You’re still reading my words.
We all know attention spans have been chopped up and fed to those robot overlords like some sort of sacrifice.
Yet you’re still here reading my sentences that take longer than seven seconds to process.
Engaging with ideas that can’t be compressed into a TikTok or summarised in a tweet thread.
That’s… honestly kind of fucking miraculous.
I mean nowadays. Your phone is buzzing with seventeen different notifications. Your inbox is screaming for attention. Netflix has new episodes of that show you’re binge watching. Instagram is serving up an endless scroll of carefully curated lives that make yours feel inadequate by comparison.
And yet you’re here, letting my thoughts about marketing psychology and social media shenanigans rent space in your brain.
I don’t take that lightly.
You’ll hear Gary V bang on about us still living the attention economy. Yes yes, we know…
Attention is the most valuable currency you possess. It’s finite. It’s precious. It’s constantly under assault by every platform, every brand, every content creator desperately trying to monetise your eyeballs.
Everyone wants a piece of your mental real estate. Everyone’s competing for those neurons. Everyone’s optimising for engagement, for clicks, for that dopamine hit that keeps you coming back like a lab rat pressing a lever for cocaine pellets.
But you chose to stick around here instead.
Through my rants about why most marketing is psychological manipulation dressed up as helpfulness.
Through my breakdowns of how social media platforms are designed to make you feel inadequate while harvesting your data.
Through my probably-too-honest thoughts about sales tactics that work because they exploit human psychology in ways that make me feel slightly dirty for understanding them.
You’ve weathered my tangents about…
Why most “growth hacking” is just old school manipulation with a tech makeover.
How the attention economy is literally rewiring our brains for anxiety and distraction.
Why authenticity has become a marketing buzzword that lost all meaning.
The dark psychology behind social proof and FOMO tactics.
How we’re all complicit in creating the digital shitshow we complain about.
And somehow, you’re still here.
Maybe it’s because you recognise that understanding these systems is the first step toward not being completely controlled by them. Maybe you appreciate having someone explain why your social media feeds make you feel like shit without telling you to just “practice gratitude” or “be more positive.”
Maybe you’re tired of surface level marketing advice that treats you like a walking wallet instead of a complex human being with actual thoughts and feelings.
(Imagine having actual thoughts and feelings in 2025? lol…)
Or maybe you just enjoy watching someone dissect the machinery of modern persuasion like a psychological autopsy, revealing all the ugly gears and levers hidden beneath the pretty user interface.
Whatever the reason.
Thank you.
This isn’t easy stuff to think about. It’s simpler to just consume content without questioning why it makes you feel certain ways. It’s more comfortable to use social media without understanding how the algorithm decides what you see. It’s easier to buy things without recognising the psychological triggers being pulled.
But you’re here anyway.
I’m grateful you’re willing to think about this stuff with me, even when it gets weird or uncomfortable or darker than a Tuesday night Netflix binge. I’m grateful you see value in understanding how the game is played, even if or especially if, you don’t always like the rules.
Thank you for sticking around. Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring enough about your own psychological sovereignty to understand how these systems work.
That’s not something I take for granted.
Now here’s some more good vibes going into the night…
Stephen Walker.
If you’re not diggin’ these tasty little emails anymore you can hit the unsubscribe button right here >>> unsubscribe
Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom