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rambles and half-essays

Tag: marketing

  • working hard while working hard

    KM Brunner

    It took me a long time to realize I worked harder than most other people. That’s the thing about neurodiversity: though you feel different than everyone else, you also believe that what you’re experiencing is common. Normal, even. When I was young I thought I was just sad or something, not inherently unsuited for the world around me. Turns out it was the latter, but I did okay regardless.

    I worked really hard.

    I work hard at my job but also at pretending to be normalish. These days I’m bad at it. My personality leaks out because I’m tired of being miserable, which is why people think I’m smart. Needing to mask is why I love to learn (I had to like it if I was going to pretend to be another person all the time) and it’s why I’m good at pretending to be likable.

    I don’t mask as violently as I did before leaving the agency world, but I still find it easy to manipulate my personality.

    Part of that is all the acting I did when I was young and some of it is the nature of the marketing industry. Drop a few (relevant) keywords into a conversation and you can make anyone feel important.

    It all sounds wildly manipulative but it’s not like I disliked these people. Often it was the opposite; I wanted them to like me for reasons beyond the professional.

    A friend once told me I was scary after I explained all this (to be fair, I didn’t articulate myself well). Though I understand their response, I disagree.

    They’re neurotypical. They don’t understand what I mean, really. It’s not malicious; it’s just how I operate. I think there are a lot of ways neurodivergent people can interact with society’s rules. One of them is that they catalog neurotypical behaviors, learn them, and strategically choose what they want to indulge. That’s what I do.

    Steeping myself in the psychology of marketing was helpful, but I think all the acting I did was the thing that made me good at it. ‘Cause I sound like this in my head. You can’t sound like this out loud unless you want to out yourself as a nerd. And in some places, speaking like this will make you unapproachable. Granted, that can be helpful, but you don’t want an ice queen reputation all the time.

    A colleague said to a group of interns once, while passing my office, “She’s really cool, but she’s not going to talk to you.”

    Part of me was proud because I felt all mysterious, but it did make me realize I had to go to happy hour at some point. Minnesota is weird.

    Nice doesn’t mean kind, there. It means palatable.

    This was a longer post than I expected it to be. I’m procrastinating dealing with the back end of some marketing systems which are just awful to look at.

    Recommendations:

    Music:

    Stick with me. This is a rock/metal song. It’s got screaming in it. It’s DEFINITELY not for everyone, but I love the build. GREAT tension. This band is very fun and their music is varied.

    • Though it’s kind of controversial at the moment, my friend and I are going to use NaNoWriMo’s website to track our November writing spree. It’s just a good place to keep each other accountable.
    • Been trying to pinpoint a good way to keep the stakes high and the pressure on for the middle bit of my novel, so I’m playing around with narrative structure. Here’s a quick and dirty explanation of a few.
    • I’ve started Martian Time Slip and I know I’m years behind the bandwagon but I’m having fun.
    • Obsessed with hawthorn trees because they have berries in the winter and HUGE spikes. Picture below:

  • interest or manipulation: how the algorithm fucks with us

    KM Brunner

    Hello! I talk a lot about creativity, art, etc. That said, I’m also a digital marketer. It’s my day job to be the villain of the internet, and though I do write about this – thematically – in almost every piece I work on, I try not to get into conversations about it in my real life.

    I am not exactly pro-internet. I’m certainly not anti-internet – it is a beautiful invention. What I do want us to acknowledge is that because the internet is made for the marketer, and not the consumer, you are being thrust into a power dynamic that will never, ever benefit you. As I’m sure you’ve heard, you’re the product. The platform sells you, and even if it’s not a typical data leak/sale, they’re still selling you.

    It’s worse than selling your information, I think. They’re not giving me your email, which you could theoretically ditch if you needed to; they’re giving me your eyes and your time.

    There’s a reason most tech employees with children don’t let their kids engage with the internet much – it’s the same reason I don’t use my phone very often. It is not made to make you feel good, it’s designed to hold you hostage by catching your attention, which means exposing you to extreme content. And so your echo chambers get more and more intense, prejudices get justified by outright misinformation, etc.

    The statement “the algorithm,” or “your algorithm,” is a horrifying one because it tells me how much the general public knows – but won’t acknowledge – about their online spaces. You know you’re being served content based on your interests…but that’s not quite it, is it? You’re being served content to pique your interest.

    That distinction is what’s radicalizing us.

    Oh, are you interested in getting a girlfriend? Having trouble? You could be too short. Do you have acne? Well, whatever – girls are mean anyway – I mean, obviously, because they don’t talk to anyone, especially not you. But maybe they’re not worth getting to know! They suck. Girls aren’t that smart, because God knows you’re a catch, even if you are short. But you can get taller – did you see that surgery? It’s expensive but you can get rich to get it, you just gotta grind. Then you might be able to compete. Because naturally tall guys are cool, sure…but they’re all such assholes, they don’t talk to you either! The popular people, those tall guys and their girlfriends, they’re why you don’t have friends. It sucks to spend all your time alone, huh? But there are tons of guys just like you, and they’re all so angry and lonely. It’s common to be so angry; everyone who’s interesting feels like that. Maybe normal people just aren’t worth it….at all?

    Do you know how to buy a gun?

    …

    The current internet leads us, it does not serve us. And if you don’t question the way it’s structured, maybe you will be influenced to buy that gun. Who knows? Radicalization can happen to anyone, especially to a vulnerable person.

    I have to stop writing about this or I’m going to cry. There are ways to use the internet that will hurt us less, but it requires willpower and reframing the way we see ourselves.

    In my opinion, there are two ways to remove oneself from this toxic digital landscape:

    1. Give up the internet. Leave. Make your art for yourself. Go to shows. Make friends, kiss those friends. Wake up to the sun and not the screen.
    2. Be painfully earnest and unflinchingly honest. Do not brand yourself – your personality will do it for you. Do away with shame, lean into being cringe. Make your art for twenty freaks at a time who you know will like it. Prioritize the art and not the sale. Free yourself and disobey the nature of the platform.

    I haven’t decided which approach I’m going to take, so stay tuned. Maybe me writing here – on the internet – is a tell, but that might change. This is not the first blog I’ve started.

    …

    I don’t even really smoke, and I need a cigarette.

    No recommendations today, but shout-out to the smoke shop around the corner whose door I’m going to darken in about ten minutes.