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The context is the point

by Adam Singer. A simple mental model to bring joy: the less context something has or the more that context is faked, the less you should care about it

Adam Singer has done it again! He’s becoming almost a regular contributor here at The BoldBrush Letter. The following article was written by Adam Singer, the man and the mind behind the publication Hot Takes.

Hot Takes is spicy, useful, occasionally snarky takes (~1-2x/week at most) from Adam Singer on marketing, tech, investing, creativity and more. We, at BoldBrush, have found Adam’s thoughts about marketing insightful, refreshing, contrarian and aligned with our own philosophy of valuing real long-term human relationships over cheap engagement.

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This article originally appeared on the Hot Takes here. I’m sharing it with The BoldBrush Letter because in it, Adam has explored an important topic for creative people.
Editor’s Note: In two days, this post will be locked and is available only to paid members because we don’t want this duplicate content on the open web in a way that might draw traffic away from Adam’s original post. If you are not a BoldBrush paid subscriber, you can still read the entire post here.

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The Context is the Point by Adam Singer

People say context is dead, as they are nihilistic, boring or otherwise empty humans. Their attention has been completely broken by 15 second videos/social streams or otherwise exploited to fill in gaps with manufactured-by-committee, generic or even acquired backstory. It’s because we are living through a creative dark ages and world full of psyops (fancy word for propaganda). What gets funded here broadly is derivative and anodyne, patterning what worked before, as short-term revenue is what’s optimized against (with no understandingwhy any original creative work was successful in the first place).

But of course, context matters. It’s the invisible thread that weaves significance into the mundane and makes the ordinary become extraordinary. It’s where you should spend time understanding why the thing being presented to you is there, who created it and how. It’s important to know not just for researching a product purchase, but to understand the world more deeply and on a level that creates meaning.

Whether in art, business, or just daily life, the presence or absence of context is what fundamentally shapes our perceptions and emotions. A context-free life would be very postmodern, to the point you would have to be extremely committed to an NPC-like bit to hold onto (sims characters quite literally have no context). As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked, "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world." Similarly, the limits of our understanding and meaning are measured by the amount (and quality) of context in which we encounter something.

It’s important for marketers to understand this concept and spend a lot of time on context. Let’s consider something mundane, say the act of purchasing toilet paper. The average consumer feels indifferent towards the brand they choose, as long as it serves its practical purpose. The Charmin bears are cute, but without any additional context, they are mere symbols of softness and comfort. In a world marked by inflation, why not choose the generic brand a buck cheaper, it doesn’t matter. Unless you happen to know a product manager at P&G, were given a tour of the facility, or perhaps own the stock you are fully removed from the creation process, as we are many things in modernity. Atomization is of course one of the largest trends of our time.

On the other hand, a direct-to-consumer startup has the potential to transform this boring, thoughtless transaction into something with real meaning. The founder could, for example, provide a deep and personal backstory about a commitment to a social cause (perhaps feeding shelter dogs) and give a percent of revenue to it, merging product with purpose, transcending its utilitarian function. Every time you purchase you could have that context and know you’re doing something good for the universe. It’s magical to be able to provide something like buying toilet paper deeper meaning. I’m sure Proctor and Gamble donates plenty to non-profits, but it’s never going to be their brand like an upstart could have, they can’t do something like give 7% of each purchase here. Startups have a blank slate to do something special. This is really the most potent inroad any David has vs a Goliath of a CPG commodity — making the user care. The context provided of course doesn’t have to be cause-related, it could be anything (lots of people are actively turning brands blatantly political as another example, but it doesn’t have to be that either). You just have to give people context into a story they’ll care about.

Similarly, in the realm of creativity, context plays the pivotal role in determining the personal value and meaning of a work, at least if you aren’t simply a vacuous ‘content consumer.’

AI-generated ‘art’ may flood our social streams, providing momentary amusement, but it lacks the depth and resonance that comes from human creativity, because it’s context-free. Indeed, music, art, literature derive their power from the variety of (cultural, historical, personal) contexts that instill them with meaning. Without context, everything is just throwaway stock art, and might as well be a hospital hallway. This is why in time the internet will kill the pop star factory (AI creative is just trying to ‘disrupt’ this form of media, it can’t make anything transcendental). The assumption with most of this is everyone already doesn’t care. I think, at least under the surface, this is wrong, and if you still care about factory curated ‘stars’ meant for consumption over genuine creatives you know the depths of personally, you aren’t using the internet right (and are leading a fairly empty existence). You can connect with them and get that context right now, and the fact that many aren’t connected with others who provide deeper meaning is a reason they’re unhappy and depressed/anxious, honestly. Future humans will do this differently, we just mostly aren’t using these tools right yet.

Let’s give more examples that are offline to help clarify this thinking. Consider the experience of attending a live performance by a local band you know the drummer of or the pieces of art you might put up in your home walls. What do they both say about you? What do they mean to you? The richness of these things isn’t from the thing itself as much as the story surrounding them for you personally – the stories of the musicians' struggles and triumphs, the historical context of the artwork, or the personal significance it holds. Even seemingly trivial details, such as the origin of a family photograph, have profound meaning within the context of our lives. It’s the reason only a psychopath would leave the stock photo in a picture frame from Target and hang that up. It just doesn’t happen. Many people have their digital lives or parts of their media consumption filled up with the ‘Target stock photo’ equivalent elsewhere, as they haven’t taken the time to understand better context is available now everywhere, in a way the suits at a megacorp couldn’t or wouldn’t understand. We now get the experience we create, and it can have as little or as much meaning as we want it to have. People with depth don’t want to be fully divorced from the creative in their lives any longer similarly as health-conscious individuals don’t want a diet purely of microwaved, preservative-filled foods.

As I mentioned, the intersection of context and interpretation is important in literature (and film). So as a final ex, we have to talk about Dune. Fans of the series approach each adaptation with a complex set of expectations shaped by prior knowledge and emotional investment. Dune is so optimistic to me as it proves we still have the mental bandwidth and desire for long narrative with lots of context. The recent film adaptations garnered mixed reactions (more disappointment with the first than second, broadly) but importantly those familiar with the source material found themselves engaging with it on multiple levels, while newcomers were enticed to explore the original novels, enriching their understanding. Of note, Frank Herbert faced numerous rejections from publishers when trying to get Dune published. It was rejected over 20 times before finally being accepted by Chilton Books, an automotive manual publisher, in 1965. They took a chance on it, and it went on to become one of the best-selling science fiction novels of all time. Even that part of the story adds to the Dune lore. This rejection is emblematic of the risk-averse bean counters creatives face that are (sadly, still) leading institutional decisions — so it’s safe to assume no one you talk to in a decision chair understands creativity or the importance of context. It’s just not how they think (note: acquiring context like Disney did with Star Wars doesn’t grant a pass for future meaning, in fact I think the opposite is inevitable, and as byproduct nothing Disney has made is of consequence).

The ability to harness context is essential for marketers, artists, even end users seeking to create meaning in an increasingly atomized and empty world. The right context is what creates meaning, transforming commodities into symbols of purpose and elevating art into vessels of human experience that transcend time. But it’s very difficult to manufacture or generate this and it’s clear to me the ad sector and much of media industry doesn’t know how any longer (they focus on entertainment and abyss distraction, the antithesis of art and meaning). You can understand why proper creatives don’t really have to worry too much about AI for this reason. I think we’re actually reaching peak context-free world, and people will soon crave real meaning once again. It fixes so much, more than pharmaceuticals, alcohol or doom-scrolling could ever paper over.

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