🤣 There's definitely an audience that would be flattered by this appeal to elitism, but I just burst into laughter at this notification. (And no, I'm not humouring it. Notifications are now turned off.)
We are all smart *and* S-M-R-T in our own ways - but anyone who thinks that someone is "smarter" for reading stuff on Substack is the S-M-R-T-est of them all.
(That said, I'll have a free-to-read Substack up tonight. No pressure, smarty-pantses!)
👀 What are *you* reading, friends?
@MLClark I wonder what marketing person came up with that.
I wish I could find the interaction, but someone writing copy for a food product's social media account was dealing with a commenter who wanted to criticize their silly campaign, and the writer eventually broke the fourth wall to remind him that he was arguing with a silly product ad campaign, as repped by a 20-something intern with a useless degree. It was very funny and went viral.
Long story short: I doubt much thought went into the choice. In this economy?! 🙃
@MLClark Re the "fourth wall," I found out years ago that my last employer used outside contract support to respond to social media reviews. It was never admitted, but I kinda suspect they might have been writing fake positive reviews to boost our scores.
It was certainly clear that management didn't care about legitimate criticism, just juicing the score.
And somehow retained your sparkling wit, good cheer, & rich library of anecdotes through it all! 😊 Not easy!
Also, I don't think I mentioned, but the older piece of political writing you shared a couple of weeks ago was a real treat; it's not that you haven't *grown* as a writer in all that time, but there's a definite stylistic consistency that carries through to your latest project. What a gift. Many spend a whole lifetime chasing their "voice". You most certainly found yours.
@MLClark Was that the presidential campaign article? Thank you for reading it.
I will admit to snark as a constant. 😉
I drove 100 km each way today to interview business managers for a union local at the Cape. I wrote about it upstream. You would have been fascinated.
The conversation drifted into the latent racism here, particularly towards Obama. I wasn't really surprised, especially since I'd intervened a couple times at my job to stop white bullies harassing black colleagues.
@MLClark Here's another political article from the Golden Age, a guest opinion column I wrote for the L.A. Times. My now-ex-mentor's name was listed first for the star power, but I wrote most of it, including the Yogi Berra homage.
P.S. In case you're wondering ... we won. 😊
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-07-28-me-29074-story.html
@MLClark I have a friend who makes a living free-lance copywriting, as I once did for Trek and B5 licensees. She gets incredible money thrown at her for projects without much thought behind them. It's a living.
I've seen the Peter Principle validated many times during my professional career. 🙄