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Radical Authenticity: Your Mind Makes It Real
The power of storytelling in the world of authentic branding There is a scene, early on in The Matrix, where Neo and Morpheus are fighting in a simulator, and when they’re done, Neo realizes his mouth is bleeding. “I thought it wasn’t real,” says Neo. “Your mind makes it real,” says Morpheus. I was watching a video of Liquid Death founder Mike Cessario, and he was talking about their early attempts at making viral marketing videos. One of them involved taking a few vials of blood from skateboard legend Tony Hawk, then pouring that blood into a gallon of red paint. That paint then became the primary color of a limited edition series…
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Why There’s No Substance Behind Your Sparkle
Generative AI is technoglitter, the cheap bedazzling of marketing and entertainment with dubious results As far as I’m concerned, generative AI is little more than the bedazzling of marketing and entertainment by feckless tech bros looking to make a quick buck. The technoglitter of the 21st century. A whole lot of sparkle with very little substance. Look what I did! Even though it looks difficult, complicated, and expensive, it took almost no work on my part and cost me next to nothing. Isn’t that something? It is something. The technology is truly impressive. Someone taught a computer to create derivative art by stealing the work of real artists, and then you asked it to replicate…
