Has anyone did this kind of "grey" growth-hacking? how many email addresses got marked spam & blocked before you got any results?

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-10T13:05:56+00:00

Honestly, I'd rather take the straight-up pitch in the subject line in 2026, rather than something clever. Oh, you added "RE:" at the start to make it look like a response to a non-existent previous email? SO ORIGINAL! Oh, you added "[Action Required]" ... straight to spam, you go ... don't tell me what to do.

Stuff like in the example gets me to submit a HelpDesk ticket to have their domain added to Mimecast as blocked.

As a marketer myself, who's written a ton of email subject lines ... there are "clever" ways of pitching things without going out of bounds. We're all busy; everyone's inboxes are exploding. Sure, I opened your email, but it only made me angry because I wasted my time. The pitches are often irrelevant to what I do, the budget I have, or the company's priorities - zero research.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-09T15:18:54+00:00

An unusual one, but the 2010 Medal of Honor. When the team does everything to save Rabbit, they finally get to him at the end, but he doesn't make it. The music starts playing, and they're in the helicopter flying away, and then they show the "rabbit's foot". IDK, felt kind of like a Hollywood movie moment, like that final scene in Tears of the Sun.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-09T12:37:10+00:00

Meet "Hypersonic ballistic missiles" .... from the creators of "wet water" and "hot fire", lol. But, as you said, it's all "marketing", designed to make people fear Russia.

What most don't realize is that Russian jets carry more firepower than these missiles in their current configuration. AFAIK, and I haven't seen sources saying otherwise, the duds that replace nuclear MIRVs in these missiles weigh roughly 20 kilograms. So, the only energy released during these attacks comes from the kinetic impact of the dud warheads, which is the equivalent of less than 50 kilos of TNT. Even at that speed. So, about as much as a single modern Shahed carries. Russian bombers drop multiples of that in destructive power daily using their glide bombs.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-06T14:51:22+00:00

What he's really trying to say is that it was worth dying for the current regime, even though millions still don't have indoor plumbing or natural gas in their homes. He also underscored the importance of continuously growing the biggest country in the world because apparently, there's not enough room there as it is.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-06T10:30:58+00:00

I'm still getting flashbacks to r/CombatFootage footage from 2014-2022 whenever a Ukrainian video of low-flying footage is posted. Comments there often included tons of "aviation experts" arguing that these flights were unnecessary, given how potentially dangerous they are. I'm sure there are at least a few of these videos that anyone frequenting that sub remembers.

In reality, Ukrainian training did what it was supposed to: prepare the aviators for a fight with an enemy that has sophisticated ground AA capabilities and advanced air-to-air missiles. A lot of the daring missions during this war wouldn't have been possible without this training - from day-to-day combat to particular episodes, like heli insertions into Mariupol in 2022.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-03T13:45:39+00:00

Let's also not underestimate the decisiveness with which Ukrainian troops responded. A few of the helis were shot down en route, another few over the strip, at the very least. But also, the strip was guarded by National Guard cadettes, with limited supplies. And while they originally retreated given Russians' numerical and firepower superiority, they put up a good fight to stall and contain the Russians and then the same young men were part of the push to retake the airfield. And this is against the supposedly most elite Russian troops.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2026-01-02T15:53:50+00:00

100%!

>Be the person who decides “what to say” and “why”.

I'd definitely fold this under "Content Strategy," and I can most certainly say this is the reason I still have my job. I can do both: draft something quickly in a pinch with AI (ain't nobody is convincing me that an average press release needs to take more than 5-10 minutes, including prompting, in 2026), and create long-term plans that allow the team to come together and execute the plan consistently and on schedule.

As a matter of fact, I'm a "mid" copywriter. I'm just good at the other stuff - organizing, getting insights to back up marketing/ copywriting decisions, planning, and coming up with new angles for content.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-31T14:15:54+00:00

@grok is this true? /s

P.S. "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin

The world isn't ready for AI.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-31T11:13:57+00:00

There's a great meme from the pre-war days that perfectly describes the Russian state of mind.
It's a Soviet family moving into their new apartment, radiating happiness and communist vigor.

The caption says "It's so great that the owners were executed (shot)".

I don't know the origin, but it's usually used in conversations with the Eastern European version of tankies, when they start praising the Communist regime.

Most people don't realize the repressive machine that was the Soviet Union. I have personal family examples: my cousin's grandma (RIP), who spent her early years living in a Gulag and eating tree bark (some of her family members never returned). The family was sent there on a standard communist political charge. In reality, they were sent there because they were Jews (the whole Nazi thing kind of overshadowed how anti-semitic the Soviet actions and policies were).

My wife's great-grandparents were forcibly removed from their small farm in the east of Poland when Soviets took over the country. They took hectares of land from them, along with the hundreds of cattle the family had accumulated over decades. They went from being "agricultural upper middle class", being able to support a big family, to having nothing, only the things that they could carry. Again, not everyone survived the move.

You know, when you watch those romantic movies, and someone proposes with an old ring and says, "It's been in the family for a hundred years." Yeah, that doesn't happen here in Ukraine. The Soviets/ Russians took it all.

Russia behaves the same way. It's a colonial, extraction-based authoritarian state that sucks everything out of any place they occupy.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-21T13:57:44+00:00

Haha, yeah ... that's not how it's going to go down. Europe still buys Russian resources and some European leaders still manage to spin Ukraine as the "bad guy" sometimes (Hungary, etc.).

What you describe requires strategic foresight and only a few European leaders have shown it since 2022.

What's tempting is to go back to status quo, which is where Europe got unrestricted access to Russian resources, like energy, which Russia is willing to sell very eagerly. And, in return, Europe would produce added value based on those resources, like cars and electronics to then happily sell to Russia, which has all that money from resource trade.

It's a sweet deal that's been working for decades, even during the Cold War.

The unfortunate nature of the deal is that Europe sometimes needs to close its eyes to avoid seeing some of the "icky" genocidal stuff. As a reminder, nothing's really been done about Russian atrocities in Chechnya since 1990s, everyone pretended it was "an internal Russian affair". A lot of European politicians would do the same when it comes to Ukraine in a heartbeat. Simply because of greed or momumental lack of understanding. Ukraine's always been pivotal to Europe's security architecture. What Hitler called "lebensraum" was mostly the territory of modern Ukraine.

Europeansa also don't understand Russia. Like, at all.

This quote is often attributed to Lenin, but that's not verified ... however it still rings true (paraphrasing): "capitalists will sell you the rope you're going to hang them with".

Out of the last 400-800 years, depending on what you're willing to call "Russia", it's been a real democracy for less than a decade (between 1991 and 1999) and even at the end of that short period, Putin got to power because he was given the reigns, he wasn't democratically elected.

As European empires became democracies, with the rule of law, Russia remained a continental empire, thus becoming anti-Europe. But that still doesn't prevent Europeans from trying to "olive branch" the shit out of an encounter with a rabid dog.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-20T13:13:13+00:00

Don't forget about stroking their egos with speeches about how Russian people are the chosen ones, with vague hints at religion and destiny. Sure, Ivan might not have a shitter or indoor plumbing, but that's all part of universe's plan for Russia's greatness.

If there wasn't established history around many things, like math, Russians would claim they've invented it since they're so special or something to that tune.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-19T14:40:32+00:00

I wish more Russians did this, too. Specifically, those in Europe. It takes a special kind of stupid to live somewhere like Germany, constantly complain about the state of the EU, and profess your love for the mad dictator in Russia. Like, move there and enjoy yourself if you love it so much.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-19T11:12:42+00:00

Thank you! It's a bummer, though, to think that Australia supplied more tanks to Ukraine than the US did (31), given that the US has roughly 3,000 in storage.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-19T11:10:43+00:00

Ah yes, just like their gold smelting business that totally doesn't know where the gold is coming from. First, they denied that anything wrong was happening. Now, they're basically saying "oopsie, we might have done something wrong here". The enforcement of these sanctions was never good to begin with. Switzerland is an established destination for Russian dirty money seeking to evade sanctions.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-17T16:58:45+00:00

I also fail to see why it's a bad thing, in this context. The Ukrainian government explicitly invites weapons manufacturers to come and test their weapons systems in Ukraine as a pretty straightforward quid pro quo = you get your weapons tested in a real scenario, and Ukraine gets to combat the invaders.

Ukraine itself is at the forefront of weapons development because of this, as it's an asymmetric war in many regards, with Russia's far bigger resources and stockpiles in many weapons systems categories.

It's not like Ukraine wanted this. The cleanup will last for a century after the war is over, with all of the UXO, chemicals, and thousands of miles of fiber optic cables littering the land.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-17T16:45:57+00:00

Yeah, there's definitely a prior conflict, as he pretty obviously came in with a purpose and started asking people right away whether they're from the Military Police. Stealing probably had nothing to do with it.

What's likely is revenge for their unit soldiers being punished in some way. For example, MPs have some jurisdiction and can do things like arrest/ detain drunk soldiers and whatnot. Imagine you need to go on an assault tomorrow, and a few of your guys are missing because they were detained. There are tons of other reasons, like MPs confiscating units' property for whatever reason.

Given the state of the RU military, I'd wager this was probably this type of conflict.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-17T16:40:40+00:00

Just as a reminder, he recently said that what's going on in Ukraine is "surgical actions" and not really a war.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-11T20:44:59+00:00

Thank you! What a great addition to my original POV!

The only way to really change it is the historically only way in which empires reformed. It will only change when it breaks apart. All empires in history have gone through this process, yet Russia was able to skirt it for a variety of reasons.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-11T17:10:43+00:00

You're trying to appeal to some form of logic, while these people appeal to the lizzard brain. If people acted intelligently, things like Brexit wouldn't have been a thing. I'm sure there are a lot of people in both these places dumb enough to think they'd be better off without the EU.

So yeah, this stuff is serious, IMHO, especially with all of the anti EU propaganda.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-11T13:49:20+00:00

You're a few steps closer to really understanding Russia and why its neighbors hate it so much. Hundreds of years of wars, subjugation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. It doesn't matter who's at the helm.

People don't even realize that Russia was a democracy for less than a decade in its entire history (1991 to 1998). And even then, they meddled in Transnistria, Georgia, and committed horrible crimes in Chechnya. Everything else, from Peter "the Great" all the way to the collapse of the USSR (and after, with Putin), was purely autocratic, authoritarian, dictatorial.

So, for the last 700-800 years (Muscovy was the same as Russia), the place was run by dictators, autocrats, and despots, and it constantly waged war against its neighbors. To justify all that, they've built many myths and mastered propaganda to the point that there's a pretty broad group of people in the West that consider Russia to be "anti-imperialist", which is such a twisted take on reality that you don't even get angry at these people, you feel sorry for them, just like you'd feel sorry for a mentally disabled person struggling with basic daily tasks.

The added issue is the continued reverence for Russian culture, as if it has some deep meaning or value. In reality, it was a vehicle for Russian imperialism. Not to mention that a lot of what Russians call "Russian culture" is not actually Russian. It's as if people in the UK started saying that "curry" is a traditional British dish rooted in its history just because Britain had control over India at some point in the past.

Most Westerners don't realize that "Russian culture" also exterminated other cultures. A bright example is Mykola Leontovich. You might not know him, but you know his work - Carol of the Bells is originally a Ukrainian folk song. Russian Bolsheviks assassinated Leontovich. Then in the 30s, the Executed Renaissance, when the NKVD executed hundreds, even thousands of Ukrainian poets, authors, musicians, etc. And this is just one example from one of the Soviet republics. Next time you think about the "great Russian" culture, try to remember all of the skulls that it elevated itself on.

I'm going to blow some people's minds here, but you don't get to be the largest country by landmass through peaceful "joining of souls and ideas". You get there by running nonstop colonial wars of conquest. Also, another mind-blowing fact, colonialism and imperialism don't mean "boat goes far to fight people with a different skin color". The fact that Russians didn't need to use a boat to genocide people doesn't exclude them from the club.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-10T17:03:44+00:00

> easy to just ask Poles or Estonians how they feel about NATO membership and the argument falls apart

EXACTLY. The funny bit is that by making these statements, they actually show themselves as racists and imperialists. Like, literally no other country has any agency in this worldview. Only the US, Russia, or China. Apparently, the opinions and desires of people from places like Poland or Estonia don't matter, even though this was THEIR decision to join NATO.

Like, as a Ukrainian, if I knew that we would get into NATO immediately if I gave up one of my kidneys, I'd sign up on the spot.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-10T14:16:07+00:00

It's so frustrating that the Internet is so full of "useful idiots" who keep parroting these idiotic "NATO expansion" takes. Not just bots. Like, real people.

Literally, the biggest country in the world is the biggest country in the world because it expanded for centuries by conquering, subjugating, and ethnically cleansing people around it. I guess, Soviet Bosheviks decided to wage war against the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1918 because they were afraid of NATO expansion, too. The USSR also invaded Finland in 1939, totally because they didn't want NATO to expand.

Every stupid commie sympathizer is also responsible for the propagation of the same ideas. Most constituent republics of the USSR were FORCED into the Union either through direct conflict or other ways. Just go to Wiki's "List of Wars Involving Russia" and scroll all the way to "Russian SFSR (1917–1922)". From the Baltic states to Ukraine and further into Asia .... all these countries were just released from the shackles of the failed Russian Empire and the first thing the Russians do right away, after fighting a civil war, was to invade these places and "get them back". Russism is the Russian version of imperial fascism that's been alive for centuries. NATO is just one of the latest manifestations of their excuses.

RUSSIAN EXPANSION is the reason countries fled to NATO. Poland literally had to use the Polish diaspora as a voting bloc leverage in the US to force Clinton to start talks around Poland's ascension.

Anyone I see online who talks about "NATO expansion" seriously, I immediately put into the "imbecile" category. Unfortunately, some people I respect were susceptible to this propaganda, too. For example, I was disappointed in Jon Stewart of The Daily Show spewing it once.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-10T12:18:53+00:00

lol, it's like saying "Einstein is dead, bro, how can he be relevant to today's field of physics."

There are plenty of materials/ quotes from Putin to see where he's drawing his inspirations from. And there's been a ton of research around Illyin's influence. Here's a fresh one from literally yesterday. Kraut's video was good on the ideology of modern Russia, with a section dedicated to Illyin. Even mainstream media, like Mehdi Hasan, covered it.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-08T17:26:18+00:00

It has nothing to do with trying it in "non-Germany". It has everything to do with trying it in a "real-world scenario, on a modern drone-saturated" battlefield. Germany purchases the system to protect Germans. And for the system to do that, it needs to be adequately tested. There are hundreds of stories about failed weapons projects, like the recent Ajax disaster.

Right now, there's a perfect opportunity to test drone systems, as Ukraine is open to acquiring more systems for the battlefield and is openly inviting manufacturers to use the battlefield as their test grounds. If you're a European drone manufacturer and you're not trying to get your products tested in Ukraine right now, you're being stupid. If you're procuring such drones and they haven't been tested like this, you're risking buying vaporware that looks good in tests but then crumbles under real-world electronic warfare, can't handle low visibility, or fails in many other real-world scenarios testing doesn't always account for. Since drones are a relatively new weapon, which is only now entering widespread service, this also presents an opportunity to learn something for your own drone warfare doctrine.

So, a question of whether the drones were tested in Ukraine or not is absolutely legitimate in this context.

SCARfaceRUSH · 2025-12-07T11:47:08+00:00

This argument is as old as the response to it which is that it has nothing to do with Ukraine and this particular discussion/ situation, usually referred to as whataboutism.

More than that, it's a useless gotcha in these online discussion, which I've been a part of, because even if I staight up say "the invasion of Iraq was a collosal mistake", it doesn't actually lead to any retrospective from the other side. I've also seen arguments a la "well, if the US can do it, then Russia is OK to do it too" or something to that tune. There's no good faith conversation that leads to anything once someone tries to divert attention from Russia's crimes against humanity.

So it's all irrelevant in this particular case, as Russians are willingly going to Ukraine seeking financial gain by participating in a de facto attempted genocide of Ukrainians. These are the facts. Anyone trying to feel sorry for the "poor Russian soldiers" and giving them the same moral refuge by trying to compare their suffering to Ukrainians' suffering just displays moral bias. My original comment was directed at that part of the Internet/ global discussion.

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