If you’re dealing with failure or rejection, the best solution to any painful feelings you’re having is to repeat a lie.
Keep telling yourself that you’re the best - make it proof by assertion, and do everything in your power to back it up.
Repeat it until every person who challenges you starts believing it too.
“There are three possible responses to this kind of thing. The straightforward one is that West is an idiot, so mired in a fog of narcissism and self-delusion that he doesn’t realise the full implications of what he’s saying: if you tend to that interpretation, you’d have plenty of company. The second is that he appears to be having some kind of meltdown: that Yeezus represents the most extreme manifestation in the history of pop of the pre-fatherhood jitters most men feel during their partner’s first pregnancy. The other response, however, is that West knows exactly what he’s doing and that, from its title down, Yeezus is intended as a deliberately contrary, ambiguous act of provocation in a musical world where provocation is in pretty short supply. These days, pop stars of West’s commercial stature usually tend to bland professionalism. They do not adhere to the motto he offers on I Am a God: “soon as they like you, make ‘em un-like you”
I’ve always listened to and adored Kanye’s music, but he’s a much more complex figure than the media gives him credit for. One day I need to write an essay about Kanye and fame. He’s so interesting. The moment he snatched Taylor Swift’s spotlight I knew he was someone I needed to pay attention to.
The concept of Free Will is by no means new or revolutionary, and debating it certainly isn’t new either. But unless you studied Philosophy in detail it’s not a totally accessible set of ideas, nor is it one most people think about very often.
I think there’s this notion that when your post-secondary is done the buck stops there. There’s not a lot of room for critical thinking or discussion of high concepts any more because there isn’t the time to muddle through academic papers and make sense of them without a tangible reward.
Enter Sam Harris.
This book is incredibly short, accessible, and to the point. If you like heady conversations with your significant other or just want something to talk about over dinner - “Free Will” is the book for you.
If you’re like me, you’ll start connecting his concepts back to your own meta-thoughts.
When I was younger I used to challenge my brain to come up with names or objects at random and then work back to connect why I thought of them (Suzy. Where have I heard Suzy before? Oh it was that singer on that song I heard in the store yesterday….you know, that normal child-like thought-process….)
From SamHarris.org
“ belief in free will touches nearly everything that human beings value. It is difficult to think about law, politics, religion, public policy, intimate relationships, morality—as well as feelings of remorse or personal achievement—without first imagining that every person is the true source of his or her thoughts and actions. And yet the facts tell us that free will is an illusion.
In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that this truth about the human mind does not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom, but it can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.”
- Jenny
Hi, Hello!
It’s that time again, everybody. Time to dump my monthly media consumption into a single re-cap post for your amusement, delight, and beguilement. See, I’m already exposing strange and interesting vocabulary to all you gongoozlers*.
That was such a witzelsucht*
I’m in the process of two hugely contrasting reads right now on the good ole Kindle:
Here’s my track-by-track review of Daft Punk’s fourth studio album, and one of the most anticipated and consequently misunderstood albums of 2013: Random Access Memories.
1. Give Life Back to Music
Already, it’s incredibly clear that this album is not going to be full of Aerodynamic beats. It’s doing what the first track deliberately says it wants to do: giving life back to music. Literally. Has Daft Punk ever used a real, funky drum set? Or a neo-soul groovy bass-line and guitar lick? Nope. The robots have evolved and their not producing anything close to modern EDM.
2. Game of Love
Many reviewers claim that this low-tempo r&b vocoder love song is their most despised track. Naturally, it’s my favorite. If you smashed together ‘Emotion’ and ‘Something About Us’, then added a bunch of layered funky guitars, you’ll get Game of Love. But I love EDM and The Ohio Players equally, so I’m a little biased. Just imagining Sugarfoot crooning this one will take you back to an era full of soul-searching disco melodrama.
The overwhelming response to the latest (5th!) Great Gatsby film adaptation by Baz Luhrmann has been that it’s more style than substance. I would agree, but I think Chris Orr from The Atlantic said it best:
“The central problem with Luhrmann’s film is that when it’s entertaining it’s not Gatsby, and when it’s Gatsby it’s not entertaining.”
You can dazzle audiences all you want with 3D and extravagant party scenes and hip Jay-Z-infused 1920s corruption, but the characters were so flat and lifeless that I was literally cheering for Daisy’s husband Tom the entire movie. I wanted the anti-hero to win because there was no reason to like or care about Daisy and Gatsby. They fell incredibly flat.
There’s 100s and 100s of reviews out there, though, so I’m not going to bore you any further with my own opinions.
Instead, I’ll present you with an alternative. Stephen Fry’s 2003 drama “Bright Young Things” - based off of the classic 1930 Evelyn Waugh novel “Vile Bodies”.
This movie is basically Gatsby but set during the time when he was desperately poor and trying to make all that money so he could have his Daisy. Set in the same time-period, much funnier, and much more substance.
You should read the book, too. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever read in my life.
-Jenny
“The busier people were less precious—you learn to fit [your creative work] in, and you don’t have these elaborate eccentric rituals if you have children or a day job. Someone like Joseph Heller wrote Catch 22 in the evenings after work. He’d write for two or three hours a night after his job as an advertising executive doing campaigns for magazines. He was not a tortured artist. He found as much joy in his day job as writing Catch 22 at night. “I couldn’t imagine what Americans did at night when they weren’t writing novels,” Heller said…even when Heller quit his day job to write full-time, he still only worked on his novels for two to three hours a day.”
(From Beethoven To Woody Allen—The Daily Rituals Of The World’s Most Creative People And What You Can Learn From Them via FastCoCreate)
I’ve noticed an overwhelming focus lately in the world of online marketing on helping individuals and marketers drastically cut down time spent on social media while still maximizing results.
Most of the pithy articles and beautiful infographics I read stress automation, automation, automation. Stick to a rigid schedule, blast everything out everywhere, and sky-rocket to success!
If only it were that simple.
I totally agree that there are some amazing tools out there like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck that are great for blasting out updates to a number of platforms in a quick period of time, and scheduling future updates as well. And believe me, I use these tools heavily (and would be lost without them!).
My issue, however, is that total reliance on automation means you’re really only doing half the work. You’re not realizing the limited life of your update and the potential to start or contribute to the conversation happening online.
I see this in so many people I coach who are just starting out. They look for the easy way out, the least amount of work, because they really don’t want to engage. They want to broadcast.
It’s really all about balance:
If all of this is overwhelming, just remember this analogy:
With an enticing 7-minute abs model of social media or online marketing management, you won’t ever see that six-pack if all you do is tell everyone about how much you’re working on your abs without ever doing a crunch.
- Jenny
I finally watched ‘The Artist is Present.’
Marina Abramović is everything: real and unreal, painfully raw and yet seductively fantastical.
She is what I think all intelligent women, all present women, wish they could be; shameless and open but able to maintain an irresistible mystique. How can one person be so honest and so fearless with their fragile physical, mental, and emotional states, yet so remain distant and elusive?
In particular, Marina’s work with Ulay spoke to me in such a deep and meaningful way. It was painful to watch them and reflect on my own relationship. They literally gave everything to one another, living with nothing for 5 years in a van and suffering for their art. Performing - fasting, staring at one another for up to 19 days at a time. The beautiful crescendo of their ‘Lovers’ piece at the Great Wall of China was almost unbearable to witness knowing that after that moment they wouldn’t see each other again for years.
But in their break-up, Marina re-awakens her everlasting lover: the public. An audience. Bearing herself to the world over and over again, she eventually penetrates the line between performer and spectator so deeply that she literally gazes into each person’s soul with her piece “The Artist is Present” at the MoMA.
I was reminded over and over again while watching this documentary of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. So I will end my impressions with a quote from the story, and a huge recommendation to watch this film.
“What of Art?
-It is a malady.
—Love?
-An Illusion.
—Religion?
-The fashionable substitute for Belief.
—You are a sceptic.
-Never! Scepticism is the beginning of Faith.
—What are you?
-To define is to limit.”
I was recently asked what I thought the future of social media is. That may seem like a pretty broad question, (I had a really hard time coming up with an on the spot answer!) but if you take a close look at the evolution of your favorite online platforms, the future is already coming into view.
If you look at the big 5: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest, you’ll see that slowly but surely they’re all cross-pollinating into almost the same platform…or at least trying to emulate elements of each other.
Here are 5 quick examples:
Like many forms of technology, the cream eventually rises to the top and we see undeniable trends in demands, ease of use, and profitability.
All of the above examples point to the same two issues: time poverty and sharing. How can we make platform X quicker and easier to use, and make it easier for people to share ANYTHING in an instant.
Google Glass could of course wipe out the playing field (and it very well might turn us into the cyborgs Gen Y has grown up dreaming about), but their track-record in the social game is well below stellar, so it may just be a pipe dream for now.
Social media has turned everyone into a micro-brand, and it’s turned real brands into people - people who respond to our complaints openly, offer us exclusive deals, and seem to genuinely care about their reputation.
Because of this, many emerging companies like Klout have built their own brand on measuring and placing value on yours, and others still make their living on managing your reputation online.
This could be a mere fad, but since social media has permeated our culture and become such a huge part of our daily life, putting actual value on your social influence seems to matter more and more every day.
We’re already experiencing the infancy of virtual currency with BitCoin - a P2P electronic cash system, but this concept materializes in lots of different ways. For instance, websites like Influenster offer free swag bags monthly to individuals who prove they influence people across social media platforms. It’s starting to literally pay off to have a high follower count on Twitter or a huge audience on YouTube.
High social influence online will translate into real-world profitability and value more and more as online marketing continues it’s up-swing via mobile devices, I predict.
Online Marketing through social media is a tricky game, and in order to master it, you’ve got to continually analyze your data and adapt your strategy for better performance. It’s a metrics game, it’s a long-term game, and it’s a risky game. So what’s the future of this part of social media? Simple - Personalize it.
Like the world that the great M.T. Anderson created in his futuristic novel “Feed” the future of online marketing is personalized ad experiences and everywhere marketing.
Anything with a hint of automation is a major turn-off. It reeks of spam advertising and it’s almost rude, isn’t it? Auto-DMs after following someone on Twitter, Facebook “Please like my page” blasts to 1,000 people - I think we can agree that these are annoying.
Two great examples of personalized ad implementation are Hulu - which allows you to literally pick between 3 ads on you mini ‘commercial breaks’ during programming, and Podcast advertisements, which are almost always strategically targeted to their listeners. If you listen to any of the popular ones, they almost all advertise Audible.com, an audio book website - because the logic is there. If you love subscribing and listening to hours of podcasts, you’re probably a lot more likely to spend money on an audio book than Joe Blow down the street.
Those are my predictions for the future of social media - and I didn’t even cover content creation and blogging! Some of them are already coming true, and some may take years to come to fruition, but all of them are realistic. What you think is the future of social media? Tweet me @jennyrationx
- Jenny
