
I read Essentialism by Greg McKeown for the first time in 2020. It feels like a good time for a refresher, so I’m re-reading it. 📚
🍿 Ladyhawke (1985)
Ladyhawke has been on my list of movies to watch for a while, and I have no idea why I added it. It’s a ridiculous movie, but I kind of liked it.
My favorite bits:
- 80s synths in the soundtrack, for a medieval fantasy movie? Okay. 🙃
- Matthew Broderick’s character lies constantly and not even very well, but the other characters believe him. 🤨
- A joust inside a church. No one tries to stop them or move them outside. 😆
- Animorphs-like transformations. 🙂↔️
One vs. many
Content creators on social media, especially for videos, tend to be known for one thing.
One kind of comedy sketch. One specific art style. Traveling around the world. Trying new recipes. Productivity hacks. Technology reviews.
They are known for that one topic.
That’s limiting, which can be a good thing (consistency) or a bad thing (burnout).
Before social media, you didn’t have to be one thing on the internet. You could just be yourself.
Personal blogs were (and still are) places where you could post about whatever you wanted. You didn’t have to pick a niche.
Even message boards didn’t pin you to one topic. Yes, there was usually one focus area (a TV show, a book series), but there were also areas to chat off topic about whatever you wanted.
Mainstream social media is dying, and a lot of it has to do with being funneled into one thing—the corporate-controlled algorithm.
The algorithm forces ads and specific kinds of content on to your feed. It leaves less room to interact with people you follow and discover new people with common interests.
This makes social media feel restrictive. You get one way to see content, instead of many.
If people want a different way to interact online, personal websites are an alternative. Website platforms have gotten easier to use compared to pre-social media times.
I’m excited about what that means for people who want to find community online, but not on social media anymore.
Gladden offers “paper apps.” As in, analog games in a pocket notebook format.
Found via url.town
Can Directories Rise Again? from The History of the Web:
Search has bent in quality towards its earliest days, difficult to navigate and often unhelpful. And the remedy may be the same as it was a quarter century ago. It may be once again time for the surfers. Only different this time.
The only resistance to the current advance of AI is humanity. We are relearning that humans can see through the bullshit. There are examples everywhere.
A lot of personal bloggers already have slash pages, which are like personal directories. Makes sense to have old-school directories where a community contributes.
From an article in McSweeny’s, A COMPANY REMINDER FOR EVERYONE TO TALK NICELY ABOUT THE GIANT PLAGIARISM MACHINE:
I’d like to remind you that our company policy is pro–Plagiarism Machine™. We’re a tech-forward, future-oriented company that doesn’t shy away from the promise of new innovation—even if that innovation is a Giant Plagiarism Machine™ that copy-pastes existing innovation into fake sentient sentences.
Asking questions isn’t being difficult. It’s being curious. It’s trying to understand the rationale behind actions and beliefs. But for some people in power—whether that’s a boss, a self-styled authority figure, even a Partner—questions are dangerous. Questions suggest that maybe they don’t have all the answers, that maybe their decisions aren’t flawless, and that maybe, just maybe, there’s a better way of doing things.
— You’re Only “Difficult” to People Who Don’t Want to Be Questioned by Joan Westenberg
I deleted my Postroll page. Mostly I didn’t like saving links somewhere so that I could update my Postroll page at some later date. It was a clunky way to share links.
The Postroll page had a few links that I thought were still worth sharing, so I queued them up as individual posts, scheduled throughout tomorrow.
Moving forward, I’ll share links as regular posts and tag them with the links category.