DIP 031: Flotsam, jetsam, lagan, derelict

PLUS: Dippin Dots for coffee, furniture for cannabis storage, and a chronic pain community

👋 Hi. I’m doing something a bit different this time. I started Chips + Dips as a means of processing and documenting observations about brand strategy and marketing patterns. As time has gone on and as the events of this year revealed gross inequities, I’ve found myself gravitating toward more compassionate brands. This newsletter attempts to address how and why that happened. I’ll be back to business as usual next month — promise. In the meantime, reply with questions, comments, or thoughts about anything you read here.

This issue features 19 brands. Fifty-three percent are white-led, 16 percent are Black-led, and 32 percent are led by non-Black people of color. You can find the complete Chips + Dips inclusion index here.

The Chips 🍚

• Faculty launched nail stickers, a smart move given how often people share photos of themselves holding things.

• 40 Below Joe is Dippin Dots for coffee.

• Et Tigre (fka Tigre Et Tigre) is accepting and selling pre-worn items.

• Joone Creative sells crafting kits created in partnership with artists.

• Elizabeth Suzann (one of my favorite clothing labels) is staging a comeback after shuttering operations earlier this year.

• Forti sells furniture made for secure cannabis storage.

• Conserva Culture sells pantry goods and tableware, and hosts a seasonal artist in residence.

• Rachel Comey makes a leather lanyard for hand sanitizer. Of course.

• Folden Lane is a forthcoming home organization brand.

• Afra makes hair picks and loc beads that double as works of art.

• Mayv is a digital community and brand of CBD for those dealing with chronic pain…

• … and Club Spora is a digital community for people with psoriasis and sensitive skin.

• Window Fleur is a pre-planted seasonal window box subscription.

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The Dip 🍒

In the Before times, I’d run six miles a day in a zombie-like state and feel better for it. By late March, running began to agitate me. I modified my loop to seek out less-crowded areas and repeatedly found myself on a trash-strewn street bounded by a cemetery and train depot. Dodging car parts and glass shards, I felt unmoored, in need of something slower and softer.

I subscribed to online videos from a trendy downtown yoga studio that teaches Katonah-inspired classes. In a high lunge with the heel of my hand flipped back against the heel of my foot and my shoulder pressing against my knee, I saw how my body was made to fit itself. It offered me a greater sense of security than I've felt in years.

Months later, I switched birth control methods and watched as a decade of body dysmorphia melted away. Do you know what it's like to look in a mirror and, quite literally, see yourself differently? I felt buoyant and devastated.

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My inbox flooded with “we’re in this together” emails, which I deleted en masse. Marketing strategies began to feel desperate. Most of the products being sold aren’t very good, anyway.

While at a job where I wrote about nutritional density, I developed a habit of only shopping at the farmer’s market. I bought food according to what was in season and most nutrient-rich and the voice in the back of my head told me that grocery store produce wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t until after I left that I saw how insecure and easily impressionable I really am.

In June I started working with a mutual aid group, packing hundreds of boxes of groceries to be distributed to neighbors in multigenerational households. Our checklist displayed household size — six, seven, 10. The buildings nearby only had 2- or 3-bedroom apartments at most. I felt ashamed of my comfort and all that I had previously been blind to.

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It’s common for companies to purport betterness. That their products are better, or that their way of doing things is better, or that owning the thing will make you better. 

Better suggests that what you’re doing now is wrong or bad. Better caters to insecurities. Better implies that buying things can solve problems, but buying things began to feel soulless. I was buying things to have something new to look forward to, until I felt nothing.

I focused instead on smaller, slower, mostly local companies. I bought spices from Diaspora, a blazer from Vincetta, masks from Combine de Filles, a vase from Coco J Luna (by way of Lolo), a jacket from Paynter.

Buying things won’t make anyone feel better, but we can at least feel better about the things we buy.

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Not every company needs to be mission-oriented. In fact, many companies that claim to be might be better off dropping convoluted narratives about how buying a t-shirt or lip gloss or sneakers will save the world.

It’s not that trying to do good is bad, but rather that it’s often inauthentic. For it to quote-unquote work, it’s best baked into company operations from day one, rather than layered on top as a marketing tactic.

I’ve wondered if it’s possible to operate ethically and intentionally while also chasing rapid growth. The more I think about it, the more the two seem in opposition. You can A/B test landing pages, Facebook ads, and emails until something is optimized within a pixel of its existence, but by that point, the soul has been squeezed out of it.

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This year and all that it came with — the yoga and the mutual aid work, morgue trucks outside of hospitals, weeks of protests against police violence, a month of grand jury duty, the citywide bliss on November 7 — were periscope moments. They took my head above water and allowed me to see the world around me for what it really is.

It reminds me of something Tina He wrote earlier this year:

I’ve found it much easier to have a conversation intellectualizing the optimal best practice of “self-help” rather than talking about my own emotions. 

Without a deep understanding of ourselves, we also become inept at understanding others, especially those who share the same world but a different reality. And without a deep understanding of others, it’s almost impossible to build, even when tools are getting friendlier, and more accessible than ever.

For most of history, humans’ emotional education was broadly created by religions, and with the greatest authority, they taught us about ethics, they provided meaning, community, and purpose. And for a long time, consumer culture has attempted to fill the chasm, but it’s increasingly obvious that stories have been written for only a handful of us.

For marketing to work, we need to be susceptible to it. In a sense, it’s most powerful when we lack a deep understanding of ourselves and the world around us. That’s not to say that groundedness and self-efficacy render us less vulnerable to marketing, or that the goal is a state of anti-consumerism, but rather that it allows us to be clearer about our own values and act (and spend) accordingly.

Still hungry?

• This Atmos story about power dynamics within the secondhand clothing industry is an eye-opening read.

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Real Dip 🌽

Rice And Miso’s goma-ae dressing (from the Family Meal cookbook).

Mix equal parts soy sauce and crushed sesame seeds (blitz in a blender or use a mortar and pestle — they don't need to be super fine), a pinch of salt, and a teaspoon-ish of sugar.

Plays well with blanched green beans, scrambled eggs, and roasted squash.

Thanks for snacking,

— Emily 🍇