We should listen to you.

Totally.

I mean, it's one of my biggest gripes.

This is an anecdote, but the anecdote goes into a kind of a broader insight that I think you're speaking to.

I was part of a competition learning experience for university students with a very large industry body.

And the competition was essentially this kind of learning experience for marketing students at a very large, at my alma mater, Arizona State University.

And the students were tasked with creating a campaign for a brand.

No.

Mm

... what I needed.

Um, and then in adulthood I didn't do so well, so graduating from college, deciding to move to New York City, running around, living a very social, very overstimulating life.

And then the pandemic hit, and everyone was freaking out, and I felt great.

I was told to stay home, not socialize, don't be overstimulated.

And I'm not exaggerating when I say within a few days I felt wonderful I, I felt like this veil had lifted and I didn't feel like I was, the world was gonna fall apart at any minute, which is what my anxiety felt like.

I didn't feel sad every day, which is really how my depression manifested.

So closing question: If there's one shift in people's values that, that you would want them to get after hearing our conversation, what would it be?

You know, where does this sit during a time when, you know, maybe DEI has been quietly retreating, or how do we kind of like address those biases, like moving forward, especially if we have more people coming into the fore who are trying to represent the very thing, um, that, you know, brands want to tap into?

Yeah, no, it's a great, great question, and I think, you know, both of us being cultural strategists, it's like the question in cultural strategy is, is whose perspective are you centering? I think this question, interestingly, although it's a question about DE&I, it is also a question about business, right? I think it's, it's why when we try and separate the conversation of inclusion away from business, it fundamentally falls apart.

Because when you are centering a perspective that does not meet the audience that you want to grow with, that audience is not going to understand your message.

It might be a reputational risk for you.

Um, it's why cultural intelligence is intertwined with inclusivity work because to the point that I, I wrote in the romantasy essay, rom-coms are dying as a medium because they were always told through the lens of what male executives in Hollywood thought women wanted.

And romantasy is the top-selling book genre in the world, and it's not even close for second place because it's written by women, it's being read by women, the fan fiction, the fan art, um, the cosplay, it's all being done by women because women are saying, "This is actually what we find as being romantic or attractive to us." So although it feels a little bit disconnected, I think the romantasy model is a really good model to look at to see this is an industry that's being propped up by female writers, by female consumers, by female creators, and it's also incredibly profitable.

Like, it is basically keeping the book industry solvent at this point.

What are the, you know, what advice or would you tell them to help us kind of move the needle on this?

Can you go into more of why you said this?

Yeah.

Um, it was a really great question that you'd framed up, and I was excited to, to dive into it.

So I think a lot of times our industry has a point... goes into points of view that really only talk to a small segment of, of people and culture.

Like, you know, people who are chronically online or people who live in, like, coastal cities or metropolitan areas.

And I think that...

I know that really muddles how we view what is actually happening in culture, especially in America, which is so vastly diverse in how we are experiencing the world today.

Mm