{D} Do not go sloppily
Vol. 6, Issue 181 // pics + links // maybe try clicking the pics too
Hey there from the high valley of Mexico City.
In July I’m going to be embarking on a month-long fieldwork study of digital play in South Korea, Japan, and the United States.
I’m looking to talk to any researchers, strategists, digital play experts, gaming experts, esports fanatics, and parents who have experience in the state of playing with pixels — especially if connected to South Korea or Japan.
If that sounds like you, or somebody you know, or if you have strong opinions about those things, drop me a line! I’d love to learn from your experience. I can’t tell you the brand I’m working with, but this is going to be one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever worked on.
see you in the PC Bang,
-s.
p.s. work continues on the signal room, where I’m collating Delightful’s links over the years. Will be surfacing collections of curated tools, creative advice, strategy, research, and more. More to come soon. 💾
Last week’s most-clicked links:
64 places to search for image inspo that isn’t Pinterest [Popular]
What Strategists Need to Do in a World Where There’s a Surplus of Smarts [Ed Cotton]
Ribbonfarm [Ribbonfarm]
Congratulations this week to our fellow Breakfast Clubbing host and Why is this interesting? pal Kevin Maguire for the publication of his book, The New Fatherhood!
Strategy + creativity
“A better question for any creative person is: what activities do you want to pursue? What kinds of understanding will that create?” // read this. // Developing creative identity [Michael’s Notebook]
“the biggest thing people are missing about taste across the board is that it is relative, contextual, and social.” TASTESLOP [NEMESIS]
“Deserve is not earned by the customer. It is owed by the maker.” Welcome to the Guild of Better [StratMonday]
“I’ll use aggressively casual language, like, ‘hey yo, for real,’ or drop a bunch of exclamation points.” Writers Are Going to Extremes to Prove They Didn’t Use AI [The Wall Street Journal]
“I really think when something is made by friends or lovers or people who consider each other a good hang, it shows up in the fabric of the final product.” Nothing Too Late, Nothing Mistake [Emily Sundberg]
“The brands that publish will be found. The brands that do not will be described by someone else, or not described at all.” The AI Search Manifesto: Why Every Company Needs to Become a Publisher or Disappear From the Conversation [State of Brand]
“Why were there so many dolphins?” Day 1 of finding niche artists that defined our childhood [millennial.ca]
Work + career
“The slowness was not a tax on the real work; the slowness was the real work. It was how the work got good.” Appearing Productive in The Workplace [No One’s Happy]
“Expertise will matter less while curiosity and particularly resilience will matter more.” Guide Yourself by the Stars and Not the Passing Ships [Rishad Tobaccowala]
“A large amount of work consists of person A trying to get person B to do something even though both report to person C. Much is gained if A can keep up with B’s latest half-marathon times, and whether they prefer to holiday in Cornwall or Devon.” The many joys of small talk [The Financial Times]
“If you didn’t create the doc, you’re a guest in someone else’s kitchen. Act accordingly” Etiquette for Shared Online Documents [Rafe Needleman]
Mondays at the office [trust.]
Curiosity + research
“The more something feels like research, the more it can distance you from what you’re actually trying to understand.” Do not ‘do research’ [Meet the 85%]
“Senior researchers earn their seniority by recognizing when a framing is unstable or a method is going to mislead, and by being willing to absorb the social cost of saying so.” The wicked work that surfaces when AI unbundles research [Saeideh Bakhshi]
“They are not the voice of the customer.” // every time i read about synthetic users i think of Morpheus showing Neo a battery in The Matrix // Research papers on synthetic users walk back their claims [Will Plummer]
Decks + other artifacts
The Age of Curation // Brand guidance on the new tactics brands for capturing attention, by SIPS x KRPT // [George Hammond]
delphitools // Background remover, favicon generator, QR code generator, palette extractor, more [tools.rmv.fyi]
Retrotechnology Media // reference library of vintage software screenshots // [Typewritten Software]
LLMinality
“The fact that an AI can’t do your job doesn’t stop an AI salesman from convincing your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can’t do your job.” People insist on having free will, and that’s terribly inconvenient for billionaires [Cory Doctorow]
“The real rates likely sit somewhere between what people claim they noticed, and what they actually encountered” // A Report on AI Content Detection & Reality [Matt Klein]
“Branded queries tend to benefit from AI Overviews” // Using AI to analyze AI is ouroboric, but the results are clarifying // What 34 Studies Reveal About AI Search in 2026 [Matt Klein]
Culture + handwringing I guess
“they want videos to feel like a friend with perfect media training casually FaceTiming them from a professional newsroom” There’s nothing to watch on YouTube anymore [Garbage Day]
“Only 5% said they wanted to be digital creators or influencers” Gen Z doesn’t want to live in public anymore [Yahoo Lifestyle]
“In the age of AI, it makes sense that young people might return to inner knowledge” Is Gen Z the most psychic generation yet? [Dazed Digital]
“Figuring out who you are is an incredibly inefficient, high-friction process.” What happens when identity becomes a subscription service [Abha Ahad]
“What does this say about us, that we so passively acquiesce? Are we not the valiant knights, the truth-tellers, the beauty-makers, who journey to the dark side, slay the dragon, and bring back the dripping treasure? Are we not the guardians of the world’s soul?” On the existential terror of AI-generated music [The Red Hand Files]
Games people play
“the internet has no benches” // incredible browser extension game by Spencer Chang that turns the internet into a shared world // we were online [Spencer Chang]
“In his experience, most hobby wargamers were strictly anti-war” // fascinating history of tabletop gaming // How D&D evolved from Prussian wargaming [Asterisk Magazine]
Love or the absence of it
“There is a “fertility gap” between goals and outcomes, due to frictions and frustrations that have much to do with modern lifestyles — including our homes and, increasingly, our phones.” Why birth rates are falling everywhere all at once [The Financial Times]
Delightful is a 100% organic, free-range, desktop-to-inbox newsletter with links and things, usually. 1x weekly posts (free), occasional tools and research posts (paid). Your host is Steve Bryant, friendly neighborhood insights and content strategist. Let’s work together or go on a hike or something. steve@thisisdelightful.com
{ 🔒 archive }
Creativity, illustration, language, stuff like that
What did you learn about yourself today?
Notes on picking up drawing 30 years later26 things I’ve learned while learning a language
Notes from someone who’s working at itHow to write
Notes on moving and watching and paying attentionCuriosity and Research 101
Notes on how to find out about thingsA map of what you meant to say
Notes on the 3D space of languageThe A.I. isn’t a moron. She’s your wife.
Notes on making ads with AI
Brand strategy, content strategy, etc
Observational and Culture Study Cheat Sheet
A template and tools for researching people and communitiesMy content strategy toolkit
14 tools for organizing, measuring, and creating contentMy concept diagram template
A Figjam for diagramming the complex relationships between conceptsProduct Content Strategy 101
For anybody who’s creating a product that requires editorial contentThe Bento Box Method for developing topical content
A cute and useful way to structure your content topics
Thanks for reading. Be seeing you.
“Infinite gratitude for the past. Infinite service to the present. Infinite responsibility to the future.”
— Stewart Brand, The Clock of the Long Now