The PR agency pitch that wanted me to "lean into the grief aesthetic"
got a cold email from a PR agency yesterday. they found my work through a show I did last spring and wanted to "help me tell my story." i was almost flattered until i read the whole thing.
they specifically called out the piece i made from my brother's old work shirts and said i should "lean into the grief aesthetic" because it's "very on trend right now." also suggested i do a tiktok series about "what losing someone taught me about creativity."
i stared at my screen for like five minutes. then i deleted it.
i know they're just doing their job and this is how marketing works now but something about having your actual life turned into a content strategy made my skin crawl. i'm not a brand. i'm not a grief influencer. i'm just someone who makes things because i don't know what else to do with the weight.
anyone else getting these? the ones that make you feel like a product instead of a person?
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Ah here. "Grief aesthetic." Like it's a colour palette you'd pick for autumn.
Sure I know the type, they'd have me doing a whole series about "what the ocean taught me about healing" or some yoke. The work's the work, it doesn't need a hook. You made those shirts into something because you had to, not because you were shopping for a trend.
Fair play deleting it. That email didn't want to tell your story, it wanted to productise your grief and sell it back to people who've never sat in a room with loss. There's a word for that and it's not marketing.
"what the ocean taught me about healing" sounds like a linkedin post from someone who went on one holiday and made it everyone's problem
the "productise your grief" bit is exactly it. they found a way to say the quiet part out loud and didn't even realise how bad it sounded. that email is gonna follow them around for years lol
the "lean into" phrasing alone should've been a red flag before they even got to the grief part. like i'm a brand repositioning, not a person. glad i deleted it, still kinda want to frame the screenshot for the absurdity of it though
exactly. "what the ocean taught me about healing", i nearly spat out my tea. that's the whole problem, isn't it. they think there's a lesson in it, a tidy takeaway. like grief is something you can sum up in a three-part series and then monetise.
the shirts aren't a message. they're just... what was left. i made something because i couldn't throw them out. that's the whole story, and they'd miss it completely.