learning to surf: 002
Brand, Religion & [Wo]Man’s Search for Meaning
Dive in as we explore how a decline in faith in institutions, religion, and work has us looking to the new economy of brands and communities for fulfillment and meaning, and how we find our way through the noise.
On Brand💧
Calm in the Face of Chaos
There’s an increasing amount of brands that are positioning themselves around the nostalgia of Daily Life, or what’s being called ‘Domestic Cozy.’ Brightland and their olive oil, Pattern’s entire brand philosophy, heck, even brand positioning I’ve done falls squarely into this category. We’re creating products and language around safety and comfort and presence, but still want to look cool doing it. It all feels very 2020.
The takeaway: I’m torn on this one. On one hand, it’s a marketers job to tune into the deep needs of the customer and push them and society forward in some way. In a post burnout world, where the crown of hustle culture has gotten a little too heavy, we’re yearning for something more meaningful. As someone who has always looked at hustle with a little side-eye, I should be overjoyed that we’re recalibrating, focusing instead on connecting people with themselves - but something still feels off. And while I admire brands like Brightland and Pattern so much, the inherent systems behind them (KPIs, targeted advertising, etc), might make us feel like we need fancy olive oil or cookware to validate a desire to connect with ourselves and our loved ones. If a brand provides the resources and messaging (aka permission) without the expectation of a transaction like some are doing, does that make it all ok? Should we be looking to brands trying to turn a profit for self-help and spiritual guidance?
On culture 🌊
The New Religion
An excellent read on the decline of traditional religion and what we’re replacing it with has had me thinking all week. “A century ago, Nietzsche suggested that the Western world was killing God by replacing Him with ourselves. Supported by the cultural disappearance of guilt, a rise in self-directed spirituality, and the development of an outcomes-oriented society, hundreds of millions of Millennials and Gen Z-ers in the West were raised to believe that society should afford them all the tools, technology, and science needed to construct a utopia. While Hollywood left us starry-eyed with images of such an idealized existence, our parents wholeheartedly promised us a better tomorrow. Yet today, loneliness levels have reached an all-time peak, 13% of Americans are on antidepressants, the U.S. suicide rate is at its highest since World War II, and polarization appears to be rising considerably across society...”
Meera Clark, a VC at Obvious Ventures, outlines the economy that’s born out of the yearning for faith and connection and the fallout from traditional religion - and how we’re using to relate to ourselves, each other and the world beyond. She describes opportunities in the spaces of Mindfulness, Meaning, Community, Inspirational Engagement, Ritual, Morality, and Charity. She hopes that “we can find world positive ways for the private sector to play a role in this transformation.”
The takeaway: As a lover of community building and introspection, I’ve been an active customer of many of the companies she outlines - The Wing, SoulCycle, Calm, etc. I’ve found meaningful connections, fruitful experiences, and personal development in all of them. But the same concerns linger here as they did above. The companies in each of these ecosystems are designed to profit from our vulnerabilities and serve us advertising that has us constantly aspiring to some new ideal.
In a conversation at The World Economic Forum in Davos, Yuval Noah Harari (of Sapiens fame) and Tristan Haris, the founder of the Center for Humane Technology discuss this same tension in detail as it relates to Silicon Valley and how technology is designed (“Silicon Valley has a philosophical bug - it can’t distinguish between our values and our vulnerabilities”). If the system that’s deeply encouraging us to find love, presence, compassion, and community is also linked to maximizing short term shareholder value - there’s something really wrong there.
Just as blind faith in religion is something that should give pause, blind faith in any of these brands or organizations will get us into trouble - because they’re run by humans (and the tech they build) who are just as flawed as we are. It isn’t wrong to support or indulge in any of what this new economy provides - be it cycling classes or coworking or cookware - but we still have to be responsible for ourselves, keeping our eyes open and our brains clear of overwhelm. Similarly, it's up to the institutions that fuel our culture to have the awareness of the responsibility they carry and the bravery to do something about it.
On something bigger 🏄♀️
So then, what should we worship?
If we’re buying into religion less and less, searching for meaning in work is resulting in burnout and my new favorite phrase, ‘a burden of potential’, and this new economy of brands isn’t the catch-all solution, where do we go for fulfillment? If connecting to something bigger than ourselves is inherent to our design as humans, where should we put our faith?
I saw a video by blogger Radhi Devluika-Shetty the other day which links what we worship to our legacy. “What we worship ends up becoming what people remember us for.” Inevitably, given the timing, this also made me and others in the comments think of the passing of Kobe Bryant, how it profoundly shook our country and the legacy he left behind. Kobe wasn’t perfect, but the values he’s remembered for are hard work, family, storytelling, and an unwavering dedication to self-evolution.
The Takeaway: In my eyes, what we deeply need is a values recalibration. If we can be aware of and root down in what we value most and do our best to stay aligned to those values, the modern tools that appear before us (work, consumer products, branded communities), no matter how algorithm optimized, will remain just that, tools.
The deep challenge here is cutting the noise to:
discover what our values are
encouraging others to do the same versus shaming them for having different ones
and then creating our own traditions that line up with those values and staying committed to them over time.
My guess is, if we’re lucky, the choices we make to express these values daily will help us find enjoyment, fulfillment, and meaning along the way.