Truth In Advertising (No, Really), or: Confessions of a Reformed Bullshit Artist
How making better things can make things better
Digital ad featuring (L to R): Matt, Jeff, and this guy, aka The Indie Darlings of Recovery Podcasting™, during one of the last (but not final?) recordings of Since Right Now, “The Podcast Your Sponsor Warned You About™”
“We're not curing cancer." It's the go-to defense mechanism of every agency creative who's wondering if they've sold their soul for better kerning and compelling call-to-action buttons. Like somehow acknowledging we're not saving lives makes it okay to be part of the problem.
Here's the thing though — we can save lives. Or ease someone's anxiety. Or help people feel less alone. Or make mental health accessible. Or remind someone they matter. Or give voice to the unheard. Or change a tire¹. Or simply make someone's impossibly hard day a little less hard.
I just got a message — not unlike messages I’ve received before — from someone who listened to my recovery podcast: “Will forever be grateful to you, Jeff and Matt. SRN² helped save my life. ❤️" Not to get precious about it, but that's why I made the thing in the first place. Not for metrics, not for ad revenue, but because stories matter. Connection matters. Truth matters.
And I'm not just throwing around hypotheticals here. I built Klēn & Sōbr: Since Right Now — what I wryly dubbed (with equal parts pride and self-deprecation) my full-time job that paid nothing — because I couldn't figure out how to help friends and family struggling with substance use disorders, even after a decade of my own DIY sobriety. So I created something. Then I kept creating: giving platforms to sober writers, showcasing recovery artists, publishing actual books, producing more podcasts, and building what became a legitimate (if self-funded) recovery media empire.
That decade of putting mission before money changed me. Now I'm committed to working with brands and organizations that have a capital-G Greater Good baked into their DNA. Yeah, it's harder — turns out bottom lines are the bane of benevolence — but it's the only work worth doing.
And yeah, most marketing is a dumpster fire of ego and ignorance — creatives more concerned with winning awards than winning trust, strategists who wouldn't know authentic human connection if it sent them a LinkedIn request. But it doesn't have to be that way.
I’m done with performative professionalism.
Here at the Error Dome, we're after something different. Call it conscious capitalism if you must (though that phrase makes me want to douche³), but I'm only interested in projects that make things better. Maybe not cancer-cure better, but human-connection better. Understanding-each-other better. Making-the-world-suck-less better⁴.
Because here's what decades of doing this (lazily waves hands in general direction of … everything⁵) has taught me: Every touchpoint is an opportunity to help someone. Every piece of content is a chance to make someone feel less alone. Every brand interaction could be the thing that changes someone's day — or life.
I'm done with performative professionalism. If you want carefully curated content, there are plenty of agencies that'll give you that. I'm here to be real — sometimes uncomfortably so. Because real connection requires real honesty, even when it means TMI. (I mean, per the O.G. MTV of my youth, “Too much is never enough.")
Is that too loud for what we do? Maybe. But I'd rather blast a meaningful signal than continue contributing to the noise.
FOOTNOTES
Just seeing if you're paying attention. Though honestly, a well-placed tire-changing tutorial could save someone's day.
What? It's French for “shower."
Note the hyphen placement. We're going for ‘less sucky,' not ‘lacking in better suck.’
Advertising, branding, content strategy, design, recovery media empire-building ... you know, stuff.
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Simon Maage via Unsplash
From 1985 MTV promo / “Too much is never enough.” said by a variety of musicians featured on the channel at the time.
