Tag: Attention

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 239 and Missing Vanity

I wasn’t much for makeup or clothing as a teenager, but I fell in love with fashion as I got older. I was swayed by the mysteries of style. The power of being dressed precisely for the occasion was not lost on me. I wanted to command the powers of vanity for myself

But as the pandemic set in I cancelled all my beauty box of the month subscriptions and closed my Rent the Runway account. I didn’t need red lipstick or cocktail dresses. When we summered in the Hudson Valley the first summer of the pandemic, I only brought one suitcase of sweatpants and cotton dresses. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was was leaving behind dozens of vanity rituals.

Like many other people, we decided to move closer to family as the pandemic continued. Going from Manhattan to Boulder isn’t exactly conducive to keeping up with appearances either. I found myself buying hiking pants and wool socks. I had no occasion to dress for anyone but myself.

I’m not sure how much I actually miss getting dressed. At least not for myself. Earlier in May before the Delta variant squashed “hot vax” summer for good, some ink was spilled on the mixed emotions of getting dressed for others after so much time in seclusion.

The pandemic seems to have proven that for me aesthetics are all about the dance with others. The joy of communicating one’s taste and preferences to the outside world is more riveting than playing with my look for an audience of one.

But I do miss that dance. Vanity can be a wonderful motivator to connect and communicate with others. I so badly want someone to see my hair. I haven’t heat styled my hair for well over a year. In fact, I haven’t had it cut for nearly 10 months.

My vanity tells me my hair has never looked better. It cascades down to my mid back without a split end in sight. Just waves. It’s fucking princess hair. My vanity whispers that someone surely would notice how beautiful I look. If they noticed how I look then they must always want me to notice them.

I miss the pleasure of seeing beauty in each other. Sharing a compliment and an appreciation for the little vanities we all keep.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 235 and Grief

One of my Twitter mutuals suggested I explore the work of psychiatrist Francis Weller and his work on grief. I spent two hours with his lecture and another hour on the writing and exercises explored in this talk available on YouTube. I found his five gates of grief particularly helpful.

1.Everything that you love, you will lose. 2. Places inside of you that have not known love. 3. Sorrows of the works. 4. What we expected and did not receive. 5 Ancestral grief

I have been exploring my childhood emotions and the unconscious way those experiences still affect me. Using Weller’s gates of grief I see I need to grieve but also understand these patterns and what I gave up as a child so I can see what to let go now as an adult but also understand what gifts it has left me with.

In the framing of the second gate, I felt abandoned and unloved as a child. There were parts of me that were never loved. It was a challenge to get attention. This has left my inner childhood fearful that love is unreliable, attention is fleeting and abandonment is always to be feared.

Francis Weller asked what are these lessons or emotional complexes protecting? Why do I feel this way and what did I gain? At the heart of every experience is a jewel of great price. I was protecting and nurturing the capacity to get my father’s attention.

As a small child I didn’t understand why he didn’t pay attention to me for the things I wanted and I liked. So I found ways to get his attention through the things he liked. I developed the expectation I would be ignored. I wouldn’t be paid attention to unless I made myself appealing. So I learned to cut deals to be paid attention. I learned useful skills this way. A pearl of great price indeed. But I was also giving up the idea I’ll be loved just for being his child.

That all the things I did to change myself to be paid attention to and to be loved never ultimately got me what I needed when I was a small child is a loss I must grieve. I’ll never be able to go back and feel like I was wanted. No change I made fixed it either. I must mourn the second gate.

To leave behind these coping mechanisms or emotional complexes, to grieve them, is to admit that they did not work. I cannot change that I felt I was not wanted or loved. They have nothing to offer me now. I have to grieve the lack of a loved childhood to love myself in adulthood.

But it is not a bad thing. Francis Well shares that the other hand of grief is gratitude. In one hand we hold grief and on the other gratitude is in our other palm. So I recognize I have gratitude that my childhood gave me the skills to see what others want. I see what they are looking to find. I know what others are manifesting. I see what others are building and making and wanting. I learned to see the power and magic of others so I can hold space for them. And I learned how to golf. Useful skills indeed.

I grieve that this was my tool for attention and love as a child. I deserved love and attention just for existing as a child. But I am grateful for what it has given me as well.

Categories
Internet Culture

Day 234 and Information Poisoning

Do you ever read a tweet and check the person’s mutuals to make sure you understand the context?

Because I follow a number of extremely different communities with wildly different priors, it’s actually quite a challenge to see if someone is black pilled, red pilled, tankie or neo reactionary.

I consider it crucial to keep a balance of crazies in my timeline lest I accidentally get pilled by one group simply by mere exposure bias.

That’s a good argument for following as diverse a group as possible. A full timeline is one with a thousand biases blooming. This is good for keeping an open mind but it is also a protective technique known as flooding the zone. It is much harder to determine where one’s sensibilities lay if they consider counsel from all.

The downside is that we call people out for following “wrong think” in some corners. The only way to inoculate against that risk is heavily telegraphing that you follow all kinds. Impossible to show purity so to protect from any charges you muddy the waters.

I’ve noticed that progressive tech & red pillers are especially gnarly about policing for thought purity. It is relatively easy to fight back against, but then you have to be committed to seeing ALL zeitgeist which is exhausting.

I had to stop consumption for 48 hours last week. Floating above the discourse generally stokes my creativity. I live on the energy of the zeitgeist. But a few issues (vaccines & Kabul) are so upsetting that I just had to stop and recenter.

I think I have what might be labeled natural immunity to discourse. It doesn’t usually hurt my emotional state. For me, discourse functions more as a barometer of positions I follow to indicate long term movements.

Very rarely does it overcome my long term stakes. When it does it’s usually because I have information poisoning. It doesn’t happen too often. And I can shake it fast. But it’s not easy to cultivate for most people. I think it might be innate. That natural immunity I mentioned. Some people just have a higher tolerance for information toxicity and flow rates. Best to find out what yours is and to sense in others their informational environment as well. It’s edge.

Categories
Emotional Work Internet Culture

Day 222 and OOO

I’m out of the office. I’m OOO. I’m not available. I’m off the grid. I’m on vacation. I’m on leave. I’m out sick. I’m out for family.

Whatever your reasons, the idea of being unavailable, actually being unavailable is increasingly at odds with reality. It’s rude to not be available. People notice if you are on social media dicking around after all. And I’m always fucking off on Twitter. And that means I am default available right?

I have an app that allows people book time with me without the hassle of checking in called Calendly. The theory is you maintain times you are available and you avoid a bunch of back and forth. The reality is I don’t maintain it. Virtually no one ever uses it except a couple close business partners. Because of that lack of integration into my workflow, the app is rarely ever booked unavailable. I don’t really use it or maintain it but a few folks have the link and being polite and nice, they try to use it rather than bother me asking if I’m around. Then it’s a comical back and forth of me explaining that no I again forgot to alert the app I wasn’t available. Again. Exactly the sort of interaction the app is supposed to help you avoid. It’s fucking embarrassing and it’s happened a half dozen times.

This happened again this week when I had explicitly intended to take off all of it as I’m recovering from a medical procedure. My brain is a bit foggy and I forgot to ask my husband, who more often than not is forced into managing my ineptitude with logistics, to make sure the damn app knew I wasn’t available. He’s got an elaborate system of multiple calendar applications that all talk to each other and sync up and if I just put “OOO” into one of them then all the apps would know. I’m too stupid to actually manage any of it. I figured eventually I’d hire an administrative assistant I deal with it when my schedule became more complex. But it isn’t that complex yet and I didn’t think to block the calendar after my procedure. Which makes me feel like an idiot. Why is it so hard for me to manage a damn calendar?

And such is my emotional block with being unavailable that I am literally writing a post about it rather than simply deleting the app entirely and texting my friend and partner back that I’ve fucked up again and the app was incorrect. Again.

Maybe it’s because I really want to be the kind of person who is available. That I’m the sort of person who is consistent and has routines that can be relied upon and thus has calendars which reflect the reality of my availability. That I am the kind of person who manages their application layer, personal data and thus has promptly corrected for any changes that may have occurred to my routines and seen to it that it percolates into the operating system of my life. Maybe this is why I’m obsessed with manners and class this week. It’s just a Freudian unconscious embarrassment that I’m bad at manage a calendar.

Alas it doesn’t really matter. I’m not the sort of person with a calendar. I’m the sort of person who will write a thousand words about the culture of availability, the way we mediate we our time and attention with technical applications, and my own emotional relationship to the acronym “OOO” rather than text back “actually I’m out this week!”

I’m counting on this being amusing rather than irritating in this particular instance as despite it seeming like I’m around and available, I’m actually extremely out this week and depending on my recover the next two. I hope it will be funny when I tag them on Twitter and share this post. Because it’s actually extremely embarrassing for me.

Categories
Finance Internet Culture Media Politics

Day 219 and Crypto’s Publicist

Most industries have interest groups. Publicists, lobbyists, and spokespeople weave together stories, talking points and preferred legislative agendas. Anyone or any group is free to discuss why their preferred business or issue is worthwhile and convince others of their view. We have a marketplace of ideas. Sure, not all interests are good but anyone is free to promote what they believe in. So why aren’t we doing anything for our cause in the crypto community? I say it’s time crypto had a publicist.

Not every country allows for this. The crypto community has an obligation to recognize that when we fight for our own interests it isn’t just we who benefit. The entire world benefits from open, decentralized and permission-less systems. What we do benefits everyone who wants to live in a freer world. It’s time crypto had our own activist DAO to protect and promote our values.

I am proposing the formation of an activist DAO promoting the use of crypto. Our goal is to advocate for positive popular culture narratives about crypto. We vote on our issues, stories and key initiatives through the DAO’s native governance tokens. The DAO will hire publicists and communication professionals to promote our stories in mainstream media along with commissioning content meme-ers and creators to share opinions. Policy is crucial but public perception is faster and pushes the right policy down the right.

As place holder I’ve purchased CryptoCommsCoalition.org. The Crypto Communication Coalition. I am working on a shared collaboration doc in Google Sheets to collect input, feedback, and priorities. Anyone who is interested can participate in our effort. Email me Julie @ crypto comms coalition dot org or DM me on Twitter.

We need DAO creation specialists, legal experts, memers, streamers, Reddidters, governance folks, publicists, lobbyists, fundraisers and a thousand other specialists I haven’t thought of yet. This won’t be easy but it’s an eating our own dog food moment for crypto. We can use our own tools to advocate in a participatory, transparent and open way for our own interests. If banking and big oil can can afford publicists then so can we. gmi.

Categories
Internet Culture

Day 212 and Notes for A Unified Theory of Shitposting

Yesterday I was fucking around on Twitter, as I am prone to doing. I made a barely sit-com worthy joke about divorced guy energy.

You ever notice how women thrive in the aftermath of divorce but men implode? Why is that?

My husband Alex replied with a searing burn “don’t worry, I’ll be fine” response and we were off to the races with all our mutuals dunking. I was howling with laughter. The two of us were trading zingers and watching the DMs roll in from friends.

Obviously the undercurrent of any thread on social media got dark very fast. So quickly I ended up putting out resources for men who were struggling in the replies. The amount of pain on display was enough to make you want to donate to the first domestic abuse charity I could find.

So why is it that I can shitpost about a topic and come away unscathed, indeed it was a fun and entertaining night for both myself and Alex, but others melted down? I think it might be about class and social signaling. It takes a lot of social capital to shitpost. And those that shitpost on the most socially contentious topics are demonstrating their social capacity to discuss whatever they want without consequences. I can shitpost because I’ve got enough social capital to do so.

One theory I’ve got is that shitposting is a backlash to Ted Talks, super serious reverential coverage in glossy business magazines, and the proliferation of HBS style “business” books. We’ve had an saturation in performative professionalism.

Once it became unclear that every self seriousness biography or magazine puff piece was placed by professionals to make their clients look like geniuses (visible effort undermines certain kinds of status) the savvy social seeker knew they needed a more authentic way to telegraph in-group power. The next logical step was demonstrating that you were so smart, so powerful and so connected you didn’t even need to demonstrate it. Hence the shitpost.

The weirdest part of “shitposting” being an actual status symbol in venture capital is that a couple of billionaires are going to see me and Alex making jokes about divorced guy energy and this will only increase our status. Which is ludicrous on its face ans yet absolutely true.

This isn’t even a flex on my part (though it obviously is a flex) as it is now accepted that having a following for saying whatever you like gives you a leg up in startups. A friend likened it to “dressing down” or the practice of wearing causal clothing even in formal settings. It shows you are so powerful and wealthy you don’t need to give a fuck about manners. Shitposting on Twitter is like wearing ripped jeans at the country club.

I want to explore this topic in more depth so this post is just some sketch notes. But I wanted to get it down and organized so I hope it’s alright to have some half baked ideas. It’s my blog so I figure it’s fine b

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 179 and Invasion

As a child I felt that I wasn’t always wanted. Whether or not this is true is somewhat beside the point. What we feel as children lingers in our emotional profile for the rest of our lives. The flip side of feeling unwanted for me is feeling invaded when someone wants me. Ironic right? Talk about a “careful what you wish for” situation.

To overcome feeling unwanted as a child I developed the capacity to draw attention. Despite wanting nothing more than to be wanted, now as an adult I can negatively when people do in fact want me. It’s a perverse double edged belief system born out of a child’s logic. Because I so badly wanted to feel wanted for so long the hurt and fear of that experience lingers.

I’ve written in some detail about the complex relationship I have with being wanted and the expectations I feel when I am the center of someone’s attention. It’s not an emotional pattern I’ve cleared yet. But I’m trying to notice how it impacts my life. Because if you get what you want you also need to want what you get. I want to be learn to be comfortable being wanted.

If I don’t break this pattern I’ll he caught in the same cycle of attraction and repulsion for the rest of my life. Because I’m not actually feeling invaded in many cases. I am feeling the memory of the hurt of being unwanted. Rather than accept the closeness I said I wanted it feels safer to push it away. But that’s no way to live. We can all break our childhood trauma. So I’ll keep at it.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 172 and 3 People

I recently heard in my therapy practice that there are three distinct people being juggled inside of you at any given moment. The person you want others to see you as. The person others see you as. And finally the person you actually are. The hope is that you find a way to be at peace with all three.

I am not at all congruent on this matter. I’m not even sure I can articulate the distance between who I am and external reality. In my head, I’m introverted, cerebral and not very interested in other people. In my head I prefer to keep to myself.

That doesn’t match at all with the person who others see as cultivating and thriving on attention. The person who enjoys spending hours on social media doesn’t seem introverted. I think that’s the person others see me as. They see me as an extrovert who intuitively gets attention.

And that sure as shit doesn’t match the person that is smart, hard working and well connected. Thats the person I want to be seen as. That’s the “brand” I think I should have to be respectable in the eyes of others. I want to be seen as the person you turn to who can help you solve a problem. I want to be seen as the person you turn to if you need an introduction. And then I want the people I send introductions to to trust that I will only send them the best people.

Of course, the truth of the matter is I am all these people. I am an introverted cerebral person that likes to spend time alone with her thoughts. I am also the person who thrives on attention and knows how to cultivate it. And I am a hard working person who you can count on to make good introductions and steward your social capital well.

So next time you get worried that the world thinks you are someone completely different from who you see yourself as just remember you are 3 people. You are different. You are the person you want others to see you as. You are the person others see you as. And finally you are also the person you actually are. It’s all you. And it’s wonderful.

Categories
Media

Day 171 and Publicists

I have a number of portfolio companies and clients for whom I do some of their public relations work. I don’t advertise myself as a publicist but I am very good at the work. I typically only do strategic work and media relations so please don’t ask me to pitch you.

The tricky part is usually convincing the people I work with to trust my instincts and not, you know, the actual act of working with the media. I do a lot of heavy lifting and training to prepare people to have something useful to say in public.

People who have no experience getting attention typically struggle emotionally with the fact that they don’t necessarily matter to the media. They get grumpy that people who they perceive as being “less” get coverage they don’t deserve.

Of course, we don’t always know what is going on behind the scenes. We don’t know what stories were told to writers or by whom. And attention tends to beget attention. So once someone is featured regularly in the media they tend to stay there. They become a trusted source.

But becoming one of those characters that gets quoted or featured a lot is hard work. Occasionally you get a lucky break, but it’s a bit like getting hired for an entry level job that requires two years of experience. It seems impossible! They are two distinct states right? Either you have experience or you are entry level. The same problem exists in media.

There is a tension in how public relations works and how media sees it’s subjects. To get featured in the press you need to be either ubiquitous or “newly discovered” and no you cannot be both. Those are distinct states.

If you haven’t yet been covered you are definitionally not ubiquitous. I know seems obvious right? But that means it’s much harder to get quoted as an expert or featured in lists or others become part of a story. The regular mentions in media usually go to people who are already trusted sources. So how do you become a trusted source? You need to be discovered.

Being a new fresh face with a brand new story is catnip to media. So if you have a good story it tends to benefit you to keep that story under wraps until you find a media outlet that will give you enough attention to justify telling your story. You want a feature that can deliver you to ubiquity. Because once you tell it you will no longer be “discoverable” any more. I guess it’s a little bit like how purity culture religions think of virginity. And yes this process feels as icky.

This means you need to make the jump from discoverable new face straight to ubiquitous to get the kind of regular media coverage you imagine a publicist can secure for you. It’s a weird quantum state situation. And top tier publicists are often quite good at threading that needle to get you from new story to phenomena. It doesn’t just happen though. It’s strategic and planned out like a military campaign.

That’s why publicists sign longer term contracts. If they deliver small stories that can be placed in a month long contract they cannot deliver you a big feature. Features take weeks if not months. A research piece takes a long time. A glossy spread in Vogue is usually pitched 3-4 months in advance.

So the temptation is to go for short stories. Those are good right? Well not always. Tell your big story in something small that has less attention then you’ve lost your shot at ubiquity. Doing little stories that didn’t break you into public consciousness, in your eagerness to just get covered now, means you wasted your shot. You’ve been featured just enough that reporters won’t perceive you as being a fresh new face. No reporter wants to tell the same story as another. So you’ve screwed yourself without even realizing it.

So do yourself a favor if you want to get attention. Listen to the advice of the professionals. Being a media darling doesn’t usually just happen. And it’s often on the advice and planning of professionals that probably know more than you do.

Categories
Internet Culture

Day 170 and Ass

I’ve got an hourglass figure and my favorite exercise is the barbell squat. That has over given me a fantastic ass. An ass that just won’t quit. Even after some health challenges my ass has been reliable as hell. So yesterday, without really thinking it over, I decided to share my appreciation for my ass.

The first response was from one of my girlfriends (who also has a great ass) sharing some body positive vibes. That was basically my expectation for likes and replies on a “feeling myself” tweet. It’s fun to share positivity on social media.

But then…it took on a life of its own. Comments started pouring in. I replied to virtually all of them. I had threads with best selling science fiction authors and anonymous replies guys. I got retweeted by big crypto and investor accounts. Venture capitalists and dirt bags had equal weight. I cracked wise and made jokes at my own expense. We made a party of it.

Obviously people joined in on the fun. Because shitposting is fun. Dunking, dumb puns and innuendos are enjoyable. But I think it’s something more than that. I believe in the cultural and emotional value of shit posting. Shitposting levels the playing field.

Audiences can be built by anyone now. Shitposting allows creators who have a firm grasp on concise and comprehensible language to get across their point to anyone. Rather than suffering through pontification by elevated voices protected by institutional gatekeepers, we can hear bursts of truthful hilarity from nobodies.

Hilarity is part of the social media experience. Many people have tried to hijack Twitter for the purposes of looking smart and influencing others. Thought leadership is an entire profession now. You’ve got Zen Koan advice Twitter abutting against “in this thread” tweet storms that are academic thesis quality. Which has been great for learning. I follow a lot of folks who use both formats. Being smart is cool.

But the essential nature of social has pushed back. The shitpost reigns supreme. We’ve had an enormous backlash against self serious Twitter. And that backlash has been rewarding folks who say weird shit like me.

Ironically, all the clout chaser and words of wisdom folks had their need to appear smart backfire on them. Shitposting is now a high status activity. Being smart isn’t high status. Being chaotic is high status. Leaning into the shitpost is high status.

You have really powerful people with enormous platforms saying ridiculous shit. I’m a reasonably respectable founder and angel investor and I’m talking about my butt. And the medium rewards you for it.

And I think that is OK. Not everything needs to be brilliant. Trust is built on the understanding that we are all humans. And sometimes humans feel themselves. Sometimes we get sad. It’s all part of the process. And if sharing your truth is what gets clout and audiences I think that’s a nice thing. I’d rather have status for being vulnerable than being brilliant any day.