#3 | Living and surviving in a world built to be insane
Dilemmas about marketing and art (or capitalism), Barbie, resources to create content, AI Prompt, and the new name of Twitter.
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As a writer and freelancer, my journey is divided between two distinct worlds: art and marketing. In this constant dilemma, I feel the pressure to demonstrate "high performance" and achieve results in marketing while also trying to be authentic and genuinely connect to truly create art.
The world we live in is challenging, full of incessant demands and expectations. Competition in the field of marketing is fierce, and it is necessary always to be ahead to survive. Every week, searching for better numbers and results becomes an exhausting struggle, and I constantly feel dissatisfied and unable to keep up.
When I observe other people, it seems that some have found an admirable balance, but I also wonder if this is not a performance, a mask to hide their own struggles and uncertainties. Perhaps my eyes are a bit contaminated, and now it is difficult to discern what is authentic in this uncertain reality.
I wonder if I should simply ignore this crisis and move on, accepting that reality is ruthless and unfair and that the pace is now different, or if I should try to face it and improve it. With one foot in the world of art, I find hope in the possibilities of being vulnerable and human. Although it is not a perfect world, when it comes to making money with art, the conversation can become quite complex. Still, I feel that there is room for authenticity, while on the other side, the most common rule is that everyone has already understood how to play the game of capitalism, even if there is still a resistant minority.
There is no villain or hero in the text; from personal experience, I know these two fields interact in complex and real ways. Just like everything in life, everything is very complex, everything involves a lot, everything reminds me of the series "The Good Place".
I don't know. I really don't know, I live in this constant dilemma; I think in the end, it's the dilemma of capitalism; it's very difficult to escape when the system is designed to be like this, tiring, competitive, rushed, don’t show “weakness”... In the end, it's not even about art and marketing, but about living and surviving in this world.
And to be honest, I still don't know exactly if I have an answer. Perhaps the key is to find a balance that is more aligned with our values and principles, adjusting and rethinking, and finding a place to breathe in this world built to be insane, even if that means facing constant challenges and dilemmas.
But just like Barbie, when we put our feet on the ground, we can't go back. So we live.
To inspire you! Things I've seen out there...
→ This episode of "Help, I'm a Freelancer" is about side hustles.
→ This is stuck in my head...
→ Can you believe there is already a course on Threads? Ghedin bought it and wrote this incredible article (in Portuguese)
→ I went through an existential crisis after reading this text (in Portuguese), and a shoutout to my feminist friends with eco-bags.
Culture: Barbie is among us
I need to talk about this movie. Just like Everything Everywhere All At Once became my favourite movie of last year, Barbie also captivated me and has already become my favourite of 2023.
From the scenarios to the story and the themes, I simply loved this movie. I'm usually not the best person to criticise things, because if I have fun, I like it and give the movie 5 stars, but I was definitely more than entertained with Barbie. I felt welcomed and represented amidst the uncertainties and questions that we all carry within us.
I started writing the text for this newsletter before watching Barbie, but then I couldn't help but notice so many similarities. These crises are part of what it means to be truly human. Anyway, an incredible movie. To read a more elaborate review, I recommend reading Gaia Passarelli's review, Barbie's Life Is Perfect. Except When She Puts Her Feet On The Ground (in Portuguese).
Social media and creation: some apps to help you create!
In recent weeks, I've been more absent from my own social media due to work. Although it's not an excuse, the reality is that it's hard to create content for others and for myself at the same time. However, I'm organising myself to try to find a way to make it work for me. In the meantime, I'd like to share some tools I used this week that helped me a lot in creating content for my social media and design clients.
Canva - I use it daily. Despite the Adobe package still being useful for more complex things, for social media, I see that Canva is a much faster way to create. They have ready-made and free templates, but you can also pay for Pro and have more features. I have some templates in my store to help you create!
CapCut - works great on mobile, but also on the computer. Versatile, it helps with editing, adding effects, soundtrack, captions, and narration. It's from TikTok, which makes integrated creation even more accessible.
Notion - although not specific, it's very useful for organisations. In addition, I love the templates they have available, as well as a very easy-to-use artificial intelligence. It's also free up to a specific limit.
ChatGPT - I've talked about it a few times, but it's always worth mentioning. Chat is an artificial intelligence that works well as a personal assistant, helping to optimise content planning and creation. And remember: the result will be as good as the prompt you put in.
Wetransfer - I often use it to send files to other team members and clients; it's free and easy to use.
Nero - to improve the resolution of those small images (and good for enlarging AI-generated images).
Prompt...
To help you create content for social media, open ChatGPT or your favourite AI and start the conversation by writing:
"Hello, I'm having trouble coming up with new ideas for my social media content. Can you help me create some fresh and interesting topics to share with my audience?"
Use this as a base and let the AI generate some ideas for you!
And to improve the prompt results, you can use the content from your website, more information about your brand, audience, and goals, or previous posts as a basis for creating more tailored content for you. If you have a sales page, ask the chat to rewrite the text in a more personal and human language. If possible, give examples of how you want it to be done, but avoid overloading the content to avoid confusion.
Twitter is now "X"
As if it weren't enough to get mad on Twitter, Elon is creating reasons for us to get mad at Twitter (or now, X)... Elon Musk announced the new name for Twitter, but besides not pleasing users, it seems that there are problems ahead... Considering that "X" is a symbol widely used in trademarks, including Microsoft and Meta, we must see if the change is here to stay. But it seems that Muskinho's idea is to turn the platform into a super app, unifying various services into a single platform; it's ambitious. Let's see what happens, but I'm not optimistic.
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With love,
Amanda Oliveira-Telò
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