Ooh the French toast at brunch looks AMAZING. But, oop, I’m protein-maxxing so guess I’ll skip it. Yeah, sure, this hike has beautiful views. But I’m just keeping an eye on my Apple Watch because I need to stay in Zone 2 heart rate. Guysss when did we go from using data to letting it use us?? Between our Garmins and our Oura rings and continuous glucose monitors, we’ve started treating ourselves like factories to be optimised rather than actual human beings. And it’s kinda sucking the fun out of, well, everything. [Read more]

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

(btw - If you’re already using Claude Code or Cowork daily, scroll on by bc this isn’t for you)

But if you’ve just dabbled in using AI, maybe you’re using ChatGPT to help you look up recipes, write basic emails, or attempt to diagnose that insect bite you just got, stay with me for a sec.

When it comes to AI, there’s a lot of “bro you’re so behind” messaging out there. When, in reality, within just a couple hours, you can learn how to use AI better than 95% of people you know. And this why we put together the Beginner’s Guide to Claude AI course.

It’s a 4-week cohort where you learn how to go from using AI as a glorified Google to getting it to actually help you with the sh*tty admin (life or work) you hate doing every day.

We kick off our second cohort on 22 June, so if you want to go from feeling behind to using AI to make your life better, this is for you 👇

We've got an office sweepstakes happening at the moment, which has already caused its fair share of rivalry. And, speaking of rivalry, the World Cup's shaping up to be the latest episode in the saga that is Nike vs. Adidas.

Both brands debuted short films to mark the occasion. First, Adidas released “Backyard Legends” in May. Starring Timothée Chalamet, the short features football legends taking on a street ball team. Nike released its own short, “Rip the Script," on 4 June. And the brand did not skimp on talent, with Kim Kardashian, Travis Scott, Channing Tatum and Jason Sudeikis’ Ted Lasso featuring alongside star players.

So, who will win the battle of the brands? Well, Nike's short got 75 million views while Adidas' only saw 7 million. On the other hand, 32% of survey respondents believed Adidas was an official FIFA partner (it is not). And so the rivalry lives on.

YouTube's giving the people what they want, and what they want is in-app messaging (apparently a frequent feature request). You might remember that you used to be able to send DMs on the platform circa 2017-2019 before the platform scrapped the feature.

However, messaging on YouTube is sooo back, as announced on the company's official blog. And it's clear they've designed "Messages" for users to chat with people you actually know, not randos. Because in order to send someone a message, you have to invite them to the chat via a third-party platform. So, great for sending your friend a tutorial, not for picking up random girls. I like it.

The state of New York has just passed a law requiring advertisers to disclose the use of "synthetic performers" in marketing materials. This includes AI actors, extras, or even things like AI-generated hand models. Many marketers think the move is a sign that the tide is turning against the "Wild West" of AI use with no obligation to label it as such. In a press release last week, State Governor Kathy Hochul said:

“In New York, we are setting the rules of the road instead of letting AI run the show. Requiring simple, honest disclosure when an ad uses synthetic performers protects consumers, respects our creative workforce and keeps New York at the forefront of responsible innovation.”

👏👏👏

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We’re all well acquainted with the internet’s favourite new suffix. We survived the "core-ification" of everything. And it was annoying, sure, but it was fundamentally about vibes. It was an aesthetic thing. Harmless. And then overplayed.

But we have officially graduated from aesthetics to optimisation. What started as looksmaxxing has turned into us -maxxing our lives.

Cutting back on the gin and tonics? Sobermaxxing. I’ve even seen people talk about funmaxxing, which is a phrase so deeply depressing it makes me want to stare into a blank wall.

It is the linguistic successor to the data-driven corporate world, and it has spilled out of Silicon Valley directly into our souls. We have developed an incessant, pathological need to quantify, measure, and score almost every single second of our human existence.

And so, I’ve got to wonder, when we turn living into math, do we take away our actual ability to live? I think you know the answer.

We’re simply strapping on our Oura rings, checking our continuous glucose monitors, tracking our screen time, and logging our hydration. But what we are actually doing is gamifying our mortality.

The Organic Life was once:  Go for a walk, feel tired, maybe eat a sandwich.

The Quantified Life is now: Hikemaxx, check Zone 2 cardio, review sleep score, optimise.

And optimise. And optimise. And optimise again.

Or checking your Apple Watch to ensure your heart rate stays precisely in Zone 2. When you are sobermaxxing, are you relaxing and enjoying the subsequent clarity? Or are you logging consecutive days on an app, watching a digital streak grow like a high score in a video game?

We have outsourced our intuition to our hardware. We no longer trust our bodies to tell us if we are tired, happy, or full. We wait for a notification on our phones to validate our physical state.

And the moment an experience becomes a metric, the magic immediately evaporates. You are no longer existing in the present; you are auditing your own performance.

The dark psychology behind quantification culture is a profound fear of wasted time.

In a hyper-capitalist digital landscape, we have been conditioned to believe that any unstructured, unmeasured moment is a failure of productivity.

If a tree falls in the woods and your WHOOP didn't record the caloric burn, did it even happen?

Math is clean. Math has a correct answer. Math gives you a sense of control in a world that feels completely uncontrollable. But I’m terrible at math. And that’s why I know human joy is inherently inefficient.

The best moments of your life cannot be optimised. You cannot "maxmaxx" a spontaneous, deep conversation with a friend that lasts until 3:00 AM. You cannot quantify the feeling of a lazy Sunday afternoon where you do absolutely nothing and feel no guilt about it.

When you strip away the unpredictability, the boredom, and the accidental detours in favour of a perfect data curve, you aren't living. You are just operating your meat-suit.

And you’re better than that, babes. You’re more than a meat suit.

Consumers are getting exhausted by the constant surveillance of their own data.

It’s me, I’m the f*cking consumer.

The next massive wave of brand loyalty belongs to the brands that give us permission to turn that sh*t off:

The tongue has a job, and the brain has a calculator. But we need to give them both a rest. We don't need to maxmaxx our existence to prove that our lives have value.

Catch yourself, before you turn a simple human pleasure into a milestone or a metric. I want you to take a deep breath, take off the tracker, and let yourself be completely, beautifully unoptimised.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

Never have been. But will absolutely pretend to be when there's something in it for them. The sound comes from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, the 2009 film that has been living in our heads rent-free for sixteen years (WE are unc). Sam asks Flint if he can keep a secret, he says no, pauses, then talks himself into it: "But this time, sure. Yeah." In context, it's sweet.

On TikTok, it's become the anthem for anyone who has ever sat through something they had zero interest in purely because they needed something from that person later. People are using the sound for any moment where self-interest wins over honesty:

Use the sound and put the thing you're pretending to care about on screen, then the reason you're staying engaged anyway.

A few ideas to get you started:

-abdel khalil, brand & marketing exec

😂Yap’s funniest home videos - "I know you're lying"
❤How wholesome - All the versions that made me
😊Soooo satisfying - lost my voice, my laugh sounds like a boy going through puberty
🍝What you should make for dinner tonight - Creamy Chicken wrap

Hey Sierra!

Every platform does have its own audience and culture, so content that does well one place may or may not perform as well somewhere else. And many big brands have platform-specific strategies, with different content going on each one. But for smaller brands that don't have the resources to do that, there's no downside to posting your videos everywhere and seeing what happens.

So if you're already creating content for TikTok, go ahead and try posting it on Reels, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube shorts. You may find an entirely new audience just by repurposing your content. Just make sure you're interacting with your audience when you do get engagement on those new platforms.

- Charlotte Ellis, Editor ♡

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.