Watermelon is the best fruit ever. From the high water content to the texture that gives you just enough crunch yet crumbles in your mouth, to the amazing flavor, watermelon is obviously the best fruit around. Grapefruit is the worst fruit ever. It’s sour, has a peel inside the peel, […]
Category: belonging
Toxic Fandom
If you spend any time on the internet, you will not be surprised to know that there are groups of toxic fans. These fans think that any critique of whatever they are fans of is heresy, and that anything that might be competition is terrible. What these fans don’t realize […]
“Authenticity”
The dictionary definition of “authentic” is that someone is true to their own personality, spirit, or character. And I think it’s very interesting, because it implies that there is somewhat of a spectrum of authenticity; that you can be more or less true to that internal character that makes up […]
Hall Pass
In high school, due to my somewhat extensive extracurricular activity list and sports involvement, I was often walking around school during class with a hall pass. I would often see the hall monitors, with their sunglasses and walkie-talkies, patrolling the halls. And as your typical “stay-out-of-trouble-Valedictorian-club-president” type, I was always […]
Bifurcation
I’ve recently learned from Margo Aaron that good copy bifurcates, which is a fancy word that means to divide or fork into two paths. Basically, what this means is that good copywriting lets you know whether or not it is for you or not for you. So if you’re looking […]
Contextual Cliff-Jumping
When I was young, my mother would ask me “If everyone was going to jump off a cliff, would you jump too?” This was her attempt at reminding me that blindly following the crowd is a fool’s errand, which, apparently, really stuck with me. However, I now realize that it’s […]
Juneteenth
Juneteenth becoming a national holiday was a long-time coming. Our country, at a federal level, is finally coming to terms with the need to acknowledge the fact that America was built on slavery. We’re far from where we should be, with modern day slave labor still occuring in the prison […]
When the Hype Fails
It’s great to promise an amazing work culture, filled with agency and care, sustainability and equality. However, if your culture doesn’t live up to the hype, you’ll begin to create anti-fans who are willing to put their reputations on the line to speak out against your toxicity. Note that if […]
“I love direct feedback” – Part 1
When people say “I love direct feedback,” most of the time they mean “I love giving direct feedback because I don’t need to do the emotional labor of figuring out the best way to give this feedback effectively to the other party.” Interesting that usually these people get the most […]
Awkward
What is social awkwardness? Whether you define it as people who talk too much about a subject no one else is interested in, someone who says inappropriate things, or laughs at things you don’t find funny, awkwardness is something that we all try to avoid because of how uncomfortable it can […]