Small chance I’ll be able to look at Instagram again now that they’re promising to let you reset your algorithm someday. Gonna miss all my beloved influencer widows and their classes on grieving, with instructions on starting your own online business selling grief courses to next generation of photogenic widows.

Do we have a good word for the phenomenon where an industry term breaks containment? I’d been exposed to “BFCM” at various jobs to describe the time period between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but this year I’ve started seeing that acronym show up in regular old consumer-facing email subject lines.

The other one of these that seems insane to me: ordinary people describing some laundry detergent brand setting up an RV at a farmers market where you can embroider your own hat as an “activation.”

While we’re on marketing, how is that despite all the investment in the AI-ification of everything, not one company has been able to conjure a sympathetic user of these tools?

• Apple took a bunch of cracks: we know you lazy, unprepared, inconsiderate, rude jerks will love this shit!

• Google had to pull their big Olympics campaign for Gemini because of an ad “for the people who think that replacing meals with pills is a prospect that fills everyone with delight”.^[1]

Sure, there’s something supremely human about finding a way to half-ass a thing, but nobody wants to be known as that guy. Just because something is relatable doesn’t mean it’s aspirational.

Also, we can’t let them get away with stealing the ✨ emoji:

Remember that mysterious film roll I found in a closet? Pretty much all 36 shots turned out! A bunch of lost memories from almost 15 years ago: moving into a new office in Pasadena, packing up my apartment to move here, and a random day at the beach with the person who went on to become my wife. Film is some magical stuff.