All Quiet on the Ad Front
I’m taking a little copywriting class online. I call it little because I want to downplay the importance. I’m a professional, and I have weird feelings about taking an intro copywriting course. I remind myself it’s good to learn. The basics should never get old.
There are 32 other people. I imagine there are some gainfully employed folks. There are many students or people who are still discerning the difference between strategy and creative work. That’s fine. We’re here to learn.
There’s one student who asked how a writer can learn to write about a subculture they aren’t a part of. It’s a powerful question.
Should you adopt their voice? Is there someone who can tell this story better? Who do we marginalize when we copy and fabricate a voice? How much research should be done? What discursive violence is enacted when the subculture is portrayed by an outsider?
The good news is that this is advertising and you’re probably being asked to sell a consumer packaged good by a corporation that doesn’t give a fuck about any of that. The bad news is you should care about all of that.
When push comes to shove, though, you’re still a foot soldier of capitalism. The client’s budget is too small and their CMO doesn’t care. The deadline is last week. Your CD needs a win.
The meat grinder of this industry has a funny way of numbing you to critical thinking. So many projects. Endless deadlines. Comrades and adversaries all about. But that’s when you need to ask the powerful question: how do I write about a culture I’m not a part of?
Now, if you surveyed the eager beavers in the Zoom chat of my little copywriting class, you’d find something interesting. They’ll tell you that “the best way to learn how to talk” like a subculture is to go on Instagram and TikTok.
Never mind talking to someone from that culture. Disregard research methods, ethnography, journalism, interviews — let’s just get to the hyper-performative bits we can glean from social media. Bravo.
The worst part of this is, I’m guilty of doing the exact thing that I hate. I’ve conducted social listening on subreddits like J. Edgar Hoover wiretapping tenements for pinkos. I’ve drawn the most sloppy, hastily made assumptions about millions of people. All because I’m in the meat grinder, and rent’s due at the end of the month.
It’s all exploitation. It’s all a bit of a gut punch if you think about it too much. But someone’s gotta do it—just not the people from the culture we’re writing about, okay?
