Upstream #156
vibes, turbulence, oodi, ai brands, dirty rat.
Right, you made it. Drop the landing gear. We’re taking her in. Tip o’ the cap. Nice flying. Time to relax, breathe, rest and ready ourselves to go again. Enjoy it all. And if I haven’t said it before, thanks for reading, and Happy Christmas. Right, let’s get at it.
“To understand people one needs to understand what leads them to act as they do, and to understand what leads them to act as they do one needs to know their goals”
Roy D’Andrade, anthropologist
culture // vibes
We may have moved to a new vibe theory of politics, where “people don’t work out what they think and then join the corresponding tribe. They join a tribe and infer from it what they think”. That sat with me. The reality of it. How malleable we are. How lost. How lazy. Same for everything isn’t it. Brands, politics. Same. Which chimes with this Mark Ritson piece on empty but effective advertising, where he writes “we live in a period where the search for meaning is relative, contested and oppositional. No one knows what anything means anymore. We also live in a time where presence, salience and even the briefest burst of attention is the highest marketing priority". Vibes, it’s all about vibes.
brands // turbulence
Last week the great Les Binet gave a fantastic presentation for the IPA in the UK on, how to navigate brands through turbulent economic times. Part 1, which is about why the economic times are so turbulent, is a good primer on WTF is going on. Part 2 is about how to approach marketing right now to keep businesses strong through economic contractions, rather than market them into the ground. Which is about building profitable, resilient companies, vs companies that just try to grow or maintain their top-line at any cost. Good stuff this.
creativity // oodi
There’s a library near me is closing. Shame. Doubt they ever reframed what that space could be. Or looked at it differently. Oodi, a library in Helsinki, did by reframing the role of libraries. They provided a blueprint for fostering human convergence, with a free egalitarian space (consumption free). As a librarian at Oodi said, “The challenge has been to update the use and needs of the library…..We didn’t want to live in a romantic past where libraries were seen as churches sacred for knowledge.” In Finland, 50% of citizens use the library once a month and 20% use it weekly. Remember “when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change”.
technology // ai brands
AI is everywhere. It’s improving, but it still lacks something. It still lacks substance. It makes average stuff quicker. As Ian Leslie wrote on the struggle to be human "as the machines learn how to emulate us, we are making it easier for them, by becoming more like the machines”. Like machines, we learn the rules of good writing, but not how to write well. And while machines may be accurate, they’re not compelling. Which is why everything is so ugly, "an ocean of stuff so homogenous and under thought that the world it has inundated can feel like a digital rendering — of a slightly duller, worse world." Give me real, human, sweat, craft and toil any day. An AI brand is probably efficient. But feels empty, dull and tasteless. No thanks.
five random (ish) things:
Sperm count has halved since 1973 😳.
Birds make us feel better 😄.
One thing well 2022, great list 📝.
Beautiful work from J&B 😢.
The power of telling stories 📖.
watching // dirty rat
Raw. Real. Honest. Anger. Power. That’s Sleaford Mods innit. In this track they team up with electronic duo, Orbital to produce something extraordinary. The video is powerful art direction. Bang on. Enjoy and Merry Christmas y’all.