Hey all,

For anyone going to SXSW this year, Hugh and Anjali will be running a session on How to Develop a Content Format in 60 Minutes. They’re also hosting an in-person Proper Fancy. If you’d like to meet up, send a message!

Enjoy this week’s stories. Have a great weekend.

Chloe

The long shadow of 1948 (48-min read)

Protest: what is it good for? (19-min read)

The history of a secret queer language (7-min read)

Festival of Slaps (12-min watch) 

Is is possible to use the internet now in a sane way? (56-min listen)

The origins of the world’s most hated font, Comic Sans (5-min read)

McLuhan lecture on enshittification (45-min watch or 30-min read)

70 years of Nigeria’s visual culture via album covers (5-min read)

Around the World in Eighty Lies (10-min read)

Never forget that utterly ridiculous Pepsi logo design document (2-min read)

How we can help you

Storythings is the content marketing agency of choice for some of the world’s most forward-thinking B2B brands and organisations. If your content isn’t getting the results you need, let us help you understand why. Here are 3 reasons to get in touch. 

1. Audience Research – We help B2B brands understand modern attention patterns and how they can get more engagement with content.

2. Content Strategy – We use our bespoke process to develop unique content formats that hold audience attention, build community, and increase brand salience.

3. Content Production – We craft beautiful and diverse stories of impact that capture and hold attention using podcasts, videos, editorial, and newsletters. 

We do other things too. We're very friendly and always enjoy meeting people, so get in touch for a FREE 30 minute consultation. 

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The long shadow of 1948 (48-min read)
This mammoth piece from the NYT – framed as a conversation between expert panelists – examines how the decisions that led to the founding of Israel left the region in a state of eternal conflict. It’s timely and important reading: “Any real discussion of what is going on today has to start with a century ago.”

Protest: what is it good for? (19-min read)
This LRB piece examines the cycle of protest that started post-2008. What lessons can we learn from a decade of mass protest around the world? “Why, when so many of the protests of the 2010s appeared to succeed, is the position in their countries now the very opposite of what the protesters were demanding?”

The history of a secret queer language (7-min read)
As a blend of influences and cultures, Polari offered queer people protection and freedom to communicate in a time when being open was unthinkable and dangerous. Although there are few original speakers left, projects to commemorate Polari are an incredibly important part of gay social history.

Festival of Slaps (12-min watch) 
This brilliant short film by Abdou Cissé celebrates intergenerational dynamics by playing into audience prejudices and misconceptions of Black parenthood. The slaps at its centre become a great time-travelling device that produces a powerful emotive pay off. How did the film come about? “In all honesty, I just wanted to create a superhero film with my mum as the hero” (Cissé).

Is is possible to use the internet now in a sane way? (56-min listen)
This episode of Search Engine features a really great conversation between PJ Vogt and Ezra Klein on how they use the internet now. Two things stick out: 1. Ezra Klein has 3 million Twitter followers, but no longer uses Twitter. He set up a newsletter for 200 people and says that the quality of conversation from those 200 people is so much more interesting. 2. He makes the point that podcasts are still a little weird and interesting and good. He puts that down to how poor data around listening is.

The origins of the world’s most hated font, Comic Sans (5-min read)
Is it really that bad? That’s the question at the centre of Thomas Steeles’ new book, extracted from here. Although it only took 3 days to create, the font has suffered a lifetime of hate. For all its contentious infamy, its origin story and early uses make for a good read.

McLuhan lecture on enshittification (45-min watch or 30-min read)
Cory Doctorow’s talk on enshittification – the way that platforms decay – is a great watch. He talks about what he believes needs to be done to reverse the enshittification of the internet and stop it from creeping onto all our devices.

70 years of Nigeria’s visual culture via album covers (5-min read)
In order to preserve and platform Nigeria’s visual culture, maker collective wuruwuru have created a database of 5300 Nigerian album covers, from 1950 to present day. Album Cover Bank is a groundbreaking celebration of Nigeria’s graphic design history, and explores more than 70 years worth of Nigerian pop culture graphic trends.

Around the world in eighty lies (10-min read)
This piece explores how a travel writer fabricated a series of stories for Atlas Obscura, continuing a long tradition of journalistic fabrications that often involve the distortion of some exotic culture or environment. “Examples of misinformation spawn indiscriminately across platforms, because they share a fundamental structure: they are designed to incentivize engagement. It’s a technological expression of the fabricator’s logic – a hierarchy of attention over accuracy.”

Never forget that utterly ridiculous Pepsi logo design document (2-min read)
With the drop of the new Pepsi branding in 2023, this piece reflects on its predecessor, one of the most divisive designs of that 15-year era. A leaked PDF offers an utterly mind-boggling glimpse into Pepsi's million-dollar rebrand from 2008.

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Thanks for reading. We’ll see you all next week.

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the whole team at Storythings.