Your ATTN Please | Monday, 11 August

August 11, 2025

Together with

Knowledge is everywhere. Taste is in short supply.

In the age of infinite content, being “smart” is no longer about regurgitating facts. Darling, AI already beat you at trivia night… What matters now is discernment: the ability to cut through the noise, to know what not to make. The internet is an all-you-can-eat buffet, AI just added 10,000 new dishes overnight, and your job is not to eat everything, but serve the one plate that makes people put down their phones and pay attention.

Anyone can post. But only few can curate. Taste is the new IQ. And in a world drowning in slop, the sharpest flex is choosing with care.

-Sophie Randell, Writer ✿⁠

PRESENTED BY PLANABLE

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If you want to create content that gets shared, saved, and talked about, this is where to start. 👇

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN MARKETING TODAY?

Protein becomes a fad, even MORE AI convos are public & a wooden pixel machine makes real-time art

Wait, how much protein do I need?

And how much protein is in a wholesome hangout with my beautiful friends? Unless you live in the woods with no phone, no social media and no proximity to anyone who attends a gym under the age of 30 (in that case I envy you) – you will know protein is having her momentttt. Now the face of the wellness-industrial complex, the macronutrient has gone from simple muscle repair to in-f*cking-everything-you-can-imagine-even-popcorn (how did they put protein in popcorn?)

Hear me out, I’m not above this. Best believe I ensure I get 100g a day, at LEAST. Why? Well, the standard recommendation for daily protein intake is 0.75 – 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. In that case, I should be consuming around 50 grams a day. However, because I’m a self-proclaimed Gym Girlie, I aim for around 1.6g/kg. which brings me to 100g.

This isn’t the first time a macronutrient has been in the spotlight, and it certainly wont be the last, but protein is both beneficial and essential, for everything from building muscle to promoting healthy weight loss and even healthy aging. In case you were wondering: yes, it may seem like a fad, and in some ways it kind of is, but you should still be getting you 0.8 in. Just sayin'.

Turns out the issue of publicly saving shared LLM chats goes beyond Google and GPT.

This news follows earlier findings that Google had indexed nearly 100K ChatGPT conversations. However, another researcher just discovered that over 130,000 conversations with basically all the big AI chatbots, including Claude, Grok and ChatGPT, can be found on the Internet Archive.

Heed this warning. If you’re not careful with the sharing settings you’ve enabled, your interactions with LLMs - including those ones, you dirty scoundrel - may be publicly archived.

Alright, you've reached a digital resting point. Watch this guy’s interactive wooden pixel machine make art in real time.

Happy Monday - felt like you may need a break from the sh*tstorm that is our reality. Check out designer Ben Holmen's giant grid made of 1,000 wooden blocks, which a robot arm slowly interacts with to form user-submitted designs. Hell, even submit one.

Enjoy x

DEEP DIVE

In the age of infinite content, taste is intelligence.

Once upon a time, intelligence meant accumulation.

The smartest person in the room was the one who knew the most: the trivia buff, the encyclopedia brain, the human calculator. We revered the information hoarder. The expert. The academic. But now? AI knows more than all of us. Wikipedia is free. And the internet has obliterated any barriers to accessing knowledge.

Sorry nerds, but the emphasis is no longer on who can store and regurgitate the most information. I can likely find that faster than you can blabber about it, anyway. The baton has been passed. Your time is done. What matters now is what you do with your knowledge. How you perceive the world around you. How you recognise signal in the noise.

In 2025, taste is the new IQ test.

“The question is no longer "can it be made?" but "is it worth making?" I read this in Stepfanie Tyler’s Wild Bare Thoughts and it struck a chord so deep within me, it almost made a sound. In the current state of content - the unprecedented volume of it all, the sheer fact that AI can make anything before you can even think to object - it’s no longer just about what you’ve made or how much of it. Now, it’s about discernment and discipline: the ability to be intentional about what matters as the world drowns in slop.

Content is infinite. Tools are frictionless. Design templates, copy generators, video editors, music models - they’re all accessible, instant, and mostly free. You can quite literally make anything now. But so can everyone else. The challenge is no longer output, it’s judgment. The skill that actually matters is knowing what not to make. What not to share. What not to chase. And what, among the endless flood of options, is actually meaningful.

That, my friends, is taste.

Not taste in the superficial sense. Not the curated minimalism of a status-y lifestyle. Not trend-hopping or vibe-chasing or trying to mimic what’s already viral. Real taste is about coherence. It’s about clarity of perspective. It’s the ability to recognize the difference between what looks good and what feels true. The ability to spot the signal in the noise. Not just for yourself, but for others. The kind of discernment that can’t be automated or faked.

In an environment of infinite supply, value shifts to what’s scarce. And what’s scarce today?

Attention. Where we place our attention - and what we choose to amplify - shapes our culture, our business, and our brains. Your scroll history is a map of your values. Your “likes” are tiny ideological votes. What you share becomes a recommendation engine for your circle, whether you intend it or not. So, when we talk about taste as intelligence, we’re talking about the ability to edit. To filter. To discern. To know what deserves your energy… and what doesn’t. That’s not just a soft skill. It’s strategic, crucial even.

Think about how we navigate the world now. We don’t just want more data: we want trusted filters. People, platforms, and brands who can make sense of the chaos. Who can help us see clearly through the murky waters. That can translate the world back to us. Being smart in this era doesn’t mean knowing everything. It means knowing how to sift through everything. It’s about selecting, not simply collecting.

And that’s where taste becomes a differentiator. A creative advantage. A leadership trait. A cultural freaking force. It’s the difference between endless content and memorable content. Between being seen and being saved. Between “meh” and “must”.

That being said, can we really "develop” good taste? Is it a skill that can be learned?

In my opinion, it’s something you can’t download or prompt. It’s certainly not about having the right references or being first to a trend. It’s about depth. It’s about patterns. It’s about care. It takes time, repetition, curiosity and intention. But here’s where you can start:

  • Pay close attention to your attention. What pulls you in? what repels you? Why?

  • Interrogate your influences. Who do you admire, and are they just shiny? or actually sharp?

  • Go beyond the algorithm. Seek out new formats, unfamiliar voices, older work. Feed your brain things it doesn’t expect.

  • Develop your taste through tension. Read things you disagree with. Look at art you don’t “get.” Ask better questions.

  • Make, revise, repeat. Taste is observational and iterative. Every decision you make sharpens it.

And, maybe most importantly:

  • Stop chasing what’s popular. Because by the time it’s trending, it’s already over. Taste is more than being in the know. Taste is being in tune.

It’s a survival skill.

In an economy where creation is cheap, what’s expensive is discernment. The ability to cut through the noise, to choose with care, to lead with intention: that’s what sets people (and brands, and ideas) apart. AI can generate endless content. But only you can decide what’s worth your time. And that decision is your intelligence at work.

Choose wisely.

TREND PLUG

Stop talking, you're going to get us killed

We've all got THAT person: a mischievous little scamp who doesn't know when to keep it to themself.

And when someone like that can't keep their mouth shut, then it's up to us to shut it for them - or risk putting us BOTH in grave danger. It's a universal experience captured well by this edited clip from Stranger Things, where Max argues with Lucas until the latter covers the former's mouth and whispers:

"Stop talking, you're going to get us killed."

The video's popped off recently on TikTok, many creators using its audio to describe situations where someone they knew really needed to zip it. Whether it's too dark outside to make jokes about scary stuff, or your mom's in hearing distance of your trash-talking sister, there's bountiful reasons to slap your hand over someone's face to keep 'em from yapping.

How you can jump on this trend:

Take this sound and flip the camera on yourself. When the spooky music in the clip kicks in, cover your phone's "mouth" by covering the lower part of your camera. Then, lip-sync with the "stop talking" section of the audio (don't worry about lip-syncing with the first part). Once you've filmed that, add some onscreen text describing a situation where someone really needed to zip it.

The trend works best with some quality juxtaposition, i.e. acting super intense over something that's probably not such a big deal. So make sure to use a situation that's funny and/or relatable, and don't be afraid to widen your eyes and scold the camera - this is life or death, after all!

A few ideas to get you started:

  • "When the kitchen smells like fish and your work bestie brings up the tuna you had for lunch"

  • "When your boss asks if you're free and your coworker brings up the meeting that just got cancelled"

  • "When your office crush walks by and your work bestie tries to call her over"

- Devin Pike, Copywriter 💜

FOR THE GROUP CHAT

😂Yap’s funniest home videos: Mini golf, mega fail
❤How wholesome: betsies for life 🦌🐕️ 
😊Soooo satisfying: Ice cube slicing
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight: Teriyaki chicken noodles

ASK THE EDITOR

My business partner and I are thinking about starting a podcast for our makeup brand. Do you think it's worth doing? -Sam

Hey Sam!

Creating a podcast is a great way to create content for your brand. Because not only will you have the longform version, but you can also cut that up into shorts to post on your social channels. It's also a cool way to get to know other people in your industry by bringing them on as guests.

The thing about podcasts, though, is a lot of people start them and very few make more than a few episodes. So if I were you, I'd start recording your first few episodes ASAP.

Then just keep getting your reps in, learning as you go. Don't spend too long in the planning phase—otherwise you may never actually start!

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

PSST…PASS IT ON

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