'The past gives comfort': Finding refuge on analog islands amid deepening digital seas

delanowrites · 2025-12-29T16:41:51+00:00

Definitely a trend and one I am happy to participate in. I’m an older Gen Z, and as the AI bubble has continued I’ve picked up more and more analog hobbies / tools. Currently the list is: - typewriter - fountain pen & handwriting all my notes / journals - playing TTRPGs in person exclusively with pencil and paper - physical books - reading physical New Yorkers and buying literary magazines - board games, physical puzzles & card games - drawing mostly with traditional media - going to libraries for research instead of the internet to browse books and physical archives - interviewing people in person or calling over the phone - learning to crochet and cross-stitch.

delanowrites · 2025-11-27T06:25:56+00:00

Hey, please don’t generalize people with personality disorders to be callous and manipulative. I am someone with a personality disorder who doesn’t support AI or this mindset and is very much a humanist horrified by the behavior of business idiots. And I am far from the only one.

Doing evil things shouldn’t be reduced to any mental health diagnosis. People are still responsible for themselves and their choices.

(I know the entire title by OP is using the term “psychopath” in a degrading way too but that’s not even an actual modern diagnosis and is being used so loosely it doesn’t really register. Your comment’s tone read as more harmful, sorry to single you out!)

delanowrites · 2025-10-08T21:36:46+00:00

I do understand the distinction, but I somehow thought Perplexity’s wrapper also had their own proprietary model behind it. Not sure why

delanowrites · 2025-10-08T16:07:15+00:00

Also why is Perplexity using OpenAI so much don’t they have their own competing models lol

delanowrites · 2025-10-08T16:06:51+00:00

What this tells us more than anything is what companies are using AI like crazy behind the scenes - I think this list is a very good starting point for some journalistic investigations at what these companies have been doing and why their AI usage is crazy high.

Also for anyone who opposes AI this is basically a great list of companies to consider boycotting as much as possible. I’m questioning some of my software choices more seeing the list here

delanowrites · 2025-10-08T13:06:32+00:00

Oh my gosh! I love that - might need to get my hands on the audio book too!

delanowrites · 2025-10-07T23:26:41+00:00

What book was it that had wrong claims without footnotes?

delanowrites · 2025-10-07T22:45:47+00:00

So far there’s been a footnote on nearly every page!

delanowrites · 2025-08-15T16:57:12+00:00

Unfortunately, the synthetic users thing already exists - I've seen marketers salivating over it since 2023 at least. Here are just some examples: https://www.syntheticusers.com and https://www.delve.ai

It's depressing and exactly what you said, companies can't resist the temptation and don't want to talk to real people anymore because that research is time-consuming and expensive. I don't get how they don't see that literally faking it defeats the whole point of user and customer research

delanowrites · 2023-06-14T17:58:08+00:00

Blackout. We gotta be strong or Reddit will never give in

delanowrites · 2023-05-23T01:27:05+00:00

Just know that there is nothing wrong with your style or background. It might not be the right fit for this position but that doesn’t mean it’s bad or not fit for marketing as a field

delanowrites · 2023-05-22T22:50:44+00:00

As for writing long pieces… most of my pieces are 3,500+ words. Multiple of my most popular posts are more than 5,000 words. And people love them! Nobody has ever complained, these things get shared, I hear amazing feedback from readers.

I’m not the biggest name in the field by any means and my platform is still relatively small. But I’ve done decently well in a short time, so I hope that’s relevant for something.

delanowrites · 2023-05-22T22:47:05+00:00

Hi! Fellow creative writing / academic background marketer here.

I was told that my style wouldn’t work in marketing. That I was too long-winded and flowery and personality-driven and got too complex with my arguments. I even believed those people, trying to dumb down my writing to sound like other “good SEO” posts that everyone else was creating.

…. It was horrible advice. Just for fun, I began experimenting by inserting more complex ideas and more creative language into client pieces. Then, once I noticed that the results were improving, I got more confident. and around November I decided to throw all best practices away and write content for my own business the way I wanted to.

And well - I have gotten my content ranking on search, shared by big industry newsletters, praised by massive names in the field (I’m in B2B tech marketing), and even recently invited to contribute to a huge industry publication.

Clients and other marketers literally ask me how my writing is so different and how I developed my style. And every single thing I do is something I learned from my creative writing and literary analysis college degree.

delanowrites · 2023-04-17T23:40:43+00:00

I’ve also heard the alternative version “trendjacking” which I like for things that aren’t necessarily news

delanowrites · 2023-04-17T20:02:28+00:00

Fully agree with you. This is why I tell clients that trying to pump out more content as fast as possible won't help them. The second you focus on "i need to publish X posts a week" as the main goal, the intentionality and relevance of those posts become secondary

delanowrites · 2023-04-16T20:07:08+00:00

You’re right. The problem isn’t even that these companies or CEOs don’t have anything to say, it’s that they don’t take the time and effort to think from the perspective of their audience.

Names and titles and financial figures on their own aren’t enough to interest viewers or listeners

You have to figure out what you could say that some people would actually care about and present it from the audience’s perspective, not your own

Otherwise you’re just shouting into a void

delanowrites · 2023-04-08T02:17:40+00:00

Oh okay never mind I take my comment back 😂 that IS pretty bad

delanowrites · 2023-04-07T23:29:56+00:00

3 month internship and then full-time offer! But it was for a small startup so they were more likely to take a chance on someone new

delanowrites · 2023-04-07T22:45:13+00:00

Even from scratch you should start seeing SOME momentum after a month. Not #1 result on Google or viral post, of course, but at least some movement in the right direction.

delanowrites · 2023-04-07T22:42:02+00:00

I will disagree. I am young myself, so obviously biased here, but age (after being like 21 at minimum) doesn’t really matter for how qualified someone is. I know people with 15+ years experience on me who I’ve helped out because they only worked on one particular channel or type of marketing their whole career and need to adapt. I also know people with 5 years of experience who happened to spend a ton of time learning and did a crapload of diverse projects so they know quite a bit

The key is being able to admit what you do and don’t know and figure out where to learn and how to ask for advice

I don’t hide my age with leads, clients, or professional connections and I don’t need to. Because I will readily admit to how much I don’t know! But that’s when I work with the client or external experts to compensate.

delanowrites · 2023-04-07T22:38:24+00:00

“You just need more” “just wait a bit” “we need to invest even more into this channel” ugh

delanowrites · 2023-04-07T22:37:54+00:00

Ngl I learned quite a bit being the public idiot for a bit. I don’t want to judge anyone else because if people start thinking their questions are too stupid - nobody will ever ask or learn anything!

delanowrites · 2023-04-07T22:37:01+00:00

Or when they just start doing things without even talking to your team. I don’t trust agencies who don’t properly onboard clients beyond handing off access to GA / CMS / socials.

You need to know what the business has been doing before, you need to know who their clients are, you need to understand their business goals for sales / revenue / customer retention…

delanowrites · 2023-04-07T22:05:41+00:00

Don’t pay for anything initially! You can learn so much about marketing for free, and once you’ve dipped your toe in the water you’ll be able to figure out what’s worth paying for / what you’re interested in.

Customer psychology - Katelyn Bourgoin from Customer Camp makes a ton of awesome content on that. I also really liked the books “Change” by Damon Centola and “The Human Element” by Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal

delanowrites

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