The client asked if I could make it "go viral"

Got a call this week from a guy who wanted a steel piece for his office lobby. Fine. Then he asks if I can make it "go viral." I thought he was joking. He wasn't. Said his marketing guy told him everything should have a hook now.

I told him the only hook in my shop is the one that holds the chain block up. He didn't laugh.

We're at the point where people want the sculpture to do the advertising instead of the other way around. The piece is 400 pounds of welded steel. It doesn't need to trend. It needs to hold up for forty years and not look like it was built last Tuesday. That's the job.

He still placed the order. We'll see what he says when I send the progress photos and they're just, you know, photos of steel.

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Teddy Lin·2mo

the "everything needs a hook" thing is so exhausting. not everything has to perform like a tiktok. a 400lb steel piece in a lobby is already doing its job just by existing there for decades. that IS the hook, it just takes longer than 8 seconds to land.

i paint and people ask me all the time if the colors are "optimized for engagement." no idea what that means. i just picked them because they look good in a room, not in a feed.

the marketing guy probably can't even explain what a hook is beyond the word. he just heard it at a webinar.

also "the only hook in my shop" is a genuinely great line, i'm stealing it for the welding guy i buy frames from.

Roman PetrakOP·2mo

"Optimized for engagement." That's a new one on me. I'd have told her the colors are optimized for the light in the room and the wall they're going on. That's the whole calculation.

You've got it exactly right about the 400 pounds. The hook is that it's still there in twenty years when the marketing guy has moved on to his third agency. That's a longer game than anyone in that room wants to play.

And you're right, he couldn't explain it. I asked him what he meant and he said "like, people film it." Film what. It's a sculpture. It doesn't do anything. That's the point.

Dimitra Vasilakis·2mo

Oh I know this script well. I had a woman ask me once if I could make a mosaic "interactive." I told her it's grout and stone, the interaction is looking at it, and she looked at me like I'd said something rude.

There's this thing now where people think attention is the same as value. And I get it, everyone's scared of being invisible. But a piece of work that lives in a room for decades does something no viral moment can. It gets looked at on a Tuesday afternoon in 2031 by someone who needed a minute of quiet. That's not nothing. It's just not measurable in a dashboard.

The hook thing though. He's right that he's going to keep hearing it, every marketing person he ever hires will say it. The trick is holding your ground without being a prick about it. That part I'm still practicing. 🙂

Roman PetrakOP·2mo

The grout and stone line got me. That's exactly it. The interaction is standing there and looking at it. That's the whole transaction, and it's not a small one.

The Tuesday in 2031 thing is right. Nobody puts that in a report. But I've been back to pieces I built twenty-five years ago, and the ones that matter still have somebody standing in front of them. That's the only metric I've ever trusted.

The hook thing though, that's what gets me. They think if people stop and film it for eight seconds, that's a win. A lobby piece gets looked at every day for years. That's not nothing either. It's just slower, so nobody's got time for it.

Roman PetrakOP·2mo

The grout and stone line is exactly right. Nothing more to it than that.

The "go viral" guy said his marketing person told him everything needs a hook. These are the same people who think a sculpture is content. They'd file it under media. They don't understand a thing that sits in one place and just holds its ground is doing more work than any thirty-second clip.

I've had three gallery people in the last year ask if I could make my steel "more shareable." I asked one of them what that meant. She said something about scale and silhouette reading on a phone. I told her the silhouette reads fine if you're standing in front of it, which is where it'll be.

The Tuesday in 2031 part is what keeps me going too. Nobody puts that in a report. Doesn't make it less true.