Tag: 5things

Five things on Friday #330

Things of note for Friday May 20th, 2022.

INTRO

Hello. From me and my snail friend.

Isn’t he wicked? Or she. I’ve no idea. I didn’t ask. But whatever, aren’t they cool? After the veg in the garden, almost certainly. Point is: I hope wherever me and my snail find you today, you’re doing fine and well.

It has been a good week.

I made it along to a few days at Advertising Week Europe this week and used the time (not spent queueing up outside in the ridiculous printed pass system) at Picturehouse Central to also see some pretty decent talks as well as catch up with some fascinating people. I’m going to write this stuff up on the Diva website at some point next week however, in the short term at least, it was super interesting to me. I’ve been writing since the start of the year about how much difference there is between games/dev brands talk about online virtual worlds vs brand marketers outside of gaming.

At AWEurope, it’s the difference between ‘The metaverse doesn’t exist, so let’s please stop talking about it’ and ‘We’re taking our first steps into the metaverse and look how great it is’ – while I heard both these statements on stage and yet only one of them can be true. No prizes for guessing which one.

The other incredible thing I heard this week was ‘No one over 40 plays Fortnite’ – an incredibly dismissive and ignorant statement which I just can’t get my head around. Going on old numbers (2018ish), Epic reports 350million registered users. 12% of those users fall into the 34-45 age bracket.

42million then? Cool. Cool.

It’s maddening to me that even with the data literally a google away, anec-data just seems to win out. ‘I can’t see it [in my life] so therefore it can’t be true’ is a plague on bad marketers everywhere. FWIW, the Fortnite statement was said by a planner. Even worse. Mad mad mad mad mad. We’ve had two new clients walk in this week, each wanting to know more about gaming, player communities, opportunities for brands etc – and above all else, not wanting to take a single step forward until they understand the space. It’s hugely flattering but also, in light of the waffle you might sometimes hear at events, hugely reassuring. There are marketers out there that want to get involved and understand the space properly. And nine times out of ten they’re the ones not on a stage telling you they know it all…

Ok. Rant over.

Where was I?

Oh yes. I don’t know if this edition will make it out. It’s late on a Thursday as I write this opener to you. There are fair few links in the txt file so I should just boot that up and get going, right?

Might mess about with the order and see what happens.

Shall we get a wriggle on?

TO THE THINGS!

1. GAMING ISN’T A DIRTY WORD

A week or so ago, The Drum got in touch to ask me if I wouldn’t mind kicking off their week-long look at gaming by pulling apart the mis-use and abuse of the word ‘metaverse’ when people should just be talking about gaming.

So I did.

Here’s an excerpt (the tone of which will not be unfamiliar to regular readers):

The metaverse is not a thing. Online virtual spaces where people have been hanging out to achieve things together have been around for decades. And if we just call things what they are, these things are video games.

Games. Gaming. Gamers. These are not dirty words. It’s OK to say them out loud. They shouldn’t be dirty words in the marketing dept (although metaverse should be banned). Sure, the metaverse sounds sexy and yes, I’m certain you all read about Gucci this and Balenciaga that in your Substack of choice last month, but these things are just good video games partnerships. And that’s OK.

You can read the full article right here. FYI. The Drum has a registration freemium (register to read) wall so you may need to create an account to read the whole thing.

Had some great feedback about it so I hope you like it. If you do like it or find it useful/interesting, I’d appreciate you sharing it forward – please 😊

—
Some bonus metaverse-related stats and stories before we move on:

Shall we move on?

2. HIDDEN IN A FIRE ISLAND HOUSE, THE SOUNDTRACK OF LOVE AND LOSS

And now for something completely different.

This is one of those ‘the New York Times has done a special build on its site again’ posts but it’s a good’un.

“Last summer, as Peter Kriss and Nate Pinsley moved into their new two-bedroom beach house on Pine Walk in Fire Island, they took stock of the keepsakes and tchotchkes the previous owners had left behind — a pair of old sewing machines, a box of Halloween decorations, racks of colorful costumes.

The island, a remote 32-mile spit of sand and shadblow trees, does not allow cars, and the unspoken rule is that homeowners must save or toss what the former residents did not carry with them by freight ferry. The massive collection of blue and white porcelain they knew would have to go, same with the coat rack made of cats doing a kick line that they gave to a friend, a former longtime Radio City Rockette. When they stumbled upon a set of milk crates piled high with cassette tapes, they assumed those would go too. Even if they wanted to salvage the greatest hits of Whitney Houston or Queen, neither of them had a tape deck.

But as they dug through the crates, they noticed that not all the tapes were commercial releases. Some had hand-drawn inserts with the names of legendary Pines nightclubs and venues — the Ice Palace, the Pavilion — and more of them had neatly written labels spelling out names, places, and times in thick black ink.”

The special build walks you through the history, the stories, the tales of it all. And of course – there’s the music.

I’ve been through it. Twice. I’ve listened and loved… and now I’m sharing it with you.

You need sound on – enjoy.

Ps. If you’re struggling with the NY Times paywall, the music (sans story) is available on Mixcloud. But do try and read the thing.

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

Some really interesting gamery-based stuff this week.

First up, even if you’ve only got a passing interest in gaming, then you’d probably had to be living under a rock to have let this news pass you by:

As trailed a little bit in the previous edition of Five things on Friday, EA and FIFA have indeed parted ways. EA Sports FC is the name of the game from now on (well, from next year on) and I think it’ll be just FINE.

In the interest of balance, Gianni Infantino, FIFA President, said: “I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans. The FIFA name is the only global, original title. FIFA 23, FIFA 24, FIFA 25 and FIFA 26, and so on – the constant is the FIFA name and it will remain forever and remain THE BEST.”

I’m not so sure.

‘FIFA’ has been short hand for ‘football video game’ for a generation. It helped create leagues and divisions of casual gamers and pro players the world over. Changing the name isn’t going to do much damage. Players aren’t thick.

When you pick up an EA game, you know what you’re going to get and with EASFC (ees-eff-cee?) the engine will still be the same, the playability, the options, your friends and their friends – they will all still be there. And, while the title for the next version will be different, the bones of what players have loved for decades will still be there. There’s an old joke here about EA simply doing this exercise ever in year out anyway – but I think that’s slightly unfair.

If you played literally any EA sports game in the 90s then you this is a sentence you can hear: ‘E.A. SPORTS. IT’S IN THE GAME’.

What fascinates me is a the mixture of brand, product, and gaming meeting in this way. The strength of the EA brand stepping up and into place where ‘FIFA’ used to be. Gotta build those brand assets, gotta keep those core players close, gotta keep growing share. And soon enough, you gotta defend when nu-FIFA comes back over the hill looking for its ball back…

E.A. Sports. It’s in the name.

— — —

What else can I tell you?

Oh, yeah, about two years or so ago I mis-predicted the arrival of Xbox Series S (aka ‘Lockheart’) as being some kind of streaming stick. A bit like a Chromecast but instead of streaming Netflix or YouTube, you’d stream Game Pass games direct to your TV – without the need for a console.

Turns out this might be a thing after all. And completely aligns with the Xbox/Phil Spencer vision of ‘Xbox Everywhere’. I imagine there are some hardware and subscription targets to hit first before rolling that out at scale however. The tech is undoubtedly already there – it’s just making sure by launching something like this it doesn’t cannibalise any hardware sales for the home consoles.

So… maybe a holiday release then?

As an aside, I traded my old Xbox One S in at GAME last weekend and got £150 off a brand new Series S for my eldest (total cost £99). I think the deal is running until Friday next week. Just in case you’re looking.

— — —

Only other games-related news to tell you is that I’ve finished ELDEN RING (yes that’s right, I might actually stop talking about it). I say ‘finished’, I mean ‘I got the platinum’ and to be perfectly honest, I am completely adrift at sea and have no idea what to play. Haven’t really turned the PlayStation on since it happened. Yeah. It’s a weird feeling that one.

I’ve still got Horizon Forbidden West to get back into and there’s a new Destiny 2 season starting next week too. Maybe that’ll tempt me back. We’ll see.

Speaking of Horizion Forbidden West, I built this last weekend:

Image

The Tall Neck, a key part of the first Horizon game and I’m sure equally key in the second (I’ve only found one so far), is a) a brilliant example of a Lego/PlayStation partnership and b) a fantastic build. There’s still a few left on Amazon if this floats your boat. I love mine. Proper nerdy.

Speaking of nerdy, I love this glossary of gaming terms from PlayStation.

You’re welcome.

4. YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE

When you move from one agency to another, you’ll often see work going through as you leave that you think ‘Wow, that’s going to be amazing when it goes out’.

And that’s what happened just before Christmas, when the below project, from the talented lot at Digitas UK & their client Nivea Men, was first shared with me in a meeting room in Chancery Lane.

Starting from the insight that 50% of mental health problems begin before the age of 14, Digitas and Nivea Men teamed up with Liverpool FC and Talk Club to champion a simple way to help men of all ages to start talking and improve their mental fitness together.

The launch film, live in cinemas now, is bloody amazing and I’m so proud of my old team for not only creating this idea but actually getting it past the many many stakeholders to get it live and out into the world.

Well done all.

You can read more about the work over on Campaign.

5. TODAY DO THIS: 48+ WAYS YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE NEWS

For the past three years, Today Do This has been publishing a ‘do something about the news’ newsletter.

Each year since that first edition, TDT has been publishing an annual round-up of the small things we can each do to change the world.

This year is no different.

Covering planet protection, confronting discrimination, improving your community and so much more, it’s a dead handy list of inspirational things you can do… right now.

Click, read, be inspired.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. THERE A LOT OF BONUS LINKS THIS WEEK. I’M SORRY. I DON’T MAKE THE RULES (I LITERALLY DO BUT IF I SAY THAT THEN THE JOKE DOESN’T WORK).

ENJOY?

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

I hope you’re relaxing into your weekend nicely. It’s early Saturday morning here as I finish this newsletter to you.

The sun is out. The summer is around the corner. Family is healthy and work is going great. I’m sending all this warmth in your direction right now.

All that and I’m still pinching myself on the reg because I still can’t believe I work in video games. There’s a grin on my face as I edge towards the big blue Publish button at the top of this page.

How lovely.

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #329

Things of note for Friday May 6th, 2022.

INTRO

Hello hello x.

It’s the end of week one, month three in the new job. And it’s been hectic* (more, much more, on that later). I hope you’ve been keeping well.

It’s Thursday as I write to you. I’m home from seeing DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS and, without giving away anything all I will say is: I didn’t realise how much I’d missed Sam Raimi.

I’m hopeful for a subdued FTOF this week. The past handful of editions have slipped into the ranty space and frankly, this is not why I started (keeping weekly notes in my moleskine that became a blog which then became) my newsletter.

So let’s see open the FTOF dot txt file and see what happens.

My name is James Whatley, and welcome to Five things on Friday #329.

It’s ok, you haven’t missed much.

Shall we?

1. WHY NOT LET’S KICK OFF WITH SOME DECENT MUSIC

One of the handful of reliable sources of new music I follow is this semi-regular list from Jodie Bryant.

Some proper bangers on this month’s.

I think so at least.

Do you?

2. WORLD’S BEST FPV DRONE SHOT?

Love me some quality drone footage. And guess what: I’ve got some for you right here. See that? That down there?

That’s a drone that is.

And what’s happening with that drone is this: an FPV drone pilot is doing a follow shot of professional mountain biker Tomas Slavik racing the Red Bull Valparaiso Cerro Abajo last in April 2022.

There’s an 11 minutes video from Red Bull (who else?) that sits behind it and while you could skip straight to 8:14 and watch the one continuous shot from there, I would recommend you watch the whole thing.

It’s ace.

Zoom zoom!

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMES

From a personal perspective, I can’t tell you anything much else outside of ELDEN RING. ELDEN RING IS LIFE. I’m playing far too much and to be frank, you’re lucky you’re even getting a newsletter at the moment, given the pull of the PlayStation behind me… and yet… here we are.

To the (games) things!

First, let’s talk about brands.

Beano Brain, the insights team behind Beano Studios (yes, that Beano), released this top ten chart from their top 50 of the coolest brands for kids and teens (UK data):

Image

Every single brand on this first list is either a game or doing something with games in some way, shape, or form.

That’s even before you get to the clear winners of the games category in Minecraft, Roblox, Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox.

That’s Gen Alpha. What about Gen Z?

Adage and The Harris Poll have got you. And this one’s really interesting.

Here are the top five Gen Z brands by brand equity growth (almost certainly all US data)”

Yeah, that’s right. ELECTRONIC ARTS is up there with Old Spice, Urban Decay, Square, and Whirlpool.

From Adage:

[A]nalysts attributed EA’s plans to rebrand its popular FIFA game and end a long-standing relationship with the soccer organization, and its announcement of a mobile version of its battle royale game Apex Legends. The brand worked with video game influencers in late 2021 such as Twitch host KarimCheese, who made a video sponsored by the brand showing him teaching his grandmother video game lingo. Electronic Arts also collaborated with the NFL to create a virtual celebration for the Pro Bowl. It also launched a network of creators in late 2021, which gives YouTubers, bloggers and others the chance to collaborate and attend the brand’s events.

While I highly doubt the brand’s reported choice to move forward without its FIFA partnership has created that much cut-through, I do believe that EA’s other brand-based efforts, detailed above, have helped it rebuild itself into something that can once again be loved by players – and beyond.

Gaming brands, eh? Turns out they’re important.

…

And now for some bullet news:

4. THIS WEEK IN JAMES

See what I did there?

No Metaverse moans in slot number four this week (not directly, at least – honestly it’s just punching downwards at this point). No no. Instead this week I thought I’d gather up all the other stuff I’ve been doing since we last spoke.

Instead, because I’ve not been writing Five things on Friday for a few weeks, it doesn’t mean I’ve stopped writing anything. It means the writing, and occasional speaking for that matter (or in some cases simply turning up), has been elsewhere.

Here’s a list of that stuff, if you’re at all in any way interested in that 🙂

And finally, in what has turned out to be a rather hideous self-serving section, something else that I got up to recently – and is in line with the themes we’ve been discussing in these pages over the past couple of editions, is the Playable Futures WASD panel about leadership.

Wasd1

We finally got our hands on a copy of the video from the panel that day and you can watch it all right here.

Personally, I’m really happy with how this turned out. I was only two months into the job at this point (EEK!) but thanks to some fantastic prep from our head of comms + PR (big up Emily Britt) and some inspiration from panel-hostess-with-the-mostest, Nicola Kemp, we had a really great conversation.

Covering everything from the games industry talent crisis, the gender pay gap, mental health awareness vs crunch, DE&I, and ultimately, what it means to be a leader in games in 2022 and beyond.

…

*Like I said: it’s been hectic.

5. THE EMPTY DAY

“The day after a mental health moment or psychiatric experience always leaves a void. I call it The Empty Day.”

Adam Libonatti-Roche on incredible, visceral form.

Ahead of Mental Health Awareness week (or as some people call it ‘Annual Yoga on the roof week’, please read this.

It’s important.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY (IF THAT).

ENJOY.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. HAPPY?

It’s been nice to [put the PlayStation controller down in my spare time and] do some newsletter writing again.

As ever, I’m always interested in what you’re up to. One of my favourite questions to ask new people I meet is always ‘What’s the most exciting thing you’re working on right now?’ – it switches people on straight away and there’s nothing I love more than people being passionate about something they care about.

So.

What’s the most exciting thing you’re working on right now?

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #328

Things of note for the week ending, Friday April 15th, 2022

INTRO

Hello hello.

I’ve sat down to write this into a few times now.

The first draft started: “the kids are screaming in the garden, I’m sitting at the kitchen table (having just hit send on a couple of short paragraphs re: Epic & Lego – more on that later) and, well, I have time to write.”

The second attempt went: “Between those three lines and this next paragraph, a good 36hrs have passed. Turns out I didn’t have time to write after all.”

Here we are on our third and ideally final attempt. Shall we see how we get on?

Let’s.

So hi. It turns out I the kids’ Easter break off the newsletter.

Children everywhere. Lego abound. A batch of Animal Crossing purchases. It’s like April 2020 all over again. And we had loads (of great stuff – more on that later) on at work. I can’t complain. I really can’t. Life is good. So I am being as present as possible and enjoying what I have. With that in mind (and the false starts on getting this out over the past couple of weeks), heaven knows what delights I’ve got packed beneath the fold of this edition.

I’ve been collating links for the past few weeks on myriad themes. Leadership, metaversal activity, gaming, and a whole bunch more other stuff that I find interesting. Time to crack open the TextEdit file I’ve got saved on the desktop and get this thing going.

As always, I’ve got a fair bit to tell you 🙂

Oh, and one last thing. I had another nice bump of new readers recently – no idea where you’ve all come from but if you are new here, then welcome.

My name is James WhatleyThis is Five things on Friday. The rules are: it doesn’t always come on Friday (if it comes at all) but there’ll always be more than five things.

1. THOUGHTS ON LEADERSHIP

Leadership is a recurring theme for me at the moment. I’ve just had a pitch accepted for something along these lines (EXCITING) and, as per, I’m using this newsletter as a place to think out loud.

Last time we spoke, I asked to hear about your own experiences of what it means to step up into a new leadership role.

You were, of course, generous with your commentary.

I’ve pulled what I got back into seven themes and I’m putting them in as Thing 1 this week for you to enjoy and learn from. Because surely after ‘the great resignation’ the great hiring spree must follow. And you and I both know you can’t move for new job announcements on LinkedIn right now so… if this is you, or if this is a friend of yours, then maybe you’ll find this useful.

  1. Ask questions!
    ”Use the enthusiastic newcomer status to ASK ALL THE QUESTIONS. I wanted to quickly learn a ton and know how to do things right, and this also helped me to build the confidence to start proposing new approaches. But how to ask all the questions without constantly pinging rando chat messages or emails to people? We ended up setting regular office hours where I could just save up all of my Q’s to discuss, and it made for lots of great convos while also ensuring I didn’t feel like I was interrupting other colleagues. Also, I love what being exposed to so much “new-ness” does to the brain, the joy of learning and discovery and everything suddenly clicking.”

  2. Get Uncomfortable!
    ”If you aren’t out of your comfort zone you’re not growing.” 

  3. Try not doubt yourself!
    ”My advice for stepping into a new more senior role came from a friend and ex-colleague: The only person doubting you is you.”

  4. Stick up for your new team!
    ”You will meet some people who will look for holes in your Teams’ work to leverage them to their personal advantage. They would have done better, they’ll say. Where there’s work, there’s going to be mistakes. That doesn’t mean promoting or condoning mistakes, however, it means owning the fact they’ll happen and acting upon them – internally.”

  5. Read the first 90 days!
    ”Here’s a cheat sheet (thanks Willem). And, as in many things, listening and asking open, candid questions are likely to be good keys.”

  6. Set your personal objectives!
    ”The one activity that has put me in good stead is setting my own objectives. Not like buttering my own bread in terms of measured KPIs, rather setting personal objectives. I know what they needs from me, how to work to our shared goals and targets… but I add to that. Personal objectives in the past have included: refining my presentation skills, networking outside my industry, supporting upcoming talent. All these things have been important to me personally to create a sense of personal achievement.”

  7. Be clear on what it is you are there to do!
    ”Know what the job actually is. The description and expectations are often quite different in specific areas, and at the very least, the act of asking and finding out from the stakeholders in your job means that the job will be nailed down.”

With thanks to Jennifer, Jamie, Rachelle, Rene, Bernard, Willem and FJ for all this gold. You are gods among us. Sincerely, thank you. For me personally, it’s been great to look at this and consider how it changes or influences my own day to day. It’s so useful. I hope it’s helpful to you too.

If my other thing gets published by the way, I’ll share it with you also.

Onwards.

2. JUDITH VIORST

A long long time ago, my incredible therapist read this piece out loud to me in one of our sessions together. He sent me the words shortly thereafter and occasionally I refer back to it or share it with friends if the timing feels right.

This is one of those things that you should read aloud. So if you have the time, take a moment and read it out lout. To yourself, to someone near. And remind yourself that you are worthy of love.

—

As healthy adults we can leave and be left.  We can safely survive on our own.  But we are capable, too, of commitment and of intimacy.  Able to merge and separate, to be both close and alone, we connect at varying levels of intensity, establishing loving bonds that may reflect the diverse pleasures of dependency, mutuality, generativity.

As healthy adults we feel our self to be lovable, valuable, genuine.  We feel our self’s “selfsameness.”  We feel unique.  And instead of seeing our self as the passive victim of our inner and outer world, as acted upon, as helpless and as weak, we acknowledge our self to be the responsible agent and determining force or our life.

As healthy adults we can integrate the many dimensions of our human experience, forsaking the simplification of callow youth.  Tolerating ambivalence.  Looking at life from more than one perspective.  Discovering that the opposite of a very important truth may be another very important truth.  And being able to transform separate fragments in to wholeness by leaning to see the unifying themes.

As healthy adults we possess, along with conscience and, of course, guilt, a capacity for remorse and self-forgiveness.  We are merely constrained – not crippled – by our morality.  Thus we remain free to assert, to achieve, to win the competition, and to savour the complex delights of mature sexuality.

As healthy adult we are able to pursue and enjoy our pleasures but we also are able to look at and live through our pain.  Our constructive adaptations and our flexible defences allow us to achieve important aims.  We have learnt how to get what we want and we have repudiated the forbidden and the impossible, though we still – through our fantasies – tune into their claims.

But we know how to make a distinction between reality and fantasy.

And we’re able – or able enough – to accept reality.

And we’re willing – for the most part – to seek most of our gratification in the real world.

As healthy adults we know that reality cannot offer us perfect safety or unconditional love.

As healthy adults we know that reality cannot provide us with special treatment or absolute control.

As healthy adults we know that reality cannot compensate us for past disappointments, sufferings and loss.

And as healthy adults we eventually come to understand, as we play our friend spouse parent family roles, the limited nature of every human relationship.

But the trouble with healthy adulthood is that few of us are consistently adult.  Furthermore, our conscious goals are often sabotaged unconsciously.  For the infantile wishes we sometimes glimpse in dreams or fantasies exercise great power outside our awareness.  And these infantile wishes may burden our work and our love with quite impossible expectations.

Asking too much of the people we love or ask too much of ourselves, we aren’t – who is? – the “healthy adults” we should be.  Growing takes time and we may be a long time leaning to balance our dreams and our realities.

We may be a long time learning that life is, at best, “ a dream controlled” – that reality is built of imperfect connections.

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING 

“Let’s talk about WASD, bay-be, let’s talk about you and me…”

Three sections in section three this week:

  • Work @ WASD

  • Games @ WASD

  • Interesting general games stuff.

Let’s kick off with WASD.

I know I’ve mentioned it before but in case you skipped it last time around, WASD is a brand new London-based video games expo with a core focus on the indie dev scene. My new lot (I don’t know much longer I can say that but I’m milking it for as much as I can), Diva, were the headline sponsor for the main stage and the industry mixer on the evening of the first day.

I was(d) there Thursday for work stuff and Saturday for a family trip and that’s how I’m going to split my write up.

WORK @ WASD: Playable Futures

At 5pm on the Thursday, Diva presented an IRL version of Playable Futures. Playable Futures is a series of interviews with industry leaders talking about their visions for the future of play (you can download the full set of volume one right here via Ukie).

For the IRL version, Diva brought together games veterans Agostino Simoetta (Chief Games Officer, Thunderful), Gina Jackson OBE (a leader of diversity, mental health, and skills development in video games), John Clark (CEO, Curve Games) … and me!

Given the seniority of the people on the panel, we wanted to ground the session in two areas not only relevant to the future of games but also reflective of what Diva’s mission is in the industry: leading with people first values.

In an industry where toxic workplace stories are rife but everyone is crying out for new talent (sounds like advertising), hearing new CEOs and mental health leaders discuss their thoughts and plans for their respective approaches to leadership was genuinely fascinating.

John spoke about his years at Sega and everything he learnt and the journey he’s taking Curve on as we speak. Ago pulled from his years at Xbox and talked about how the values he learned there have inspired him to be a better leader at Thunderful. And Gina was amazing with the industry stats and figures (and her experiences) on hand to hold them both to account.

Tell you what: I bloody loved it.

I am told we have the video so as soon as that is edited and up, you’ll be the first to know…

Ps. Mad love to Emily Britt for the phenomenal prep prep and Nicky Kemp for the lessons on how to be a good panel host.

FAM @ WASD: Playable Games

On the Saturday me and the eldest returned to WASD to play ALL THE GAMES!

And what games they were!

There were so many GREAT games on show!

Standouts were:

Honestly, look ALL these games up.

Like I said, they were just the highlights.

The key takeout for me is that I don’t have anything to play Steam games on at the house. In lieu of buying a gaming PC (not happening – we have all the consoles so justifying another outlay will be HARD) I’m currently looking at an Nvidia GEForce Now sub via the Nvidia Shield just so we can play the new games listed above (and more). So we’ll see how that bottoms out later.

What else can I tell you?

General interesting games-related stuff.

Some very quick things:

4. BECAUSE SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED SINCE WE LAST SPOKE I SIMPLY HAVE TO POINT AND LAUGH AT A FEW MORE METAVERSE THINGS, IM SORRY

I saw this on LinkedIn and honestly came close to tears.

Image

Utter Jokers.

Could be worse. You could have let Meta sucker you into co-opting your hard-earned well-respected brand for an excuse of a case-study.

What’s that?

You want more things to point and laugh at?

OK, how’s this. The following two slides are from the same presentation given at IAB Play Fronts last week (images via the poor Kerry Flynn who had to sit through this).

This first slide CLEARLY STATES that ‘WEB 3.0’ is ‘the metaverse’ and can be defined as ‘an immersive decentralized internet – read-write-own’.

And then… ‘What is the metaverse?’

‘The metaverse is the digital universe (???) – the collection of ALL immersive experiences – including games, virtual worlds, and social experiences’

Oh my God I actually hate it 😭

Definition 1: it’s the decentralised immersive internet
Definition 2: oh wait, it’s actually Minecraft, and Roblox, and and and and…

Both are wrong.

The metaverse doesn’t exist.

Online virtual spaces exist. Online games exist. You could even argue metaversal activities exist. At a push, you could call Roblox or Minecraft metaversal spaces.

But you’d be a dick if you did.

Because these things are games. They are online spaces. In fact, scratch all that – they are simply what it means to be ‘online’ today. Calling them “the metaverse” is either obfuscation in the name of marketing hype or idiocy dressed up as ignorance – and I’m so bored of it.

There will be a time soon when ‘metaverse’ will be disconnected from all things web3 and NFT etc. Online social spaces where people can hang out have been around FOR DECADES.

I mentioned the Ofcom media usage and attutudes report earlier, here’s a chart from that report:

Not a single mention of the the metaverse. AT ALL.

Because it’s not a thing.

Even when EPIC and LEGO announce their own ‘METAVERSE’ partnership (I gave some comment on this to Adweek last week – written up on Diva’s website yesterday), neither of them actually mean ‘the metaverse’ – it’s just an easier shorthand to talk about an online gaming/social space. And maybe that’s just what the word will eventually mean.

We’ll see.

Shall we move on?

5. SUCCESS AND FAILURE AT PEBBLE

I loved my Pebble.

But it is no more.

Matt Muir shared this article with me earlier in the week looking at exactly how and why that happened.

Good reading.

BONUS SECTION

ACCORDING TO SUBSTACK, THIS WEEK’S NEWSLETTER IS ALREADY ‘TOO LONG FOR EMAIL’ BUT DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE? NO. RIGHT THEN. MORE LINKS? OK. LET’S GO.

ENJOY.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

It’s been a long one and I’m grateful to you for reading.

Drop a reply and say hi.

And also, for those of us that have the time off, enjoy the extra long weekend y’all.

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday (on Monday) #327

Things of note for the week ending, Monday March 28th, 2022

INTRO

“At your highest moment, be careful. That’s when the devil comes for you”

Hello, friend.

A shorter/ish edition this week. The other half has been a bit under the weather and as such, the downtime for writing and collating has been relatively minimal. In sickness and in health and all that.

I hope you’ve had a decent week. I’m coming up on month one in the new role and reflecting on what it means to be a first-time CSO. The responsibility. The ambition. The sense of duty.

Perhaps a longer noodle for another day.

For now, though, I’d be interested in hearing about your lessons from stepping up into a new role. Best advice you took, the best lesson you learned, anything and everything is welcome. I’ll pull some quotes into the noodle (and attribute you, unless you prefer not to be).

Let’s see where that ends up.

On that note, I’ve just glanced at my notes for THING 4 and maybe this edition won’t be so short after all.

I guess there’s only one way to find out…

TO THE THINGS!

PS. FTOF was finished late last night and scheduled to publish at 7am this morning. Turns out if you don’t tick the ‘send email’ box when you schedule, the email doesn’t send – who knew?!

1. AMOL RAJAN MEETS SHARON WHITE

As I write this to you right now, it’s 21:29 on the evening of Sunday March 29th. My notes tell me that THING ONE this week should be a FastCompany article I read earlier this week ‘What happened to Starbucks? How a progessive company lost its way’ (which is still worth reading, btw) but earlier this evening we sat down to watch Amol Rajan Interviews Sharon White – chairman of the John Lewis Partnership (available on the UK on iPlayer) and it is such a fantastic watch I really can’t recommend it enough.

I’ve seen a handful of Rajan’s interviews (and iPlayer tells me I’ve missed more than that however his Sundar Pichai episode sticks out in memory as a good’un) and he is excellent in this format. But that’s not the point of this. The point is Dame Sharon White – who is heart and mind shine through as an exemplar of great leadership looks like. Openly disagreeing with Rajan within the first ten minutes and speaking on matters that clearly mean something to her, and to her staff/partners, it’s an engaging watch. And to think of the background with it?

This image, shown about 20mins in, is barely on the screen for seconds but speaks volumes.

Take some time out and spend 59mins watching it. And maybe watch some more.

Another final highlight? Years ago, when I made it onto the Marketing Academy Scholarship. The brilliant Sherilyn Shackell stood in front of us all and said ‘Leaders are not defined by quarterly earnings or by 3% growth this year or that… truly great leadership is about the leaders you leave behind you’ – there’s a moment towards the end of the programme where White casually lets this slip, that it’s about the seeds that you plant and the talent that grows, that fills the heart.

And reminds you of what leadership is all about.

2. AI FOR AI’S SAKE

You know when you think ‘Well, that sounds like a good idea’ but then… it isn’t?

“Until we buy into the idea that we need to sort out the unsexy problems before the sexy ones, we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes,” says Mateen. “It’s unacceptable if it doesn’t happen. To forget the lessons of this pandemic is disrespectful to those who passed away.”

In a sobering and somewhat depressing read, this MIT Technology Review piece compares and constrasts the multiplicity of AI tools that were rushed into development when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

As it turns out, if lots of people set out on their own to try solve a global problem on their own, they’re destined to make the same mistakes.

Teamwork makes the dream work, right?

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

This week in gaming: a mini five things!

  1. ELDEN RING still has me in its blood-drenched grip. I say again: subscribe to my Twitch channel to watch me die and make such incredible mistakes as this wonderful gamplay that one of my ahem, FANS, clipped earlier this week. As an aside, I beat the Tree Sentinel this week (if you know, you know) and I HAD AN ACTUAL ENDORPHIN RUSH LIKE I HAD JUST RUN 15K AND WHAT. Now I know why people play From Software games. Just wow.

  2. Confirming: I will be at the WASD Video Games Expo next month. Thursday and Saturday. Diva is a sponsor (main stage + industry drinks) but I am not on commission – I just want to see some friendly faces. If it helps, you can get 10% off your ticket price by using the friends of Diva code DIVA22 at checkout. See you there?

  3. Completed the new raid on Destiny 2. Big deal (for me at least).

  4. I’m also getting into and really enjoying Gran Turismo 7. It’s super relaxing and the graphics are ridiculous. Related: My friend Olly shared this film me earlier this week, ‘The evolution of Deep Forest in Gran Turismo, 1997-2022’. Which is a) GREAT and b) exactly the insight that led to the idea behind this film we made for Honda F1 way back when.

  5. I opened with Elden Ring so I’ll be closing with it as well. When someone says ‘Hey, why don’t we make a podcast with all the insane Elden Ring rage from WhatsApp voice notes. Mixed with music and silly levels of silliness…’ then you might like this. You might not. Will there be an episode 2? Who knows.

Oh, and we are now a four Switch household.

4. LOOK, I KNOW WE DISCUSSED THIS LAST WEEK BUT HONESTLY, YES, THING FOUR WILL BE METAVERSAL ONCE MORE. DON’T LIKE IT? UNSUBSCRIBE

When you start your week thinking: ‘Y’know what, maybe this Friday I won’t have to write about some idiot’s latest interpretation of the metaverse’ and then someone tweets the below into your timeline? Well, it’s only down from there.

Image

Ignoring the above for a moment, I regret to inform you I have had “the conversation” again.

What is “the conversation”, I hear you ask? The Conversation is when someone tries to convince me that NFTs are the future of gaming because ‘WHAT IF’ (and it always starts with ‘what if’ – because what use are those words unless they’re doing Atlassian levels of heavy lifting), what if digital items you bought in a game, could be OWNED by a player. Could be taken to ANOTHER GAME by a player. Could be SOLD ON by a player on the blockchain. Now look, let’s be clear, I know for those things to happen this technology needs to be in place and yes, blockchain technology is foundational to making this a reality.

But please.

In a world where at a dinner party just last week I hear ‘Oh, you’re on Android… that’s why I had to use WhatsApp to message you [oh, why’s that? iMessage doesn’t work with their kind of phone]’ we’re expected to believe the interoperable magic of “THE METAVERSE” will make NFTs in-game “just work” – are you insane?

Remember, green bubbles exist for a reason.

And yet, here we are with people still positing the argument of ‘But wHaT iF you could purchase clothes and transfer them to other games and take them with you and sell them on’ – as if EVERY SINGLE THING THAT TECHNOLOGY PLATFORMS SCREAM AT YOU IS ABOUT CONSUMER LOCK-IN. You can’t even embed an Instagram photo in a Tweet anymore. Lol, what.

How’s this? The only reason we all use USB-C these days is because the EUROPEAN UNION made it THE LAW. That’s right! It took actual legal intervention to ensure that the UNIVERSAL part of U.S.B. was actually a thing.

HAHAHAHAHAAH. THE METAVERSE. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, that was the intro.

This week’s Metaverse section is about REPORTS

REPORT ONE.
The Gartner Report ‘What is a Metaverse?’. A report from where the opening ‘diagram’ of this section is from is only worth reading because it says ‘Refrain from heavy investment’ and I think that’s about the only good thing there.

Metaverse. Gartner says: ‘Refrain from heavy investment’. Frame it.

REPORT TWO.
The Game Developer Conference State of the Industry (GDC SOTI). I’ve featured this before (FTOF #322) but maybe some of y’all missed it. It was GDC this week and and while I didn’t make it out myself, I thought I’d go back and re-read it (full transparency: I blame “the conversation”).

Yes, it came out a couple of months ago and some may consider it ‘old news’ but as all this metaverse nonsense continues creating froth for consultants to drown client budgets in, it’s worth *once again* taking a look at where the true leaders in this space – games developers and publishers – are bottoming out.

In the first instance, I strongly recommend you spend some time with the report yourself. It’s a fascinating read and acts a snapshot in time of exactly what is (and isn’t) keeping over 2700 developers up at night.

That’s the hook: 2700 developers. Because reader, I am tired of being told by people who have never spent any amount of time this space trying to tell people that are in this space how this space will work in the future.

The reason for the re-share? This :

Image

When you look at the report, and again I recommend you do, you’ll understand I’m being selective with what I’m sharing. However, these are quotes from games developers:

“I’d rather not endorse burning a rainforest down to confirm someone ‘owns’ a jpeg.”

“Burn ‘em to the ground. Ban everyone involved in them. I work at an NFT company currently and am quitting to get away from it.”

As I’ve said in this newsletter on few occasions now, when you move past the self-serving Meta-mixed manure around tHe MeTaVeRsE and listen to the people who have been making metaversal experiences for decades now, you begin to understand that… well, what you’re being told by everyone invested in the future of it all probably isn’t what is actually going to happen (this tee being widely ridiculed at GDC should scream it out loud).

The grift is real.

REPORT THREE.
Crypto, Web 3, and The Metaverse – a policy briefing published by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Cambridge.

Quote:

“[I]t is important to note that the metaverse does not yet exist. Mark Zuckerberg’s presentation on the metaverse at the 2021 Connect conference and the re-branding of Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms, Inc. have encouraged commentators to describe existing VR applications – including those available through Meta’s Oculus headsets – as manifestations of the metaverse. This is incorrect, as such applications are neither persistent (because they reset when users quit them), nor interoperable (because they are siloed and it is not possible to move seamlessly between them). So, unlike the other concepts and technologies described in this paper, the metaverse can only be discussed in terms of its potential.”

No further questions your honour.

Oh. Last thing. It’s been metaverse fashion week this week. The fact this is news to you tells you exactly how important that was.

Shall we move on?

5. MEN

Alex Garland is back.

Watch the Trailer.

It looks grim.

Horrible.

And very Alex Garland.

Here for it.

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION, WHICH THIS WEEK – MAINLY DUE TO TIME CONSTRAINTS – IS PREDOMINANTLY A COLLECTION OF SOME OF THE BETTER TWEETS I’VE SEEN.

NOT ON TWITTER? WELL AREN’T YOU THE LUCKY ONE.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

Only thing I want to leave you with this week is this:

Go and listen to some Amy Winehouse. I saw her at Glastonbury, years ago. And after catching some impressions of her on a godawful TV show on Saturday… which even now felt too soon, I felt like I owe it to her to go back and re-listen to her incredible voice. She misses you.

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #326

Things of note for the week ending Saturday March 19th, 2022

INTRO

Hello 🙂

If you’re one of the 45% or so of subscribers that always reads this thing to the very end then you’ll know that I usually save the ‘thanks for subscribing!’ note for the closing paragraph.

But I’m going to start things off with that gratitude this week.

Here’s why:

Ever since I gave FTOF the softest of reboots back at the end of January (you can see the dip where a few people went: ERMERGERD, I FORGOT ABOUT THIS! UNSUBSCRIBE!), the newsletter subs have been on a gradual incline – adding a little over 100 new readers over the course of seven editions.

And that is all thanks to you.

Yeah, I tweet the link from time to time (OK, maybe a fair amount) but that can’t be the main driver of this growth.

Liking, commenting, sharing, and re-sharing the email and the links (and crediting this newsletter for those links) with your own friends and followers… it all adds up. And it’s just lovely.

What’s more, the open rate floats between 45 and 50% each week (I understand this is quite good?) and it tells me that this mixbag of nerdy commentary actually works for a fair number of you. And knowing that really helps with the motivation of pulling this thing together every week(ish).

Thank you.

And with that, let’s see what we’ve got in the bag ‘o Things this week.

Shall we?

TO THE THINGS!

Enia Sticker

1. SOCIALLY MOBILE

“Socially Mobile is a Community Interest Company (CIC) that supports and inspires public relations practitioners across the UK to increase their earning potential.

Through support and funding, Socially Mobile delivers training to those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, as well as under-represented and under-served groups including black, Asian and ethnic minority practitioners, the LGBTQ+ community, women returners and those with disabilities.”

This week, one of the communications industry’s big guns (like, one of the proper nice ones as well), Stephen Waddington, got in touch to ask if he could put a note in to Five things on Friday readers about recruiting for the latest cohort for the above programme. It was the easiest yes all week.

Here’s Stephen with more:

Socially Mobile, the leadership communication programme that aims to increase diversity in public relations, has opened applications for funded places.

It’s a ten-week executive education course aimed at helping PR and communications practitioners increase their earning potential by developing as managers and practitioners. The programme is delivered via an online teaching platform and Guild community and is assessed and certificated independently.

Socially Mobile was developed during lockdown by Sarah and Stephen Waddington along with a community of more than 50 teachers, assessors, and examiners. They’re both former comprehensive school kids who benefited from council grants to get to university, and continuous education to get ahead in their careers.

Stephen caught up with some of the students that are coming to the end of the first cohort this week to find how they’ve got on.

If you know anyone who might benefit, please encourage them to apply.

The deadline is 31 March.

—

I know quite a few of you who read this share these links across your own chat groups and networks, this one is of those ones I’d really like you to share this week. It’s great putting these kinds of things together but unless they find their way to the right audience, they’re never going to achieve their true potential.

I’m going to drop it into a couple groups I know as soon as this newsletter goes live – I hope you can do the same.

2. WHAT WILL BECOME OF FRIDAYS?

The excellent Make Work Better (MWB) substack published this provocation earlier this month. Truth be told I meant to put it in last week but I forgot. Whatever, it’s still a great brain noodle.

It starts:

“What’s becoming dawningly clear over the course of our first weeks of widespread hybrid working is that some early unexpected trends are emerging. (Yes, yes, I know that lots of people have been working this way for years, but with the scale of the current adoption unforeseen effects are starting to develop).

While some companies (like Lloyds Bank in today’s first podcast) are not mandating fixed days in the office, plenty of other firms are getting into clear rhythms of Monday, Tuesday, Thursday (like Apple) or the fairly ubiquitous TW&T. One thing common to all of these solutions is that Friday isn’t in the office.”

I think for many (yes, I know not all) of us who are lucky enough to now be in the situation, this rings true (as an aside, I recall a wonderful conversation post-lockdown with an ex-colleague telling me that finally ‘being an advertising tw&t meant something’ – lol), more so when MWB brings out the stat that demand for being in on Fridays is down 75%.

Which, given how we used to be pre-pandemic, is nothing short of seismic.

But.

Anyone can read data. Acting on it, that’s where the rubber really hits the road. And MWB has found some people who are already doing just that.

Go and read ‘What will become of Fridays?’ to find out more (it’s genuinely great).

3. THIS WEEK IN …GAMING (EVENTS)

Last week I told you there was an 89% chance I would be at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco later this month. I am very happy to be telling you that this is not happening.

HOWEVER.

One games event I 100% definitely will be at is WASD.

A teeny tiny bit closer to home, at London’s Tobacco Docks, and running April 7-9th, WASD is a new video games expo from some of the fairly large brains behind the original Eurogamer Expo (aka EGX) – which, to this seasoned EGX attendee, means it’ll be good.

My new lot (got a new job, did I mention?) are sponsoring and so I’ll be there in a professional capacity on either the Thursday or the Friday (or both) and I’ve also promised the kids we’ll go on Saturday as well. I may as well sleep over.

Point is: lots of indy games, a couple of AAAs, great developers, and still some more stuff to be announced. Even if I wasn’t being paid to go, I’d be going in my free time (which I am).

See you there?

4. THING FOUR THIS WEEK IS ONCE AGAIN ABOUT THE METAVERSE BUT I SWEAR* THIS IS THE LAST TIME MY GOODNESS HELP MY GOD

I think I am on the verge of consigning this section of the newsletter to be a continuous Whatley version of Web3isgoingreat (which is still going and is still not great), y’know? How would that be?

Just, like, a trawler net. Dragging along this the ocean of metaversal horse manure, picking up all the rotting flotsam and jetsam and just calling it out for what it is.

Not all of it is bad. Most of it is. I sincerely hope you all find this stuff useful. Maybe one day there’ll be no need for it. And we’ll move on to the next shiny thing. Maybe.

Shall we get into it already? Let’s.

First up!

Wunderman Thompson with this ‘intelligence’ (their words, not mine) about how ‘Hollywood is merging into the metaverse’.

The examples quoted as proving this, and in no particular order, are:

  • Microsoft buying Activision

  • Sony buying Bungie

  • Netflix getting into gaming

  • Video game/game builder, DREAMS, being used to make a movie

  • TikTok being used to market Spider-Man: No Way Home

And all this while opening the whole thing by just trotting out the word ‘GAME-TAINMENT’ like it’s an actual thing.

Hold me.

NONE OF THIS IS METAVERSE. NONE OF IT. AND STOP TRYING TO MAKE GAME-TAINMENT A THING. IT IS NOT A THING.

😭 😭 😭 😭 😭

You could say: as the gaming industry continues to heat up, market consolidation is continuing as the race to be the number one game-as-a-service provider becomes the next big thing. Sony doesn’t have a Fortnite of its own (that’s arguably why it bought bungie – plus, y’know, microtransactions), and buying Bungie is a clear strategic step in that direction.

You could say Microsoft buying Activision is yet another move in Microsoft’s ever-growing ambition to be the number one house of studios to help bring its ‘play anywhere’ ambition to life for everyone.

You could say: the Dreams platform being used to make a movie IS an amazing technological feat. It speaks volumes to the powerful tools that live within that game that this is even possible. And everyone should go play it!

You could say: Netflix getting into gaming is a smart way to activate its large userbase and get them interested in something other than streaming movies, a space that is increasingly becoming more and more competitive and where content is the number one ruler of wallet share.

You could say all that stuff.

But then that wouldn’t drive METAVERSE clicks, would it?

And as for TikTok being used to market Spider-Man No Way Home? CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? A MOVIE. BEING ADVERTISED ON A SOCIAL PLATFORM. Shocked.

Deep sigh (and this is only the first thing on the metaverse list this week).

Sorry. It annoys me. People read this stuff. Naive/ignorant people – whose job it is to NOT be across this, whose job it is to be across the important things – rely on experts to tell them where the world is going so they can plan and place bets accordingly.

This ‘intelligence’ is bad. It’s worse than bad. It’s useless.

Look, I’m not a big fan of going all in on something like this. It’s not fair. But I’ve had enough now. Can everyone just stop? Please? Thanks.

To soothe the soul, the remainder of this Thing will be bulletised thus:

*do NOT hold me to this.

5. BEAUTIFUL THINGS

Street Vendor on a Bike in Hanoi in Front of a Colorful Wall

The National winners of the Sony World Photography awards are utterly beautiful and well worth soaking your eyes on.

Go see.

BONUS SECTION

SING! THE BONUS SECTION IS HERE, THE BONUS SECTION IS HERE! HERE IT IS, YES IT IS, OH THE BONUS SECTION IS HEEEEERE!

ENJOY.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. IT’S OVER NOW.

If you only do one thing to help Ukraine this week, please share this incredible nine minute film from Arnold Schwarzenegger everywhere you can.

After that, there’s literally nothing more I can tell you.

Until next time,

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #325

Things of note for the week ending Sunday March 13th, 2022

INTRO

Hey friends. I very nearly didn’t write this week’s edition. It’s been quite the week in the new job (WEEK TWO, WHAT) and the last meeting of said week ended with:

‘It sounds like we’re going to GDC?’

‘Yes, it does rather doesn’t it?’

🤯

– it’s about 89% confirmed (which will nudge well into the 90s I think as early as tomorrow when we do a final call on it) BUT if you are heading out/over to SF for the Game Developers Conference week after next, do hit reply and let me know – would love to say hi!

…

What else can I tell you?

…

I saw a thing on LinkedIn week that said ‘Here’s how brands can help Ukraine with zero cost!’, it linked to this website and I don’t think I’ve ever reached for a sick bowl fast enough.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say: maybe the people of Ukraine need things like medical supplies, blankets, maybe even their homes back? Not their flag appearing on… ads? I mean, you all remember when everyone changed their Instagram profile to a black square and racism just disappeared overnight right?

Incredible. If it’s ZERO COST then HOW ARE YOU HELPING? UGH.

Lost. For. Words.

deep sigh

Charity should be private but if I’m going to criticise another’s attempt to ‘help’ then I should be open about how I have contributed. This household has donated to The Red Cross and to Rob’s thing, and we’ve sent care a package via one of the donation centres nearby.

The important thing here is you can still help.

And here’s an updated list of the many ways you can do just that.

…//

OK. Deep breaths. Calm.

Now then.

Let’s get to the things shall we?

LET’S.

1. INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S YAY

As a reasonably good segue from that intro piece into the first Thing of the week, the best thing to come out of the annual platitude fest that is brands-on-international-womens-day was this phenomenal Twitter Bot.

The premise is simple: if you’re a brand on Twitter casually ticking the IWD2022 box in your annual content calendar and tweeting about hOw MuCh yOu SuPpOrT wOmEn then the Gender Pay Gap Bot will look up your gender pay gap on the government website and quote retweet you WITH THE FACTS.

If you were anywhere near Twitter last week it’s highly doubtful that you missed this so instead of showing you the best bits, I am going to suggest you go read this really nice interview with the creators, Francesca Lawson and Ali Fensome, over on VICE.

It, like them, is great.

Bonus: this whole IWD related thread is A⭐️.

2. BUY MY FRIEND’S MUGS

Speaking of great people.

Sara Barqawi, whose previous (and brilliant) writing has been linked to from this newsletter before, is a thrower of pots. And mugs too as it happens.

Handthrown Mug Medium in Buttercream. Proceeds to Carers UK. image 1

In her spare time, Sara has made a bunch of these mugs and is selling them to raise money for Carers UK.

In Sara’s words:

“This is a ‘Butter’ Hand thrown Stoneware Mug. Bigger than a flat white cup, smaller than a sports direct mug. All proceeds (except the bloody etsy fee) goes to Carers UK, a charity that helps Carers have a break. Also: no two items are the same, as they’re handcrafted. You may get a mug a tiny bit different to the photo.”

PS. SB is also about to go freelance. Need a brand planner? Go get.

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

Image

I did the thing that I said I wasn’t going to do and went and got a copy of ELDEN RING (there’s a whole other story involved in this that explains how it was bought for me as a making-up-for-falling-asleep-in-a-toilet present but that’s not for this newsletter – ahem), and it is as great and painful as everyone said it would be.

The main thing I wanted to tell you though is that, similarly to RETURNAL before it, ELDEN RING has made me dust off my old Twitch channel and stream all my efforts whenever possible.

I’ve got all of about 50 followers but if you go sign up and switch on notifications or something similar, you’ll get an alert every time I go live (it’s every other night at the moment but I’m sure that’ll eventually die off).

If you DO follow me on Twitch, you’ll get to watch this kind of VERY SWEARY action happen LIVE!

See you there?

4. FASCINATED BY THE METAVERSE (AND OTHER THINGS)

If you’re new here, Thing 4 has slowly become THE METAVERSE section. Mainly because it’s all a bunch of guff and it needs calling out.

I’ve written a lot about it (and Thing 4 in FTOF #321 is probably where that starts) and while I appreciate some technologists and strategists are all very excited about the future (as am I, believe it or not) there is an awful amount of snake oil being peddled out there. And we should a) not be encouraging it and b) be advising brands and businesses to tread carefully or else we’ll be right back where we were when Facebook told everyone to PIVOT TO VIDEO.

Ya dig?

OK, let’s go.

Only a few things to discuss on this topic this week.

The metaverse: What is it? | TechRepublic

Purely from a metaversal perspective, it’s interesting to me that the closer you get to this thing the closer it is just ‘mass adoption and integration of the hundreds of gaming worlds people have occupied for decades’.

As such, when you hear from veterans in the gaming industry talking about anything “metaverse” they’re nearly always the best people to learn from because they’re actually there making this stuff, day in day out.

They’re not, and let’s be clear on this, they are not agencies, consultants, or platforms getting all fizzy in the knickers because there’s a new way to ask ‘But what does it mean for brands?’.

I linked you to Tencent’s take on it a week or so ago. This week I’ve got two more Metaverse opinions from the gaming industry for you.

First, Gabe Newell, co-founder, Valve, being interviewed for PC Gamer.

“Most of the people who are talking about metaverse have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. And they’ve apparently never played an MMO. They’re like, ‘Oh, you’ll have this customizable avatar.’ And it’s like, well… go into La Noscea in Final Fantasy 14 and tell me that this isn’t a solved problem from a decade ago, not some fabulous thing that you’re, you know, inventing.”

I mean, that’s pretty clear cut to me.

Second, fresh of the press this weekend, former Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aimé with this absolute belter for Bloomberg @ SXSW:

Reggie Fils-Aime

“Facebook itself is not an innovative company,” Fils-Aime told Emily Chang at the South by Southwest event in Austin, Texas, on Saturday. “They have either acquired interesting things like Oculus and Instagram, or they’ve been a fast follower of people’s ideas. I don’t think their current definition will be successful.” 

The word ‘definition’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Additionally, in both instances, do click through and read the whole thing. Having this kind of perspective when it comes to talking about “the metaverse” will only help you when discussing the concept (and it is only a concept at this stage) with clients.

Remember: there’s no such thing as the metaverse.

Metaversal activities? Yes, they absolutely exist. Defining what they are and how we should talk about them? That’s a piece for another day… (noodling).

On a tangential NFT note:

5. WHEN MOLLIE MET JODIE

Mollie Goodfellow is great. Jodie Comer is great. The two of them met so the former could interview the latter and the end result is just… great.

Go read!

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO LINKS. SORRY.

ENJOY.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

Friends. It’s Sunday. I’m yet to start the potatoes. So I’ll keep this brief.

Thanks for reading, thanks for subscribing, and – for those that do – thanks for replying too. Your indulgement of my geekery really is lovely.

I appreciate this space in your inbox, much.

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #324

Things of note for the week ending Friday March 4th, 2022

INTRO

“There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

Hello friends.

It is hard to write anything without first acknowledging the absolute state of the situation in Ukraine.

You can help in a number of ways.

If the cost of living is such that you’re unable to donate then consider reaching out to colleagues or checking in with your European friends. You may be surprised at how many Ukrainians (and Russians) you know…

It’s OK to feel helpless.

It’s OK to be afraid.

And as it’s all too easy to lose yourself in the doomscroll. It’s OK to put the phone down and not think about it if it means it’s better for your mental health; you still need to function.

Take a breath.

If you’ve done all you can.

Take. A. Breath.

🇺🇦

….


As for Five things on Friday, well, a lot of it is pre-written over the days leading up to publication. And as I’m sure you get enough of honestly just too much of everything every single day on the news, in your feeds, and in your chatgroups, let’s try and show you some other stuff to think about. OK? OK.

This week’s things are close, they’re super nerdy and… we shall put them off no longer.

Shall we crack on?

Let’s.

TO THE THINGS.

PS. Fair warning: Substack told me this email was too long to send. So we’re clear: Substack is not the boss of me. Sorry not sorry.

1. BEING THE NEW BOY

I started a new job this week.

After three years of being an integrated brand strat/unicorn @ Digitas UK, and ten (10) years of doing the big network agency thing, Tuesday, March 1st was my first day at independent full-service specialist games agency, Diva.

The job: Chief Strategy Officer.

The job: build the strategy offering to help clients present, (PlayStation, Netflix, Bandai Namco) and future (insert your brand here), build better campaigns, title launches, player engagement, and brand partnerships in the worlds and communities that live in gaming and beyond.

Diva has been doing advertising and marketing for games developers and publishers for over 15 years and has done some incredible work.

This is unsurprising really, given Diva describes itself as ‘gaming native’. I’ve been working from the Bristol HQ all week this week and have seen up close the credibility, the industry know-how, and frankly the sheer quality of creative product – it’s been fantastic.

And I guess that’s what it comes down to really: credibility and creativity.

At this point in the lifetime of all things GAMES, it’s a proper exciting moment for two reasons.

First, with technology, popularity and let’s be honest, the social acceptance of being “a gamer” (there’s no such thing as gamers), now is the time for games to push out even further into popular culture.

Second, as more and more brands wake up to the fact that all those metaverse presentations and decks are mostly about gaming, they’ll want to push in and start playing around with these huge online communities.

And to do that meaningfully, in a way that matters, in a way that works – they’re going to do need the right skills, the right strategy, and the right creative partner.

Hi, I work for Diva. We should chat.

…

That’s the job.

And I’m excited AF.

For what it’s worth, I will miss my gorgeous lot at Digitas. We’ve parted on the best of terms – and they’ve all been genuinely lovely. The work is was always as wide as it is varied and I can honestly say there’s no way I would be ready for this kind of role without them.

I do a bit of mentoring from time to time and one piece of advice I often fall back on is ‘Move towards things, not away from things’ – and this move for me was 100% a step towards an opportunity, and Digitas gave me its full blessing as I left to follow my dream.

Not many people can say that about any employer, let alone a big London network agency. That. Speaks. Volumes.

Thank you – especially to Dani, Matt, Rafe, Charlene, Marius, Laz, Lou, Ian and so many others… for the time together. I would not be here without you xx

If you’ve been around this newsletter for long enough, you’ll know that gaming is where my heart is.

And sometimes when your heart calls, you just have to follow.

Apparently, this gaming thing is quite popular.

Who knew?

Go follow Diva on Twitter and I’ll see you there.

2. THE BATMAN

No spoilers here.

On February 23rd, and as an entirely on-brand leaving present from my (now ex-)clients at Mondelez, I was invited to attend the world premiere of THE BATMAN.

And I am here to tell you (now that the embargo has well and truly lifted) that THE BATMAN is a bloody fantastic addition to the best icons of Bat-film history.

First thing to know is that THE BATMAN is brutal. I mean, surprise surprise it’s a 21st century Batman film so of course, it’s going to be dark (as a side note: I’m kinda bored with people saying ‘Oh, why does it have to be so dark? Can’t we have a lighter Batman for once?’ NO DEBBIE, WE CAN’T. WHEN THAT HAPPENS, WE GET BATMAN FOREVER/AND ROBIN. HAVE YOU EVER READ ANY OF THE BOOKS? NO? RIGHT THEN. HIS NAME IS LITERALLY ‘THE DARK KNIGHT’. GET IN THE BIN) but this time it’s actually properly D A R K.

For a start, the BBFC has rated it a 15. We’ve not had a 15-rated Batman movie in the UK since Batman Returns (and to be fair, Penguin chews a woman’s nose off in that film so y’know, IT’S DARK).

Our young Bats is barely two years into being Batman. The bat-signal is a thing that exists, as does his relationship with a certain James Gordon. So the establishing job is skipped over. There’s no origin story here and the film is better for it; you arrive in an established moment in time and you’re away with the characters – quickly.

And what a brilliant cast of characters they are.

Robert Pattinson is a great Wayne/Batman (called it). Brooding. Angry. Laser-focused. Not perfect – by any stretch. But committed to the cause. We actually see ‘the world’s greatest detective’ start to earn his stripes. And about time too.

Paul Dano SHINES as a superb and utterly deranged Riddler. Your skin will crawl every minute he’s on the screen and yet when his scene is over, you’ll wish he was back again. That’s a skill.

Zoe Kravitz as the cat-burglar Catwoman is the most realistic take we’ve seen of Selina Kyle and the energy between the Bat and the Cat leaps off the screen the moment they first lay eyes on each other.

The supporting cast: Jeffrey Wright (world-weary Jim Gordon), Colin Farrell (unrecognisable scene-chewing Penguin), Andy Serkis (an Alfred that leans in), John Turturro (a slithering Carmine Falcone) – all of them (and more) just STEP THE HELL UP. THE BATMAN really is an ensemble piece – I haven’t seen a cast this well put together since KNIVES OUT.

What else can I tell you?

Gotham is fully realised, and the links back to the multiple books that the story touches on (to name them would be spoilery, I think) are as long and deep as they are well-chosen and remixed.

Truly, this is not a Batman we’ve seen on screen before. And while it is not without its faults (it’s arguably about 20mins too long and there’s probably one scene I’d remove completely) it belongs up there with the greats.

Timeless yet of its time, I genuinely can’t wait to watch it again.

There’s more I could say but I don’t want to give anything about the story away.

Two other things of note:

  1. The cinematography is outstanding. The premiere was at the BFI IMAX and my seat was CLOSE to that massive screen. There were more than a few occasions where my jaw was wide open just amazed by what I was looking at.

  2. The director, Matt Reeves, was interviewed on the red carpet and let slip that HBO has commissioned a series for Farrell’s Penguin. I am going to watch the hello out of that. He’s great.

So yeah. the tl;dr is: see THE BATMAN.

You won’t regret it.

Yours, a fan.

3. THIS WEEK IN… GAMING

Back once again by popular* demand, we have a lot to cover.

That said, gaming overload is a thing (this is from man who has barely touched his PlayStation in a good fornight and my goodness me I’m missing out on some games right now) so I’ll keep it brief.

*by popular I meant ‘zero people demanded it to return but no one said they loved the gardening bit two weeks ago either so I’m bringing it back because I like it’ – clear? Clear. The suggestion box is officially open for next week’s ‘This week in…’ – hit that reply button and tell me what you want to see here (if I have time and if nothing else better arrives, it could happen).

4. THIS BE THE (META)VERSE

Repeat after me: the metaverse doesn’t exist. And anybody who tells you otherwise either has no idea what they’re talking about or they’re trying to sell you something – or both.

When I was a kid, you’d go down to the beach with a pound in your pocket, turn it all into coppers (1ps and 2ps) and play on the slider machines until you’d doubled your money or lost it all. Walking around all day in a pair of jeans under the Canvey Island sunshine, you’d keep that pocket of smash gripped tightly in your palms. The sweat, combined with the copper, left a distinct whiff that would take a good day or so to disappear. Ask anyone that grew up near the arcades, they’ll know what I mean.

Anyway, just like that weird fishy/metallic stench that wedged under your finger nails in years gone by, this weekly Metaverse section just won’t budge.

What’s happened since we last spoke?

Tell you what, let’s kick off with a doozy.

Arjun Capital has filed a shareholder proposal for the SEC asking FB/Meta to commission a third-party evaluation of the potential psychological, civil and human rights harms of “the metaverse”.

The FB/Meta investors said they wanted to know if any harms could be mitigated or avoided or whether they are simply inherent to the technology.

You will be UTTERLY FLABBERGASTED to learn that FB/Meta doesn’t want the proposal to go to vote.

HAHAHAHA. I’m sorry, you trust these people? Lol, what?

Next!

I’m thinking about scrapping this section next week as well.

IT JUST MAKES ME CROSS!

5. “I SAW EVERYTHING AS A FIGHT”

I found the below in an old FTOF draft that I’d started but never got around to finishing. It’s from October 2020 and, re-reading the notes last night, it felt more relevant to share this now even more than it did then. I hope you find it helpful.

In the article linked, ‘I saw everything as a fight’, James opens up to Alex Moshakis about why his attitude to arguments has changed, what brought him to that change, and how that change will impact his way of life forever.

It is a profound read.

I’ve talked about my own mental health a fair bit in the pages of this newsletter and I must confess, there’s a section in O’Brien’s interview that punched me hard and when I got there; the tears came flooding back.

It was this:

“During one of his sessions, the therapist asked: “Why don’t you pretend that cushion over there is you, aged 10, having just come out of that study, having been brutalised by that man… Why don’t you tell 10-year-old you how you feel?” “And I did,” O’Brien recalls, “like it was the most natural thing in the world.” He looks half-sceptical even now. “There I was telling a cushion that everything was going to be all right, that you don’t have to pretend any more, that it shouldn’t have happened.” He realised that as a boy he had created a kind of armour, and that the armour had manifested as a tendency to argue, of letting nobody get the better of him, of always being alert to attack. “And look what it’s done to you,” he says. He is talking to himself again, weary now. “You can’t provide help and support to the people you love, to people who deserve it.”

I ask if he is capable of providing love now.

“Yes,” he says.”

When I was at my lowest, my therapist used this technique on me. ‘Remember that boy, that you were – remember how afraid he was – what would you say to him?’

It wrecks me now. Just had a little tear.

I wasn’t 10. I was a bit younger. But the armour that I built around me, to deal with my trauma, took me years to understand. To dismantle. And not only am I so much better off for it – but my friends, family, and loved ones are too.

It’s a short interview with James O’Brien but it is worth your time.

Give it a read.

As a post-script, it’s worth mentioning I replied to my namesake. Unexpectedly, he replied and, in doing so, underlined again why it’s so important we talk – why we all talk – about this stuff. Thanks James ❤️

BONUS SECTION

THIS IS THE BONUS SECTION. BONUS LINKS THAT BUMP US OVER FIVE THINGS BUT DUE TO TIMING AND SELF-IMPOSED WRITING RESTRICTIONS ARE LIMITED TO PITHY COMMENTARY ONLY. ENJOY.

YOU ARE REACHING THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER. MIND THE GAP.

This week’s edition has been particularly nerdy. The edges are harder to spot between the sections. Normal service will resume next edition.

As ever, thank you for subscribing. Thank you for sharing.

Until next time,

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #323

Things of note for the week ending Friday 18th February, 2022

INTRO

Hello hello.

Welcome to Five things on Friday.

First up, a spot of admin: There will be no Five things on Friday next week.

Week after, definitely. Next week, none. Taking some time off to play video games. February is insane. We covered this last week.

So after today, I’ll see you in March.

What else I can tell you?

It’s been a good week to check yo-self before you wreck yo-self. As the great philosopher, Ted Lasso, says: be curious, not judgemental.

Cool? Cool.

LET’S GET TO THE THINGS!

1. STARTING OFF WITH THE IMPORTANT STUFF* FROM THE SUPER BOWL

*Trailers! Not ads. Nothing has beaten It’s a Tide ad – and probably never will.

I think BOBA FETT finished (stand by what I said a few weeks ago: just watch episodes five and six; you don’t need anything else).

Then the trailer for NEW DOCTOR STRANGE dropped.

Featuring: Professor X! Zombies! New Iron Man! Illuminati! The British Museum!

And we got a teaser for OBI-WAN KENOBI (should’ve just called it KENOBI) in the shape of a poster.

Look, I know they completely fumbled BOBA FETT but THE MANDALORIAN is pretty great in places and I’m just hoping that seeing Ewan McGregor don the dressing gown once more will be… just amazing on its own? Maybe?

We can hope?

Also…

Moon Knight!

But the clear highlight for me was: NOPE. ‘What’s a bad miracle?’

Which reminds me of An Audience with Adele. Daniel Kaluuya was behind Bryan Cranston, his utterly gorgeous dark skin kept him hidden in the shadow and as he slowly lent forward to listen more intently, there was this incredible two-shot and I just wanted to see that film.

2. MUSIC IN ADVERTISING

This is a great little post from an old colleague of mine, Ed Hayne.

Ed’s a strategy director at Grey and put this one together to look at how music is, isn’t, should, and should not be used in advertising.

It has it all. Insight, mistakes, hippos*, niche data points, and above all else, respect for the craft.

Worth a read.

*Hippos. Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. You should look out for them. They can be dangerous.

3. THIS WEEK IN… THE KITCHEN

No gaming section this week. What? I’ve got to mix it up from time to time.

At the time of writing this section*, it is hammering it down with rain outside. Storm Eunice (and Storm Dudley) have played havoc with the trains and I’m certain I’ll navigating my around fallen trees on my way to work tomorrow.

HOWEVER. In spite of the godawful weather outside, there are (believe it or not) small signs that Spring is on its way. There are daffs in the garden, gently pushing their first ankles of green above the soil, peeping up like organic telescopes, checking to see if there’s enough sunshine to start sending back down to the bulbs…

If you have the space (hell, even if it’s just a window box) soon it’ll be time to start planning what you want to grow this summer. Radishes and courgettes are permanent residents here, along with wild rocket, chili peppers, and possibly even some potatoes.

POINT IS. Whatever you’re growing out there (or even if you’re not) my favourite part of this time of year is that I dig out my vegetarian single tray bake recipe book and start flicking through some old faves to cook up something decent for the fam.

So this is a roundabout way to tell you that I’m excited about getting in the garden again at some point soon (and planning future food).

You should too.

Oh, and definitely get one of those single tray roasting tin books.

THEY’RE AMAZING.

That is all.

*Wednesday, 22:44.

4. THE SECTION THAT THIS WEEK WAS JUST GOING TO BE A SELECTION OF MY FAVOURITE METAMATES MEMES

Still might tbh.

OH. MY. GOD.

If word has failed to reach your ears that the company formerly known as Facebook, Meta, has recently and with the soulless eyes of a barely made flesh cyborg asked its 48,000 employees to start calling each other ‘Metamates’ then I am sorry to the one to break it to you: yes, it’s true.

And we’re not even at this week’s metaverse rage news yet.

Zucks argument is two fold. 1. It’s similar to the Instagram one (flawed because that’s already clumsy af). 2. They asked a clever dude (who later said that wasn’t his first idea and he hates Facebook anyway).

Incred.

It’s honestly the first time in a long time that I’ve almost felt sorry for my friends at Facebook. Almost.

Hilarious/hideous zuck stuff aside… WHAT NEWS THIS WEEK?

Here’s the news:

In the same week that somebody tried to tell me that SELENA GOMEZ BEING INTERVIEWED IN ANIMAL CROSSING WAS A GREAT EXAMPLE OF BRANDS STEPPING INTO THE METAVERSE (😭😭😭), I also sat through a(nother) presentation ‘introducing’ the metaverse. This one went like this:

Slide 1: “The metaverse is 5-10yrs away”.
45 slides later: “Actually, Metaverse is this Volvo Facebook ad”

(These are both real things that happened. In the real world)

I’m sorry what?

And then to my surprise (and by surprise, I mean bafflement) when reading Business Insider today, I spy this PHENOMENAL sentence:

“They [Meta] described AR, VR, and mixed reality as three distinct types of metaverses with, INSTAGRAM STORIES being the first example of the latter”

Ahhhh-hahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahah

‘Right lads metamates, we’ve changed the company name and we’ve bet the farm on this metaverse thing and no one’s buying it. So from now on, literally anything we do will be metaverse, right? That photo of your gran on Instagram? Metaverse. The last message you sent on WhatsApp? Metaverse. You even so much as wish your ex high school girlfriend a happy birthday on her Facebook page? Metaverse’

Can you imagine having to go into a meeting with people (the same people who you told not so long ago to PIVOT TO VIDEO) and look them dead-eyed in the face to say ‘Instagram stories are metaverse’?

ELL to the OH to the ELL.

It’s nuts. And if you stand for it, you’re part of the problem. I’m serious. If you’re not calling this out – and calling it out LOUD – when you you see it, you’re going to go down with the eventual crash that will follow.

Look, if you’re new here, you should know that I am very excited about the future potential of interactive online worlds. I have online lives that already exist in these spaces – across platforms and games – already. I am a VR fan!

But this metaverse stuff? Right now at least? It’s snake oil. And as someone who works in an agency I have a strategic, creative, and fiscal responsibility to equip my clients with the information they need to ask better questions and make better choices to drive better results. And I am here to tell you, metaverse ain’t it.

Deep sigh.

This week’s additional Web 3 reading:

Maybe I’ll stop writing about this at some point. I probably won’t.

Might do a brain-dump-as-presentation thing. Would that be useful? Let me know.

5. THE DISAPPROVAL MATRIX

This, from Ann Friedman, is great.

More.

BONUSES

Here to overload your tabs.

THE END

A small wrap up this week because Horizon Forbidden West has arrived and frankly I just want to play it all weekend.

LOOK HOW GOOD IT LOOKS!

Image

I’ll be back in two weeks.

See you soon, ok?

And remember: there’s no such thing as the metaverse.

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #322

Things of note for the week ending Friday 11th February, 2022

INTRO

Hello friend.

How’s your week been?

I have two things to tell you.

For my friends in the US, it’s Black History Month. In the UK, this falls in October. Irrespective of geographical differences, this stuff bubbles up in my feeds.

So here’s a thing: if you work in advertising or communications I can almost guarantee you that your presentations include too many white people. Your presentations almost certainly do not represent the people you hope to be selling to.

Next time you’re searching google for the right image to go with your consumer insight or brand statement or human truth or whatever – do yourself a favour and put the word ‘black’ in front of your search term. For Black History Month, every person in my presentations to clients has been (and will be) a person of colour.

(this is not to take away the huge amount of work going on behind the scenes at multiple agencies and brands about their respective DE&I agendas – this is just one small thing that you can change right now)

This is also a good source for diverse stock photography (save to your bookmarks).

Fun fact: emoji are inherently racist. The default is yellow (in The Simpsons the default is yellow – yellow = white, but people of colour are black or brown). If you regularly use an emoji that has the option to change the skin tone, then do that – I guarantee your black friends already do.

On a tangential note: this, ‘Hidden Black Stories’ from Snap, is also very good.

Last intro thing before we get started, I believe I have a couple of you left to reply to and I’ll get that sorted today (sorry – been busy/drinking/busy drinking, blame Amy).

ONWARDS.

TO THE THINGS!

1. EMMA THOMPSON BEING BEAUTIFUL

Illustration of three generations of women in Emma Thompson's family.

“My daughter thrums with life, my mother is frail – and I’m balanced between”

Not much else to add but to say please go read this; it’s a gorgeous snapshot in time.

I am in the position where my mother (and mother-in-law for that matter) and my daughter are often in the same house. There’s still some time yet before they can converse or silently nod at each other as Thompson implies but – it’s still there.

Being.

In the middle.

And it’s some bloody fantastic writing.

2. AN EXTREMELY RARE FIVE THINGS ON FRIDAY CORRECTION

In this spot last week, I shared with you this story about how the movie SIDEWAYS had broken the Californian wine industry.

Well, as further proof that this newsletter is only read by smart people, long time friend and pal (and v smart person) who also happens to be a bit of a wine expert, Marshall Manson, wrote back to put me straight.

Reader: I am a deep fan of this level of nerdery.

I asked him if I could reproduce his argument for the newsletter and he said yes.

Marshall, over to you:

“Love the piece on Giamatti and the U.S. industry, and definitely looking forward to more wine coverage in FTOF.

However, IM(very)HO, this is an instance of correlation without causation. (Though I appreciate the effort to dig up the data.)

The move towards Pinot Noir and Cabernet was driven, I think, more by the choices of winemakers who were planting a lot more Pinot in places where wine grapes weren’t as much grown before — Sonoma Coast, Santa Rita Hills, etc. — and these plantings were starting long before Sideways came out. Part of the success of CA Pinot is down to the emergence of better Pinot Noir grape clones that are better suited to the local conditions. The work on these clones also started at UC Davis long before Sideways. And a big part is due to guys like Jim Clendenen at Au Bon Climat and Jason Tyler at Tyler wines who demonstrated that you could grow high quality Pinot Noir on a standard to equal the best Burgundies in CA growing conditions.

The one concession I will make to this argument relates to location. SIDEWAYS WAS NOT SHOT NOR SET IN NAPA OR SONOMA. It was shot in Santa Barbara, far down the coast, nearer to LA than SF. So it may have put a spotlight on some of the great CA Pinot Noir being produced in the region (this area includes Santa Rita Hills, BTW) and therefore the idea that there is some great wine from CA beyond Napa and Sonoma. But given that literally everyone I talk to thinks Sideways was set in Napa, I’m not sure this actually had any impact.

My view, although I am obviously not a winemaker, is that Merlot just isn’t a very good stand-alone grape. You’ll only find single varietal Merlot from places like Chile and one or two other places, including some awful mass-produced stuff. Merlot is much better as a blending wine. It’s used to make some of the best wines in the world in Bordeaux, but ALWAYS in a blend with Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Franc. The problem is that Merlot is really unusual. Most ‘black’ grapes have defined flavour characteristics that vary a little, like most wines, by local climate, terroir, and weather during the growing season. So a Cabernet Sauvignon’s first nose / flavour will nearly always be a black fruit like black currant or blackberry with variations depending on grape ripeness (driven by warmth and sunshine during the season), winemaking methods like how time they spend in oak, and age.

But, for me, Merlot is a mess. Depending on the conditions, terroir, and climate, it can lead with black fruit (when a little less ripe) or red fruit (when a little more ripe). So it can have flavours that compliment a Cab Sauv or a Cab Franc or a Barbera or a Sangiovese. (Merlot is sometimes blended with Sangiovese and other varietals in the so-called Super Tuscan wines). IOW, Merlot is F**KING FRANKENSTEIN. As a result, I think it’s also a nightmare to match with food. Imagine getting a Merlot thinking it’s going to have one sort of profile and discovering it’s actually something totally different. All of this is one of the reasons that it takes such awe-inspiring skill to make great wine in Bordeaux, especially on the Right Bank where Merlot almost always leads the blend.

Ultimately, I think the force driving that chart is mostly economic. A great bottle of CA Cab Sauv can sell for £100-£200. A great bottle of CA Pinot Noir can sell for £80-150. A *great* bottle of CA Merlot (if you can ever find one) will sell for at best £30-40. So it’s no wonder that CA growers are plowing under their Merlot and replacing with Cab Sauv or Pinot or even Chardonnay or Zinfandel.

Needless to say, all of this is just my opinion, and I imagine you’ve got some real wine experts in your subscriber list who might like to tear my argument to shreds. But that’s the best thing about wine — we’ll keep arguing, we’ll all be right, and we’ll all enjoy the wine along the way.

Finally, if you’ll allow me, part of the reason I shared this missive is that I was thrilled to see a friend in the UK writing about American wine. Wines from the U.S. are massively underrated over here because they can be hard to find and sometimes seem expensive. But I am happy to stack up American wines against any other wine in the world at any price point from £10 per bottle and up.

If anyone would like to explore U.S. wine more, please do get in touch. Easiest way is via twitter where I’m @marshallmanson. Happy drinking!”

3. THIS WEEK IN… GAMING

I’ll try to keep this short, the next section is LONG.

With Elden Ring delayed to February 2022, the month seems to be gamers' paradise

WE ARE IN THE GAME RELEASE MADNESS OF FEBRUARY.

Me: with Guardians of the Galaxy still to finish still went ahead and [drunk] bought the excellent SIFU. It’s a great little fighter of game with a unique death mechanic that’s really fun (really). Worth a go – and not stupid expensive either.

Next week Horizon Forbidden West comes out (cheapest I’ve seen it is £52 disc on Amazon; this is upgradeable and tradeable (vs the PS5 digital edition which is £70)).

The week after that we’ve Destiny 2: The Witch Queen dropping (why yes, I do happen to have a couple of days booked off) and that’s quite exciting. Just… please. No more games now for a little while? I’m trying not to look at Elden Ring at the moment either… (new to Destiny? This is a good primer of where we’re at).

Of course, with all of this going on, I picked up, played and completed the delightful DONUT COUNTY (on Game Pass). Would wholly recommend giving that a spin; it’s charming, pretty small and well put together – you can finish it in an afternoon (we did).

What else can I tell you?

There was a pretty chunky Nintendo Direct this week. Here’s all the new major game announcements (48 ‘new’ tracks coming for Mario Kart is a biggie). Got a Nintendo Switch? Go check out the Nintendo Direct.

—

Next week I’ll try to change the ‘This week in…’ – maybe food? Cooking?

We shall see.

4. METAVERSE SCHMETAVERSE

Providing you with everything you need to help prevent clients burning money.

Look, I know it’s the 4TH WEEK RUNNING and I am not a fun of things sticking on this newsletter but this will just not budge.

Let’s get into it.

Marketing in the Metaverse cartoon | Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne

First! Opinions.

“Strong opinions, lightly held” – as Richard Huntingdon is oft heard saying around Chancery Lane.

Let’s get one thing ABSOLUTELY CLEAR:

  • ROBLOX is not The Metaverse.

  • ROBLOX is not Web 3.

  • There are no NFTs in ROBLOX.

But this did not stop [unnamed agency] putting forward the exact opposite of the above forward earlier this week. Heralded as ‘How brands are getting it RIGHT (?! – wtf? how is anything RIGHT in this sentence?) in The Metaverse’ – it was yet another round of ‘experts’ spewing unqualified BS about how the future is The Metaverse and how BRANDS NEED TO BE READY with next to no commercial or consumer understanding whatsoever. Insanity.

Look, let’s be clear: building a brand experience in ROBLOX could be categorised as a metaversal activity but even then you’re pushing it because THE METAVERSE hasn’t been defined and, to be perfectly honest, as we established last week, NOBODY KNOWS WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS YET.

If anyone shows you another ‘Brand did a thing in ROBLOX’ cAsE sTuDy then please refer to the above.

there is no such thing as the metaverse there is no such thing as the metaverse there is no such thing as the metaverse there is no such thing as the metaverse there is no such thing as the metaverse there is no such thing as the metaverse there is no such thing as the metaverse

In spite of myself, I am genuinely signing up to every brand-based web3/NFT/Metaverse talk I can get my hands on and so far I am yet to hear any sense on this. It’s all the same unsubstantiated guff. UGH. Oh, and please, if you’re doing the same, please keep asking the same questions about the environmental impact NFTs/Crypto. The hand waving and side-stepping is incredible. ‘Um… something… er… well, soon it’ll be proof of stake and not proof of work meaning… something… and maybe… we just plant more trees?’ – Yes. Let’s plant digital trees! – that’ll definitely help.

Sorry.

Here’s a quick guide to some brands doing what, where and what I think is actually going on:

  • Nike activating in ROBLOX is not the Metaverse (or anything to do with NFTs or Web3). What it IS is building a brand experience in an online gaming space (a centralised siloed one at that) that several million people have been able to attend. It’s telling that even Nike’s own update on this fails to mention the M word. I wonder why that is.

  • Samsung’s Decentraland work is Web3 purely based upon the platform it appears in. Decentraland IS also an online world so it could be described as metaversal. NFTs could be involved as well. This is how well that went.

Can we just start calling things what they are please?

Give me strength.

Tencent SVP, Steven Ma, recently said ‘The metaverse’s day will come, that day is not today‘ and I agree with him.

It’s also interesting to me that hearing from people who work in these spaces day in day out are relatively quick to dismiss the metaverse out of hand.

For example, here’s one of the best in the biz, Jason Schreier, with his POV:

“Imagine being able to live in a virtual world. You can go there any time, create a digital persona and hang out with your friends. You can collect gear and develop new skills. You can get married and battle powerful computer-controlled monsters. You can participate in a community and build relationships with people whose real first names you might never know. Best of all, there are no limitations — you can inhabit a land of fantasy, sci-fi or anything in between.

If I took that pitch to a few venture capital firms today and said it was a new blockchain metaverse I’d probably raise a hundred million dollars. I’d just have to avoid telling them that that virtual world is called a Multi-User Dungeon, or MUD, and it’s been around since 1978.”

The whole thing is worth a read.

…

What’s that? You want more? OK FINE.

Here’s some more GREAT stuff on all of this:

And.

We.

Are.

Done.

Let’s see if it calms down next week…

PS. Hello to everyone from VCCP who signed up this week x

5. UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR

I’m only sharing one photo from this amazing list.

Go see the rest for yourself.

They’re stunning.

BONUSES

Goodness me this week’s edition is a bumper one, right? I’ll try and keep this brief. Because if there’s one thing y’all don’t need right now is MOAR TABS amirite?

IT IS TIME TO SAY GOODBYE

Thank you, as ever for subscribing, reading, replying, sharing and just generally being lovely. I’ve had the good fortune of seeing some people in person this week and when people say ‘I’ve missed your writing!’ it’s really nice to hear (if hard to believe).

So – thanks.

It’s never taken for granted but it’s always taken to heart.

I hope you have a restful weekend.

Whatley out x

Five things on Friday #321

Things of note for the week ending Friday 4th February, 2022

INTRO

Hello hello. It has been a week.

When I told you about the OREO/BATMAN launch film a couple of weeks ago, I hinted there was something else to come and this (the above) is it:

a bloody massive Batarang pinning a giant 3D OREO to a 96-sheet out-of-home (OOH) billboard.

And I’m amazed it’s a real thing.

It’s worth calling out that the one line brief we gave to our creative teams was simple: be the idea that appears on page one of the internal global case study for The Batman partnership. That’s it. Yes there was the usual stuff around ‘elevate the partnership to deliver X and ensure we include Y’ but sometimes you just need something that sparks ambition.

That kind of encouragement helped the team think BIG. And here we are. Dead proud of them.

What else can I tell you?

Ah yes.

I know we’re not quite into THE THINGS yet but this thing risked being buried away in the bonus items and I think it’s better than that.

YouTube VR in Quest with passthrough enabled, gets you to these kinds of uses.

Genuinely fascinating.

Look at that, we’re not even started yet and you’ve had a bonus thing.

Shall we crack on with the rest?

LET’S!

1. WE’RE JUST STARTING WITH SOME POLAR BEARS

House of Bears

What’s beautiful about this is these polar bears were discovered living in an abandoned weather station in Kolyuchin, in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation.

Read more about these (and see more) polar bears in this photo essay delivered via The Guardian.

2. DID YOU KNOW…

…Paul Giamatti broke the California wine industry?

I can’t remember when I last saw SIDEWAYS (and if you haven’t you really should) but it is great. If you’re completely in the dark, SIDEWAYS is a rather wonderful little comedy about a neurotic novelist on a soul-searching trip through California’s wine country.

There’s a famous scene where Paul Giamatti’s character gets v sweary about Merlot (I love it).

Which resulted in this:

Outrageous. One rant = the death of CA Merlot (and the growth of Pinot – another SIDEWAYS push). Go and read the full article for the full background and the rest of the story.

The background is amazing.

3. THIS WEEK IN GAMING

For the newcomers, ‘THIS WEEK IN…’ used to change week in, week out. But these days it seems to be completely gaming-focused. And that’s OK. Because, well, there’s a lot going on right now. This week, it falls to me to fire you a series of bullet points with pithy commentary and expand upon the important stuff at a later date.

Because, as I said, there’s a lot going on. Let’s go.

This section was larger but I shifted all the M*t*v*r*e stuff into its own THING. And that THING is coming up right about… 👇🏻 now 👇🏻

4. FINE, WE’LL TALK ABOUT THE M WORD AGAIN

“I don’t even know what that means”
”No one knows what it means! But it’s provocative.”

This section (again, could be recurring) is a[nother] mixture of links and opinion.

The opinion first, mainly. Writing is thinking, right? And using this newsletter as a way to think out loud like this helps me challenge and crystallise theories as well as invite debate (via that reply button, please. Got a lightly held strong opinion? I want to hear it).

So yes. I’m noodling on this a fair bit. I’m doing a thing on it tomorrow and I’m deep in reading/working on the fundamentals.

The tl;dr of where I’m at currently is (and tell me if I’m wrong/you disagree):

  1. Web3 is the umbrella term for all foundational technology and systems that enable everything else that follows. So far so good.

  2. Dencentralisation is a technology (and really an ideology) that does exist but for something that is meant to be accessible and democratised, it… isn’t. The UX sucks. And the points of entry all currently feel pretty centralised to me.

  3. NFTs are an ecologically irresponsible scam.

  4. And the metaverse doesn’t exist.

“What do you mean the metaverse doesn’t exist?!”

Per the Chazz Michael Michaels quote above, nobody knows what it means.

If you google ‘Define the metaverse’, here’s what you get:

First answer (Oxford Definition):

“A virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.”

Next, Wikipedia:

“A metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection”

TIME Magazine:

“Whether in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) or simply on a screen, the promise of the metaverse is to allow a greater overlap of our digital and physical lives in wealth, socialization, productivity, shopping and entertainment. These two worlds are already interwoven, no headset required: Think about the Uber app telling you via location data how far away the car is. Think about how Netflix gauges what you’ve watched before to make suggestions. Think about how the LiDAR scanner on newer iPhones can take a 3D scan of your surroundings. At its core, the metaverse (also known to many as “web3”) is an evolution of our current Internet.”

(we’re getting closer)

WIRED.

“Broadly speaking, the technologies that make up the metaverse can include virtual reality—characterized by persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you’re not playing—as well as augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical worlds. However, it doesn’t require that those spaces be exclusively accessed via VR or AR. A virtual world, like aspects of Fortnite that can be accessed through PCs, game consoles, and even phones, could be metaversal.”

People are in relatively similar ballparks, yes, however because it’s all so vague and so nebulous… it’s aiming to capture almost the entirety of the internet’s future without defining anything about it. Like, why do we need it? Where will it live? Surely these are all walled gardens? Who gets access and how…? It’s all just a bit premature.

The broad point to take from all of this is:

THE METAVERSE DOESNT EXIST (YET).

^ Please shout this at people at meetings ^

Building and designing online experiences? That exists.

Video games? They definitely exist.

Metaversal activities? (Like, I don’t know, building a replica of your office in a singular siloed gaming platform to drive PR value in trade publications in the hope of securing future client dollars, sure that’s metaversal but it’s also just a fancier way of saying ‘look what we can do in gaming’ without your client visibly recoiling because you said the G word). They also exist.

Image

It’s like what Dan Ariely said about Big Data.

“Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.”

Swap Big Data out for The Metaverse and we’re in similar spots (my current fun games is simply this: if you can swap out ‘the metaverse’ for ‘online’ in any sentence, then you should probably just do that?)

Snark aside, what I am trying to get a hold on is: what are the underlying principles that define what is (and is not) a metaversal activity. Because right now, 99.9% of everything I read about ThE mEtAvErSe is so cack-handed and awful, I am amazed some of these people still have jobs.

I have been in meetings, real ones, where [unnamed experts] – not from my holding company, I hasten to add – have put forward ‘THE METAVERSE’ as a potential solution for actual – and by ‘actual’, I mean commercially-led, this-financial-effing-year – problems.

Honestly I despair.

People pay money for these opinions.

Building your office in Roblox is not the metaverse.
Microsoft buying Activision is not the metaverse.
Wistfully staring into the future and talking about how everyone is going to do things differently thanks to crypto is not the metaverse.

I get it. People want to explore. Great. Do that. But do it in the spirit of helping people. Not hyping up a non-existent technology in the hope of extracting money from the ignorant. You’re better than that.

Further reading:

Image

5. TUMBLR OH TUMBLR

This, on the nostalgia of all things Tumblr – and it’s continual impact on all internet culture as we know it – is a great slice of recent history.

It’s still there, of course it is, but it’s nothing like it used to be.

BONUSES

THE END OF THE NEWSLETTER IS UPON US. NOT THE CONCEPT GENERALLY, JUST THIS ONE. THIS EDITION. IT IS ENDING. NOW. WELL, IMMINENTLY.

Last week, Krissie and Luke went out on a Guardian date.

The Guyliner reviewed it and, from that review, I’m leaving you with this impeccable piece of life advice:

“Unless asked specifically for your opinion, don’t comment on anybody’s appearance in any way that isn’t hugely positive. It sounds like such an obvious thing to say, and I think I’ve even said it here before, but so many people blunder about the place causing untold destruction with throwaway comments that they forget instantly, but the recipient might think of for ever. It is a free country, and you are entitled to have any thoughts you desire. You can make these judgements about how someone looks if you like, but there is no need to vocalise them ever. Because, spoiler: most people are only too aware of what they look like, and have their own hangups or dislikes or just little… things they hope nobody will notice or say anything about. They know they are larger since the last time you saw them, or look a bit gaunt at the moment. They are aware that their hair is grey, or that they could do with buying a new jacket, or that they’re having a breakout, or that they have dark circles, or new wrinkles since you saw them. Mirrors are freely fucking available and believe me, they stare into them. It is very unlikely you can say something to someone that they haven’t already thought about themselves, but the real sting comes from someone confirming those thoughts, they make them real. Honestly, ‘you look great’ is the only thing you need to say unless you’re asked to give actual feedback.”

Be kind to people. Show up. Don’t be a dick. Pay compliments.

That’s all I got.

Until next time,

Whatley out, x