I’m planning a digital storytelling workshop at the mo, and even though it’s been a bit oversaturated as a concept I still think it’s the core skill of a content creator.

Not everything has to be a story. That’s mad. But where you can take that moment to think: what’s the story here? Who’s the protagonist? What’s the payoff? And how do I tell it in the best way for the channel I’m using?

Half of my best stuff has come from getting into the habit of asking those questions or, more accurately, thinking: how can I post something that isn’t just a picture and a caption? How do I make people give a fuck?

Content of this week

• Getting your elderly colleagues to talk in Gen Z slang isn’t dead yet. Here’s the USA National Gallery of Art making people care about a big urn.

• I quite like this concept of a Curator’s Clinic by the British Museum and if I’d posted it I’d be annoyed it only got 2k Likes. It’s part of a much longer video on YouTube so a good example of the ‘make a big thing and then chop it into little things’ approach.

• I’m going to blow my own sad little dented trumpet for this post I did for Reading Rep last month, which Did Well For An Account With 4k Followers. The photos are shit, but it doesn’t matter. Because it tells a story.

• Speaking of telling the little stories inside your building, this is another seat-themed fun one by someone working at the Noel Coward.

• There’s not a link for this, but I was just thinking ‘oh what if people look at some of the other Reading Rep posts and they’re obviously shit’, but I have to remind myself of the 80/20 rule. And that very often we are working with what we have week-by-week, and that we try our best to do interesting things with stuff that Has To Be Said with the tools and time we have available. Some of them are shit though.

The bullet point bit

• You’ll probably have heard about Grok undressing people on X The Everything App and how it’s now been stopped (but not really, it’s just been stopped in countries that are likely to fine them). So if this isn’t the nudge to at least mothball your account I don’t know what is. It’s run by a literal white supremacist who thinks making CSAM is free speech.

• I forgot to link this, but TikTok sold its US operation off to a load of investors and companies, and it’s due to close by 22 January. Oracle has a big stake in it and its co-founder is a big Trump supporter, so we might see the algorithm weaponised politically in the future. That said, I sometimes browse TikTok while logged out and it already serves up pretty fash content to new users.

• Reddit has overtaken TikTok in the UK. I’ve seen more official accounts operating on it, including the government, so it may be worth having a crack. It has the potential to send a ton of traffic to your website, but I’m not sure how much they’re enforcing the ‘no self-promotion’ rule these days.

Personal stuff I do for me and you can just skip this if you like

🎮📖 what I’m consuming as a consumer

We started watching the first series of The Night Manager, which is alright but I expected there to be a lot more night managing than there actually is, and it appears to have been written by Patrick Stewart because everyone’s clothes keep falling off.

🐕 Keith

Here he is

He’s got bladder stones and he’s ruining me financially