On memes, viral moments and the race for attention
Hi, hello! This is my first official post on Substack; the unofficial first post, about Charli XCX, was not really post number one, as it wasn’t explicitly written for this platform, but rather repurposed from LinkedIn *(more on that in a bit)*.
But first, a bit of housekeeping: the intention of this newsletter is to connect the dots between culture, fashion, and marketing and to talk about the things that really, truly engage us (or that engage me, really) at a time when we are bombarded by reams of content across the vast Internet. I’m curious about what grabs and holds our attention and how, from my perspective as a former journalist turned content marketer, things are engineered to hold our attention, often through branded content or “cultural collisions.” To wit: Things like Xtina posing as a 90s sex hotline operator for her sexual wellness brand Playground. It’s a smart business play that taps nostalgia, a bit of humour and sex education that perfectly aligns with her brand. It’s also just fun; too often, brands don’t have enough of it in their marketing.
I’m fascinated by the strategy that goes into concocting Internet-breaking marketing campaigns like the album roll-out for Charli XCX’s brat or the Michael Cera x Cerave guerrilla-style branded entertainment play. I’ll attempt to dissect the collision between marketing and entertainment, the blurring of lines between fashion, beauty, and culture, and how consumers are also participating in the marketing machine as co-creators of those brands.
Plus, I’ll post about fashion, beauty, style, and the trends that drive them. Stay tuned for posts about “method dressing” (i.e., celebrities channeling their movie characters’ personalities on the red carpet) and what brands can learn from fashion. Those things are on my mind as fashion month unfolds in Paris.
I’ll cover things worth discussing, like: the frow at fashion week and how celebrities use/are used to curate and amplify the experience and make a statement about their positions in the power hierarchy. Witness the star-studded front row at Balenciaga’s couture show this morning, captured by man-about-town Derek Blasberg. Kim K. wasn’t there, but Katy, Nicole, Naomi, Kerry, and Teyana all showed up for Demna. It’s frivolous, but it isn’t. I want to dive into why we should care, and more importantly, why brands should take a page from the fashion playbook.
Now, back to Charli xcx for a moment: Many of you are all very aware that we are experiencing a ‘brat summer,’ or the summer of Charli, complete with acid green memes and Lorde remixes (that “girl so confusing” remix - damn!) and an army of It girls in a mashup of club culture that feels very raw and real and very now.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post on LinkedIn - (where I often talk about marketing and who does things right in that space) - about Charli’s ‘brat’ album rollout, the creative direction of the album art, and how its sheer simplicity and almost ugly, acid-green aesthetic gave fans the tools to go off an create their own “brat” content. And boy, did they!
My post went viral, which entirely surprised me, as it was pretty simple and really an observation about how brands should take note and give fans the keys to create alongside them. (
wrote about the rollout way more astutely than I did with a piece about how brat is an exercise in “energy marketing” and world-building, and it’s a must-read). In true LinkedIn fashion, I wrote a follow-up post about why I thought my post went viral, hoping to share some lessons to unlock virality for content.And then, a crazy thing happened: I became a meme.
So, in a weird turn of events, my viral LinkedIn post about a viral campaign became a meme, and now I’m writing a newsletter post about the experience. It’s all very meta, and I’m flattered (if not feeling a bit cringe-y; because, yes, LinkedIn can be cringe, but it also serves a very real purpose). So thank you, Jake @nuclearcscon and @polyesterzine.
What’s the takeaway from all this? As I wrote in my post-mortem post about going viral, if you write with integrity and intention and post about things that move you, you may capture the public’s imagination, and things will catch fire. Or, maybe write or post about a viral campaign, and you’ll get the clicks.
I do know that going “viral” pushed me to start this newsletter. I’m sad to say that I needed that validation, but there you have it. I do, however, plan to write this newsletter with honesty, intention, and a curatorial mindset, and I sincerely hope you’ll stick around with me on this journey. I may even offer up some beauty tips on the side (I was a beauty editor back in the day).
But that’s a post for another day!
Really nice point about the sincerity when you post something. I guess that it's probably the only rule that matters: writing something that matters to you, therefore which could matter to others!