It's Decorative Gourd Season...
Hello there :)
Welcome to issue eighty eight of Manufacturing Serendipity, a loosely connected, somewhat rambling collection of the unexpected things I’ve recently encountered.
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A little shameless self-promotion…
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Part I: Serendipitous finds
Only 50% of Vinyl Collectors own a Record Player
Yes, really!
“Taylor Swift's latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, sold 859,000 vinyl records in its first week—setting a new benchmark for the largest vinyl sales week in the modern era. So what compels those not alive during vinyl's heydey to seek out this format?
A 2022 survey of 44,000 music consumers found the foremost appeal of record-buying lies in the act of physical ownership. People want to own cultural objects that define them, as opposed to paying Spotify for the privilege of accessing these core aspects of identity.
[…]
And here is where record-buying gets weird (in a good way): according to research from Luminate, 50% of vinyl buyers don't own a record player. I put together a stupid pie chart to underscore how wild this is…”
This is absolutely fascinating. Over the past four centuries quadrillions of ants have created a strange and turbulent global society that shadows our own:
“…there are roughly 200,000 times more ants on our planet than the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way.”
How cat memes went viral 100 years ago
“It is a fundamental law of media history: as soon as a new communications technology emerges, people will use it to make pictures of cats. And those cat pictures show not only the special relationship between humans and their pets, but the changing ways that humans relate to one another.
Cat memes in their modern form date back to the 1990s, when email first allowed bored office workers and friends to message each other funny felines. The cats jumped from there to social media as the web developed, where viral videos like Keyboard Cat and memes such as Grumpy Cat bloomed across platforms. Demand for this content was so high that entire websites like ICanHasCheezburger sprung up to showcase the best e-cats, aggregating popular pet videos and cat memes.
But there was another trend long before any cat wanted to "has cheezburger", or any owner could even imagine taking a video of their pet with a handheld electronic rectangle: the Edwardian postcard. And, according to scholars of media history, understanding the cat postcards of the early 20th Century might help us to understand social media today.”
The other British invasion: how UK lingo conquered the US
It used to be that Brits would complain about Americanisms diluting the English language. But in fact it’s a two-way street – Ben Yagoda shares a bunch of examples here including “bits”; “cheeky”; and “gutted”.
Collaged Portraits by Emma Odumade
“Odumade’s vibrant portraits and self-portraits, the latter of which he makes toward the end of every year, reflect a sense of unity, a search for self, love, and anticipation of the future. These particular works arose as “an attempt to have a diary—I never had one,” he says. “I needed to rediscover myself; see myself from an angle—from a third eye. My art became a mirror, through which I was a reflection.”
[…]
He combines images with other mediums like charcoal, acrylic, ink, and repurposed earlier sketches, invoking what he calls “stamps of moments”—a collection of memories viewed through the spectrum of past, present, and future.
“I love that I can reference historical events, stolen African artifacts, and my humble beginnings through a photo,” Odumade tells Colossal. He collages the backgrounds of many compositions with numerous black-and-white images dyed with tea to give an antique appearance. “The vintage brown look of the old photos is to remind viewers about [the] past and to give a ‘test of time’ feeling.”
It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers
Forget the pumpkin spice… 15 years on, this still tickles me.
Part II: Books I’m Reading Right Now
The Color Master, Aimee Bender – I loved this short story collection – a woman plays out a prostitution fantasy with her husband; two sisters who travel to Malaysia where one learns the art of mending tigers who have been ripped to shreds; and a company of tailors endeavour to capture the colours of the sun, moon and sky. Utterly delicious.
Part III: Things I’ve Been Watching
I’ve mostly been falling asleep in front of things rather than actually watching them, but I’m really enjoying Agatha All Along (Disney+). However, I’m a bit annoyed that I started watching before all the episodes had been released (normally I wait until all the episodes are available). Right now, they’re releasing a new episode each week like it’s 1990…
Part IV: What I’ve been up to…
So many lovely things – I ran this Live PR Pitch Feedback Workshop; had a blast emceeing WTSFest USA in Philadelphia; watched some wonderful talks at Marlborough LitFest with my friend Diana; and ran my in-person Content Creation for Digital PR training course at BrightonSEO.
I also completed the somewhat ridiculous “write 100 stories in 100 days” challenge I set myself which feels great. Of course I now have 100 stories to edit, but y’know, ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED, or something :)
What’s next?
I am excited about:
Running my PR Pitch Writing course with Britt Klontz.
Some lovely new client projects
Having a sit down :)
That’s all from me for now :)
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Big love,
Hannah x
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