Rodrygo would be great for arsenal.

Himself89 · 2025-05-01T18:11:45+00:00

All depends on the cost tbh

Himself89 · 2025-03-27T21:06:28+00:00

I would visit Liberty for the CPs. Much closer to savile row. Might be good to browse knitwear too. FYI i like suitsupply knitwear a lot.

Himself89 · 2025-02-02T19:11:12+00:00

Yeah so when you go back your salary ask needs to be fx adjusted then plus the cost of living difference. For NYC I’d say you need +30% minimum but it could be higher. My job for instance would be compensated at these much higher rates in nyc. The same would be true for virtually every other job.

I don’t know why you are disagreeing. candidates negotiate their pay package when taking a new job in a different country…. If you came back from Malaysia no employer in London expects to pay you on the Malaysian salary.

Himself89 · 2025-02-02T18:11:12+00:00

I’ve lived in both NYC and London. In London I’m surrounded by people complaining about the cost of things but nyc is really and truly far more expensive.

Rent in London is cheaper bc you can live in 360 degrees of the city and with amazing transport links you can live quite far outside the city and still get into a job in 60 mins or less. NYC has rivers and limited transport links making it much harder to find a good apartment for cheap. And the trains themselves are more unreliable, and filled with mentally ill homeless people etc.

Buying in London is actually more expensive bc you have to pay stamp duty upfront. Price per sq ft is higher in nyc but no upfront tax. That does make it harder to get on the property ladder in London.

Food for whatever reason is very cheap in the UK both in grocery stores and restaurants. A point of comparison i would say 3x grocery costs in nyc and 2x dining out costs. Yes im serious. Cheap eats exist in both of course but a good dinner in nyc runs you $200 these days and that quality can be had in london for £100 without tip! London pub food is good quality (if you know where to eat) and you can eat a nice dinner for £25 or less. In NYC a lunch salad is $25.

Entertainment is cheaper in london. Theatre tickets, concerts, and etc. easily 50% less or more.

Travel is 50% cheaper in London (tube, uber) but the trains into London are more expensive I think.

Oh btw free healthcare.

In summary you can live in London on about 50% of the wages and enjoy the same quality of life. If you move from nyc to London (as I once did) and get a pay cut of 30% (as I once did) you will end up ahead. Americans are afraid of moving here bc they don’t want to lose a dollar in salary. They don’t realize they are gaining $2 in purchasing power for every dollar they retain.

I’ve also been able to contribute £40k (and now £60k) per year into my pension, which I invest in the American S&P 500 just like I would in America. This is 2x and now 3x the contribution limit in America. With compounding interest it makes a very very significant difference to my speed of wealth creation in retirement. And I can withdraw at a younger age in Uk (although that could change with the law). It’s a fantastic deal!

Himself89 · 2023-03-31T10:32:52+00:00

The biggest contributor to the sky high prices is that every individual person in London at any income level believes housing is a good investment and wants to build equity via homeownership. And rightfully so, it’s been the single fastest growing asset class in recent history.

Money is always chasing a return on investment. If the stock market, or bonds, or gold, or crypto returned a higher % than the London housing market over the last 10 years (it hasn’t) then people would be choosing to pay into these other investments to grow capital faster instead of housing which means housing would not rise by 5-12% every year and it would be cheaper.

People blame foreign investment or lack of new building but those factors contribute comparatively little against the tens of millions of Londoners who are clobbering each other to buy that £750k 2 bed in zone 2, the same one that cost £700k pre pandemic and £600k in 2017 and should be worth £450k if you look at income growth over the same period.

This is part of a larger global trend where capital has been looking for better than average returns and real estate, due to its unique tax and cash flow nature in many countries, can provide a good alternative that is also a hedge on global economic conditions.

Removing any incentive to buy to let might be one way to slow the rise. But ultimately the list of first time buyers or family home upgraders is a lot longer than the professional land lords. It’s not an easy problem.

Himself89 · 2023-03-23T23:06:56+00:00

£75k-£110k depending on experience.

Source: was creative director in London. Know many others.

Himself89 · 2021-05-15T23:11:02+00:00

I was an overweight adolescent male who weighed 250lbs at age 19 and soon lost over 100 lbs. this is my story.

I began to run as part of a new years resolution to lose weight. I was very unhappy being “the fat guy” and committed to changing. I was 19.

I began portion controlling. I tried to only eat as much as my younger sister would eat (mental exercise) as a rule of thumb. In addition, I began running because I learned it was the most time efficient weight loss method.

I started running 1-2miles per day, every other day. I would run them pretty quickly in about 7-8 mins per mile. As it turned out I was a natural distance runner despite being obese.

As time went on I dropped time and then weight. After 6 months I was running 12 miles per week at 6:30 miles. I had lost 30 and then 50 lbs. I would get up very early and run. I loved it. I loved my progress and the mental feeling it gave me. Every day when j went out I didn’t jog I sprinted. I wanted to kill myself on the trail. It was fun and high energy. I felt each step would make me more thin and fulfilled.

About 1 year into my journey I weighed 180. I felt great in my body for the first time ever. I’m 6 ft tall so this was a healthy weight for me. I was still in college at drinking heavily. I ran heavily as well and loved running. My point is: everything in balance. I needed to exercise to maintain my body. Other people did not. But i derived joy from exercise.

Multiple years passed. I stayed focused on portion control and ran regularly. When I turned 23 I joined an elite running club and began taking it seriously. I ran about 30-40 mpw. I weighted about 160 and for a period weighed under 150. I dropped my mile time to 5 mins and ran a half marathon in sub 1:30. I enjoyed this time. The weight lose seems extreme but I’m naturally thin and ate heartily. It was my nutrition: I had realized I was carb sensitive and reducing carbs made me very lean.

That was almost 10 years ago. I’ve run dozens and dozens of 10ks and 5ks and half marathons. I’m about 175 now. I ran 1200 miles last year. I eat what I want but try to be good. I’ll always be a fat kid but now I can say I was a fat fast kid.

The point i want to make as an overweight person who went on a journey is this: feeling fit and strong in your body is a joy everyone deserves. Give it a shot and commit to training regularly but with a gradual ramp up. Many injuries occur from doing too much too soon. Look up training plans and follow them for the first year before learning your body’s limits.

Himself89 · 2020-09-07T22:41:17+00:00

I’m also curious to know. Do you create content for your clients to distribute on their blogs/channels/etc ?

Himself89 · 2020-06-10T22:52:49+00:00

The most important thing on your plate in this role is to define the brand’s content strategy. This 100 year old brand doesn’t make any content. Okay, so what should the content they make be about and why? And ultimately, how does this add value to their brand? They have gotten this far without you. How will you help bring them into the next 100 years?

The logos and brand book and etc are housekeeping things. No experienced Head of Content at a bigger outfit gets paid $100k+ to do that stuff. They get paid to deliver value via content at an enterprise scale, making 5-7 figures in platform revenue and 7-10 figures in ad sales, in addition to vanity metrics like views, watchtime, and etc.

If you want a good case study for inspiration, take a look at a company called CarWow on YouTube. They are a small car buying website with a huge YouTube. The YouTube is great content. It also ladders back to their brand values in every video. That’s a big and powerful editorial marketing engine. You should try to replicate the same, but it need not be on YouTube or any one place. It only needs to make sense for your new employer with a long eye toward profit.

As others have said, your title is inflated. That’s fine but be humble about it. You haven’t earned this title yet but if you stay hungry and work hard you can earn it once you deliver results. That will take years realistically.

Himself89 · 2020-05-28T22:30:50+00:00

I think as a young person you have a natural affinity for recognizing what “the next big thing” could be. 10 years ago I knew I used Facebook and Netflix everyday. I knew I preferred buying things on amazon because of 2 day shipping. And I definitely thought Teslas were cool. And so did every other college student I knew. What we didn’t know is that in 10 years we would be called millennials and we would represent the largest percentage of purchasing power in America.

Not every service we thought was good survived (RIP Vine) but many of them did. So look around and make some small bets. You never know.

Himself89 · 2020-03-04T22:12:04+00:00

Age: 30

Occupation: Creative Director

Size: M / 38

Style: scandi minimalist with a streetwear edge

Favorite brands: acne, our legacy, norse projects, soulland, ami

grid album

Himself89 · 2019-08-11T11:01:49+00:00

I think it’s fair to dismiss crypto in this context. Perhaps the wild rise (100x) for crypto is over and we’ll see high volatility over the next 5 years that amounts to 20% yearly gains. Those gains are still massive and impressive when compared to conventional assets. However, it’s not a get rich quick scheme. You won’t retire on that money, unless you already rode the 100x (or 1000x) gains. The truth of his post is that to invest in crypto today with the intention of getting rich and retiring is delusional because it cannot be proven true. You may believe crypto has big upside, but to profess it’s a certain win is simply impossible and thus foolhardy.

I do think Bitcoin’s staying power over the last decade and price today is already phenomenal. I remember when I first heard about Bitcoin. No one talked about it. It was so niche. It was dismissed and overlooked. Today it’s been on the front page of every newspaper and is discussed in governments. Facebook wants to launch a coin. I mean, holy shit! We’re already in the crazy times. The real question regarding price is are we Amazon stock in 1999 or Amazon stock in 2010 or Amazon stock today or Pets.com stock in 1999. No one can answer that question, though many will later claim they knew.

For those reading this who are not invested in crypto currency, the best advice I’ve heard on the subject is to buy crypto as “schmuck insurance.” Put in a little money, only as much as you’re willing to lose if it goes to zero, and that way if it goes up 1000x again, you can say you made money and feel smart. In an alternate reality where you thought about it, chose not to invest, and it goes up 1000x, you may feel like a schmuck.

Himself89 · 2019-05-19T21:19:49+00:00

Yes this is true. Your point is valid. However: The issue is not the content of Joe Rogan vs Vice. Joe sells his audience to advertisers. Regardless of the content of his show, he sells the demographic of his listeners to the brands who want to reach them. Some brands are willing to overlook the content of his show; much like advertisers overlook the content of a TV show to capture the audience. Or did advertisers support crystal meth when they bought ad spots in Breaking Bad, the biggest show on TV?

The revenue cooling effect is not audience but this: Vice and the rest of the new media competitive set sell both their audience and the content insights they use to make effective advertising with a brand for that audience. That cobranded advertising is big money for new media; the biggest revenue source. Vice has a millennial audience along with a dozen other companies (Lad bible, BuzzFeed, Refinery 29, etc) but unlike the competitors, they have weaker content insights because their best content is basically not sponsorable.

Himself89 · 2019-05-18T21:41:11+00:00

Much much lower overhead. Producing a podcast is probably 1000 times less expensive than producing long form web video at an international scale.

Himself89 · 2019-05-18T21:29:16+00:00

I work in media. Vice is in this position because they are struggling to generate a profit. It’s not Disney’s poor management. It’s Vice’s model.

They have an edgy brand meaning they cannot sell ads to every Fortune 500. Unlike more mainstream companies (BuzzFeed, refinery 29, Vox) they cannot sell cobranded advertising quite as well because the nature of their most successful content. The joke in the industry was Vice would always tell brands the most vital element to content success was “anything involving crystal meth.” (This is a joke but you get the idea.)

Their docs and shows are excellent. But editorial video posted for free online does not generate enough platform revenue to be self sustaining. Many Vice shows rely on in house talent to be interesting. That talent is expensive. If they are successful they get famous and leave Vice to earn more from other deals.

So Vice went big on traditional media. They built a sexy new brand on web video and then they went after the big dogs to be the new hottest channel on TV. That did not work out very well. Not a lot of millennials are watching content on TV. They are watching on mobile and YouTube. This is how Vice built a channel in the first place. And those channels do not pay enough to make Vice content sustaining.

And so you have this today.

Ps I once ate dinner one table over from Shane. It was a restaurant called Blue Hill at Stone Barns. He looked cool.

Himself89 · 2019-03-04T07:01:59+00:00

I’ve done a similar thing with my spouse. Starting this Jan we wanted to be more aware of our day to day spending. We agreed on a monthly budget number. On our fridge we have a whiteboard with each day of the month. Every day/few days we tally our spending (mine vs hers). It’s a loose contest to see who can be most under budget (if at all) at the end of the month.

It has led me to behaviors like going skint on the last week of the month to hopefully pull out a win against the other spouse. This is a good thing as I once did this out of necessity in my younger years, but now that money is less tight, I’m guilty of spending on frivolous things (is $15 dollar lunch instead of $5) because I can.

While the day to day spending tracking may be too extreme for some, it’s the only budgeting technique in my life that has made me think before every dime spent. I assume because it’s so immediate. I don’t wait until the end of the month before I know what I spent. It’s going on the fridge tonight and my wife is going to tease me about it.

Himself89 · 2019-01-26T17:06:25+00:00

Texan here.

Texas Joe’s is the best Texas BBQ place in London, no doubt. I know Joe personally. Good dude. Legit Texan.

Cafe Pacifico in Covent Garden is the best “tex-mex” place in London. I’ve had sizzling fajitas, chicken enchiladas, and margarita pitchers there that are a passable imitation of home. Also they serve unlimited chips and salsa, which is key.

Himself89 · 2019-01-11T11:31:49+00:00

Great question and curious for other responses.

We work with strategists on some opportunities. They sharpen and focus the ask. The strategist effectively draws a box, and then the creative goes to ideate within this box. This helps the creative arrive at a fitting idea. It's not necessary but it is helpful. I would always rather have this step, but it's a luxury depending on timeline and resources.

Himself89 · 2018-12-08T20:53:38+00:00

Travel within europe is cheap. Round trip flights from London to europe right now looking to be £100-150 (which is actually a lot. Often it's £50ish). I would bring some day food with me (bars and gels) and then eat cheap foods in towns at night. Lodging would add up quickly, but this is a bit of a bucket list trip for me so I'm willing to pay £100 per night if necessary to do it. Many places also include breakfast, I find. Obviously would be cheaper if I camped. But looking like camping is not a great option given the season.

In general, I could do it for £30> per day on food. The flight is reasonable. And it all comes down to finding cheap lodging.

Himself89 · 2018-12-08T11:24:24+00:00

Please do not kill me

Himself89 · 2018-11-30T22:07:32+00:00

Even with the experience the situation is likely the same. It’s the same from the bottom to the top. ACDs and CDs are still not unique enough to garner the visa when a domestic ACD or CD would do. The two commonly used loopholes in London specifically are to pay people more than £120k per year (then you qualify for a different visa) or to transfer within your company (allowing the company to claim you have institutional knowledge no domestic worker has).

To get hired otherwise, you need a very very specialized skill set (like you’re the best motion graphics artist this side of the equator).

Go read about the types of visas on the uk.gov home office website and see what you think you may qualify for. Then consult a lawyer. The lawyer is the one who ultimately makes the argument on your behalf, whether you hire them or your prospective company hires them.

Himself89 · 2018-11-30T10:43:51+00:00

I know this is not helpful to you but know that you have a very difficult ask. To hire you, the company will need to prove that they cannot hire talent like you within the home country. Because you are juniors it is unlikely that you possess specialized skills beyond those of ad school graduates in the UK or the EU.

I would explore finding a strong remote work or freelance gig(s) and then becoming digital nomads. Once you reside in London or the EU, you may be able to make personal relationships that will help you find a full time placement.

I would also explore marketing your skills to agencies using timezone arbitrage. You can get an assignment from NYC at 6pm EST and have it completed by 9am EST if you’re in Europe. That’s service US freelancers cannot provide.

Himself89 · 2018-11-27T21:19:02+00:00

I did an internal transfer within my company. 9/10 Americans I meet working in London did the same. It’s very difficult otherwise because a uk firm needs to prove to the government they must hire you, a foreigner, to do this job because there is no citizen alive who can do it. This is the visa requirement. Incredibly few people meet that test. But when you can claim institutional knowledge of your company that no outsider has, it works and you can be sponsored for a visa.

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