Hello! These short notes are me, Ben, a creative director and facilitator trying to understand post-covid culture and playfulness, whilst building a little routine around writing.
Forward the better bits to friends and colleagues or just hit reply. It’s nice to know you’re out there, surviving!
The winner and the sinner
I’ve been reading a book called Winners, which is a particularly irrelevant notion at the moment. All the more unseemly that it’s written by Alastair Campbell. Remember him? The once infamous Labour spin doctor looks positively angelic next to mega-plonker Dom “a hard rain will fall” Cummings.
The book features the usual leadership bravado - “Words sow the seeds but actions cultivate the crop” and “FIFO: fit in or fuck off” - but tempers it with softer insights from focussed winners. Kasparov describes chess as like painting a masterpiece with someone tugging on your sleeve, which quite possibly describes life right now in households across the country.
What jarred most was the idea of “optimal maximalism”, or the killer instinct top sports-people show by being able to throttle up a gear when others might start easing off. The ability of individuals and teams to tap unseen reserves to extract ever greater gains is impressive in sport. As a model for society, maybe less so.
Take the relentless winning mindset of Amazon in the ultimate competition of them all, capitalism. Its pursuit of every possible vertical and every possible cost-saving mechanism is a net loss for society, the “savings” simply costs paid elsewhere.
It’s all the more confusing when big tech winners do ostensibly ‘good’, socially motivated things like Twitter silencing Trump, Amazon removing Parler or AirBnB cancelling bookings before Biden’s inauguration. Yes, these things needed to happen but also, yes, the consolidation of power in the hands of a few brutal winners is problematic.
That’s a big box to unpack.
Maybe we just need less winning. It might seem counter intuitive but these times are all about the curveballs.
Cheerier things
If it’s not too soon, try winning at 2020! A topical platformer with 8-bit koalas.
Or just make some beautiful synth noise for a bit (an EDM Blob Opera, if you like).
Not content with being the most followed museum on TikTok, the Black Country Living Museum will also become a vaccination hub! BTW, TikTok has overtaken Facebook for monthly dwell.
Here’s a handy zip folder of all the immersive reports I’ve been reading. You won’t believe #6 etc etc
The orange bag of ego-acid may be gone, if not forgotten. Here’s a reminder of an inadvertent, playful legacy, the Protest Seesaw.
Winner winner meat-free dinner
David Attenborough’s Netflix film is good. Watch it now.
I find the flood of crappy Original productions can obscure the rare gem in its collection, but Alex Pitkin gave me the nudge. He invited his 60-strong Opibus team to finish work early and watch it together in a warming tribute to the last day at school before summer, VHS movies on giant CRT televisions.
(More on the brilliant electrification endeavours by Opibus another time.)
Back to David. Despite the horrifying story of human destruction through his lifetime, it ends with a compelling call and some concrete actions (e.g. alter your diet). The BIG job, however, is improving quality of life for those in need, which might feel overwhelming on an individual level. The recent free school meals fiasco in the UK is a galling reminder it’s often beyond government as well, but the good news in this case is that individuals rallied together to force another embarrassing u-turn.
Individuals like Sam Tsemberis are also making a big difference by showing there is another way. Asking people what they need and providing it without judgement works rather well, thank you. Listen to the short 99% Invisible episode on housing the homeless, it’s great.
Bye for now!
B.