Imagethief

Tag: Media

  • The Endless PR Stunt

    America’s superstar pro-natalist couple hacks the media

    Have you heard about Malcolm and Simone Collins? They’re the American couple that have made themselves the poster-family for the “pro-natal” movement, which is an actual thing we have in the U.S. now. If you haven’t heard about them, congratulations! And I am so sorry to break your streak. But they’ve been profiled repeatedly and I know about them, so now you have to know about them, too. They look like this:

    A photograph of Simone and Malcolm Collins, seated, in front of a reflective window. Simone is on the left, dressed in a white bonnet with long drawstrings hanging down to her elbow level. She is wearing a black skirt over a white blouse with a ruffled neckline and puffy sleeves that end in ruffled cuffs, and her signature, chunky, black, round-framed glasses. Her hands are folded in her lap and she is looking down and to the right, in front of Malcolm. A toddler’s head is visible peeking from behind her left shoulder. Her overall presentation reflects her “techno puritan” aesthetic. Malcolm is dressed in a black leather jacket, black collared shirt and jeans, and square-rimmed black glasses, and is gesturing while speaking to camera for an interview.

    They are often pictured with more of their many children. Simone’s rural-trad presentation notwithstanding, this is a couple that famously met on Reddit a decade or so ago and that has been terminally online for years. They have strong “people you would sidle away from at a party” energy.

    Regrettably, the Collinses are fascinating both because of their cause (I have previously written about government pro-natal campaigns) and because of how successful they have been at getting themselves and the cause profiled. The current arc of coverage started in January and picked up speed through April, and I have read it so you don’t have to:1

    There are many more from last year and the year before. They may be decent at having kids (four plus one on the way), but they are undisputed world champions at getting into the press.

    Read the rest on Substack

  • Airshow!

    Family fun at America’s answer to the military parade

    We were living in Beijing in 2009 when the Party celebrated the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic. The main event was a giant military parade that would roll down Chang’an Avenue and past the Party dignitaries assembled on top of the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which definitely sounds like a place to review a bunch of weapons.1

    Our apartment was east of downtown, along the same boulevard that becomes Chang’an Ave. A rail spur that normally delivered trainloads of coal to the huge power station next door made it a good place to stage the armored vehicles participating in the parade. It was also a good place to breathe a lot of coal soot and heavy metals, but that was Beijing in those days.

    The day of the parade dress rehearsal, I put my toddler son on my shoulders and we stood with our neighbors and watched hundreds of tanks roll down the street2 in front of our compound. Tanks on Chang’an Ave is a historically complicated image, but it was also undeniably cool. My son was raptured on a cloud of diesel fumes.

    After the rehearsal, I was excited to watch the actual parade in person. We would all line the streets and cheer for the might of China!

    We would do no such thing. In the best authoritarian tradition, there would be no disorderly public crowds along the route. Only carefully selected groups in carefully selected areas. I, a politically unreliable foreign dork, would have to watch on TV with the masses. Like everyone else who lived along the parade route, we were restricted to our compound during the day of the main event.

    Read the rest on Substack

  • Every Wolf Everywhere All at Once

    A slick company is suddenly inescapable

    Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Did you hear about the company that brought dire wolves back from extinction?

    I sure did. Couldn’t miss it. The company is called Colossal Biosciences. On April 7th, Time Magazine dropped this cover story:

    A Time Magazine cover dated May 12, 2025. The cover is a side-on portrait of a white wolf, with its head turned towards the camera. The wolf is against a stark grey background. Below the “Time” logograph is the word “Extinct” with a red line drawn through it. Below that is the following text: This is Remus. He’s a dire wolf. The first to exist in over 10,000 years, Endangered species could be changed forever. By Jeffrey Kluger.”

    Cool, cool. I mean, it turns out it’s not actually dire wolf. They’re still extinct. And this is complicated. But we’ll get back to that.

    Also on April 7th, the New Yorker dropped this story:

    A screen capture from a New Yorker article. The image is a white wolf pup on a solid black background, The pup is facing the camera with its head lowered. The text reads “annals of zoology” and then the headline, “The Dire Wolf is Back.” Below that is the subbed, “Colossal, a genetics startup, has birthed three pups that contain ancient DNA retrieved from the remains of the animal’s extinct ancestors. Is the wooly mammoth next? By D.T. Max. April 7, 2025.”

    Credulous headline, but more nuanced subhed than Time’s breathless treatment. Also, squeeeee! Look at that adorable little foof! (Warning: adult wolves significantly less foofy.)

    But wait, like a late night TV ad for Ginsu knives (shout out to Gen-X), there’s more! Here’s Wired, on the same day:

    Hmm. “Scientists claim…” And a probing subhed. The new Wired goes hard, you may have heard, and won’t just lap up your glitz.

    Never mind! Here’s three hours of Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm on Joe Rogan’s podcast, also on April 7th. I’ll spare you the screen cap. Also, there was no way I was going to listen to three hours1 of this. I write this blog for free and there are limits to what I will endure for a wolf gag.

    Read the rest on Substack

  • The Art of Keeping Your Mouth Shut

    Never go to war with a popular TV program

    Way back in the early nineties, there was a popular sitcom called “Murphy Brown” set in a TV newsroom. The plot device of the lead character’s single motherhood offended then vice president Dan Quayle1, and he gave a speech in which he criticized the character by name, almost as if she were a real person.

    Delighted by the gift they had been handed, the writers duly wrote the remarks into the next season opener and nuked the vice president from orbit. Weeks later, America elected Bill Clinton2 president.

    Look, there are lots of reasons why the Bush/Quayle ticket went down. Among them were that Bill Clinton radiated white-hot sex (too much for his own good, tbh) while George H.W. Bush radiated Yalie barbershop quartet and surplus initials. But Quayle linking the recent LA riots to a sitcom didn’t help, and it enshrined a truism of modern public relations: don’t go to war with a TV show.

    We live in a different media era. Network sitcoms aren’t the vanguard of culture they were back in the nineties (the era of Seinfeld, Friends3, etc.), and the modern equivalent of that truism might be, “don’t go to war with a meme.”

    And, whatever you do, don’t go to war with a meme based on a popular TV show!

    Anyway, here is a New York Times story with the headline, “Duke University Wants No Part of ‘The White Lotus’”

    Read the rest on Substack

  • Re-Sanitized for My Protection

    Two Decades Walking the Lines of Self-Censorship

    Twenty years ago, I wrote a post on this old China blog, “Sanitized for My Protection,” in which I discussed my approach to self-censorship. The post was prompted by a reader comment asking me how I thought about the risks to myself as a resident foreigner blogging about China. The truth was, I hadn’t thought about it systematically, and it was interesting to give some shape to the risks and decisions that defined my writing.

    I never felt like I had the luxury of shooting my mouth off with complete abandon. This was mostly professional caution. As I wrote last September, in the post inaugurating this Substack, my boss at the PR agency I was working for was not a fan of my blogging. She was a former Chinese diplomat, well attuned to Chinese government sensibilities, and conservative in matters of public expression.

    I did get her into trouble once, in 2008. This was not through a blog post, but through a quote I gave to a reporter from The Guardian on China’s “50 Cent Party” (五毛党) of Internet propagandists. This is what ran in the story:

    According to popular lore, and a number of Chinese bloggers, each post made pays 50 Chinese cents or five mao. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a lucrative occupation. William Moss, an account director at the public relations agency Burson-Marsteller, calculates that a post needs to be made every four minutes during a gruelling 72-hour working week if you are hoping to earn the bare minimum wage in one of the country’s bigger cities.

    “Pocket money? Maybe. But I wouldn’t plan on sending the kids to college that way,” says Moss.

    Sounds like me.

    My sin was to imply that China’s nationalist astroturfers might not be receiving a living wage for their work in the service of the state. CIPRA, the government-linked China-International Public Relations Association, gave my boss an earful and she, in turn, gave me an earful. I probably laid low for a while after that, but, idk. It was a long time ago and I’m a fool.

    Read the rest on Substack

  • The Greatest Dis in History

    Settling a score with style on America’s biggest stage

    When I was in elementary school, there was a kid who teased me about my first name, which is Diccon. I’ll call him Eddy McNair. This is a made-up name because he’s probably a wonderful family man now and was just doing what ten year old kids did to other ten year old kids with funny names.

    Imagine that I bore a grudge, and wanted to get back at Eddy with the biggest dis possible. The most epic dis in the history of epic disses.

    I could work diligently my entire life to put myself in a position to become president of the United States. This would take decades of going to law school, clerking for some asshole judge, running for local office, clawing my way up to state Attorney General, being “tough on crime,” running for governor, serving a successful term or two with no major scandals, and then campaigning successfully for party nomination and the presidency.

    Against all odds, this works! I’m no Obama, so let’s say I make it when I’m in my fifties. I’m inaugurated and give a moving speech of national reconciliation. They tell me how to use the nuclear “football” and read me in on all the secrets. I get to see the frozen alien corpses. I bring peace to the Middle East; guide the nation though transition to renewable energy; save the whales, the bees and whatever your favorite threatened animal is. I find homes for all the abandoned kittens of the world. I win the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Kitten Prize, which is not a thing, but should be. I donate the honoraria to a charity that makes little prosthetic legs for landmine-sniffing rats that have had unfortunate accidents. Not once do I host the Kansas City Chiefs at the White House. I am a saint.

    Two terms come and go. It is time for my final State of the Union address. Before a joint session of Congress and televised live to a national audience, with my adoring family and invited guests—authors, actors, statesmen—gazing on from the VIP box, I stride to the podium. I gaze across the crowd, and toward the camera, into the eyes of a grateful nation. In my most sonorous and comforting baritone, I deliver my message:

    “My fellow Americans, members of Congress, honored guests. Today I stand before you, at the twilight of my career, to say just one thing.”

    I pause dramatically and everyone leans in. Whatever is coming next is huge…

    “Eddy McNair is a total dick. Fuck you, McNair! You know what you did.”

    I tear open my suit jacket to reveal my “Ed McNair is a Total Dick!” T-shirt. Then I raise two middle fingers to the camera, and several huge “Eddy McNair is a dick!” banners drop from the rafters along with a cloud of a red, white and blue balloons. I Crip Walk2 off stage and all the way to the limo to the sounds of a John Philip Sousa march because that is how we roll now.

    If this all worked flawlessly, I’d still have accomplished only one percent of what Kendrick Lamar pulled off on Superbowl Sunday a week ago.

    Read the rest on Substack

  • Fandom Politics

    When do the old rules of political communication become obsolete?

    Note: There are two things that have been on my mind as I observe everything happening in U.S. politics right now. I am using this space to think through them out loud. This is the first topic. Second to follow when time permits. I am not sure how well this holds together. Feel free to debate!

    On January 28th, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded just over a minute after lift-off. This was one of the defining, “where were you when…?” moments of my youth. I remember stapling my eyes to the television in a common area at my dorm at UC Santa Cruz.

    Later that day, President Reagan addressed the nation from the Oval Office. I’ve never been what you’d call a big Reagan fan—he wasn’t popular in the bong-littered halls of Porter College—but it’s good. A classic of public solace, delivered to a traumatized nation. Go watch it if you have five minutes.

    Read the rest on Substack

  • We Can Character-Assassinate You for Wholesale

    We Can Character-Assassinate You for Wholesale

    The long tradition of shady PR knife work in dark alleys

    A few years ago, I had the exquisite experience of having my emails read back to me by lawyers. 

    There had been a snafu involving disclosure of financial information at my then employer. In handling the communications aftermath, I had emailed with several people involved. The lawyers were doing due-diligence so they could be prepared for any legal consequences, and a number of us had these meetings. I wasn’t in trouble. I wasn’t being deposed. I hadn’t written anything wrong or embarrassing. But it was still uncomfortable. 

    What did you mean in this part?

    Was this line a joke?

    To whom were you referring here?

    This was a valuable experience. When we train people in communication, we stress that you should write every email, chat and text message imagining it being read back to you at a deposition. All these communications are subject to legal discovery and “attorney-client privilege” in the header isn’t a magic incantation, though people sometimes treat it as one. An internal investigation is a reminder that the lawyers you have friendly chats with in the cafeteria aren’t your lawyers1 and, by the way, the company sees everything you do on your work computer, and someday it might be opposing counsel reading your emails back to you.

    Read the rest on Substack

    A picture of a bloody knife on a dark background.

  • Who Wants to Be On the Death Panel?

    PR thoughts on the murder of an insurance man

    Two weeks ago, Brian Thompson, CEO of big health insurer United Healthcare, was gunned down in New York. This created an epic amount of Discourse on social media, aggravated by the mysterious nature of the killer and his temporary escape. This week, a suspect named Luigi Mangione was arrested. He turned out to be a bit of a snack, which is causing weird undulations in the fabric of the media continuum.

    The trajectory of the social discourse was amazing. Immediately after the news broke, there was a wave of gleeful social media posts. That was followed by a second wave scolding those making jokes and celebrating Mr. Thompson’s death. Completing the ouroboros, there was then a wave scolding the scolds for not acknowledging the depth of popular hatred of big health insurers.

    If a prominent executive in your industry is gunned down on a sidewalk and the public response is party-poppers and dancing in the streets, you should ask yourself some hard questions!

    Read the rest on Substack

    Just off to see the insurance man, Evey.

  • Imagethief is Dead! Long Live Imagethief

    I surrender to the inevitable, plus a state-of-the-newsletter update

    In 2004, in one of the great over-reactions of my life, I moved from Singapore to China because I was bored. This was a giant adventure and a hazardous level of culture shock. One of the ways I processed the experience was by writing about it.

    This wasn’t new. I’d written for fun since high school and for money since college. I’d kept an infamously public journal of the experience of my ill-fated games startup in Singapore, which lasted from late 1995 until early 1997. This was the early days of the web and all of that, along with the rest of my “world wide web-site” (fancy!) was hand coded. 

    That journal is no longer online. It’s super cringe and very embarrassing. It is, however, a useful historical document and is providing the feedstock for a slow-gestating memoir of the game startup that I have been working on for a few years. This will also be cringe, but hopefully a bit more sophisticated. Maybe I’ll eventually publish it here, but I am currently stuck in the “why my parents’ divorce was responsible for everything” chapter. I’ve been stuck there for eighteen months.

    Read the rest on Substack