Why We Love Comfort Food and the Worst Tweet of the Election Season | Non-Obvious Insights #242

Dear Newsletterest,

It seems like weeks ago that Sean Connery died. That's how much history seems to be happening every minute this week. For my part, I've spent a decent amount of the last two days trying to avoid the endless colored map pointing and electoral math scenarios. Instead, I shared some of my favorite videos to offer a distraction from the #Election2020 results and also started watching The Queen's Gambit on Netflix. It's not a documentary about chess. And definitely not appropriate for your twelve year old (as I quickly discovered). But you're not reading this email for my tips on how to accidentally shock your kids. This is a newsletter about non-obvious ideas, and despite the ever-present vortex of election-related stories, I've got some great distractions to share today. So let's get started ...

The Historic Appeal of Comfort Food

History has shown us over and over again that when times get tough, people start eating. Perhaps you've engaged in a bit of binging yourself over the last few days. The good news is, there's some deep historical precedent for the very human practice of turning to comfort food to make ourselves feel better. From mixing ground meat with oats to pouring a can of tomato soup into your cake batter - comfort food has always come from a combination of necessity and creativity. And if you've made any "recipes" off of memes from TikTok recently, these days it seems like creativity is winning ... and it's not always good news (um, mustard apples and Flamin' Hot Cheetos Ice Cream).

Why Printers Still Suck In 2020

We have four printers in our house. Two of them are used for their intended purpose. The other two are perfectly sized footrests used under two desks. Honestly, it's a toss up which ones are most useful. As someone who has worked from home for the past five years, and run a publishing company for most of that time, I have a love hate relationship with my printers. I use them a lot and suffer when they run out of toner or contract some disastrous error that keeps them from printing a document until they feel like it. As this WIRED article points out, there doesn't seem to be a good reason why printers haven't really gotten much better. It just seems like no one really tried.

How the Pandemic Made Virtual Influencers Even More Popular

“Because they live both in the physical world and a digital one, there really isn’t a limit to their universe. All our characters wear real clothing labels, eat real food and drive real cars. So it’s a mix between reality and hyper-reality.”

For years now, influencer marketing with avatars and invented personalities has been growing. During a pandemic when real life influencers are finding it hard to create and post the same types of content they could before, it seems like their virtual counterparts are filling the gap and brands are responding. It's too early to really call this a trend or signal for the future, but what's most interesting about this is that consumers are becoming more and more accustomed to following personalities even when they know they aren't real. Artificial influencers, in other words, are becoming more commonplace.

GameStop Reminds Us The Retail Employees Are As Dispensable As Ever

Just a few weeks away from what promises to be a very different type of Black Friday retail season, GameStop offered an unfortunate preview of what this season may have in store for employees when it created an ill-advised TikTok dance challenge for employees where one of the prizes was ... (wait for it) ... extra work hours during the holiday week! The brand was quickly and justifiably skewered on social media for the promotion, but they will hardly be the only brand treating their workers poorly right now. The industry has been hit hard, and so the brands that really do care and take care of their employees will stand out even more than usual. As consumers, it's just up to us to listen for those stories, and reward those empathetic brands with our business.

Everyone Hated the Gap's Last Tweet (But Not For The Reason You Think)

No one liked the Gap's recent (and now deleted) tweet about a half red, half blue sweatshirt along with a cliché message about how "together, we can move forward." As if we needed yet another one, this is a perfect case study of how NOT to use social media. Aside from it's tone deaf message or the fact that it felt extremely random coming from a retail clothing brand, perhaps the biggest offense that stoked the online rage tweeting was the image itself. I mean, how hard would it really have been to line up the "A"?

Book Release of the Week:

Book Summary:
Already out in the UK, this book won't be released in the US until February, 2021 - but this exploration of the role of humor in business from two Stanford Professors is exactly what we look for every week in a book release. A new unique idea, written in an engaging style, and with a thesis that will be immediately useful in your life and work. Humor can indeed be a super power in work and life. This book will offer valuable lessons for how.

Buy on Bookshop >>

Join the Non-Obvious Insights Show this week ...

Every Thursday I interview another fascinating guest for my weekly live show broadcast to YouTube Live and LinkedIn Live. This week we will talk about non-obvious stories and the elections.

Want to watch past episodes? Just visit my YouTube channel to see a full archive of all my previous guests. Watch the full playlist on YouTube >>

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Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Want to discuss how I could bring this thinking to your next event as a virtual speaker? Visit my speaking page >>

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Why We Love Comfort Food and the Worst Tweet of the Election Season | Non-Obvious Insights #242

The Historic Appeal of Comfort Food

Why Printers Still Suck In 2020

How the Pandemic Made Virtual Influencers Even More Popular

GameStop Reminds Us The Retail Employees Are As Dispensable As Ever

Everyone Hated the Gap's Last Tweet (But Not For The Reason You Think)

Book Release of the Week:

Join the Non-Obvious Insights Show this week ...

Older messages

How To Change a Voter's Mind and the Robotic Door Saving Halloween Trick-or-Treating | Non-Obvious Insights #241

My New Book Announcement and More Non-Obvious Stories! | Non-Obvious Insights #240

Virtual Cuddling, Dark Stores, the INC 5000 Conference and an Interview with Dan Pink | Non-Obvious Insights #239

Inappropriate Onions, Tattoo Robots, Translating Whale Songs and How Teachers Would Fix Zoom | Non-Obvious Insights #238

How Humor Inspires Change, the Pathetic Debate and Heat Activated Stamps | Non-Obvious Insights #237

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