Welcome to your dystopian future, friends!
Hello there :)
Welcome to issue eighty three of Manufacturing Serendipity, a loosely connected, somewhat rambling collection of the unexpected things I’ve recently encountered.
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Part I: Things I’ve been thinking about
During the latest cohort of my Ideation Course someone asked me how I feel about “dream job” campaigns; a perennial PR favourite, where a brand invents a job for the purpose of generating press coverage. (NB this isn’t a “new” idea, and I feel like it’s not that different to floating things down the Thames).
My view on this stuff is pretty pragmatic — I don’t feel any particular way about these campaigns, i.e. I neither love them, or hate them — seemingly successful campaigns interest me; but, at the same time I think we need to be mindful about drawing conclusions which are too broad.
By this, I mean that whilst it can be tempting to draw conclusions like: “journalists love to cover dream job campaigns”, of course that’s not the case. I suspect that for every wildly successful “dream job” campaign, there are probably hundreds which generated little or no coverage at all.
This popped back in mind head this week because Ikea is (apparently) paying real people $16.80 an hour to work at its virtual Roblox store. Yep, you read that right, you can now be paid to work in a virtual Ikea store that exists only inside a game.
In terms of coverage, this PR campaign looks to be very successful — at the time of writing this, ahrefs was showing links from 336 sites, and if you search Google News for “ikea roblox job” you’ll find stories from a range of high tier news outlets.
So, why has this campaign worked?
It occurs to me that calling it a “dream job” isn’t quite right — for most people it’s the antithesis of a dream job, right? Welcome to your dystopian future, friends! It’s conceivable that from a press perspective this is part of the appeal.
Additionally, I feel like this “dream job” campaign comes across as being just the right side of ridiculous (for a mainstream audience), whilst retaining some semblance of plausibility. We can’t know for sure whether or not anyone will actually be hired for these jobs, or indeed, even if they are hired, how long these contracts might last. But what seems to be true is that Ikea are opening a store on Roblox and you can apply* for one of these roles.
(Incidentally friends, I have applied. I was curious to see what would happen, but so far nothing. Not even a email confirming my application, which feels like a missed opportunity.)
Is this campaign “good”?
It’s been very successful in terms of generating media coverage, however, it should be noted that the sentiment of said coverage isn’t positive across the board. I also feel like it’s also worth pointing out that the Roblox community seem to be pretty cynical about the whole thing — and rightly so.
My instinct is that this was mostly a PR play intended to generate mainstream coverage, which is fair enough, but, as a result, I can’t help but feel like Ikea have alienated Roblox players, which is far from ideal.
In short, not all PR is “good” PR, even when it’s successful :)
*The SEOs among you will likely be lamenting the fact that all that linked coverage is pointing at thecoworker.co.uk, a standalone site, rather than the actual Ikea domain. I’m sure they’ll 301 it at some point, huh?
Moar serendipitous finds:
A Potted History of the Pocket T-Shirt
How did the pocket t-shirt come to be? From undergarment, to the army, to Hollywood; I found this fascinating.
“We’re trying to find the shape of space”: scientists wonder if the universe is like a doughnut
Rather than stretching to infinity and beyond, the universe may have a topology that can eventually be mapped — this article broke my brain in the best possible way.
The Musical History Lesson Buried Beneath the Song of the Summer
“It’s about the people who decide what pop does and doesn’t sound like—or, more to the point, what pop looks and doesn’t look like.”
This essay from Dan Charnas is excellent, and well worth your time.
Solo backcountry biker, Laura Killingbeck, weighs in on the "man or bear?" debate…
“[The question] has nothing to do with bears. (Sorry, bears!) “Would you rather be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear?” is just another way of asking, “Are you afraid of men?” It’s the same question I’ve been fielding for the entirety of my life as a solo female traveler. It’s the same question that hovers over women all the time as we move through the world.”
A shaded relief map of Manhattan, New York
Created using LiDAR data, and a tool called ReliefViz, by Reddit user vKittyhawk — it is gorgeous:
I love this so much!
“Alternative text, or alt text, is a written description of an image or visual material. Put another way, alt text is a non-visual text alternative to digital images. Alt text is an essential part of web accessibility and is one way to create access to visual content for people who are blind, low vision, or have certain cognitive disabilities.
For us, an alt text selfie is any written self-portrait. This project takes a well-known practice—the selfie—and approaches it through a disability lens. Selfies and self-descriptions are often visually focused, but to us, an alt text selfie doesn’t need to center visual presentation or a literal description of an image. Alt text selfies might focus on feelings, smells, tastes, sounds, emotions, textures, or some combination. Alt text selfies can be any length, but for this project, we focused on writing in the one-sentence to one-paragraph range.
Description is an important access practice. Visual description—as well as descriptions of sound, taste, smell, and texture—are ways that we can connect across sensory experiences and distance. Like many access practices, description has often been approached in a dry and compliance-oriented way. We’re excited about the possibilities of description that are pleasurable and make the Internet, in particular, a more engaging and connective place for disabled people.
Description and self-description are also complex. How do we name and acknowledge visual (and non-visual) markers of our identities? How we see and name things is anything but neutral. Disabled people, especially multi-marginalized disabled people, have been writing self-descriptions online in thoughtful and inventive ways. To us, it is a vital facet of disability cultures. We are creating this project in order to celebrate this writing practice. As well, by paying closer attention to self-description, alt text selfies may give us new tools or ways of understanding and describing ourselves.”
You can browse the alt text selfies here.
Part II: Books I’m Reading Right Now
Ten Planets, Yuri Herrara (translated by Lisa Dillman) — this is a stunning collection of flash fiction and short stories. Here you’ll find a sentient house; a detective who finds clues to buried secrets by studying the noses of his clients; a man walking across the Atlantic Ocean — whose surface is paved with litter; and dragons. Utterly delicious.
Part III: Things I’ve Been Watching
Anatomy of a Fall (Amazon Prime) - having read Alexandra Schwartz’s excellent essay I was excited to watch this film, and it doesn’t disappoint. Highly recommended.
Part IV: What I’ve been up to…
Emceeing WTSFest Berlin was an absolute delight, plus I got to have a lovely dinner with my friend Laura which was ace.
What’s next?
I am excited about:
Catching up with life admin
Making plans
Going away for a long weekend with my Mum
Moar shameless self-promotion
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That’s all from me for now :)
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Big love,
Hannah x
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