It Is What It Is?
Good morning. It’s been almost a month since the launch of Crashing Up. Big thank you to everyone who’s subscribed and shared so far. I’m very excited for what’s to come. If you haven’t, now’s your chance.
👁️👄👁️
If you’ve ever found yourself scrolling through a TikTok comment section, chances are you’ve come across these three emojis. They are often used together to depict an awkward or absurd situation. For example, if you’re watching someone do one hundred pull-ups and then a triple backflip off a thirty-foot cliff as you’re sitting on your couch, elbow deep in your second pint of Ben and Jerry’s for the night, this might be a suitable response.
Last Thursday night, these emojis began to surface in account bios across tech and VC Twitter, all pointing to an account @itiseyemoutheye that had been recently created. The bio of the account shared the link to 👁👄👁.fm, a flashy landing page with a simple call to action, “give us ur info.” Pinned to the top of the account was a cryptic tweet teasing a special announcement at 7 pm PST, 06/26.
Once users entered their email onto the landing page form, they were directed to wait for an invite...with one caveat. If you donated to the Loveland Therapy Fund, your invite would come quicker.
For over 24 hours, no one knew at all what it was. Was it an app? Was it a brand? Was it a hoax? Everyone who tweeted about or DMed the mysterious account to discover it’s true meaning, all received the same answer: “It is what it is.”
Throughout the day of the 26th, images of the suspected user interface circulated around Twitter, further revving up the hype train.
By Friday night, the tech world was buzzing about what this was. It had become the top product on ProductHunt, earned press from Forbes and The Independent, and had been discussed by some of the biggest venture capitalists in the world. Some even tried to invest in it, without knowing what “it” was. Once the clock struck 7PM PST, the account tweeted again sharing that the announcement would be pushed back two more hours. In the meantime, they directed users back to the site where they could donate to Loveland Foundation, The Innocence Project or The Okra Project. Once users had donated, they could upload the receipt to the site “see what it is.”
At 9PM, the team behind the account finally unveiled “what it was.” A savvy marketing campaign built in 36 hours by a diverse group of Gen-Z techies, all of whom had bonded over an inside joke on Twitter. Capitalizing off of the tech industry’s almost comical desire for exclusivity and the allure of a secret society, the team behind IWII was able to capture over 20,000 emails, raise over $110,000 for the BLM movement, and generate much needed awareness towards racial inequality in the industry.
When I first saw “what it was,” I immediately thought of the “Instagram Egg.” In 2019, the world came together to make a picture of an egg on a white background the most liked picture on Instagram with over 54 million likes. Through a series of Instagram posts, the account @world_record_egg announced that they would reveal the creator of the account on Hulu after the Super Bowl. The outing was used to promote awareness for mental health with a video of the egg captioned, “Recently I've started to crack, the pressure of social media is getting to me. If you're struggling too, talk to someone.”
In both cases, egg creator Chris Godfrey and the 60 person team behind IWII were able to use little to no marketing spend to cause a socially impactful internet frenzy, fueled by our own gullibility and addiction to mystery.
As someone who watched both of these campaigns unfold from start to finish, the endings left me with only one reaction…👁️👄👁️.
🦊Hunt or Be Hunted
A few weeks ago, I shared one of my favorite networking and cold e-mailing tips: The five minute favor.
While the five minute favor is great, it’s only useful if you know where to reach the person in the first place. One of the biggest cold-emailing pain points is finding the correct email address for the person you want to get in touch with. Chances are that if they are very successful, you’ll need to dig around to bit to find their email.
That’s where Hunter comes in.
Hunter is a tool that scans the internet to find the email addresses of people at any company. Hunter has three products: A domain search (find format of company email), email finder (find email of specific person) , and email verifier (see if email is verified). While you may not find the exact address of the person you’re looking for, you will most likely find the format (i.e. first.last@company.com). From there, you can guess your desired email target’s address and fire away.
Tip: If you’re trying to reach an entrepreneur or a CEO of a company, there’s a decent chance that the format is firstname@company.com. Especially if it’s a personal website. When in doubt, shoot off an email to this format anyway, worst comes to worst you get a Mailer Daemon rejection. If you don’t, it’s probably a real address.
Happy Hunting!
3️⃣ The Three P’s
In last week’s newsletter I discussed the concept of the the Three C’s. I received a lot of great feedback on this, so this week I bring to you another resilience building mindset.
Martin Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, famously known as the father of positive psychology, has devoted his life to uncovering the positive psychological intricacies behind resilience, learned helplessness, depression, optimism and pessimism.”
In his book, Learned Optimism (1991), Seligman breaks down the idea of explanatory style, or the psychological attribute in which people explain to themselves why they experience a particular event, either positive or negative.
This style can be broken down into three steps, also known as the “Three P’s”:
Permanence — In order to achieve post-traumatic growth, avoiding permanence is key. This is the mindset that a bad situation will last forever. Those who view setbacks as temporary bouts of adversity are able to acknowledge these negative circumstances and adapt for the future. For instance, they might say, “I didn’t do well on that marketing test” rather than “I suck at marketing.”
Pervasiveness — Pervasiveness is the belief that a negative experience is universal, or that it will impact all facets of life. Resilient people don’t let disappointments or bad events affect unrelated areas of their lives.
Personalization — Optimistic people don’t blame themselves in the wake of bad events. Instead, they credit external events, or other people, as the cause. By not assuming the blame for situations that are out of our control, we maintain a greater level of happiness compared to those who internalize the blame and believe they are worthless, talentless, and unlovable.
In her 2016 UC Berkley Commencement Speech, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said, “Just as our bodies have a physiological immune system,” she said, “our brains have a psychological immune system. And there are steps you can take to help kick it into gear.”
Given everything that’s going on right now, our psychological immune system is in equally as much danger as our physiological immune system. It’s more important than ever to take the necessary precautions to ensure that both stay intact.