52 Lessons From 2021, How to Write Headlines, Billie Eilish same interview 2021

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10 stories we've enjoyed this week

Hi All,
We've got some great stories this week. We're getting to that time of the year where annual lists are published. I'll include a few over the next couple of weeks but try not to go over the top. For the last newsletter of the year, I was thinking of compiling the Storythings Media Diet 2021. I really like Steven Soderburgh's and Jason Kottke's. Would you be interested in the TV and Films the team at Storythings has watched as well as the books we've all read and podcasts listened to?

This week's Formats Unpacked comes from Rob Mansfield who looks at why Cracking the Cryptic, a YouTube channel that solves sudoku puzzles, has been such as phenomenally successful format. It also looks at why TV shows about games aren't more popular. It's a great read. Get in touch if you'd like to write one.

OK. Enjoy the stories and have an ace weekend.
Hugh

The Short Story

52 Things I Learned in 2021
(list)

Billie Eilish: Same Interview, the Fifth Year
(22 min watch)

Creativity Lessons From Get Back
(5 min read)

What You Need to Write the Best Headlines
(15 min read)

Overloaded: is There Simply Too Much Culture
(7 min read)

Why Voice Messages Are Making a Comeback
(4 min read)

How to Manage Your Time More Effectively (According to Machines)
(5 min watch)

The Colour of British Albums
(1 min read)

Story Club: A Newsletter About Storytelling by George Saunders
(4 min read)

Dogs With Uncanny Similarity to Celebrities
(1 min read)

The picture is divided in half. In the left half there are four squares with images of Billie Eilish from her interviews in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. On the right side of the image is a bigger picture of Bille from 2021. She has blond hair and is wearing a red pullover.

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Here's 3 reasons to get in touch.

1. You want to talk to us about content production: podcasts, videos, animations, illustrations, editorial.

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We do other things too. We're very friendly and always enjoy meeting people, so get in touch.

The Full Story

52 Things I Learned in 2021
Tom Whitwell's brilliant annual list has landed. For those unfamiliar, every year Tom shares 52 learnings with links to the original source. Things like this 'Baileys Irish Cream was invented in 45 minutes in 1973 by two ad creatives in Soho.' or this 'Adding nature imagery (grass, trees, rainbows) to a pitch document seems to increase the likelihood of investment a little.' There are another 50 of those waiting for you to steal and use around the dinner table this Christmas.
(list)

Billie Eilish: Same Interview, the Fifth Year
It's quite hard to believe that Billie has been doing this for five years. We've raved about the format in this newsletter for five years too and when we launched Formats Unpacked it was the very first format we chose to deconstruct. I was doing a talk for a New York agency yesterday about what I've learned about formats from running the newsletter. One lesson is that by staying the same, formats are brilliant for documenting change. There is no better example than this.
(22 min watch)

Creativity Lessons From Get Back
I'm in complete agreement with Steven Johnson here. I can't get enough of music documentaries. I don't even need to like the band. I just find watching the process really rewarding: "There’s something about listening to a song come together that’s almost as pleasing as listening to the finished product. I’m not sure the same pleasure applies to other kinds of creativity or innovation: reading early notes of a novelist working on a new book; sitting in on a non-profit as it explores ideas for its next initiative; looking over the shoulder of a high school teacher toying with possibilities for a future syllabus. But this kind of slower evolutionary process is absolutely happening in those other fields; it’s just not as fun to watch it unfold as an outsider."
(5 min read)

What You Need to Write the Best Headlines
A long but interesting read that is worth bookmarking if you need to write headlines. Industry experts give advice on the right length of a headline (11 words), the numbers people and algorithms like in headlines (10, 5 or 7), how headlines have changed in recent years (emotion is no longer as effective) and much more.
(15 min read)

Overloaded: is There Simply Too Much Culture
With so much film, TV, music, books, streaming, games and podcasts easily available and vying for our attention, is there such a thing as too much culture? "A survey commissioned by Hub Entertainment Research found that 42% of viewers who watched at least five hours a week thought there was too much television in 2014. But that survey also found something fascinating: 81% of viewers reported that the time they did spend watching television, they spent watching shows they really liked...When Hub Entertainment Research asked the question again in 2017, only 73% responded that they were spending their time watching shows they really liked – while the percentage of people who felt that there was “too much television” went from 42% to 49%."
(7 min read)

Why Voice Messages Are Making a Comeback
People younger than me stopped taking my calls years ago. Using voice to communicate on mobile was virtually dead. But hey, now it's back. Young people are using voice messages as an alternative to text chat and dating apps are offering it as a way to communicate: "These messages have successfully created a third place in communication: the warmth of a phone call with the convenience of a text message. Voice messages allow us to express as many as 24 different emotions, so it's no wonder dating apps have leapt onto the trend, with often hilarious results."
(4 min read)

How to Manage Your Time More Effectively (According to Machines)
Humans and computers share the challenge of how to get as much done as possible in a limited time. Over the last fifty or so years, computer scientists have learned a lot of good strategies for managing time effectively — and they have a lot of experience with what can go wrong. This video from TED-Ed shares how we can use some of these insights to help make the most of our own lives.
(5 min watch)

The Colour of British Albums
This poster of album covers reduced to colour charts would have made a great quiz. It's really interesting how much information is contained in colour alone. Joy Division, Sex Pistols and Primal Scream really stand out as instantly recognisable.
(1 min read)

Story Club: A Newsletter About Storytelling by George Saunders
Writer George Saunders has launched his own Substack. The storytelling newsletter will answer questions such as 'Why do certain stories compel us to finish them?' and 'How can something entirely made-up change the way we think and feel about the real world?' and 'What can we learn about the mind by watching it read and process a story?' Should be good.
(4 min read)

Dogs With Uncanny Similarity to Celebrities
Richard Gere, John Travolta, Harrison Ford, Samuel L. Jackson and more. They're all in there.
(1 min read)

We hope you've enjoyed this week's newsletter. I'm sure some of your friends would love to read it. Sharing it would be really appreciated. If you've received this from a friend you can subscribe here and get it direct to your inbox every Friday.

Thanks for reading and see you all next week,

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the team at Storythings

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