Hi Crowd!
Sometime in the last few months every company serving ads to me on Instagram and other sites has decided that rather than “here’s a cool thing we bet you want to buy” which admittedly, sometimes they were right, to “here’s someone whispering and taping their fingernails on the box and scratching the packaging, makes you want to buy it right???” and no it does not it makes me want to throw my phone at the wall. Dear advertiser, there is nothing I want less in the world than whatever you are selling if that’s your marketing tactic.
While we are talking about things I want less of, a topic I’m sure is near and dear to your hearts, all that extra stuff in the box. What the hell do people call it? Box candy? Especially the smaller boutique companies and hand made stuff. I get it, you want to show the love. And paperwork is understandable because you need to know how a thing works. But USB cables and stickers and guitar picks and whatever other garbage is around at your place that now becomes garbage at my place. Do. Not. Want. Seriously I’d pay extra to have something come with nothing. It’s dumb that someone is paying to make this stuff, then ship it across the city/country/world just to be thrown in the trash immediately after the box is opened. The waste is painful.
I sold a guitar pedal on Craigslist the other day, used – 5 years old at least. Price was 50% of what a new one was and it was in great condition, so I thought it was a good price. Buyer, who did begrudgingly buy it at my asking price, totally pulled a “I know you said it was lose but do you have the box candy that came with it? All the stickers and guitar picks and stuff? No, oh. Hmm… Will you take less since it’s missing all that stuff?” Dude. The pedal works exactly the same without some bonus sticker.
Shifting to things I do want, Bright Moments released the documentary about what they did, Venice to Venice, and it’s available to watch on YouTube now. It’s an hour, but it’s awesome.
Speaking of YouTube, Benn Jordon also released his “DIY Anarchist Tech” video and it’s very cool. I always love his approach and thinking about this stuff.
Somewhat related, “anti-surveillance design” is a thing worth knowing about.
Over on Telegram, The Crowd group has doubled in subscribers since I posted it last, which is delightful. I mean, it didn’t have a lot before so “doubling” isn’t really that impressive, but it’s something. I’m posting my daily coffee there, if nothing else. I’m posting that on BlueSky too, but like everything else I post there it gets no reaction. Conversely, anything I auto-post to X gets flooded with reply bots offering up sage discussion points like “Great insight, would love a follow back” and “Love the dedication” or if they have some slick AI built in some garbled regurgitation of the thing I just said to make it seem like they are adding something. Ugh. I’m so over all this crap.
I say that, but also some account I didn’t know is apparently having a contest or something and maybe it’s just engagement farming and I don’t even know what it’s about or what “winning” entails, but they made me a contestant and it was kinda flattering. I was sorta shocked.
And with that I need to go check the news to see what crazy batshit nonsense has transpired in the last hour since I looked. Hope you are good.
-s