B2B Content Marketing for brands that want to STAY HUMAN
👋🏼 👋🏼 Hola!
The sun is out, schools have officially closed for the summer holidays in the UK, and I hope you’re all looking forward to a bit of a break over the next month and a bit. Probably a bit less so for parents, who have to figure out the maths of multiple holiday clubs x number of kids! But never fear, the Storythings newsletter will make an appearance in your inbox all through 😊
💻 DATA POINT: The 2026 Belonging in Britain report by MG OMD and Global highlights how media helps in bringing communities together, with podcasts a big part of this. 81% feel a sense of community with at least one media channel, while 74% say media contributes to who they are. ‘People, Personality and Passions’ are more important than demographics, which is something we’ve been saying at Storythings a lot when we talk to clients about their audiences. Unsurprisingly for Britain, sports supporter groups are the biggest type of community, with music fandoms close behind.
📕The Short Story
The Hydration Break World Cup (10-min read)
The Dying Art of Handmade Restaurant Signs (26-min watch)
Can You Guess The Judas? (12-min watch)
Code For The People (19-min watch)
These Are The Worst ChatGPT Flyers You’ve Sent Us (collection of posters)
Es Devlin Is Creating A Living Portrait Of The Entire UK (3-min read and internet project)
📣 Maria Thomas On Care, Not Criminalisation (3-min read) 📣
AGI cannot be compared to standard technological breakthroughs, not even ones as consequential as the internet or mobile - it is much more akin to the discovery of electricity or fire. If you stop to think about it, we’ve essentially found a way to make sand think. It’s miraculous.
📚 The Long Story
Your Favourite Videos From The Internet Are Coming Soon To Netflix (2-min read)
From August 3rd, Netflix subscribers in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand will be able to see 3 to 20-minute episodes from publishers like Condé Nast (Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit etc.), Hearst (Cosmopolitan, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar etc.) and Tastemade right within Netflix. More options to not leave the house…
The Hydration Break World Cup (10-min read)
Author and Tufts University Professor Jonathan Wilson writes about his memories and experiences of being a football fan, starting with watching and then attending multiple football World Cup tournaments, including the 1966 game that England went on to win in Wembley (and to date their only success at the tournament). Sixteen World Cups in total!!
The Dying Art of Handmade Restaurant Signs (26-min watch)
For all of you graphic design fans, this documentary by NYT Cooking is a heartfelt look at Noble Signs, “a Brooklyn-based design studio that specializes in custom hand-painted and neon signs for restaurants all over New York, from mom-and-pop shops to some of the buzziest new joints.” They are also preserving and rescuing some of the best signs from businesses forced to close as New York continues to change.
How The Met’s Audience Engagement Teams Collaborate To Engage 6.3 Million Visitors (8-min read)
Tricia Robson, senior project manager for Audience Engagement, talks about how she ensures collaboration between multiple teams within The Metropolitan Museum of Art to make sure every aspect of the visitor’s experience is thought through. As she says, her goal is to “to get people connected with and inspired by art and humanity, and to connect with themselves and each other.”
Can You Guess The Judas? (12-min watch)
Our Executive Audio Producer Chris shared this, and he described it as ‘The Bible meets The Traitors’, which immediately piqued my interest because I am a big Traitors fan. I’m not very religious though. Having watched this, I will say this show is an excellent way to appeal to the younger generation of church-goers!
Code For The People (19-min watch)
Automattic (the company behind WordPress) have made this short documentary to encourage more people to support the open web. Directed by Bao Nguyen, who also directed the BTS documentary, this film explores the ‘past, present and contested future of the open web’. There’s also a good list of resources on the site for those who’d like to take action.
These Are The Worst ChatGPT Flyers You’ve Sent Us (collection of posters)
This piece led to a fairly passionate discussion on the Storythings Slack. Matt, who shared it, said, “The use of brush script font, ALL CAPS, and dark drop shadows are the biggest tells, along with very high contrast, sepia imagery. I heard someone refer to the tone of AI generated art as 'AI piss’”, Chris said “The AI flyer epidemic needs to stop”, and Darren, our man for all things design said “The advantage is that soon, if not now, people associate AI design with cheap shite!” 😂
A Framework For Frontier AI And The Dawning Of A New Age (7-min read)
Demis Hassabis, co-founder & CEO of Google DeepMind has a new manifesto for the new age of AI, ending with wise words: “There is both huge excitement and uncertainty around AI, and both are warranted. But the future is not yet written, we must use this precious window before AGI arrives to shape this technology for the benefit of all humanity. What we collectively do now will determine how the next phase of civilisation unfolds.”
Es Devlin Is Creating A Living Portrait Of The Entire UK (3-min read and internet project)
Via friend of Storythings Ben Dietz, a lovely project by Es Devlin with Google Arts and Culture, where they are inviting UK residents to submit their selfies to be converted into an Es Devlin-style rendition in charcoal and submitted to the National Portrait Gallery. I was super pleased with how mine turned out!
📣 Maria Thomas On Care, Not Criminalisation (3-min read) 📣
Futures in Draft continues to go from strength to strength. In this piece, organiser and artist Maria Thomas (and my friend!) has a list of resources about the necessity of stopping the criminalisation of people seeking and providing healthcare.
💌 Humans of LinkedIn
John Cutler, Head of Product at Dotwork, tackles the misunderstanding of UX designers as AI skeptics. He makes a really well-argued point that designers are actually optimistic people who believe in the best of the human race, because they take “context, consequences and human complexity seriously”.
READ JOHN’S POST >
Drop us a line if you have anything you’d like us to share in a future edition of this newsletter, or of course if you have any comments or suggestions for us!
Have a great weekend!
Matt, Anjali, Hugh, and the team
B2B Content Marketing for brands that want to STAY HUMAN
