Darlings, I got the following text from a reader and dear friend yesterday, and I started laughing so hard when I read it (content warning: bad words). 

Notes like that make my day, and remind me that I get the chance to scream into the void every day, and have the void scream back. That’s right, y’all, we be Void buddies and I am here for you.

But in all seriousness, know that the next eight days are going to be awful. A lot of stuff may go down, and even if it doesn’t, we’re all so well and truly pickled in our own cortisol by this point that focusing might be difficult. You might be emotional, or you might not be - either state may cause you stress. So please, if you can, turn off the hellscape that is Twitter, Facebook and cable news. If caught in a never ending doom scroll, ask yourself what you can actually do to make a difference right now, and go do it. Get outside (safely) if you can. Do something kind for someone, whether that is sending a note to a friend or paying for the coffee of the next person in line. Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay sane.

Finally, I am in the midst of getting my seriously dorky/extra holiday cards out and have a few extra left - if you’d like to receive one, reply to this email with your address and I’ll send one your way!

Let’s get to the internet already, because I am hella riled up today.

• Thank God: Yesterday, after the violence of last week, San Francisco prepared for what was assumed was going to be a massive anti-Twitter rally at their HQ. I started hearing helicopters overhead around 7:30 AM, and I was bracing for a day listening for every slight change in the outside audio environment (I live half a mile from the building.) Luckily, it looks like only “Only One Person Showed Up To The Pro-Trump Protest Outside Twitter’s San Francisco HQ”. Huh, funny how much harder it is to pull off an insurrection when you don’t have a megaphone in everyone’s pocket with which to foment rage…

• Also, YEA, THOSE INSURRECTIONISTS FROM LAST WEEK? THEY’D BETTER (at least) GET CANNED: People at the US Capitol riot are being identified and losing their jobs

• And btw, I have zero patience for the reputation laundering that’s going to occur for supporters and staff of this administration after it’s in the dustbin of history. It turns my stomach to know that someone who got up in front of the press and lied might land on a pile of money at a corporation or PR firm (slightly smaller pile of $$$ at the firm, BUT STILL). Luckily, publications like Forbes are helping prevent this from happening, as their chief content officer wrote last week: “Let it be known to the business world: Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists above, and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie.” That’s right, let us not have any cushy landing for PR pros who lied, dissembled, and spread disinformation. Let there be financial and professional consequences for using your role in communications in the way they did. We may not have a professional body like a Board or a Bar to enforce good behavior, so maybe market forces can help those in my profession understand that what we do can be weaponized. 

• Can you tell I am scared and angry about what could happen over the next eight days? Listening to Rick Wilson and Scott Galloway’s rants on today’s New Abnormal was cathartic AF, while also terrifying. Seriously. 

• But finally, there is still good in the world, found in those weird-ass creatives we know and love:

Y’all are lovely. Be kind to each other.

xoxo Amy