SUNDAY SCARIES: Feelings and Other Simulations

This week explores Feelings and Other Simulations.

1. The Church of the CEO / Investing Faith in False Prophets

We've entered a bizarro world of business where leadership is more Jim Jones and less Jack Welch. Musk, Zuck, even Altman preach a future only they can deliver. The unsurprising coincidence of yet another Tesla recall landing the same week shareholders approved the largest pay package in corporate history begs the question: Does the market still trade on proof? Or just conviction? Put bluntly, the Cybertruck is New Coke on four wheels, and yet Musk just became the world's first trillionaire — on paper.

Takeaway: Why, with such visibly flawed leaders, does emotional confidence still hold its value? Maybe because a lack of direction feels worse. Faith moves people faster than facts. We don't invest in outcomes anymore; we invest in believers who make us feel like we can.

(Sources: CNBC; Ad Age; Financial Times)

2. Defrosted Joy

Even joy can feel manufactured. Mariah Carey's annual “It's Time” ritual (her recent yearly declaration that Christmas has begun) was supposed to be harmless nostalgia. But this year's Sephora-sponsored version hit TikTok like a sugar rush: 120 million views in two days, half celebration, half backlash. Because the joy itself didn't feel real.

In the clip, striking elves dance while 1.4 million federal workers go unpaid during a government shutdown. The message of joy lands somewhere between irony and insult. What should have been a wink turned into a wince. And rightly so.

Takeaway: Joy used to be the easiest emotion to believe in. Now it's a liability that needs context. Because even the simplest pleasures are getting litigated through culture. Joy is still a release valve, but it's compressed gas. Handle it carefully.

(Sources: Dentsu Culture Dive; Ad Age; TikTok Analytics)

3. The Fear Dividend

Fear has long been a driving force behind corporate decision-making and management. Now it's also quietly become the most reliable ROI in marketing — fear of missing out, fear of risk, fear of standing out, fear of being on the wrong side of history.

The irony is that the real fear that brands should feel is a fear of total irrelevance. The marketplace rewards courage; the boardroom rewards consensus. And consensus kills differentiation faster than any competitor ever could.

Takeaway: What's real is connection. No one waits in line for hours to experience something they don't feel connected to. Real is scary. It takes gut, not guidance.

(Sources: ANA Masters of Marketing; Harvard Business Review; Rishad Tobaccowala — "Fear as Fuel")

4. Branded Transparency → Visibility Without Intent

Everything's visible now: data, behavior, emotion. It's all seen. The only part that's hidden is intent. In our online world, everyone's nauseatingly “authentic,” but no one's actually known, so the truth of their authenticity is another false faith.

Instead of being able to look people in the eye, we retreat to screens and we've made vulnerability a content category, not a condition. We watch others perform truth instead of telling it. And instead of being vulnerable ourselves, we choose to be comforted by the particular brand of vulnerability that best serves our own security.

Takeaway: While chasing "realness," we've mistaken exposure for connection. Convenience and control cannot coexist with insecurity, so the more excited you get about feeling vulnerable, the less vulnerable you truly are.

(Sources: Fast Company; The Atlantic; Pew Research Center — Digital Trust Report 2025)

This Week's Red Thread: Feelings and Other Simulations

Faith. Joy. Fear. Truth.

Everything this week was designed to simulate sincerity and packaged for consumption.

Faith, joy, fear, transparency — all optimized until feeling itself became interface.

What's real doesn't scale.

It's inconvenient, inconsistent, unfiltered, HUMAN.

Maybe the next creative rebellion is to be UNcontrolled.

To believe without branding it. To laugh without checking context.

To make something that matters before it's marketable.

Nothing artificial lasts forever. What's real still does.

— NB