Matt's Mix Tape, Vol. 104

Aug 13, 2021

Hi, I’m Matt Tillotson and this is Matt’s Mix Tape, a weekly Mix of ideas on writing and content strategy for the Creator Age.

This week’s Mix:

Life patterns
Apple’s huge comms misstep—or was it?
Consistency’s secret superpower
Everything is a remix: Van Halen + Hank Williams

This week’s logo: life patterns

Certain patterns and designs burn into our memories.

The entryway of the home I grew up in featured a floor that looked similar to this week’s logo. Slate, in a variety of darker colors, forming a random pattern. Classic mid-century modern stuff.

I traversed that floor to and from grade school, junior high, and high school. It was both launching and landing pad.

Then, in the early fall of my senior year of high school, the floor was covered with hardwood.

The change was symbolic. The floor that sent me into the outside world and welcomed me home for over a decade had changed.

Things had progressed. It was time for me to progress, also.

So whenever I see a slate floor like this—and apparently they are back in style—I feel both at home and a sense of adventure.

It’s wild how some patterns can still elicit emotion and teach us new lessons decades later.

Apple’s huge comms misstep—or was it?

Photo: MacWorld

Last week, Apple hamfistedly announced it will soon begin reviewing photos stored in iCloud for child sexual abuse materials (CSAM):

Next, iOS and iPadOS will use new applications of cryptography to help limit the spread of CSAM online, while designing for user privacy. CSAM detection will help Apple provide valuable information to law enforcement on collections of CSAM in iCloud Photos.

The process: Apple said it will scan for matches of photo signatures—called hashes—to identify offending materials. A human review only comes down the line, after a predetermined number of matches. If the materials are found, Apple alerts the authorities.

The comms mistake (maybe): Privacy experts and Apple customers alike were shocked to see Apple, which positions itself as the best choice for customer privacy, announce an apparatus to review customer content and report customers to the government as needed.

M.G. Siegler:

Perhaps feeling left out by the constant communication own-goals by Facebook, Apple set up the mother of all self-owns.¹ It’s hard to think of a more massive communication f*** up, honestly. Again, because this topic is so big, so important, and so sensitive. Apple probably should have had an event, or at the very least a large-scale pre-brief with journalists and bloggers to talk through these issues.

It’s said we should never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. But was this a comms blunder, or the workings of a company worth $2.5 trillion that knows customers, even if upset about this change, aren’t going anywhere?

Separation anxiety: For example, to exit the Apple ecosystem, I’d have to move, replace, and/or abandon:

Four iPhones, three Macs, and two iPads
Dozens of writing files in Pages
Thousands of photos taken over a dozen years
A decade’s worth of Apple Notes
The Apple TV unit in the living room
Apple Music, including iTunes Match and a bajillion playlists
Dozens of movies and TV shows purchased in iTunes over the last 12 years
AirPods Pro, which I use every single day of my life
Apple Home products, including lights, security cameras, and smart plugs
Ted Lasso, for heaven’s sake

Total nightmare. It’s just not happening.

What’s next: CSAM scanning, in and of itself, is a problem only for earth’s most vile and evil humans. The worry is about how else this program could be used. Could Apple be forced by governments to scan for other kinds of content in the future?

Apple says no.

But in any case, I’m not sure the comms rollout was an error.

Apple doesn’t need to explain its actions to you more deeply. You’re not going anywhere. Neither am I.

Consistency’s secret superpower

Dickie Bush, founder of the Ship 30 for 30 writing course, on the power of consistency:

"Consistenty breeds credibility and competence. No one has a hundred shitty versions of anything. They either have 10 shitty versions and they quit or they do it long enough to figure it out."

Conversely, Bush shut down his successful newsletter after 80 weeks to focus on Twitter.

Which illustrates consistency’s other superpower: evolution. Consistency helps you grow into new things. Sometimes that feels like quitting. But as long as you’re moving forward, creating in new ways, it’s growth.

Paradoxically, consistency helps us change.

Everything is a remix: Van Halen + Hank Williams

You: I can’t write until I have something completely original to say.
Bill McClintock: Van Halen and Hank Williams go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Creativity is finding new intersections between things that already exist.

Even Van Halen’s “Jump” was a new intersection in its time. “Jump” combined classic rock style and the then-new 80s synth sound to create Van Halen’s only number one hit.

Everything is a remix.

This week’s Florida photo

Downtown Tampa. My boat is not pictured here, because I do not own a boat.

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