SUNDAY SCARIES: Disappearing Connections

This week we're talking about Disappearing Connections.

1. The 1099 Relationship

Bullish co-founder (and all-around great human being) Brent Vartan recently called it the age of the freelance consumer. Loyalty now runs month-to-month, with feelings billed in installments: We love both products and people the same way we subscribe to a new brand of supplements: trial first, cancel anytime.

As relationships get optimized, we start to confuse flexibility with freedom. We've mastered mobility but misplaced the meaning that's supposed to follow. Because when everything is temporary, nothing grows deep enough to matter. Rishad Tobaccowala called that a failure of roots and wings; when individuals and brands are always between several somethings, they're never truly present in any of them.

Takeaway: Optionality feels like freedom until you realize you've optimized yourself out of belonging.

(Sources: Bullish Newsletter; Inc; Rishad Tobaccowala — "Learning to Learn")

2. Only Friction Makes Fire

In his recent HBR column, Arthur Brooks wrote that modern leaders live in a “criticism sandwich”: giving it, taking it, and occasionally choking on it in public. Criticism, he argues, “isn't cruelty; it's calibration.” It's how we improve.

But brands have confused comfort for connection. In marketing and relationships, we built applause loops that make echo chambers look like tough love. AI encourages every idiotic idea we have with, “Exactly!” while our feeds reward only affirmation, and ads are optimized until they only please. So the very thing that strengthens connections with both people and brands, friction, has been conveniently forgotten.

When we sand every edge, we create forgettable brands and boring people. Nike wasn't built on comfortable consensus. Nor was Patagonia, or Ben & Jerry's, or Apple, or any company (or marriage) that ever stood for something real.

Takeaway: Growth, for people or brands, demands friction. Praise may sustain for a quarter, but criticism builds a cultural connection.

(Sources: Harvard Business Review, Arthur Brooks; Fast Company; Nike Archives; my marriage)

3. Unaccountable Language

“6 7.” “Core.” “Vibes.” As a marketer, Gen Z slang is amusing. As a writer and a human, I fear we're pushing past slang and preferring to be fluent in placeholders. Words are ambient noise that's quick, clever, and empty enough to trend. Emotional emojis have replaced emotional literacy.

But the fewer real words we use, the less we seem to feel. Because when language erodes, so does conscience. The real risk isn't that we stop “smashing the like button,” it's that we stop saying anything. If we don't name what we love, we don't name what scares us. And in the silence, we stop admitting what we're seeing.

Every day, undocumented immigrants are dragged off sidewalks in plain sight. Kids watch on social platforms or through windshields. Adults scroll past. When language loses purpose and precision, empathy loses power. If we can't describe injustice, we can't even recognize it. And losing that connection to our own humanity cannot be repaired with technology.

Takeaway: When we trade words for vibes, we don't just flatten emotion, we forfeit accountability. Silence is what happens when cruelty becomes commonplace.

(Sources: Dentsu Weekly; The Guardian; The Atlantic)

4. Analog Antidotes

Maybe that's why vinyl keeps spinning. Why physical books still sell. And why we crave the weight of things when everything else floats. (And why I own 200+ pairs of Nike sneakers.)

Rishad Tobaccowala's triad — Joy, Gratitude, Time — is an antidote to efficiency. Joy is attention reclaimed. Gratitude is generosity made visible. And time is still the only algorithm that can't be gamed.

It's not anti-AI, it's pro-presence. Adoration can be digitized, but intimacy can't be indexed. If you want to find the future, it's in someone's patience and maybe the palm of their hand.

Takeaway: Hold something. Stay longer. Listen slower. The algorithm can't imitate time well spent.

(Sources: Rishad Tobaccowala; Fast Company; Nielsen BookScan)

This Week's Red Thread

Every week feels like another beta test for what it means to be human. Now we're reformatting the concept of connection itself, from friends to feeds, from faith to follow-backs, and replacing it with a culture of almost intimacy, where everyone's reachable but no one's really present.

We've made relationships convenient but not durable, performative but not personal. We've mistaken availability for intimacy, and attention for care. But presence, the act of simply showing up, is still the greatest signal in the system.

Whether you're listening to a friend or talking to consumers; whether you're tying shoelaces and feeling the knot in your hand, or going the distance to pick someone up at the airport... being present still means everything.

— NB