But what do I have for you? I spent at least one pocket of each day since my last post wondering what I could cover that you’d care about. And then another pocket thinking,

what will it matter when a whole bunch of fellow laid-off people are starting the year job seeking like I am? testing the tools like I am? sharing their voices on every new headline and viral moment… while I haven’t been.

In the last few months, if I wasn’t deep on LinkedIn fine-tuning job alerts, I was revisiting the guy I was just after City College graduation in 2014. There was barely a portfolio then. Just effort. Sometimes a friendly face, sometimes a commitment to the plot of the day, the evening event, the coffeeshop to stadium to Jackson Heights side street. Always the ride back to the beach—often from the longest ride out of Manhattan.

One time I got a welcome detour, found myself in front of the Queens Center Mall after a trip to the Museum of the Moving Image. In between the community-centered AI event I attended and a recruiter DM about a potential opportunity role, I popped my headphones and revisited a project so seminal to my 30s.

Nick Hakim’s WILL THIS MAKE ME GOOD.

His projects, from the Where Will We Go EPs and Green Twins to his latest, I Can See, play as soulful, incandescent meditations. Revisiting that hazy affair of a second album got me to reflect on this moment: the adrift feelings, the frustrations clipping to quiet rage, my unwillingness to process all the different kinds of change in my world, the blindness to my own metamorphosis.

All while in a mental quicksand of a still-lingering question: who do I want to be on the other side of this moment?

“The other side” has been a sticking point for me since learning that I could have a career in advertising from blogging on Tumblr. From event to college transfer. From Sandy to internships. From putting it all out there in Beverly Hills, all the way to publicly tapping out to burnout at the Chicago Navy Yard. I mostly lost track of every little leap of faith that got me to this point, but it is worth sharing some of what I’ve been up to in this moment (mostly representing myself, or Aerialist, my consultancy):

1. Pouring a bit of the skills I’ve built into local organizations in Rockaway. Among them, the Rockaway Film Festival that’s brought cinephiles back to the coast for the last 9 years. That alone has brought a deeper joy back to living by the beach again.

2. ‘Adopting’ a close friend, an on-air personality and content creator, as a “client-partner”— in exchange for having an agency-trained strategist to commiserate with, I got to learn the unique needs of a solo voice in building her online community with intention.

3. Mentoring high school students, again and again. Since 2013, I’ve been involved as a supporter and advocate for MECA, the Manhattan Early College Academy for Marketing and Media Arts. Supporting on group projects and making peers with educators has been the most grounding part of my career. And sure: it’s always fun to tell a bunch of teenagers that I named a high school.

4. Roadmapping the road to becoming a teacher. Which means roadmapping going to grad school, and answering my heart’s call to be the novelist I hoped to become from age 14. More on that later.

5. Making peace with my relationship to AI. What are my thoughts on it? (Watch Sinead Bovell explain it to radio icon Angie Martinez.) Vibe-coding was a recurring headline from The Verge, but Claude to use for widgets to support my fiction universe and Aerialist.

6. Taking my learnings from vibe-coding and showing up in whatever spaces the friends at URL Media would welcome me into. (Side-note: there’s some esteemed independent journalists who could use a savvy marketing/design mind—happy to make some intros.)

7. Embracing every referral my young homies sent my way. And making space to reimagine what collaboration looks like with other independent consultants.

8. Testing out makeshift methodology through Audio Spice, a kind community of audio /podcast professionals I was introduced to.

9. Letting nine perfect strangers from around the world hold space for my tears and career crises. A big salute to the brilliant, effervescent Jenna Matecki of Amarima and The Human Board she’s assembled.

10. Throwing myself into almost every city cultural week: NY Art Week, NY Tech Week, and NYC Threads meetups for the plot, as well as ADWEEK House for my untapped sports fandom and under-stimulated media chatter-brain.

Back on that Q52, down Woodhaven to Cross Bay to the beach, deep in the title track (WTMMG): Will this shit make me good?

Will this next role, situation, or some other dart thrown in the fog, make me feel good?

If not, will it at least make me guap, a check, a chance to build all over again?

Will I like who I become on the other side of it, or will I allow another situation to find value in my Black surface without making room for my soul?

What will it take to make us good?

One thing I realized: shit won’t matter if I can’t be myself. The fiction writer. The futurist. The commuter. The curious curator and online person who just needs words on canvas. I think of the much bolder, less experienced guy at Kingsborough in Brighton Beach, who wanted to know enough ways to tell a story to never ever hear the word broke thrown at me again. Over time, I’ve learned 50 ways, maybe more—

—yet as I type this out, I’m broke again. Not for the lack of trying to find meaning and value somewhere. I put it all out there over these last months, on streets and in places I could never expect peers to step into. There’s no promise of rosé, no expectation that a Lion is within reach in any of those rooms.

I’m full of thoughts and stories, and so much of it doesn’t have squat to do with being an advertising guy. Whether I get a full-time position pouring into yet another corporate culture, or a seasonal retail role to pay the bills, I can’t abandon myself again.

So I won’t. I promised myself to do something different, and it starts with shifting platforms. Substack’s cool and held space for a stop-start attempt to build a little indie publication. I’ve appreciated the people who’ve read, paid to support my thinking, or reminded me my posts are too long. With that said, it’s time to try Beehiiv out.

Not behind the guise of another new idea, but as a chance to revisit the pieces of old and refined me.

Catch me there: beedeebee.beehiiv.com

Attempt #1: lofty. Before the year ended, The Academy announced that 2029’s Oscars would be streamed live on YouTube, unshackling itself from its broadcast partner Disney-ABC for the first time since 1976. 2029 was already shaping up to be (American) pop culture’s most influential — and I still think it will be. (Stay tuned for that! Excited to talk about what this moment will mean.)

However, by the time I was ready to add links and publish, US armed forces infiltrated a foreign country and snatched up its president and first lady. Didn’t feel right, but it’ll be there.

Attempt #2: resolute? Cause duh: New year, new chapter! I was in between a TED Talk Hour podcast clip where the guest was talking about leaning into questions over resolutions. For reference, mine was “Where will story take you this year?” Eh.

And then — Minneapolis popped up on the news for the first time since 2020, and I was thrown back to the very online moment of national rage that drove Americans to the streets and brands to the proverbial red table.

My last attempt: the depths of introspection. I’ve been getting used to a life returned to independent consulting, and the doubts over my worth (to self and to industry 13 years in) crept up.

Not that my feelings aren’t important enough to share in this way But by the time this past weekend came, it just felt like my insecurity could wait. Another American died at the hands of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Another act of brutality sent thousands of neighbors out into the streets.

No matter the draft, this was always meant to be a vibe check. How is your year so far? Have you gotten through this January okay? Are you enraged? Are you engaged?

(Also, hit me up! — it’s easier to chat now that this is published and I have a handle on how I have a handle of what I’m up to.)

More importantly, friends and faves: are you prepared to mourn what’s left of the American brand these next few months?

In a way, it doesn’t matter what I was writing, there’s just been this feeling in the pits of my chest about what it means to be from here. Aside from the literal bloodshed, the notion of being “Proud to be an American” is on a weak pacemaker. Moments like the recent shootings or our foreign exploits color this year — soon to be America’s 250th — in a way that gives me dreaded pause reminiscent of 2020.

Judging by the corporate reaction (so far), CEOs lack the fire they had five years ago. Maybe they’re used to the embers from having their feet to flames after George Floyd protests. Or it’s just “not relevant enough.”

The people of Minneapolis, or Americans for that matter, shouldn’t get used to seeing their neighbors killed.

In moments like this, I wish my brain didn’t have a cultural calendar embedded— the minutiae of pop culture really shouldn’t matter. Unfortunately, this is a year of consequence, one where anti-immigrant legislation and executive action scrape up against a half-year’s worth of international sports moments. Throw the world leader events aside — fans need to buckle up: there will be dribbling, but there won’t be shutting up.

• Super Bowl LX — enough is said about Bad Bunny’s historic moment in less than two weeks. Will any brand lean into the moment he’s bound to create? This is the biggest moment for my agency faves and my brand-side friends, and every ad nerd in between. Some seek out the bravery from our ads on nights like this. I’ll be on the lookout for the ones that bring out the most humanity.

• NBA All-Star Weekend — As a hoops fan, this is probably the most contentious weekend in sports, if only for fans arguing about the sheer lack of meaning for an exhibition game with history. But the US v. World matchup is a signifier of how much foreign players have developed in the last decade, while domestic stars struggle to rise up. There’s an anxious undercurrent at play: at least one game had to be postponed with the Minnesota protests, and the young protostar Victor Wembanyama underscores just how scary this moment in this country is.

• Winter Olympics — I won’t yuck anyone’s yum, would rather talk someone’s ear off about Jamaican bobsledding, and the newly-minted Blade Angels of US figure skating. Milan Cortina (spiritually) begins the countdown to LA’s Summer Olympics in 2028, and as much as I’m truly excited for the moment (and whatever wizardry Mike Tirico and NBC have planned post-SBLX), unrest like this doesn’t just dissipate. In fact, sometimes it spreads abroad.

• North American World Cup — this is where I implore you to listen to the episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, where my new favorite investigative snark speaks to former FCC Commissioner Lina Khan and then-candidate Zohran Mamdani about how bad the ticketing situation is in the US. As one of the host countries, it’s telling when a former FIFA head bluntly says that the United States should be boycotted.

(It crosses my mind to add the World Baseball Classic to the mix here. But this spells it out enough.)

By the time July 4 hits, and fireworks erupt over the UFC Octagon planted on the White House lawn, how will the world see us? Hell, how will we see ourselves?

Yes — we’ll get through this moment as we get through every other. But I’ve been thinking about inching towards middle age in a country so pockmarked from picking at scabs that have existed from long before our founding. All my friends, especially my first-gen homies, are deep in our healing journeys, but staring down the perpetual ills caused by our government and grapple with this hallowed (and at times hollowed) land our parents sought a better life in.

This country has been in her flop era for a while now, friends and faves. For those who just voted in November, there’s obvious hope. Step outside the politics for a moment, though, and back into the work for a beat.

I want to challenge you for a second. Imagine that on July 4th, we get to tell a new story about the brand of America. She is beautiful. There is so much to love about this country. But ask yourself, who is this brand really for? What is America at its best? How do we, as brand stewards want to show up in the best interest of this brand?

And how would we want America to treat us, and everyone who chooses to be among us, back?

Will Brand America be like the corpse flower at the Brooklyn Botanical: blessed with a novelty that draws in thousands every year, but cursed with the lifelong stench that draws scavengers and capitalists to their demise?

Or will this be a story of ego death: a country wants to be little more secure with its place, one that isn’t as exceptional as we pretend it is? willing to build a new, healthier relationship with the world, and with the people that call it home?

Maybe when you think on this, there’s a thought or two that may be applicable to your clients, to the workplace you’re in. Because whether we want to dodge it or not on the professional end, the culture we try to influence is steeped in politics. Reckoning with it is an unavoidable part of the job.

My true challenge to you is to take that reflection and inspire some change that you can be proud of this year. Maybe it’s through the work, in pushing clients to imagine this America with you. Maybe it’s through the people, in inspiring a better standard that can last long after our time. Maybe it requires stepping out into the world the way our friends in Minneapolis have, time and time again — through activism or other groundwork.

I feel like I owe a bit of my heart and career to that city and their toughness in two of this country’s biggest blemishes. We often forget that our consumers are our neighbors — I’m thankful that it’s the lens that shapes my career — we owe our neighbors that extra effort, no matter where they come from.

On July 4, I hope there is cake. And in lieu of my favorite flavor (I don’t know if I really have one, help?!?), I wish it tastes better than this early preview is suggesting.

I’ll catch you next week, friends and faves. Thanks for reading. Until then, here’s some of the things keeping me sane.

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Legos on (and in) the brain: Sometimes I listen to From First Principles, a science podcast that scratches my itch between writing for work and for play. One recent episodes featured a discussion on this neuroscience concept from Princeton about the sections of the brain share neural subspaces similar to stacking Lego bricks. Hosts Lester Nare and Krishna Choudhary can speak on it better than I can, but it sounds like a very good reason why our minds use up 20% of our energy.

Speaking on Legos, the Danish toy brick company has been a top brand I researched last year. If you took up a Lego set during the peak pandemic era, or assembled thousands with your roommate to spruce up your home decor, you undoubtedly helped them reach their best sales numbers in company history. So, in the midst of a wave of major partnerships with Nike, Pokemon, and others, they took to CES to lay down a smart path forward for their unique style of play.

Wishing no forgiveness for the pun — their AI-augmented bricks are a brilliant use of AI, and may be a serious contender for Toy of the Decade.

From MafiaThon to Book Clubs? If you worked close to me at all in the last two years, you know I’ve spoken enough about Kai Cenat. He, his AMP crew, and other creators like Druski and iShowSpeed nearly dominated streaming records for their skits and stunts. I grew a lot of respect for Speed in 2025, whose tour de force of collaborations and iconic videos earned him Streamer of the Year honors. Kai upended his own internet-breaking livestream concept as truly must-see TV, with celebrity cameos and ceremonial dread-cutting.

Seems like both young men flipped their own scripts in 2026. Speed, who’s 48 million followers have seen him get knocked out in wrestling rings, has been on a tour through Africa, highlighting the gorgeous spirit of a part of the world so massive in size, yet massively underestimated and overmined. Kai, it seems, has effectively stepped back from the legendary run of his three MafiaThon events, and forward — into fashion! Into live-reading! It’s wonderful to see, but can we fantasy book a collab between Cenat and Dua Lipa’s Service95?

R&B is awake again, haven’t you heard? True love (for me) feels like really good soul music. If you’re like me and grew up in the 106 & Park era, the eye candy was the music videos. But the true delight is in the ears: when the beat and melody hits right, you felt it in your eardrums and your heartstrings.

So I tear up deeply when I say this: the mainstream love of R&B in 2025 has been phenomenal. To everyone claiming Olivia Dean as Britain’s next pop import after The Art of Loving and all those who gave Leon Thomas enough spins to earn him multiple Grammy nominations: thank you. To all my guys dancing to Kehlani‘s instant classic “Folded” (or its brilliant suite of remixes)? I’ve been dancing with you.

Noise was made late last year about rap music having a “down year,” to which critical heavyweights like Rob Markman were right to dismiss. But let’s not equate it with all of Black music — we had a year. The multiple pieces that blessed the timeline by year’s end told a story many purists have been longing to hear from the music press: for the first time since the early 2010s, R&B music has outright influence again. And there’s about 50 artists on both sides of the Atlantic shaping that. (If you ever want to talk music, you know where to find me.)

My must-watch: Liz Plank’s effervescent masculinity coverage. Bear with me, it’s cuffing season and the state of American men is top of mind for my next piece. Among my Family Feud top-5 reasons to discuss men navigating dating and “brand responsibility”: watching Liz Plank sit on a bed with a random man that I may know from another corner of the internet, and watch them discuss why we can’t seem to do this whole “manhood” thing right. Been a fan of her coverage before she published For the Love of Men, and now that she holds down Boy Problems and Girl Dinner, sibling series on her YouTube channel, it’s been a little meditative.

“B, what sort of opportunities would make you sing?” The inner choir kid resonated with that question so hard. So did the rest of me.

I struggled a lot throughout the year and felt deeply that I lost my voice. “I miss myself” was the line echoing in my thoughts on commutes and meetings, and the rare moments I got to connect with my people. 2025 was extremely heavy at times, not just for myself, but for the people I’m closest to. Maybe you’re one of them if you’re reading this.

But I had a little time to answer the question, and with that time, I went back to the days spent dreaming this newsletter up: brand+content. b+c came at a time when I was recovering from work burnout, but still had a call within to continue telling the stories I covered at The Drum. I thought of the “team” I had outside of the one that paid me, the orbit of people who knew I had deeper ambitions to consult: to use my love of storytelling to help brands enter spaces they were too apprehensive to understand and to help publishers attract partners that can help them maintain their audiences in the digital age.

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Storytellers are the most important risk takers of our time. As someone who chased a career led by story, I’d like to believe they always have been the most fearless individuals I know. Think of your favorite journalist who writes about the cringe of keeping your boyfriend on main. Or the podcaster who turned an apple tree joke into one of the most talked-about sports stories of the year. The streamer who made celebs, brands, and millions of viewers his own personal Mafia. Or the Rosalia album, which did as much for conversations on artistic excellence as it did for discourse on cultural ownership.

I think about all those things: not just of the opportunities brands have show up gracefully into these worlds and subcultures, but of the larger implications our work has on the communities brands interact with in the first place. To me, that’s just as important as the day-to-day, no matter what turn my career took next.

With that said, let’s talk about my career, what makes me sing, and where I hope this chapter takes me.

Over most of the last 5 years, I started a consulting practice called Aerialist, where I worked with smaller brands and founders, and partnered with agencies as a hybrid creative-strategist. Through it, I got to work on the projects I’d never see as a young creative, and that I yearned to work on while covering it. Eventually, I built up a rare cache of projects, clients, teammates-turned-friends, and unforgettable moments that made me so proud I took a shot on me. I can never say I met anyone who:

• Helped launch one of the pandemic’s most successful movie releases as a social creative lead.

• Was an integral voice in a brand-artist partnership between Megan Thee Stallion and Popeyes

• Helped put out one of the decade’s still-remembered Super Bowl ads in Google Pixel’s Real Tone from the strategy side.

But, I could be very wrong!! If you’re also someone who’s done similar work, I’d love to know you. If you work somewhere that does this work (or wants to), let’s be homies.

I’m excited to return to Aerialist and bring my unique skills to more culture-first projects, especially partnerships, branded editorial, and bespoke content and programming work. Maybe the tightrope act I’m standing back up has an opportunity to help shape the future of storytelling. Maybe not — I’m applying for jobs with this very awareness in mind haha. But something about taking this leap back to a space that is home feels so right.

Now that I’m on the other side of not just one, but the two most consequential agency roles of my career, this gets to be a new chance to talk about this. Because if you know me, you know I can never just do one thing. In late 2023, that same friend reached out to me and asked me to think about what an opportunity to work together would look like — and to me it was always doing the work and telling the story: of people, of culture, of new ways business can drive us all upward and forward.

b+c is my opportunity to tell this story: one of business, culture, and the stories that shape how we move with (and in spite of) each other. It’s the only one I really cared about since I fell into the space as a one-time physics major who just wanted to write, and solve some fun problems along the way.

I hope to do exclusives behind a paywall, to scale this into another legit voice for industry coverage, or even spin it off into something cooler with a team behind it like the ones I always admired — or the team that helped me believe in this in the first place. But that’s not the point of this exercise. I find so much of my purpose in not being the only one who knows what’s next, and the ripples and waves shaping our shared future.

But for now: you’ll get to see what I see on a weekly basis. A little bit of analysis, I love a deep dive. A lot of ideas — not just from me, but from the smartest and savviest people I know. Yes, through chats and interviews on the page — I also deeply miss the power of a panel discussion, a fireside chat, a way for an audience to engage and make a discussion lively. I’d love your thoughts on how to make some of that real in 2026 and beyond.

In a singular sense, I’ve “exceeded maximum” of what I thought I was capable of as a lost, yet driven as hell 20-something. It’s become more exciting than scary to step back into a seat I built back when I needed it the most. Now I get to channel that energy into building spaces that I think the industry needs — yes, to build and maintain a life for myself. And also to give all that I’ve learned back to an industry that showed me so much love and opportunity to make a real difference. I hope I have, and I hope to do just a little more in this arc of my professional life.

Follow me where you know me, and watch this space if you feel bold enough to. In full transparency, as much as I’m so buzzy on the inside in writing this to y’all, I’m figuring out if b+c should have its permanent home elsewhere. And more importantly: watch this space if you feel bold enough to. As with anything I do, I aim for the soul of it. Looking forward to showing a bit more of mine in this chapter, just a little differently.

Do the work. Tell the story. You’re so tired of having to choose one or the other, B. Maybe what makes you sing is having the space to show your true dynamic range. The only space I know that can hold it is my own.

So, in the words of some wise homies… ¿Por qué no los dos?

It’s been a little while since I’ve had the stamina to give a full series of thoughts on a page, to go full stream of consciousness about the big ideas I’ve been seeing around me. I wasn’t expecting that little while to mean that for almost three years, I’ve been away from this.

Consider this me giving proof of life. Hello. I’m here. You’re here. We’re here—you’re reading this return issue and I’m extremely grateful for that. Let me catch you up quickly.

Last time you heard from me, I had plans! I was maybe six months into building Aerialist, my consulting practice, in earnest. This newsletter was a key part of my ambition to build something that was equal parts brand development and content strategy for tomorrow’s great brands. And that kind of happened—within weeks, I was asked to help launch Coming 2 America, Eddie Murphy’s return to Zamunda—and Queens, my home borough.

Was a great and sentimental time (the original is one of my dad’s top-five films) marketing that film across social (and on planes and delivery trucks)—the team I led ended up making C2A the most streamed movie of the Pandemic Era, a blockbuster if movie theaters were open that time.

Since then, Aerialist has supported indie agencies and startups alike, bringing a unique mix of creative and strategic knowhow to support brand partnerships (shout-out to Megan Thee Stallion x Popeyes changing the game), Cannes Lions-winning Super Bowl campaigns, and stuff still under NDA—but nonetheless exciting. Hell, I even went back agency-side to build and co-lead a social + innovation practice. If you want to make time to learn more, hit me up. We’re taking our work to the next level and would love to build with your brand, agency, or publication—we believe 

But again… I had plans. A lot of us did before COVID hit, and a lot of Black and brown and queer people felt their lives forever altered during that time. George Floyd, anti-Asian hate crimes back then—even just weeks ago, we’ve seen state leaders and a Trump-era Supreme Court pull back freedoms that directly impact women, young people, and LGBTQ friends.

No doubt, I think about this a lot—and I hope you’ve been safe and well these last three years. Big shout-out to communities built and advocates doing the hard work since. Special love to my friends and partners at Allyship & Action who’ve brought these conversations to our third-annual State of Equity back in December.

Many of you know I also helped launch a non-profit back in 2020. 600 & Rising, launched directly after George Floyd. It’s still here—more to come from that.

That could’ve been quicker. Which means I should do these more frequently. That’s the aim for this window—less work updates, more insights that can’t fit in a tweet, a thread, a spill, or whatever else this new era of social media has in store for the online public.

Speaking of social media, let’s get to it. Welcome back to brand+content. 

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Let’s level-set. Since mid-October, when Jack Dorsey handed the Twitter’s keys to Elon Musk, who in turn gutted a workplace filled with some of the most passionate and inclusion-focused people in tech, it was easy to tell that the internet we once had was long gone. Nowhere else could you hop onto a site, give a take that your favorite politician or celebrity would then retweet, and end up a trending topic. Nowhere else could you feel a collective groan from different groups of people when a series finale went off the rails, or a cheer when the actual right film won an Oscar (and not what old-school gatekeepers considered great cinema.

I was laid off from my job around the same time—love the timing of unemployment when the platform most crucial to my career success was falling apart in only a way that Twitter could. Every win and failure to the bird app was a public experience, one I give so much love to former (and yes, still current) employees for enduring and trying to make right. Think of any other social platform since blog platforms became Myspace, Sconex, Friendster, and Facebook—you didn’t ever have this real-time access to the builders, the people who made inroads for the sake of a maturing group of extremely online folks. 

If I could say one extremely kind thing about the company Dorsey held onto, there were some amazing hires top-down that gave an ailing platform (from a revenue perspective) hope for a turnaround. If you’re one reading this, I love you all and I’m so proud to see so many of you in much better places and spirits. Thanks for everything your part of the business has done for my career.

Still, we’d never going to get that feeling back. Or that version of social media where just about anything we post could be this open for criticism (or cancellation, if you truly believe in its existence). In fact, it was the legitimate fear of what ‘cancel culture’ and the noise surrounding it would do to the fabric of society that brought us to the current moment, this new era of social.

You may follow amazing writers that have spoken at length about decentralized, Blockchain-driven platforms such as Mastodon and Dorsey’s new space Bluesky. 

And I’m sure you’ve seen the equal and opposite reaction from conservative voices who’ve felt shunned and deplatformed—glad they got Truth Social, and they may feel as safe on a Musk-run Twitter as you do in his Teslas and Cybertrucks. But they can keep covering that shit over there. It’s not my space.

Let’s get into where the online diaspora’s going, shall we? Months ago, we started hearing a fever pitch about the first true wave of “Twitter killers,” including one from rival platform Instagram, that would absorb its core audiences of creators, storytellers, newsmakers, and Black Twitter. 

Two of those apps caught a lot of traction. You’re probably handcuffed to Instagram’s Threads already, but this post was initially going to be about Spill, a lively alternative built by ex-Twitter employees who knew Black Twitter, and adjacent/intersecting communities, deserved to be seen and rewarded for their impact on the larger pop culture narrative.

But it’s not just about one app—it’s about a digital Great Migration, one that we haven’t seen from Black creators since communities moved on from blogs like Tumblr and the like to Twitter over a decade ago. If there’s any tea leaves showing us what culture on and offline can look like, it starts with where we (Black people) feel safest.

So, lemme take you Somewhere Good. Some could call the audio-based platform an answer to Clubhouse, but Naj Austin and her team of dreamers, designers, and developers wanted more for us. The crew tapped into a true need before the pandemic when they launched Ethel’s Club—an in-person space for communities of color to work and cultivate together. As someone who frequented their spot in Bushwick/East Williamsburg, you were as likely to find yourself at an event with South Asians as you were to be in a full-fledged kickback amongst Caribbeans and Latinos—and still feel enough space held for those representing trans and queer communities, similar spaces of the time faced crisis for their ignorance to the marginalized and suffered for it.

Somewhere Good started off as a place for those dreamers to reconnect online, and just dream again. Every day, SG would have prompts in different “worlds,” asking its users to give an answer in audio form and get responses from others in the app. Meaning, you talk about what draws you to your favorite book, someone can deeply relate and send a “spiral” right back to you that could lead to inspiration. That’s it. No likes, no reposts. No way to share to your IG stories. 

It was the closest thing to a new kind of third space, until Austin and team had the opportunity to bring that third space to life—outside. So they did, opening a physical space for SG out in Bed-Stuy, one of many tight-knit New York neighborhoods facing identity crisis due to gentrification, rising rents, and redevelopment. Knowing that shared pain in other communities, the team has started working with like-minded community spaces in Flatbush, Bushwick, and elsewhere to bring that sense of unplugged community building to those that seek it out—including brands like Amazon Prime’s AMP platform and others to further support them.

Just let that sink in though: an app that turned into a community haven, a safe space, an offline garden for melanated voices. It’s the kind of future that we need as greater urban societies reshape themselves. Keep an eye on that squad, Somewhere Good is something special.

Now, let’s get into the more recent developments. Spill? Threads? “Is Twitter dead?” You should give famed brand strategist and author Marcus Collins’ latest Forbes piece a read if you need a proper explainer on each. It’s a great primer to these platforms—which (to me, a grizzled social-first industry veteran) really aren’t Twitter clones. Sure, they’re feed-based UI driven by an algorithm. Sure, they also force you a certain character count to get your thoughts off—great, that’s what microblogging is at its core. Scroll up, scroll down, cool. They’re not trying to be Twitter, nor should they aim to be—we have enough platforms where you can slide in someone’s DMs or access adult content. Here’s what they are, and how what they are shapes what they can be.

Think of Spill like a cartridge for your Game Boy. It’s a fun, vibrant platform built for take about culture in the moment—without needing to rely on words to get that across—and then move on with your day to touch grass without facing slander. Or, as a user said in a post viral enough to end up on the app’s Spillboard, “for those crying about 90 characters, it’s called Spill, not Pour.” It’d started its ascent in earnest, but when Twitter started implementing its latest cure for Musk’s long-running bot issues, had a spike in app requests large enough to hit #1 on both Twitter’s trends and the iPhone App Store.

In a Twitter Space right after (cause that’s how it goes.), co-founder Alphonso (Phonz) Terrell, head of culture Kenya Parham, and top advisor April Reign (creator of the trend #OscarsSoWhite, hence a Black Twitter OG) spelled out what’s to come for the app, especially for its core community. “Culture drivers are all over the world,” Phonz said, his perspective shaped by his time leading editorial and content teams globally for Twitter, watching the likes of Afrobeats and K-Pop become ingrained in what used to be an American-centric landscape. “We built this platform to center those that drive it the most, namely Black women, queer communities, and other communities of color that are not normally benefitted or rewarded from the culture they shape.”

Sure enough, their first major brand partnership at launch was for comedy-horror film The Blackening, but it’s easy to see how quickly those who love anime, stoner culture, and other niches can pull up to an app that embraces, GIFs, videos, pics and polls, over fully-written hot takes. Parham said this line that stuck out on the Twitter Space: “At Spill, niche is the norm.” 

And those niches—along with those that have a strong voice in those niches should feel safe, which their team has taken pains to address in their long-term plans: building out large language AI models actually built by communities of color so our nuance is front and center, giving users a “rep score” that only the user can see to ensure that they’re being rewarded taking healthy actions (versus shitposting or dunking on others for the sake of virality), and combining tech with human moderation in a way that’s hopefully sustainable.

That moment, which netted Spill over 130k subscribers that weekend organically was soon caught by a bigger wave—it was finally Adam Mosseri’s turn to move, and move he and Instagram did. In what still feels like an early (if not slightly rushed) launch, Threads came through like a tidal wave, bringing with it Mark Zuckerberg on our feeds, and an extra space for your favorite IG creators, influencers, and brands to speak from behind the glossy curtain of their profiles.

As of this morning, in a post from Mosseri, Threads already has 100 MILLION users. Initial thoughts? I think they cheated lmfao—Instagram is the massive social platform not named Facebook (whose parent company owns both), of course all it takes is two clicks to sign your life away to Instagram (you can’t deactivate Threads completely without deactivating IG) and import your entire existing community of followers to be part of your Threads journey. Too easy, Adam and team—make users work a little bit harder for it. Like the EU.

That said… a lot of those adjusting to the platform (mainly creators and their followings) have immediately called it safe from a lot of what made Twitter toxic for them—which gets to the core of what Instagram’s word-friendly offshoot is really about.

Think of Threads like this: if Instagram is the modern-day home page into your favorite people, places, and things—Threads is your porch. You can kick it on your down time and get some random thoughts off, you can make it the spot to have deeper conversations with your most engaged followers, but you no longer have to rely on a caption, a story, or a broadcast channel to get the most out of what you really want to say. That means these spaces, managed by those same highly curated and visual folks, are naturally safer by design—in practice and with time, we’ll see how that plays out with bad actors, bots, political views, etc. 

But the point of it is similar to RSS feeds at their peak, and it shows on your feed almost like one—unless you and your mutuals follow the same account, those thoughts are just there to exist as a pulse check in between posts. For pubs like New York Magazine, institutions like the Whitney Museum, or content series with under-utilized Twitter communities like Switched On Pop and others, it makes community building much more centralized. 

What does that mean for top Black creators and tastemakers like Michell C. Clark, Afropunk, and R29 Unbothered and other places that center us? It’s a place that embraces long-form without taking away the ability to give the bite-sized quick posts—and while you won’t get the breaking news and reaction energy that Twitter gave, you don’t lose the nuance.

But is Twitter dead? Will it die? Great question. It’s doubtful the bird app is fully down for the count—the app hamstrung itself from a brand safety level (which is critical for driving revenue) for a long time, and its new CEO (longtime NBCUniversal exec Linda Yaccarino, highly respected among brand marketers) is already hamstrung from making brand deals due to non-competes from her exit. And there’s still fatigue from a lot of core users who can’t deal with adjusting to new spaces that can’t bring that same energy.

It’s an ultramarathon that’ll be put to the test as the miles approach Election 2024—each and every major US cycle since the Obama era has been a peak for every social platform. Which means this time around issues where the collective BIPOC and LGBTQ voice could prove to be louder (and more spread out across platforms that center them) than ever before.

Stay tuned, I’ll be following this storyline (much more briefly) throughout the year. It’s the beginning of something wild, and hopefully wonderful for the internet.

No B-side conversation for this week. I’d personally love to talk about the state of streaming platforms, but I’ll leave it open for readers: what would you like b+c to cover in future issues?

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let’s get into the fun reads and content.

The back half of this issue should be short this week—a small list of my favorite “most ambitious crossovers for the year, and other brands and content worth taking a look at.

Most Ambitious Crossovers of 2023 (so far)

Every issue, I usually give my take on what the most brilliant cultural mashups of the moment is. It’s usually something in the world that make me go, “Why didn’t we think to pair these two things together before?” Since it’s been a while, I have a small list of some of my favorites from the first part of the year—if you’re ready to debate me on these, have at it.

• Stars on Mars — When Patagonia fired a shot at the commercial space industry earlier around SXSW, I never expected the pop culture response to be sending a hodgepodge of millennial cultural icons into a simulated red planet. But that’s what Fox has given us with this new reality TV show, bringing Ronda Rousey and Tinashe in the same space as McLovin from Superbad and Beast Mode of Seattle Seahawks Fame. 

• Great British Bake Off judges meet American Snack Foods (?!)— I just want this headline to speak for itself. GBBO is the most wholesome import from the UK, in a food-reality competition culture that screams, it sings with fun and low-stakes sweetness. The teams over at the Conde Nast imprints got star judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith in a series of fun conversation—but seeing them dissect everything from Twinkies to industrial cheese balls takes the cake.

• Barbie World 2.0 — To be fair, anything Bronx rapper Ice Spice touches is a crossover event, there’s a singular way she approaches her drill-influenced sound. But the upcoming Barbie film absolutely called for a remix to Aqua’s one-hit wonder; calling up Ice and literal Queen Barb Nicki Minaj up to make it a banger was the only obvious choice. The obvious choice doesn’t take away from it being a delight, and this will be a standout for Gerwig film’s original soundtrack.

• Alanis Morissette and Yellowjackets. First of all, Yellowjackets. Must watch. Is it a woodland survival that puts shame to Lord of the Flies? Sure. The most twisted 25-year reunion among varsity soccer players? Yup: that, too. What helps make this 90s nostalgia trip meets modern-thriller one of this year’s rising gems is its soundtrack, filled with grungy covers galore. Somehow, there were so many good songs that its theme song was lacking that extra punch—until (you oughta thunk it) rock icon Morissette did her own spin on it. Can’t turn back once you listen.

More stuff worth your screen time.

• Flyana Boss. “Hello, Christ?” 2023 has already been a moment for women in rap, in hip-hop’s 50th anniversary of all times. If they haven’t been running into your For You page rent-free these last few weeks, let this dynamic duo of music school besties show you how fun the next half-century can be.

• I’m A Virgo. Boots Riley struck gold with Sorry to Bother You—this new Amazon Prime series makes anti-capitalist fairytale/superhero/coming-of-age story out of the streets of Oakland. Killer roles from 13-foot Jharrel Jerome, as well as Olivia Washington and Kara Young highlight a beautifully chaotic eight-episode season.

• Sex Education is ready to graduate. The best coming-of-age show on streaming is back for one last season, and you must watch this teaser if you’re following this newsletter.

• What The Bear teaches us about showing up. I may make this a thing going forward, highlighting other people’s newsletters that are just killing it right now. Alex Lewis is one of those insightful voices online that I’ve admired for a while and it’s more than timely that after watching the hit Hulu/FX dramedy—and feeling bereft about it—Alex’s take on pastry chef Marcus’s character arc and gorgeous Copenhagen episode is beautiful and worth your screen time.

That rounds out the return issue of brand+content. Maybe it’ll be a shorter read next week, but it’ll be no less enjoyable—if it’s worth a read, please share with your friends. Leave comments or notes! And follow me on all the apps haha: yes, I’m still on Twitter (for now), but I’m also on Instagram Threads and Spill as @bennettdbennett. More to come, it’s good to be back at it.

Until next.

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As for the rest, aiming to cover the intersection of corporate storytelling and these areas:

• Love, sex, + intimacy

• Gaming and emerging platforms + realities

• Cannabis + psychedelia

• (This issue’s subject) Movements + social impact

I’ve been interested in these areas for years, either through work or personal projects, and these are three of many key areas that deserve a different look. To be transparent, the money will go to making sure this one-writer operation 1) can do more original storytelling and 2) have help in the process. I’ll need editing and research assistance for some of this content, and paid subscribers will get access to this premium content (and a few more tchotchkes, I’ve been thinking about stickers lol).

Anyway, do keep this in mind. This will be a pretty affordable deal, and I’ll explain further what comes for paid subscribers in the next couple of issues. Help spread the word if you know someone who’d be great. On to the main story.

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In a couple of days, I talk to a dear friend in front of comms people about how they can lean forward as advocates for racial equity in the workplace. Wild, wild shit to think about.

Something happens when you spend a ton of the year stepping into your innermost purpose, yeah? After the last few months in my world—and writing the last couple of issues—it felt worth diving into the world of movement work. Doing something of a deeper impact is one of those itches you can’t quite scratch, especially when you genuinely give a shit. 

Growing up a couple of blocks from the ocean meant I’d care about the ocean more than most, and being impacted by Superstorm Sandy meant I had all the energy (and young adult fury) in the world to better educate myself on climate change. Tailing the endless discourse as a 16-year-old on the shooting death of unarmed bachelor Sean Bell, weeks after being stopped and frisked for the first time on my way home from class gave me a little perspective on how unjust the police is.

But maybe not everyone thinks like this. You know, people tend to care about issues of consequence only when it affects them. This is a shame for those in power, who felt the public relations debacle when George Floyd was murdered. I’d heard enough from people in the months since who’ve wanted to lean in and do better over the last few months, as if I myself had become an activist. It, like the word ally, was something I never called myself—I remember cringing when a researcher called me that on a call in late summer.

I take words seriously, as you could tell. They’re powerful, you can liken them to spells. Activist, ally, feminist, even “good guy.” I don’t call myself any of these things, maybe because I fear the responsibility of the standard these words connote. Or maybe they’re just not words that I give myself. 

Just do the work, I tell myself. There’s always work to do. There’s always a bigger problem to solve.

But what defines doing the work? I was trained in marketing and in the hot coals of digital trade media. Integrating purpose in corporate America always mattered to me; I’d always dreamed of Aerialist, my consultancy, becoming a B-Corp, or a publicly recognized benefit corporation. I was getting a tiny grasp of the space through advocacy of DE&I work, but what did that look like as a solopreneur and storyteller?

Throughout November, I took steps to figure that out. First, Aerialist joined Kindred, a community of business leaders pushing to create change in areas of civic engagement, racial justice, financial equity, and a slew of other purposes. There’s powerhouses from nonprofits, media companies and small and large brands—super awesome to be a founding member of this group. I’ll share updates on that journey through here.

Second, I’d reconnected with my boys from ThinkOlio, an interdisciplinary learning collective that served as one of my first true communities outside of the ad world. Chris Zumtobel and Dave Kurfirst, the founders, have been brilliant local stewards of the humanities and adult education, the pandemic has moved their classes from The Strand and living rooms to Zoom sessions and they’re just as lovely, check them out. Policy strategist and consultant Ifeoma Ike was one of the most recent Olio instructors, for a class on The New Contract with Black America (Ice Cube wasn’t involved, thankfully) and when I tell you, there wasn’t a moment beforehand where I felt like the work I’ve been up to these last few months mattered more.

To complete the trifecta, I attended the annual Facing Race conference on racial equity, probably my deepest immersion into the movement space. A three-day summit bringing major players in activism and civil rights was almost everything I needed to tell you, reader friend, that maybe we should rethink our relationship with the capitalist narrative. 

For one, to hear minds like Rev. William J. Barber and Pleasure Activism author adrienne maree brown, as well as members of the movement journalism, cannabis advocacy, and political canvassing spaces just reminds you that a lot of the skills we’ve picked up in this industry can do so much good for people. It’s our proximity—and our willingness to align ourselves—to those who care about profit that puts us in the wildest position: to either push our leaders to do better by us and our customers/readers, or tear the shit down and build our own things.

It’s less of a wild thought than we grumble about to our peers. There’s a huge case for the future of work to look the way workers deserve it to be. Cool, Nasdaq made an overdue announcement, forcing companies listed in its exchange to have one woman and one minority/LGBTQ individual on their board. Great, the Biden administration has invested in building a team that looks more like the America we live in. That’s enough to shoot the stock market up to record highs, but not enough to stop layoffs from happening, or for those who are looking for financial relief

Progress, you can say. There’s so much work to be done and people to help, but when are agencies going to look beyond what pleases shareholders and stock value? 

Some people still cringe at the potential that socialism brings, even if the political movement has gained traction. But there’s a major case to be made for shareholder capitalism, where employees and the issues closest to their hearts are things the company fully invests in. There’s a major case for agencies to do what Patagonia does so brilliantly and consistently. There’s a case, yes a major one, for startups and multinational behemoths alike to challenge convention. Not just because a pandemic forced us to see life differently, but because caring about your employees means showing up for the issues that matter to them the most. They are, after all, your first advocates.

And again: how does this translate into the work we do? Will a record label be bold enough to do something as breakthrough as NPR’s Louder Than A Riot? Will an agency step up and say, “Hey, Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology is brilliant, how about a mini-anthology of immigrant leaders that best encapsulates the values of your brand ethos?” How about we think bigger than a black square in 2021 and use our skills and clout to do work that matters, that helps people? They say we’re not in the business of curing cancer, but who says a good story can’t save a life?

There’s always a major case for humaning, thumb-stopping work that can also hit all your KPIs and break your click-through rate records. Give it a thought: the ideas that make better stories are out there.

And, since it’s Giving Tuesday, give something good to a charity doing the work. Maybe more than just money: there’s a place for us to learn from activists and do the work ourselves.

Orgs worth giving a damn about

• Rockaway Youth Task Force. Simply put, this coalition of young activists in the Rockaways have made it clear to me that home will be okay. They address civic issues including criminal justice reform, education equity, and food justice (my part of the Rockaways is a federally-labeled food desert) and have one of the cooler publications in the Rockaway Advocate.

• RISE, or the Rockaway Initiative for Sustainability and Equity. It’s a hometown organization that builds programs for youth development and civic engagement unique to our coastal environment and social equity for our beautiful mosaic.

• The First Tech Fund, an NYC based non-profit dedicated to closing the digital divide for underserved and low-income communities. They train some great high school kids and I love how transparent they are in where your money goes: as little as $20 gives a family internet access for a month, where $250 can pay for a laptop for one of their fellows.

• Lysistrata and GLITS. A couple of recent headlines grabbed my attention as relevant to this, both tied to the LGBTQ community. Last week, NYC residents elected Elisa Crespo, a trans Latina, for a City Council seat and the NY Post did what it does best: demean her background as a former sex worker. The story stuck with me as Elliot Page, of Juno and Umbrella Academy fame, came out as trans this morning. In their public statement, they clearly recognized the opportunity to highlight the struggles for Black and Brown members of the trans community to live or work comfortably. Both organizations highlighted help provide safe havens to those in the sex work and trans community respectively—funds raised to GLITS helped open a housing complex in Queens, I only hope it goes a long way.

• Ida B. Wells Scholarship Fund, CUNY’s scholarship for Master’s-level students in its school for journalism. This is a publication about media and it’s nothing without more representation and trailblazers like the fearless Wells in its ranks. Also, add Aaron Foley to your must-follows, the work he’s created for CUNY’s Black Media Initiative is something we all should help as the ecosystem rebuilds post-pandemic.

Content to keep an eye on

• Onlyfans, platform of the year? We don’t know how much of an impact pop culture (or this pandemic) have had on the rise of the creator-friendly platform, but looking at this great thread by Substacker Peter Yang, the revenue has been ridiculous, outpacing every other subscriber-based platform like Usain Bolt at a summer Olympic Games.
  
  News outlets may cover the likes of Michael B. Jordan and other celebrities using the platform to help raise money (for barbers, which we desperately need more of). But without question: Adult creators have been the core of this boom, not your crappy marketing stunt.

• Capital B, a publisher worth giving to. Speaking of Black media, a new publisher startup has opened up its gates last week. Capital B, founded by Vox editor-in-chief Lauren Williams and podcast host and former The Trace managing editor Akoto Ofori-Atta, looks to address on both local and national levels the dearth of proper news reporting for the Black community. As they’re a non-profit, I think it’d behoove you to donate and become a founding member.

• Gravel Institute’s paving over misinformation potholes. I started following The Gravel Institute not too long ago, they’re a crowdfunded organization fighting the good fight against major actors in disinformation and propaganda, including PragerU—which is not a university, do not try to apply. Do read this Salon piece on the group and their efforts.

• Concerts are hitting their digital high notes. Positive concert news, yeah? You know I’ve been missing that IRL festival and show life, but artists are now making me miss the URL versions just as much. Take Lil Nas X taking a concert experience to Roblox, one of the more underrated internet communities today. In the words of Maxwell, check the numbers. Or Grammy-nominated Dua Lipa (whose Future Nostalgia is my cleaning music, ilysm) who made 50 MILLION for a live stream. Understand the power Dua has, like the homie Alice of high tea and I have.

There’s some saving grace for indie venues, who had banded together to form NIVA earlier this year. Spotify, as part of its 2020 Wrapped Campaign, donated $500k to the organization (and decked out marquees of some of your favorite concert halls to spread the word).

My favorite things on the internet

It’s a three-way tie this week:

1. The endlessly-fulfilling Small Axe anthology, its special anthology hub on Vanity Fair and heart-swelling discourse. Please invest in this one look into the West Indian fight for equal rights and justice.

2. The best Thanksgiving table those stuck at home have ever been a part of.

3. Straight-up camaraderie. Like the 800+ creatives who’ve banded together in an effort to assist Democratic candidates in January’s special Georgia runoff elections. Or the gift exchange happening amongst friends and strangers in the ad community. Or the weeks of “Gonnabe Copywriter” Hangouts calls that took place throughout November. No matter how things turn out in those races, don’t ever think you don’t have an opportunity to have impact. Something special is happening in the little community that I’ve gotten to call home, and I think it’s just awesome.

(I’m rooting for you all, but really rooting for Stacey Abrams. Queen: she’s worthy of a chapter in political science textbooks. You know she writes fiction, right?)

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In 2012, Lianne La Havas (one of my top-5 favorite living artists, a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter) released her debut album Is Your Love Big Enough? The hook to the title track felt perfect for this moment—love, and how we define it, has shifted so much in this pandemic, in this boiling point for racial justice, and in the sheer amount of Americans who went out to vote.

What makes that song, from an artist so adept at writing modern love songs, different than most of her top tracks, is that it’s an ode to self-love. From those first lines— 

“Found myself in the second

I found myself in the secondhand guitar

Never thought it would happen

But I found myself in the secondhand guitar”

—you were introduced had an artist who found her bag, her sense of confidence, her location in this wild world in that moment. She put out two albums since, Blood, in which she grappled with her identity as a mixed-race woman of Jamaican and Greek roots, and her self-titled effort this year. This latest effort is a testament to her own efforts in self-love: finding out the best parts of her, the shadows she had to overcome, and allowing herself to live in that purpose to create work that was truest to her.

I knew this title would surface before taking last week off, cause sometimes the fragments of the future start taking shape in front of you, as sand from an hourglass poured out to form tomorrow’s castles. And sometimes, you have to take a glance at your own journey through self-love and industry. 

Like yo: I quit a job two years ago, in the beginnings of a media ecosystem collapse and ad industry reckoning, to take care of my mental health and because I knew I was worth more. I wish I could’ve found it in a secondhand guitar, but I think I found it in a friend’s apartment months later while dogsitting. You’re reading it.

Sounds silly to put in words, but finding yourself requires being forced to lose yourself. What’s more heartwrenching than that moment when you’re looking at the world you contributing to and feeling like a stranger?

That process of healing, to self-love—which never ends, as HANNAH magazine EIC Qimmah Saffir, made a note of yesterday—is so crucial to learning what you’re truly capable of. 

For me, I got to restart therapy, figure out my stressors, and take pains to find people that resonated most with the best part of me. Some people were already there, but in the journey to making this newsletter, building Aerialist, and helping launch both 600 & Rising and Allyship & Action (two organizations borne from Black pain), I got to bring new people to the fold.

Something cool happened from that: a sense of collective healing—not healing each other, but giving each other space to rebuild as individuals together, and share learnings and wisdom. That whole “together apart” nonsense we’d all been fed at the beginning of the pandemic hits different now, right?

We might’ve needed that collective release of stress from the last 4, maybe 5 (if you think about the beginning of Trump’s then-unfathomable candidacy) years, but I think it’s clear that the work to be done now is much greater than when our worlds came undone.

The next few weeks will go through the pressing topics quickly, because I’m building my content calendar for 2021—wow, b+c will be a thing heading into 2021!—and you should get a preview of future coverage before I get all “paid newsletter” on y’all.

What is the future of content?

Duh, this is brand+content after all, so I’ll always be here to ponder what’s up and what’s next in media. But I need to make clear to you: America the country may need to heal as a whole, but it only begins with healing American media. (Not Quibi.) MMFA’s Parker Molloy spoke on how conservative media has twisted the work of activist movements and brands taking progressive stances at Allyship & Action’s first-ever State of Equity summit. Fox News and others have held it down for a style of storytelling to audiences that’s simplistic enough to make hatred and bigotry mainstream enough for 70+ million voters. 

Understand the damage that’s been dealt is bigger than just politics. The infrastructure that’s been deteriorating long before this year has crumbled further. ESPN laid off 300 employees last week, easily the largest in sports media in quite some time—but just a statistic in a growing list of media layoffs. Where will these reporters and media professionals go, and how will they make money? The internet’s been heavily reliant on ad revenue since its inception, but we’re veering towards potential collapse.

What comes from the ashes is anyone’s guess, and who brands trust with their budgets is also up in the air. Adweek recently asked 70 brand-side marketers if they’ll retain their current roster heading into 2021—about 60% were either unsure of their next move or anticipated switching things up.

On top of worrying about journalists and where they’ll be going, what are we doing about the mental health of our social teams and moderators? The story of social media managers like Alexya Brown in this OneZero piece are not only heartbreaking, but more common than we care to admit. It’s worth wondering if the people running accounts for McDonalds, for example, aren’t just making light of the perils of those paid to keep up the pulse of a brand up on the major platforms.

(Thankfully, seems like the keepers of the McRib are doing just fine.)

These could all be misnomers pushed on some of the masters of online improv, forced upon them by the pandemic, but care for this group feels much like the growing pressure to protect the mental wellbeing of content moderators. You can only hope that—even with the amount of conservative media that nestles in Facebook newsfeeds that the results of this election could bring a lightened load for them.

I’ll save all the political battles against the social platforms (especially increased privacy legislation and Section 230) for friends like Casey Newton’s Platformer to cover in-depth, but please please keep your eye on the likes of Parler—if 70+ million Americans can put a vote in for the outdated-ass, crusty cheese-crusted Florida man from Queens, we shouldn’t be surprised if there’s enough traction to make the conservative Twitter clone a place to keep hate flowing.

But! This is an issue about love. And to paraphrase another good ‘love’ song, how deep is yours? (I’d been jamming to Maroon 5 member PJ Morton’s version.) 

Cause we may have had to fight for the soul of American society, but what’s left in you to fight for a better American media ecosystem?

Brands making a mark:

• An update on Desus & Mero and Timberland collabing: “The Brand” is surely strong, but seeing the full reveal (with the return of “beef-and-broccoli” colorways?! Respect.) makes this one of the sneakily-better pairings this year.

  
  
  I’ve had my eye on Travis Scott and his Maxell-inspired video for the PS5 launch, as the cherry to an amazing year for the rapper in marketing. D&M are up next.

• Hims-tory is written by the prescriber: An interesting thing happens when certain drugs get through that 7-year exclusivity period before going generic. Hims has very much exploited how drugs get administered, and it should give the big pharmaceutical chains (and the general public) pause.

• Did you know Black girls love Mortal Kombat? Fans of Megan thee Stallion will appreciate her appearing in the reveal for a returning favorite in the storied fighting game. Sharing the clip, as well as dope analysis from gaming commentator Erin Ashley Simon—if you’re not following her insights into the sector, you’re missing out.

Content to keep an eye on:

• Fur Seasons Total Landscaping. That’s not a typo: long live the Furry invasion of the infamous last campaign stop of the outgoing administration. In better news, the sex shop and crematorium next door will also make an appearance in VRChat. (Here’s a great interview with the owner of Fantasy Island, btdub.) May it live in your mind as rent-free as long as it does mine.

• Men’s basketball is back (already), but give the women their applause. I’m a personal fan of WNBA energy. Its players’ union brokered a major win to get the primetime status they deserve, its stars matched the excitement and safety of their male peers in Bubble (or Wubble) play, and books probably need to be written on this specific chapter in the league’s long history of activism. If you’re not convinced, you should take a read of this Marie Claire piece, give the women their flowers, and catch a game with me next season.

• One more note on the broken media ecosystem. I’ve had one parent in my ear tug at me about voting all the way down the ballot—everyone should, but our role in ensuring a thriving landscape has an impact. Michael Stockton, incumbent mayor of Stockton, CA, has found himself behind in a battle to keep his seat—all because of a false narrative created by a local blog. The San Joaquin Valley area isn’t San Francisco, but the truth deserves to win out.

My favorite thing on the internet? A Canadian television host and philantropist with a 36-year tenure making nerds like me feel like trivia’s more than an icebreaker—it could make you money.

Who is Alex Trebek?

Jeopardy was my game show of choice growing up—even if I would’ve rather spun the Wheel of Fortune, and his fight with pancreatic cancer was a quiet thought in the back of Americans’ minds for the last few years. Millions of us will miss a “brother,” a cultural fixture, but I take solace in knowing he didn’t have to witness his adopted country enter an era of fascism.

Even better, he left us peacefully. All we can ask for.

brand+content is taking this week off. I’ll be back next week, with a new addition to the format: weekly interviews with brand shapers and content makers. I’ll also be prepping for what this publication could look like in a paid format—would love your input.

What would you like to see from #bplusc in 2021?

For signing up to read b+c, I have a special discount code. Just hit this link to register, and use ‘friends2020’ at checkout. See ya there. -B

Welcome back. Thanks for reading last issue. More to come, but first: story time.

Two years ago, I took my last trip outside of the US. My dad and I flew out to Jamaica for a two-week vacation, my first time heading to his home country since I was 10.

Within 24 hours of landing, he got sick with diverticulosis and we spent about a week in a local hospital ready to just fly back home and pretend it never happened.

Thanks to my aunt, his youngest sister, who we’d been staying in Kingston with, I got to learn more about what my dad was doing at my age than I had in my entire life. In the 1970s, he’d been part of the Black Power movement happening on the island (and throughout the Caribbean) and helped in the launch the seminal publication of its time, Abeng.

For nine months, that newspaper was distributed throughout the island and its neighbors, spreading anti-racist, anti-imperialist knowledge considered radical for its time. You can read the collected works here; modern academics have only recently woven that with the larger movement for Black Lives as a phenomenon that wasn’t American but trans-national.

While Marcus Garvey and Trinidad’s Stokely Carmichael were two of the Caribbean’s finest exports in Black America’s fight for its lives and rights, a less-famous group of academics and activists pushed for a greater understanding of our post-colonial power in the islands. This came to a head soon after the Jamaican government, still influenced greatly by its British roots, banned Dr. Walter Rodney, a Guyanese-born professor at Jamaica’s well-known University of the West Indies.

Students and the Jamaican working class led Black Power demonstrations throughout the island in the 60s and 70s, pushing the middle class to think hard about what side of history they wanted to be a part of. Abeng was crucial to our movement; my dad, who I’d previously known as a record store owner (and one-time musician) in his pre-America days, was in the same room as the biggest voices in that movement—many of them either still academics, or politicians today. As if having Bob Marley come through to his shop in the 60s wasn’t cool enough.

“Wait,” I looked up from my rabbit hole and stared across the hospital room. “You were a revolutionary?”

He laughed, “Yeah, but I was a cool one.”

When my dad moved here in ‘79, he probably expected a better situation for us than what he’s had to see. He’s now spent over half of his life here, so much of it fixing electronics in a pre-digital world. In this new life: two adult kids, a wife, a home fortified against the next “once-in-a-century” storm. He’s still wary, and maybe that’s why he pushed so hard for me to have a steady career in another industry. Maybe he wanted to protect me from a life where I’d struggle as a Black man, as a product of immigration.

In that one moment, both of us pained and exhausted—him healing up from his GI ailment, me sinking deeper into my own burnout—he shared with me that the path I’d chosen instead wasn’t far off from his. I may have grown up the quiet one, but I was always the plotter. Always fascinated by how things worked, always wondering how broken things could become whole again. If even possible.

Nothing right now is more broken than this country we’re taking space in. I know this audience. We know what’s going on in politics, in society, and in our own industry. It’s trash shit. It’s one thing to believe that what we do in our roles as media makers and shapers hasn’t mattered in making this problem what it is. But if we don’t believe that we have a larger role in pushing for better, that we don’t have a chance to control how we respond to the mass crisis response, we’re just as blind to the truth as the White House chief of staff.

Think about it. Last week, Time Magazine hosted a joint effort with Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. They painted a Rembrandt: detailing the effects of misinformation and how it’s torn apart the press, driven a deeper wedge between us, and might be more of a nuclear threat than any warhead made overseas—while giving an international stage to a Black woman who could very well build the future for community that marginalized people have long wished for.

That event happened in between the swift, not-so-solemn burial of Quibi, and the rising star of AOC shutting down Twitch and starting up a future of politics that should look damn well like its present. And it was brilliant as the brutality of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation.

We have all watched or heard the stories of friends give of unqualified peers get roles they don’t deserve over us, doesn’t that sting you? We have all gassed up our friends who do amazing work in this world, but see them get passed over for those with all the style and never the substance or staying power. Isn’t that so wack?

There’s a lot of people uncomfortable right now, for many warranted reasons. But I ask, will voting the better choices for office, up and down the ballot, and seeing that choice win give you the comfort you’ve been seeking since 2016? Will it give you peace as a marketer, as someone in media, knowing we can go back to “the way things were,” just for a moment?

If you’re white, maybe. But why default back to your comfort after going so hard to fight for people of color these last few months? Why should any of us?

We have female and LGBTQ peers who still get subjected to abuse on digital platforms, and leaders who refuse to visibly give a damn. There’s a world on fire, and up until these last few weeks, brands have only started caring about their sustainability goals through the 2030, even later. (Do we have enough time to give Corporate America 10 years?) There’s a greater push for more inclusive content, but we still have to address the hatred towards Middle Eastern and Asian communities—it’s bigger than a blanket Islamophobia that’s persisted after 9/11 or the bigotry to Chinese Americans that’s persisted since the initial COVID-19 outbreak.

When are we going to realize that in order to build better and to hold space for others, we stop saying things like voting for “our best interests”? It’s counter-intuitive and implicitly dangerous to only look out for the insights that resonate with you. Sentimental favorite Plies gets it right.

Those with the privilege to live comfortably in this country can’t turn a blind eye to those who can’t. We have the ultimate privilege in every message we put out in the world. And we spent four years watching a reality TV show host masquerading as a corporate tycoon tap into a well more toxic to our environment than petroleum. The media had a role in it. Brands that put profits over purpose funded it. It may not be too late to change your ways, but there is so much damage control to do.

So, what is there to fight for beyond November? Just about everything, but very specifically, what stories we choose to tell and who gets to tell them.

In a final note, one from Bill Bernbach that’s guided everything I done in my career: “All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.”

Let’s be the ones to lift society to where it needs to be. All of us.

Brands making the mark

Timberland’s rockin Desus and Mero. Dare I say it? The brand is strong. Bodega Boys Desus Nice and The Kid Mero inked a deal with a name very synonymous with NYC culture. I can imagine it started with the Twitter account sliding in their DMs. But this likely story from Desus works just as well.

Someone let me know when they collab on the untold story of how the boot became as NY as proper bagels.

Independent bookstores would like a word. The American Bookstores Association pulled a stunt that would make bibliophiles like myself proud—and a little red in the face out of embarrassment. They enlisted a group of independent bookstores in Washington D.C, NYC, and Los Angeles plastered their storefronts with messages for anyone passing by.

?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

It’s probably a better use of your time to look up your local bookstore than to 1-click your way to supporting a company that spies on its employees (or independent contractors) to keep them from organizing. Not that space travel isn’t cool, but let’s remember how bad small businesses like bookstores and restaurants have right now. Plus, it’ll make “eat the rich” Twitter happy, if you care about that.

Whiled’s come to snatch your screen time. I’m getting deeply acquainted with the DTC space; it’s been a fun year for rising ecommerce-friendly brands. For example, follow Andrea Hernandez and her Snaxshot Substack, she pulls up with the best of new food and beverage.

It’s the most fun thing to see who could be the next household name for millennials and Gen Zers, but I’m always interested in who’s going to step up and give us a solution to the now and next problems. Maybe it’s the team at No Plans, Inc, launched its first brand, Whiled this week. I had to look up whiled to make sure it’s an actual word you can use in the past tense—people in the 1800s used to “while” away.

I, for one, would like to be stimulated and unproductive and not at risk of doomscrolling through the rest of Election SZN. Maybe their 500- and 1000-piece puzzles (and whatever they got next) will do the trick.

Content to keep an eye on:

First, read Chrissy Teigen’s latest Medium post. You know why you should, and it’s worth every heartbreaking, awakening minute.

Now that you’re back, Colin Kaepernick is ready for our attention. Speaking of Medium, they recently inked a deal with the former NFL star and activist, adding him to his board and ending a years-long discussion of where he’d end up. Kaepernick’s got a growing series of content live on the subscriber-funded publisher, taking on the

And today, he’s got a Netflix series with Ava DuVernay at the helm, and a younger version of himself already casted. I’m ready to watch.

AOC’s Twitch event is a big fuckin’ deal. One of the biggest failures of brands and content makers is similar to that of politicians. For decades before social media, consumers were used to a one-way dialogue with politicians. “Here’s my stance on said issue, here’s the other person’s, and you just take the one you like.” Not that the people we vote in office don’t go out and into the public, try to be of the people. The best (and worst) have. But what Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, as described by my new fave writer Patricia Hernandez of Polygon, has done is just be where the people are. Like, look at this shit.

Which is, right now, doing tasks in spaceships and trying hard not to be found out as the imposter. But politicians shouldn’t force themselves to do what she does. Just be someone of substance understand who’s interested in those issues, and be where they are. Simple. May all brands learn authenticity from the Bronxite.

My favorite thing on the internet:

To circle back to the relationship I have with my dad, last week’s trolling of John Cardillo meant a lot for me to see. If you haven’t seen that dipshit of a tweet, here’s mindful masculinity maven Liz Plank sounding the alarm.

So many of the issues I spoke of stem from this toxic view that men need to be macho and in charge and unaffected by feelings, and you wouldn’t believe how toxic that is to men themselves—or to us surviving this pandemic. Liz has a great book called For the Love of Men. I’ve read it, and we all should read it.

(Including men who still haven’t given a shit to care about astrology. You know who you are. If you don’t care for it, but want your masculinity challenged, at least watch this very good video called The Mask You Live In.)

Be ready for November 3rd. If you can vote, do it. But don’t think it ends with the ballots.

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The best I can do is say something simple and true. I’ve missed building with you. To those hyping me up on Twitter over the last few months: it’s cool to be back. Make sure you  tell ya friends.

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Lemme quickly catch you all up on some of what you missed.

• I helped organize a letter where over 600 professionals took the ad industry to task and gave a list of reasonable demands. And co-founded an advocacy group for Black talent in marketing.

• It also helped launch Allyship & Action: a summit series that calls white leadership to make more anti-racist corporate structures. I moderated a panel with all-white leadership! (Brave af.) We have a great event called The State of Equity that’ll be live on YouTube next Thursday and Friday.

• On the work end, Aerialist worked with marketing consulting cloud We Are Rosie to launch The Rosie Report: an editorial hub built ‘from the future of work.’ Think of it as The Players Tribune, but for and from independent consultants and freelancers.

• I had the privilege of being Adweek’s first guest editor, leading a mini-hub of stories called “Black is the Future.” We decided to focus less on the DE&I problems ailing the ad world and focus on all the tangible solutions that already exist when Black talent is truly valued. Our issues are deemed essential to a business’s growth.

There are a few appearances on podcasts and panels. If worth your time, I’ll leave them all at the end of another issue. Again, for all those riding with me from that first issue to now, thanks for sticking around. Looking forward to being a regular part of your inbox in the future.

To be real with you, so much of that time felt like an endless backslide. Helping launch something that could help change an industry that made a home for me. Figuring out what it means to lead, truly, and effectively be a leader. Running my own company, even if I had to push that to the backseat. Then navigating and honoring my own personal growth, especially as a Black man: healing and growing and a whole bunch of shit that isn’t the main topic of this newsletter.

Summer was chaotic, and it took friends and family, self-care, and group bonding to get me through, and I’m thankful. But you know what has had the most surprising impact on my well-being and progress? Horoscopes.

Now more than ever, in unprecedented times, hearing what the stars have to say has become common practice. And it’s not just the Astro Poets pulling up every so often with memeable content and weekly outlooks by your zodiac sign.

Astrologers like Chani Nicholas (whose book You Were Born for This was my 2nd birthday gift to self), Dayna Lynn Nuckolls (bka The People’s Oracle), and others have pulled up the scene more frequently to give the Twitter TL the planetary low-down. Nadine Jane, a former designer, turned her Instagram into an aesthetically pleasing home to unpack your celestial makeup.

Nothing’s forced me to care more about whatever the hell trines and squares—how close planets align with each other— or the 5ish retrogrades (planetary transits that appear to move in reverse) do-si-doing throughout 2021 mean for my daily life and our daily discourse than this moment. Who’ll argue against Mercury retrograde when Twitter shut down for over an hour this weekend—and where would we go to argue? Probably not here.

Some can say it’s all confirmation bias, but people genuinely want to believe that the chaos leading to the end of this year (or, more pressing, Election Day) leads to something. And some people want to believe, putting the “Big Three” astrology apps Co-Star, The Pattern, and Sanctuary in prime position to profit from all our digital stargazing.

Co-Star, long known for terrorizing your phone notifications, now takes donations for deeper dives into your chart. Sanctuary pairs you with astrologers for a flat fee or monthly rate. And the Pattern just as early as last week put a paywall between you and the patterns about you worth digging deeper into. The appetite’s there, and when that happens, free becomes short for freemium.

It’s all interesting; at a younger point in my life, the work wife at my college job would pull up issues of Cosmo or Elle at the cash register to tell me (a Taurus) about our monthly outlook. Maybe it’s just me, but if men, especially us straight men, are buying into the discourse (and meditation and overall spirituality) online more, where is the buy-in from GQ or Esquire? 

Maybe we don’t fuck around obsessing with make-believe. Absolutely not our shit at all.

Just throwing it out there, tons more women care about fantasy football than we give credit for. Maybe some magazine editor should tell men “astrology is much easier than you think,” the way the NFL tried to do for women years back. Or, maybe I’ll grow out of this growing trust of the universe’s plan for us. I digress.

Anyway: retrogrades. We’ve been dealt with so many blows this year: to our confidence, our livelihoods, our loved ones, our jobs. Somehow, there’s still things giving us reason to smile, an excuse to lift our spirits. As someone who’s had his spirit shaken so much and still worries about the world he’s walking into when this pandemic passes, there’s been so much to look at and take pride in. 

And so have you. It may not feel like it sometimes, but your wins are just as important as all the loss. Those shouldn’t go unnoticed.

Brands making the mark:

Let’s go Somewhere Good. Ever since Naj Austin announced the launch of a community space centering people of color, I’d felt that new ground was being broken for Black, Brown, and indigenous creatives and entrepreneurs. So much congregating over the last decade was a digital feat, migrating from platform to platform. Few, if any, welcoming spaces existed IRL. A physical haven, Ethel’s Club was being built out in Brooklyn—we needed that. 

Fast forward to less than a month ago, and Austin, who’s deftly gotten her staff through a pandemic that shuttered EC’s first location temporarily (their shop has since reopened), is now creating Somewhere Good: a community-centered ‘social playground’ for POC. The platform goes live in January, and I’ll be endlessly curious about how far she can go—and how the tech press will cover her growing presence in coworking, community, and disrupting how we think about the company we keep.

TikTok’s aiming for timeless territory. I’ve never downloaded the app, even though friend-vangelists have been screaming its praises. One almost doesn’t need to: you’ll always know when someone shares a clip from the video creation platform. the hovering watermarks and minute-long clips do enough heavy lifting.

TikTok’s seemingly dodged a few bullets from the Trump administration over the summer. In the process, it’s further embedded itself in the American consciousness. And not just for virality’s sake—credit Jalaiah Harmon, Sarah Cooper, Nathan Apodaca for getting us all through the year.

Content’s cool, but the extensive TikTok brand reach in the US is the true coup. It sponsored a Nascar Xfinity Series car in late September, days after its mammoth deal with Oracle. The substance of that deal still feels weird—this past weekend, The Verge reported Oracle’s Larry Ellison donated $250k to Senator Lindsey Graham’s campaign hours before the deal closed. But the style half of the announcement, a strategic partnership with Wal-Mart that will further empower TikTok creators—and take the storied retailer into a proper digital future it hadn’t quite cracked. Also: we’re getting some golden brand spots—way to flip the whole “don’t make ads, make TikToks” pitch to marketers on its head. Just make TikToks your ads.

Yes: Charli D’Amelio may be the next reality show star in the making. But the way TikTok has literally given anyone a chance to break the internet could make it the great normalizer. Its rewards are being reaped a minute at a time.

McDonald’s Hype-y Meals—I’m lovin’ ‘em. Consider me quirked when the Golden Arches announced its collaboration with Travis Scott, who’s found a way to switch up from rapper’s fave rapper to brand collaborator smooth like a Sicko Mode transition. We didn’t just get a meal in his likeness (with a Sprite on the side)—fans were treated to a whole custom drop of merch worth getting in line for—thank god for e-commerce in a pandemic; the lines would wrap a few blocks.

I was wrong to think they, and new-ish partner agency Wieden + Kennedy and others had a one-off stunt in mind. Soon a new mystery figure was in play, and I realized McDonald’s is fucking committing.

Revealing J. Balvin, the reggaeton star who’s ‘Mi Gente’ drew Beyoncé’s and mainstream pop’s attention, and reminding me how good a brand can be when it just takes a chance on the culture of the now (hypebeast drops and immersive collaborations) without fear of losing its universal appeal. It’s brilliant, reminds me fondly of the time Kith and Cap’n Crunch left me brokenhearted in my fave bit of young ad kid FOMO and needs to be the exception that makes new rules. 

Content to keep an eye on:

Megan Thee Thought-Leader. Black women have been the pulse of the last 12 months. Regina King upper-echelon performance in Watchmen. Breonna Taylor’s growing legacy. The WNBA’s consistent pressure for social justice. Kamala’s historic nomination and immediate impact. For only better, music has been defined by the Houston rapper stealing the show on her own terms. I’m not the biggest rap purist, but this new era where Cardi B, Saweetie, Doja, and Megan all exist has opened up necessary conversations for a genre that’s long seen female rappers as the token to major rap cliques. Just look at what WAP has done, solely making us forget BDE was ever a thing.

It’s her NY Times opinion piece for me, though.

After a show-stopping performance to debut SNL’s 45th season that called out the Kentucky AG that has done everything but arrest the murderers of Taylor, a Louisville first responder, she penned a piece (with a visual to match her trademark ferocity) that firmly set her place in this world.

Indie stages take to the screens. Let’s all acknowledge the festival season that could’ve been. The live event space was fully primed for a 2020 even bigger than 2019 was. (Remember how 00s R&B fans were gonna get that Lovers and Friends fest in California?) But here we are.

For many indie concert venues, the straits have never been direr to navigate. This last week, NIVA, a collective of concert halls across the US, did what I think was pivotal for their own survival and future of live music: launching Save Our Stages, a three-day event bringing 35 perennial headliners to 25 venues across the country. 

The star power spoke for itself—Foo Fighters, Brittany Howard (of Alabama Shakes fame), The Lumineers, Demi Lovato, among others—but the collective effort feels like a beacon for much bigger things down the line.

New York gets the subway map we need and deserve. Also filed among things I’ve missed: subway rides (I live with two high-risk parents in the Rockaways, where a long-enough commute is a norm). It’s been tough going these last few months not taking the ‘A’ train, but now I know when I get to my station, we’ll have a proper map to look at.

Who’d have thunk it? I’m into this project that Work + Co put together for this and the redesigned Curbed for getting that exclusive. Huge shame that it had to be pro-bono because to honor the best of two iconic maps in one interactive experience is something worth paying top dollar for.

Honorary mentions:

• Broadway extends its shutdown through June 2021 (Playbill), the bitter paired with Tony Award sweetness: Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play and Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill musical grabbed record nominations. Theatre will be back, I promise. Good things take time.

• Not a Substack, but already an awesome newsletter: The Filament, tackling DE&I issues in the tech space, went live last week. Been following Micah Singleton’s work in The Verge and other outlets, and great to see him take on something necessary for Silicon Valley, something the ad world could sorely use.

• Do you know how new Spider-Man Miles Morales wears Jordans in the Oscar-winning film Into the Spider-Verse? That makes Jordans as superhero gear canon. Maybe not: for his PS5 debut, the bi-racial webcrawler is rocking with the Three Stripes. Polygon’s Patricia Hernandez gets a shout-out for writing the article true New Yorker comic nerds needed to read. Shout-out to you.

My favorite thing on the internet this week

The obvious answer to this should be Dwyane Wade, NBA’s favorite dad, enjoying a sunset, taking a long walk on the beach, and crashing Ryan Basch’s marriage proposal.

However, I’ll go with this new find: a new restaurant opening (in this pandemic—for a chipmunk. Is nature healing? Will that restaurant become a nationwide chain? I have no idea, but I needed a double-dose of wholesome, and maybe you do, too.

Leave a comment

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Addendum, or a shortlist of podcasts and one article I appeared on these last few months.

• Adweek had me guest-host an episode of its 200-episode-strong flagship pod, Yeah, That’s Probably an Ad, back in June. It was my third time on the podcast, but at that moment, with my 600 & Rising co-founder Nathan Young, it was maybe the most important. Cool shit.

• My fellow City College alum Fran Kilinski had me as one of the first guests of his cool show, The Potentiation. Some talk about the industry's representation, much more talk about our shared love for baseball and basketball gossip.

• The Overthinkers hosts Rachel Mercer and Shann Biglione brought me onto their show to talk about my favorite pain point: how the hell we can build a sustainable media ecosystem.

• TBWA\ New York CEO Rob Schwartz brought me on to the legendary Disruptor Series podcast to peel back my industry trajectory that led to the here and now. It took us three-ish tries, but it was good to tell my story.

• (The one article) The Girl Mob EIC, Yari Blanco, highlighted me for her platform’s “Men We Love” section for August. I love the mission of TGM, empowering women of color everywhere, and sweet to share a birthday with a low-key icon like her.

Lots to say, and maybe a little less next time. But it’s good to be back, finished, and back in your inboxes. Talk soon, and take care.

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But I want to touch on something personal to me quickly, succinctly, and move on. It’s nearly impossible to separate my identity from my work in marketing and media. I started my career and spent almost half of it in the midst of a natural disaster. I was born and raised, and still live, in a neighborhood that has been a COVID hotspot, and whose most famous person died too young from police brutality. I’ve worked at places where I’ve been the only, and been scolded for speaking up.

I’m not an activist. I don’t consider myself a diversity champion or executive. I’m a writer. I’ve been a copywriter, a branding consultant, a journalist, content strategist and now consultancy owner. I’m also Black, and I can’t strip that from any of the titles that I’ve had, or how any of the recent incidents affect how I move forward as a person.

This is a newsletter literally about corporate storytelling. Brands are what we make, content is what we disseminate, but people drive both of those things. You can’t be an effective brand, or an effective content creator if you don’t care about what people care about. And right now, people want to be seen, people want to know that the systems that they learned about in school are fully equal for everyone and not just those who have inherent privilege attached to them.

People also want to know that brands listen to them, and not in a cheap way that drives a ton of engagements across platforms but zero change. They want to know that the content we put out as marketing and media professionals is made with care and intentionality, with as little or no bias as possible, and doesn’t normalize very sensitive issues.

And the Black professionals, the Asian, Latinx, Middle Eastern, LGBTQ, differently-abled professionals who work alongside us want to feel valued, that the places who pay them to produce quality work, are looking out for the things that matter to them the most. Because they’re consumers, too. In fact, they’re often the biggest fans of the work.

But they also represent something bigger than just their existence in your open floor plan or payroll. They support families, they help their larger communities, they uplift younger and older professionals to build something bigger. The time to get dirty, be conscious, and to advocate and champion should’ve happened a long time ago. 

It’s no “now more than ever” shit. These “unprecedented” times are probably part of why they picked your place of employment to enable a better life. You trust them to show up, be a presentable example of what a good employee is. They need to trust that you’re gonna look out for them going forward. Because it’s bigger than them, you need to approach your work as bigger than just a bottom line.

Or your voice as bigger than flashy thought leadership, for moments that matter only to you and whatever audience you want to grow.

For some, the fact that we’re here in these rooms and meetings separates (and can shield) our lives from death, or even the threat of it. Choose what side you want your work to support, and make sure you do your part to help those already doing theirs.

(Credit: Aaron Aalto (@aaraalto))

No mini-dives this week, but I’m gonna share some stories that you may want to check out:

On the brand side:

• Community’s important, but next to the live event space, it’s been the industry most disrupted by this pandemic. Ethel’s Club, one of a slate of community/coworking hubs, not only quickly pivoted when in-person gatherings had to stop, but doubled down in ensuring its core group of POC was valued. Recently it announced it’s now part of a family of brands called Somewhere Good and has a sibling content platform built for stories made by creators of color called Form No Form. If there’s a place to support, this is one, and they’ll ensure you know about other communities like them.

• May, if you’ve missed it, is National Masturbation Month. I’m not a sexual health expert, but the brands better versed in that form of self-care have gotten busy. Playboy, for example, launched a timely ‘Safe Six’ rules for social distancing, and Trojan brand condoms (h/t strategist Mary Ergul) has 69 pages worth of ideas for things you can bake with your sourdough starters.

• There’ve been a ton of restaurants big and small braving this time. A special shout-out to my dear friend Sasha Ortega, who went from being an art director in Toronto to opening up her own Filipino cuisine eatery, Tala.

  It’s one of the city’s brightest stories, and an example of quite a few just kicking ass for frontline workers and people who miss what it’s like to eat out. (I know I do.) 

• Another shout-out goes to Chuck E. Cheese, who may have pissed some people off with its unnanounced launch of Pasqually’s Pizzeria, but can you fault a company best known for its animatronic band and arcade games for trying to innovate? The times are unprecedented, man.

• Big Cannabis hasn’t quite hit its stride, but it’s getting there as more states legalize the drug for recreational use. What’s next? According to former colleague Katie Deighton, psychedelics could be that next new frontier. If the FDA doesn’t hold back those pushing to commercialize the drugs from having a good trip.

On the content end:

• Verzuz has been the breakout hit no one expected it to be, picking up the baton where DJ D-Nice’s Club Quarantine sessions left it and elevating Black music to a new echelon. Swizz Beats and Timbaland’s project has spanned genres, celebrated songwriters, producers, artists, and musical eras, and made me (a budding songwriter) remember why I even felt like I could write like Ne-Yo one day. Audio issues (aplenty) aside, its influence can’t be overstated and we’ll be talking about the series of IG Live sessions — and the repercussions on artist’s rights on the platform for decades.

• I had the privilege of speaking on Black Twitter and its importance in February, as one does when Black and uses Twitter often. But like zeitgeisty thing worth talking about, it’s important to understand how its roots shaped where it is so that you start getting an idea of where might be the next hotbed for Black and other marginalized voices. ESPN’s The Undefeated chronicled our Great Digital Migration, a cool history lesson that takes you through some rabbit holes. I’ll forgive them for not mentioning the greatness of the Tumblr class of 2009/10. 😉

• As e-gaming’s influence spreads, so does its opportunities to directly target young people. You’ll probably think fondly of how Travis Scott recently made Fortnite his own Astroworld festival for a time. But now the Armed Forces have taken aim at Call of Duty, realizing that the digital sharpshooters of tomorrow probably live there. The Army in particular has a dedicated team of recruiters using the game to reach prospective soldiers during the pandemic.

• When you think about misinformation, usually Facebook proper (or FACEBOOK) gets a lot of the heat, but Whatsapp, its messaging subsidiary, has borne the brunt of fake news sharing amongst users in the US, Brazil, India and other countries. The Poynter Institute, a non-profit org for the journalism community recently received a $1 million grant and used that funding to build an AI tool that scrubs messages for misleading and damaging articles. More obviously needs to be done, especially with November less than half a calendar away, but it’s a resource worth sharing with your family and friends abroad and at home.

And some other faves:

• Josh Stenberg, a trade pub peer who covered media at ADWEEK, and now is part of the Substack community, has kept at his reporting through The Media Nut. In a more personal issue, he details what it’s like to be laid off during a time where it’s pretty tear-inducing to think about the unemployment numbers.

• WIRED Magazine’s cover story for June discusses Marcus Hutchins, who at 22, flipped the switch off on WannaCry, the largest known cyberattack in history. But justice in the hacking community, as proven by his story, doesn’t always end in celebration.

• Someone’s gonna pitch a movie with the premise “Bring It On meets Erin Brockovich,” and it’ll most likely be based on the real-life class action suit taking place amongst the cheer community vs Varsity Brands, the monopoly that has held it under its grasp. Matt Stoller’s BIG Substack really does a good job breaking the story down.

• Intimacy, does that word still exist? A recent NY Times opinion piece ponders what single people will do when they resume mingling while a deadly respiratory illness still lingers among us. Mask up, lovers.

• Demon Tyme. OnlyFans. Whatever Megan and Beyoncé were trading bars about on the Savage remix. Sex work is having a moment— I’ve been informed that International Day of the Whore is a real thing, and on June the 2nd if you’d like to save the date. Kiana Pirouz, marketing lead at rising marketing firm We Are Rosie, shared this piece from the cool writers at MEL Magazine on liberal men and their reluctance to spend money on porn and other digital fruits of sex work.

• Asian Pacific American Heritage Month also ends this weekend. This is also a community that’s faced a lot of hate, especially in the early days of this pandemic. The issues they face can’t be minimized, even while Black communities are suffering, but it’s worth taking in how America’s history has driven a wedge between solidarity between these groups. NPR’s Code Switch has an oldie, but goodie that touches on this relationship, and organizations like Stop AAPI Hate are one of the many you can support. If you need more resources, I’ll get you to the right friends.
  
  Love goes to Asian and Pacific Islander friends, as well as everyone who’s looked out for me and others in the Black community during this time.

Look out for a new issue this Tuesday. Felt good to get this out, will feel better when we can all get outside and build something better. Have a safe weekend.

Keep it up, neighbors and friends. An early summer break is coming. For those who’ve already been impacted by layoffs or lost sources of income, friends at The Drum, Adweek, and others have pooled up-to-the-hour resources for freelance creative professionals to not lose out. I’ll do my best to share new opportunities when I see them, like this brand-new grant Getty Images is offering for women and non-binary commercial photographers.

Until we all get to step out and give the internet some digital distancing, we’ve been forced to rethink what it means to work and live. Social media has made our living rooms a dance floor. Zoom has fast become the space for happy hours, honesty hours, and terrible pranks. You can finally Netflix and chill without inviting anyone over.

Will these ever be forever things? I can’t tell you, but now that the option is on the table to un-limit how we gather with people: why leave it in the past? It’s very scary times, still, and finding space to feel closeness and community will always be important. It’s also an inevitable part of our growing relationship with tech platforms.

Part of getting my life together with y’all involved thinking about this a little, and I have a few additional thoughts on the times if you’ll indulge me right quick:

Events walked so that gatherings could run. 

I didn’t watch the massive D-Nice Instagram live video that shut down the digital block over the weekend, but I heard it “did numbers.” When #ClubQuarantine closed and the partygoers settled back into WFH mode, I’d picked up on this post from master facilitator and Thrive Labs founder Priya Parker:

I was put onto Parker and her book “The Art of Gathering” last year — an absolute must-read for marketers in the event world, and now for most of us who look to build authentic communities. You’re probably gonna see her name in the press a lot, and probably your inbox too: she recently announced the launch of her newsletter (this world of inbox thought leadership is getting busy, my friends).

Since the orders to quarantine have passed from city to state to country, she’s been documenting the real-time corporate adjustments via her IG stories: from regretful letters from workout classes and conferences to the blossoming digital-based solutions that rose from the ashes. Then, D-Nice got to spinning, and a lot of Parker’s lessons about building community with intent came into focus. Parker called his weekend sets a “bizarre, beautiful, non-exclusive Studio 54,” where he controlled the tempo (literally) and held space (virtually) for meaningful connection. 

And played his ass off at that. The multi-hyphenate music industry legend has seen his star elevate in nearly no time, to the point of working with First Lady Michelle Obama on a voter registration #couchparty, and probably much more. A great win in a greatly important period, but also a chance to rethink how we form community.

In the larger scheme, D-Nice had a magical moment, but the lessons from the experience are tangible. Something we can learn from when IRL culture begins again.

That said…

Are brands are gonna get this relevance thing right, or nah?

This month started with one of my favorite examples of timely brand fails, so no one should be surprised to see how some have responded to the opportunity to enter the social distancing™ conversation.

Part of this is rooted in necessity: as long as massive clients aren't under review in a pandemic, marketers still have a job to do. Props to those who choose to navigate this, and more to those who have had some success so far, many getting their hands dirty for the cause. My heart warms up to see ascendant designer Christian Siriano raise his hand to assist the many doctors aiding in the recovery efforts:

But does *every* brand need to do enter the public conscious in times of crisis? Nike, which for the past couple of years has perfected the text-only statement ad for social media, knows we’re all missing out on sports right now. And it also probably has been listening to New York’s Governor Cuomo critique people trying to get a quick pickup game in before rules tightened up.

McDonald's, on the other hand, did this. And days later, probably saw this response from one of its employees.

There are all sorts of examples in between those extremes and there’s a new line in the sand we’re not talking about, one that deepens in situations like this. It used to be about the brands who could read the room and those who can’t. Now, the best of corporate America will be defined by listening to the issues their consumer, and how best they cater to their most important relationship: the one they have with customer-facing employees. 

Of course, a hundred-plus-year-old brand can survive this in a way that a lifestyle startup might not.  Time will tell.

There’s a growing realization that money isn’t the most important part of a successful economy (or just a single brand in it): it’s always about people.

An appropriate question comes to mind for those in charge of a brand’s success, from one Miss Lauryn Hill: “How you gonna win if you ain’t right within?” Millions of people the stressed, the financially-insecure, the marginalized are rethinking the way they do right by themselves right now. It’s probably the best time for corporate America to ask itself that. 

And often.

Will Second Life get a second chance?

These last few weeks have reminded me how fickle this industry can be: the slightest ripple in a society can shift the balance in how people spend their 24 hours. Big tech’s been feeling it heavy, as video streamers are siphoning bandwidth due to heavy usage and supply chains are buckling under the pressure.

Meanwhile, there might not be a better time to be someone who grew up on The Sims. Or Animal Crossing (which I can attest to as a newly-christened user of the Nintendo franchise). In catching up with my designer friend Liv this week, a cult favorite idea of the early 00s called Second Life would be killing it right now.

Then I did a light Google search: it not only still exists, but in November, it launched its first “stable” version.

If you’re not familiar with the simulator that first made headlines when most social networks didn’t even exist, it was a hell of a concept: a replicated version of our human existence, filled with real brand partnerships, the ability to convert Earth currency to their digital form, and (maybe) a true escape for those not satisfied with their first life.

There’s room to explore how VR and AR look in the next 12 months, but the Linden Labs project accomplished something important in its initial launch that might be revisited down the line: brand adoption and integration. Amazon, Disney, and others had hopped on board in the early days, and Sanrio (the company behind Hello Kitty) is one of its more recent partners.

The timing might be kind for a brand (or someone looking to spice up their morning statuses) to revisit the virtual world. You know, just in case.

Here are some non-work resources make your pivot easier:

• Ethel’s Club, the recently-opened community and wellness space built with people of color in mind, has been a fast-riser in the brick-and-mortar community space since its initial NYTimes feature last March. (disclaimer: I’m a EC member) When forced to close its first location in Brooklyn, founder Naj Austin and her team brought that sense of community online: opening up digital membership for those who’ve craved a space in their city, and programming digital-friendly content with its slew of diverse partners. There’s already been DJ sets, cannabis hangouts, and sessions on ethical non-monogamy (in this society), looking forward to what the minds in Bushwick get online next.

• For those who’ve had to miss out on Broadway shows, TodayTix has built a rolling list of cultural institutions putting productions and concerts online. The Met Opera and Royal Shakespeare Company have worked out streaming partnerships, and performers have come together through opportunities like BroadwayWorld’s living room concert series and the @theatrewithouttheatre Instagram page.

• There’s a lot of time to spend with family, and so much more to research and archive your roots. Photographer and archivist Sierra King has been tracing the life and stories of Black Panther activist Kathleen Cleaver among others and has launched a 30-day challenge for those who want to take charge of their family story.

• A special shout-out to the friends at @wereleavingearly, the Instagram account aiming to keep us reliably informed in a lighthearted way. Following them means seeing bite-sized info and memeable moments like the Cuomo brothers very public (and playful) sibling rivalry. Can’t unsee this:

  

And with that, happy Wednesday. Look out for more later this week. Feel free to leave a comment below, and add share with someone who wants ad/media news and insights in their inbox.

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to share? Cultivating a Friday PM roundup of stuff to keep us busy/productively bored. Comment below with any suggestions!

(Also, catch up on my first piece.)

Also pushing back my next post until tomorrow AM, cause blogging is a marathon, not a sprint. Enjoy this throwback:

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I told the internet, “Yerrrrr, I’m launching a Substack” a few weeks back and 100+ of you signed up saying you wanted to read. 😲Thank you, for the support and your patience. It’s time, and I’m excited to just get into it. Even when it’s not exciting to work right now. Still, if you’re reading this, hello again.

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When I first started working on this newsletter, we were just maybe enjoying February, which seemed like a step up from January. Januaries are normally the hangover month from the previous year, so I always felt like February was when people we’re really ready to think of a new 12 months.

But, nothing’s ever as we plan it out to be. Even this was supposed to start weeks before, but to open with something that felt right, something not completely bogged down by the weight of what isn’t.

For me, this means figuring out where we can go based on the now.

Renegade’s maybe a big deal for TikTok, Black creators, and record labels’ waltz with the dance community

When Jalaiyah Harmon got her first ‘15 minutes’ moment last month, it was *a thing* for more reasons than the obvious: a young, black creator being acknowledged for her craft.

It served as bits and pieces of a crescendo of sorts for music lovers, and lovers of music videos. Remember Missy Elliot, whose knack for elevating what a music video could be, won her the VMA Vanguard award last fall. Da Baby’s “Bop” video reunited us with the original best dance crew, the Jabbawockeez. This year’s Pepsi Halftime Show, just casually existing.

The momentum’s there for a hell of a decade in dance’s tango with popular music (with TikTok’s ascent helping), but the financial support, according to pieces like this one in Rolling Stone, give some pause. When creators have been elevated, especially Black and Brown ones, so does the opportunity to elevate the issues that impact them the most. Of course, this can’t fall on one young person, but it’s worth considering how culture and the institutions that shape it can be more equitable going forward.

The relationship between content, creator, and compensation — and now TikTok filling the role of creative magnet that Snapchat, YouTube and Vine once had —  is worth keeping an eye on.

(While I have you, I should put you onto my favorite piece of choreography. If you’re a fan of Jon M. Chu, director of Crazy Rich Asians, you’ll love The LXD. Over a decade ahead of its time.)

Old Spice did what Gillette hasn’t: make me believe in P&G’s recent masculinity push

My favorite spot this year aired nearly a month before the Super Bowl. Y'all remember The Man Your Man Should Smell Like?

The Hall of Fame worthy campaign launched ten years ago, and the brand brought back its shirtless icon Isaiah Mustafa back for its latest brand push. And guess what? 

He has a son!

Of course, the muscle-bound, smooth-talking, ladies man protagonist of one of the oldest men's brands has a son. Instantly, I realized how best to explain an issue I had with P&G's portrayal of men and masculinity in its sibling brand, Gillette. Last year, they tried to start a conversation on "The Best A Man Can Be."

Gillette’s spot wasn't the worst attempt to get men to rethink masculinity. But, when you look at ads from rivals in the men's grooming category (Harry's and Axe, especially), it felt like they didn't need to try this hard to get it right. Enforcing catcalling and breaking up fights have their purpose in advertising and real life. As the vicious reaction to it showed, something might be missing in how brands express that.

The W+K team behind “Time Out” and “Office Visit” filled that pit for me with a clear insight: there’s a laundry list of wrong ways to be men, but there’s no single right way to be one either. The Old Spice man gets to stay true to who he is: a cool, charming salesman for a clean body, but also show he's a dad who wants the best for his kid, even if he risks embarrassment for being himself: entering a gym or the office, biceps blazing.

Hearing that his son wants to be his own kind of well-smelling man, respectfully at that, is probably the most subtle way for a brand to make a statement. And in a time where everyone’s charged up, a feather’s more effective than a shotgun.

Sometimes, wearing clothes on the job (remote or nah) is fine. And sometimes, allowing space for other men to be their own best selves is the best a man can be. P&G can learn big time from that.

Netflix is starting to show what inclusion could be in the streaming age

Strong Black Lead has done for Netflix what 'Black Twitter' has done for Twitter: intentionally hold space for a multitude of content focused on the Black diaspora. Since launching in 2018, Netflix's SBL team has been curating shows and films for its audience, celebrating the stars of its growing catalog, and building a small ecosystem for their voices — something not seen in this phase of mass media yet.

This year, it's doubled down on identity-themed programming with the launch of Con Todo and The Most, which focus on Latinx/Hispanic and LGBTQ communities, respectively.

Phase two of the “streaming wars” begins here for Netflix. It’s already forced the hand of traditional media to shift to an arena where cords don’t exist. Now: everyone’s here, viewers have their options and price points, and the fatigue of endless options. The hard part was always going to be here: behind the draw of award-winning programming, how do you appeal to viewers who’ve been wanting so badly to see themselves in mainstream media.

The big red N on your screen lost its indie darling status for some time if you ask millennials, Gen Z, or awards season fans. There’s a larger opportunity for Con Todo and Most to show the newly merged ViacomCBS and WarnerMedia how to reach the 21st-century viewer in an authentic way.

At least, as long as we’re given some grace to be great on our own terms.

Here’s some stories I’m keeping an eye on:

• We’ve finally figured out what the ‘Z’ in Gen-Z is for, thanks to NYT culture writer (and a must-read for old and young pros) Taylor Lorenz. Thanks to this abrupt shift to WFH life, telepresence is in and Zoom (a webchat app popular with teens and some hip folk) is becoming a strong cure for social distancing.

• Speaking of streaming, NBCUniversal’s found a way past recently-shuttered movie theatres: putting films meant for cinema straight to on-demand starting Friday. Adweek’s Kelsey Sutton’s right: it’s hard to see them (or anyone who follows suit) returning to business as usual after a move like this, even if theatre owners feel that there’ll always be a need for the ✨cinematic experience✨.

• Members Only founder Herb Goldsmith passed away at 92. Fashion’s always been known for its shrewd designer-founders, and Goldsmith used his brand to take on issues such as voting and the crack epidemic. I was too young to understand how big the jackets were at their heyday, but after owning one for a few years I get it: “when you put it on, something happens.”

• Nintendo and Lego have themselves a contender for ‘most ambitious crossover of the year’ and it’s only March. The two toy legends teamed up to bring the Super Mario experience to an interactive playset. I’d explain, but you’re better off seeing this shit for yourself.

One last thing.

I always wanted to do some sort of ‘the best thing on the internet right now,’ where I just find something random for you to interact with. Given the hashtag-unprecedented moment, this first best thing is camaraderie. So, I’m sharing a few cool ways journalism and marketing friends have been holding it down.

• Dong Draper (also known as copywriter/satirist Sai He) launched ‘(net)working from home,’ a matchmaking service for creatives in need of community and friendship.

• Aisha Hakim, art director and founder of online community Fellow, has built a spreadsheet for young creative talent to have their portfolios reviewed and critiqued. If you’re a creative director of any kind or even someone who cares about helping young marketing talent, you should take part.

• Culture writer and advice columnist Rae Witte has assembled a list of links to exercises you can do remotely. YouTube and sweat the new Netflix and chill? Stay tuned.

• Danyel Smith, one of music journalism’s foremost chroniclers, revived the HRDlist, a newsletter passion project first launched in 2014, for the foreseeable future. The first iteration covered and curated some of the best stories of the mid-2010s and culminated to a capsule magazine called HRDCVR (real ones know). HRDlist 2.0 is on Substack, too, go subscribe to it!

• Remote-friendly companies We Are Rosie and Wethos have been sharing web resources for the WFH life, like prepping your team for emergency remote work, and building culture across time zones.

• I’ve personally been building playlists in my spare time, mostly in between writing projects for when I need to shift gears and moods. AgencySpy (for non-industry friends, this is where our tea is spilled) was kind enough to share one I made with perfect 00s R&B hits for handwashing last Friday. (Ambitious.) If that’s played out, I’ve assembled sixty songs from female rockers of past, present, and near-future. Younger me wanted to do right by Stevie Nicks telling the tale of “Rhiannon”. Hope it makes your week more bearable.

If anyone from the media and marketing community wants to share resources or things, I’ll do my best to share them here. Find me in the comments below or on my Twitter, and until next, take it a little easy.

Bennett D. Bennett writes brand+content, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Currently, he leads marketing for HR staffing platform The Gradient, has bylines in The Drum and ADWEEK, and dabbles in fiction and songwriting. Talk to him about sports or music sometime, he’s on Twitter at @bennettdbennett.

I’ve spent nearly a decade in a love affair with advertising. Like with most good crush stories, it starts with a pair of rose-colored glasses appearing on your face and ends with disillusionment reminiscent of Tom Hansen of (500) Days of Summer fame.

Now that I’ve gone from industry event mainstay to underworked copywriter to overwhelmed trade journalist in what some could consider a crossroads for marketing and media, I have a ton of thoughts, and sporadic Twitter threads, Slack chats, and DM conversations just won’t cut it.

So, here we are. This is brand+content: an ankle-to-nose-deep dive into advertising, mass (and emerging) media, culture, and how the stories between the three intertwine. Or something like that.

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If you click that button above, you’ll receive commentary, critiques, and thoughts about where advertising and media are going — and how it tangles with our current cultural issues — on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Some of you deserve a nice thing to read on your way home, and I hope this is something you can add to your roster of industry coverage.

Don’t expect news: I leave that to the experts at the trade publications. You know them: ADWEEK, The Drum, Variety, THR, AdAge, and similar publications. I’ll reference them and other faves a lot, so get your bookmark tools ready.

Do expect insights: Genuinely, I’m here to collect my thoughts in a way that makes sense to me, other creative-types, and people who want to talk about making the creative industries a better place to work in.

Think of me as one of those radio hosts you love listening to. My personal favorite is a fictional character: Robbie McGrath of Degrassi’s Canadian B-side, Radio Free Roscoe. He went by the alias Question Mark, started every discussion with a musing he or one of his co-hosts came across, and away they went.

So, here’s my first question to you: I know what I want to see out of this endeavor, what are you most interested in seeing? Let me know through the comments below (or tweet at me if you follow me, I’m on there often).

Look out for more later this February.

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Bennett D. Bennett writes brand+content, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Currently, he leads marketing for HR staffing platform The Gradient, has bylines in The Drum and ADWEEK, and dabbles in fiction and songwriting. Talk to him about sports or music sometime, he’s on Twitter at @bennettdbennett.