Welcome to mid-week; the countdown to 2023 is on.  A week or two of pretend work and then holidays and extensive resets.  Or if you are a newsletter getting ready for a formal debut, the work goes on!  Today we show you one writer’s annual list of 52 random facts, how to protect yourself from a holiday party regret, a discussion about discussion platforms, and a video of reckless abandon.  Oh, and an espresso martini might interest you as well.  We finish with a find the ball game and music notes to wrap up your Wednesday.  Cheers!

Holy Moly, the algorithm again, this time, it’s an article on Medium written by Tom Whitwell.  The article’s title is 52 things I learned in 2022, and we could fill up a week’s worth of newsletters with links within this one article.  It’s the definition of what we try to bring you every day. Exciting news that makes your brain inch and sometimes your belly chuckle. 

Overall the list is a bunch of News of the Weird type info.  Most of it is fascinating, and the best part for us on the list is that we didn’t know much of the information.  If you work in a digital newsroom and you spend much time looking through info, the gold is in the uncommon, the alternative, and the sometimes in the absurd as long as it’s authentic.  Whitwell has had a great year and put together a great list.  This list was so good that we plan to review his past lists.  This Medium article includes annual lists that date back to 2014.

We recommend checking out the article and the complete list; here are a few of our favorites:

Number 3.  In the UK and Australia, people turn left when entering a building. In the US, they turn right. It’s important to remember if you’re booking a trade show booth. [Marc Abrahams]

Number 4.  Using ellipsis in writing signifies the writer is Gen-X or Boomer and can read as confusing, passive-aggressive, or even weirdly flirtatious to digital natives. [Kaye Whitehead, from Gretchen McCulloch]

Number 20.  Post a wrong answer if you want a question answered on the Internet. [keyoftypeof]

Number 39.  Researchers asked 100 people whether a reasonable person would unlock their phone and give it to an experimenter to search through. Most said no. Then the researchers asked 103 other people to unlock their phone and give it to them. One hundred of them complied. [Rob Henderson]

Number 48.  70% of Gen Z viewers tend to watch videos with subtitles, which is why a team at Netflix worked extra hard on the subtitles for Stranger Things. [Matt Zajechowski] (This year at Magnetic, I spent a long time listening to Gen Z talk about the future of TV for Channel 4)

Number 52.  During a French Navy exercise, a frigate was (virtually) destroyed despite radio silence. The (virtual) enemy could roughly locate the ship via a (real) active Snapchat account from one of the sailors. [Arthur Laudrain]

The WSJ had a good article reminding us that the modern-day office holiday party has moved online and is now available for everyone.  Most people over 40 have stories from an office party that went off the rails.  We miss those stories and might have to write about them down the road, the stories we don’t tell anymore.  We don’t tell stories from office holiday parties gone wild because they are almost live-streamed these days, and everyone can see them in real-time. 

Before, there was drunk texting, and there was drunk dialing, tech companies are catching on, and now there are apps or app settings that might prevent some of your communication when you want to limit your ability.  The comedian Ron White has a hilarious bit where he talks about getting thrown out of a bar.  One of the punch lines is, “I had the right to remain silent… but I didn’t have the ability.”  The whole bit will make you laugh, and it’s the point of technology that can help you remain silent!

According to the article, you can adjust settings on the iPhone to prohibit calls.  You can change these lighter settings for a one-off party or event and reset them when you are back on solid ground.  In more aggressive actions, you can delete specific contacts, so you won’t feel compelled to respond to specific people when you are otherwise off your game. 

Another app that can help limit your ability to write on social media while under the influence is Drunk Mode Keyboard, which our team will be experimenting with this holiday season, well, just because! 

Does your office use Slack, MS Teams, or another inter-office chat?  How about Discord or Patreon? Zoom, Skype, notion, or something else?  So many apps and so much crossover; how can you decide these days?  Our office started with Slack several years ago at the tail end of AOL and Yahoo Messenger.  We used Slack for Instant Messaging (IM) and some video calls.  We also use Zoom on our end and have collaborators that use Microsoft Teams.  We have to be careful if we schedule a Zoom call and a Teams call on the same day; that seems to confuse the laptops as to which app holds the; speaker, mic, and camera.

Over the last couple of years, we have moved most of our chats and media to Discord.  This has been a popular tool for artists and is where we spend much of our time.  Discord has been an invite-only community and has recently moved into a subscription and creator space.  The initial pricing strategy for subscriptions seems to resemble that of Substack, and we also wonder if this isn’t a Patreon competitor.  Patreon is a place creators have used to build connections with their audiences and allow fans to support artists.  There is also a great interview with the new COO at Discord, Elizabeth Hamren.  The interview is from last December, but the Q&A will give you insight into what Discord is doing.

What started as a way for creators to build communities continue to expand, and we are excited to see where it will go.  Our favorite part about the new technology is that it focuses on the artists/creators and the community, not ads and advertisers.  Our goal at With A Shout is to be completely focused on our audience and subscribers.  Our small and slow growth model will allow us to find the stories we want to promote and innovate ways to tell more stories.  We won’t have ads or sponsors so we won’t need a sales department.  Our Discord is internal to the team; next year, we plan to open it up to our subscribers. 

There are links in this story to a lot of the technology discussed. If you have questions about what we use and why hit us up or leave us a comment.

In a combo section, we are adding our LOL section to our Soul Asylum Seeker section today.  This story from CNN includes a video of a guy who won a raffle to conduct an orchestra.  Similar to the contagious laughter you can see in bloopers on the news.  Guest Conductor Tim Schulteis who wore a kilt to the performance, fake conducted the Chelsea Symphony with such joy that you can’t help but smile.  In an actual dance like no one’s watching performance, Schulteis waved his hands and hips the way we all wish we could if ever called upon to perform. 

Veteran reporter Jeanne Moos, whose voice you will recognize, also spoke to Matthew Aubin, the Artistic Director of Chelsea Symphony, about the performance. He said he had to look away while playing to stop laughing.  It’s a short and sweet story with lots of heart for the holidays; thank you, Tim!

CNN Business did a story this month on the crazy rise of the Espresso Martini.  We have so many questions.  Who tracks this stuff?  The article cites the invention of the coffee drink as the invention of a London bar in the 80s, and in 2022, it surpassed the classic Manhattan on the top ten most ordered cocktails in the US. 

The espresso martini is a combination of vodka, espresso, coffee flavored liquor, typically Kahlua, and from there, a bartender or restaurant can add whatever flare they want.  It is best served as an after-dinner high-end cocktail, so the rise in popularity of the drink means that it may also be popular among day drinkers.  Is it happy hour yet?

[Music Notes]

Words | Music | Art | Unknown

Dayglow.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

Thank you for spending a few minutes with us!

With A Shout Team