Your ATTN Please | Friday, 8 August

perfection is out. messy is hot again.

in the age of ai-generated slop, a rogue comma might be your best credibility strategy.
the internet’s gone uncanny. every post looks like it was written by a marketing intern named chad (sorry chad) who just discovered canva templates and grammarly pro max. and in a world where even your vibe check might be automated, the realest flex left is being… a little messy. (yes, including typing in lowercase. let a boy breathe)

- abdel khalil, rebel

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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?

Trump wants an AI-powered search engine, hackers hijack a smart home & Insta shares some cheat codes

America’s most scandalous president teaming up with its most disreputable AI company to make a search engine??? Help.

Yes, you heard right: Donald Trump's media company is partnering with Perplexity to bring AI search to Truth Social. Announced in a press release, apparently the mission is “to end Big Tech’s assault on free speech by opening up the Internet and giving people their voices back”. Crazy sentiment from someone who is figuratively in bed with a majority of the Big Tech overlords, and is currently partnering with a company with investors like Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and the former CEO of GitHub.

Big Tech has been aligned with the Trump administration since well before the election – to make such a comment seems almost comical. What’s not so funny though is Perplexity and its propensity for plagiarism, which you can read about here. Sooo yea, fun times all round these days!

In other scary news: hackers hijacked Google’s Gemini AI to take over a smart home.

Okay, it was for research. BUT STILL. The experiment goes to show how AI can be used to create irl havoc, and that’s freaky asl. In a sophisticated hack, three security researchers in Tel Aviv were able to gain full control over things like the lights, shutters, and boiler in the apartment - all connected to Google's Gemini AI.

They did this through a poisoned Google Calendar invitation, which includes instructions to turn on the smart home products at a later time. When the researchers subsequently ask Gemini to summarise their upcoming calendar events for the week, those dormant instructions are triggered, and the products come to life. This is the first time a controlled demonstration has showcased the risks of a generative AI system on the real world, and I have a sneaky suspicion it wont be the last.

Instagram gives us the cheat codes of when to post what.

Instagram recently published an overview of how and when to use each of its elements within the buyer’s journey, so if you’re a marketers or small business, this is going to be of use. Obviously, Reels are the big one, that comes as no surprise. We get it, video is king etc etc.

Basically, in summary:

• Reels and carousels = reaching new audiences.

• Carousels, single photos and stories = engaging your existing followers

• Lives and channels = nurturing your most loyal fans i.e. your community.

Read the full report here.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

DEEP DIVE

An article in defense of messy content in an increasingly NPC world

Sometimes the internet feels…. uncanny.

There’s a certain type of post I’ve noticed recently that makes me shudder a little. “Here’s what no one tells you about failure…” Cue sh*tty Canva graphic. Cue flawless CTA that sounds like it was written by someone’s who’s never actually failed at anything, ever. 

I don’t trust it. Not because it’s wrong. Because it’s too freaking right.

There’s a weird sheen on these posts. They’re too polished. Too perfect. Like the digital version of some freaky silicon doll (yeah, those ones.)

The heeby-jeebies have officially been added to my online inventory.

Because it’s starting to feel like the internet is haunted af. And in this weird, content-saturated, AI-obsessed landscape, perfection is now a red flag.

This is what I like to call The Copy Paste Crisis.

The Uncanny Content Era.

The Automation Aesthetic.

It’s an age of “who actually wrote this?” suspicion. Was it ChatGPT? A ghostwriter? A vibes team? A guy named Mitch in marketing with a Notion template and an espresso addiction?

What does this mean? Well, it means the new credibility metric is chaos.

And I don’t mean Duolingo Nutter Butter chaos. Y’all know I have my… reservations about them folk. I mean a rogue typo (or three). A screenshot with a timestamp. A post that feels a little too much like oversharing after three dirty martinis and a long pull of a Marlboro Red.

Why? Well, to put it simply, it’s 2025. And no one wants to be seen as a bot. And mistakes are exactly how you prove you aren’t one.

Internet users, particularly those who suffer from being Chronically Online, have developed a new fear. Not spiders. Not climate change. Not even capitalism (although… yeah.)

The great modern fear is being perceived as an NPC (ya know, a non-player character).

Someone who just blindly follows trends. Who posts beige. Who has no original thought. Who could be an AI clone trained on LinkedIn carousels and Instagram infographics. The horror.

This in tandem with the oversaturation of AI slop on everyone’s feeds has led to an interesting phenomenon I’ve observed as of late: imperfection as identity.

People are canning practices such as correct capitalisation and the polished (wanky) PR voice, and instead leaning into intentional typos, posting screenshots of unedited notes, and writing almost as if texting a friend.

Because the more your content looks like it couldn’t have been written by a bot, the more “real” you appear.

And in a world full of auto-generated landfillcore, being real is the top currency.

Now now, let me be clear here: I’m not saying everybody become illiterate and start alphabet souping all over the place. Take it with a pinch of salt, baby, before you ruin the whole dish.

What I am saying, is that we’ve overcorrected. Content used to be messy and fun. Then it got SEO’d and spell-checked into oblivion. Every post became a mini TED Talk. Every caption started sounding like it had 3 rounds of legal review.

But people trust people. Not polish. Not templates. Not perfection. So when your post is a little off (a lowercase “i” here, a rogue comma there), it reminds the reader that there’s a real, thinking, distracted, occasionally over-caffeinated human behind it.

A mistake is not a flaw. It’s texture. It’s proof of life.

The brands and creators killing it online right now? They're not obsessively editing. They're not running every sentence through Hemingway App and Grammarly Pro Plus Ultra. They’re sounding like people. Okay maybe slightly chaotic, very online people.

People with weird word choices and run-on sentences. People who type “literally sobbing” when they are not, in fact, sobbing. Because the truth is, perfection is alienating. It signals committee. Or AI. Or at best, marketing. And we are all collectively allergic to being marketed to right now.

But of course, we’re not going to merely rant about this without a cheat code (who do you think I am darling?).

So, here’s my official guide on how to be a little more real online (without sounding like a Hotmail scam.)

• Leave in one typo. Just one. Sprinkle it like salt. Not too much. Just enough to make people think, “Hmm. Human.”

• Stop capitalising every word in your caption. unless you’re going for drama. then do it on purpose.

• Write like you talk. Even if that means starting a sentence with “also lol.”

• Let your tone shift mid-thought. Content that’s too “on brand” is often too off-putting.

• Use weirdly specific examples. The weirder the better. Be your own data point.

• Don’t edit the freaking life out of your voice. Your typos, side comments, double parentheses: they’re not clutter. They’re character.

Think of it this way: if your post could plausibly be generated by a SaaS platform named “Contently.ai,” maybe it needs a little more chaos.

Proof of life > proof of concept

We spend so much time trying to sound smart, smooth, scalable. But in doing so, we lose the very thing that makes content work in the first place: connection.

You don’t need to be perfect to be credible. You don’t need to sound like Harvard Business Review to be worth listening to.

Sometimes, the thing that makes someone stop scrolling is the imperfection. The typo. The lowercase sigh. The moment that makes them go, “Oh… there’s a person here.”

Get a little weird with it. Because being real will always beat being right (in my humble opinion anyway.)

-Sophie Randell, Writer

TREND PLUG

Checking to see (feat. Charli XCX & Lorde)

This trend is perfect for those that got a lil extra sass in them today.

I'm talking the office is your runway and the fyp is yours to conquer! With brat summer still being the gift that keeps on giving (in the big August '25), Charli XCX's highly esteemed collab with Lorde, "Girl, so confusing featuring lorde" is the anthem for this week (and month... and year...).

If you've always dreamed of being a supermodel, this trend's perfect to strut your sh*t to. TikTokers are strutting their stuff and posing in to check on something, looking for it, and turning around after.

Some of the best examples include:

• When I go to apologize to my girl after an argument but she's still mad at me

• Making sure my flight gate exists before i get a snack

• Going to ask my mom for permission but she's not in an "asking mood"

How you can jump on this trend:

To this sound, do this walk + pose and throw up onscreen text about a scenario where you're going to check on something, look for it and turn around after.

A few ideas to get you started:

• Social media managers checking to see they have no teams messages before deep cleaning the whole house

• Me checking on my intern to see if they need help

• Me checking out the microwave every four seconds at lunch

- abdel khalil, brand & marketing executive

FOR THE GROUP CHAT

😂Yap’s funniest home videos: When it rains, it pours
❤How wholesome: dogs.
😊Soooo satisfying: the magic portal
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: i’m craving tacos omg

ASK THE EDITOR

How do I compete with other businesses that do the same thing I do? - Mina

Hey Mina!

The only way to differentiate yourself in the market is to focus on building your brand. Especially if you're in a crowded industry, it's going to be tough to convince people your product's the best out there unless you have some proprietary technology the others don't have.

Assuming you don't (since you're asking this question), the only way to be different is to figure out what your core message, or single-minded proposition, is.

This needs to be something others can get behind. So maybe it's something like you exist to challenge the status quo or fight complacency. Then your marketing and content should centre around this, not just talking about how great your product is.

If you do this right, your audience will be willing to pay more to buy from you because they believe in your brand. Without this, it's a race to the bottom.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

PSST…PASS IT ON