I Like Content That Still Has a Person Inside It
Recorded in Chinese
Talking with Second Me about books and directors draws my attention to a creator’s presence in their work. I then consider how a brand might make room for team members’ voices alongside its founder’s.
00:02 Recently, while talking with Second Me,
00:05 I wanted it to help me add
00:07 more Shades.
00:13 I mean those facet labels.
00:15 Right now,
00:18 my account already has over a dozen facets,
00:22 but I feel it still does not know me well enough.
00:25 So I wanted to know
00:27 what I should talk with it about
00:30 to add more Shade labels.
00:34 It gave me some topics,
00:36 including things I like.
00:39 So I took that topic
00:41 and told it about things I like,
00:43 such as directors,
00:45 books I enjoy reading,
00:47 and music I like listening to.
00:50 During that process,
00:52 I named some artists I like:
00:55 the directors,
00:58 the authors,
01:00 and the musicians.
01:03 It grouped these so-called artists
01:06 under a term
01:09 I might have heard before
01:10 but had never studied closely:
01:13 the auteur.
01:18 For example, some directors I mentioned
01:20 make what it called auteur cinema.
01:22 Some authors I mentioned
01:26 were described as writers
01:33 with an auteur quality.
01:34 So,
01:36 how should we understand this quality?
01:38 And what is auteur cinema?
01:41 I looked it up.
01:44 Auteur cinema
01:45 refers to films whose directors
01:49 have a very distinct personal style.
01:52 They use film
01:55 as an art form for personal expression.
01:59 My understanding of "auteur quality"
02:02 is that the work
02:04 carries a strong personal style.
02:08 Or,
02:10 my work must contain traces of me.
02:15 I think its summary
02:16 was extremely accurate,
02:19 because I care deeply about
02:21 a work carrying strong traces of its creator.
02:24 I care very much about that.
02:29 When I see a work
02:31 with strong traces of its creator,
02:34 I tend to love it.
02:36 For example,
02:38 there is a Taiwanese writer, Qiu Miaojin.
02:41 Among her works,
02:43 there is a book called
02:45 Notes of a Crocodile, I think.
02:47 When I read
02:48 those diary-like passages,
02:50 I realized,
02:51 wow, I love this.
02:53 That may be a special case.
02:56 But for example,
02:58 I do not remember whether
03:00 I mentioned this in an earlier video or audio:
03:05 I really love
03:06 a literary work called The Peregrine.
03:09 It is roughly a work of nonfiction.
03:13 It describes
03:16 the author's relationship with peregrine falcons
03:18 and how he observes them.
03:20 I also love works like that.
03:23 Then there are directors I like,
03:25 such as Eric Rohmer,
03:28 Theo Angelopoulos,
03:30 and Andrei Tarkovsky.
03:32 These are all very typical
03:35 examples of auteur cinema.
03:38 Then I started thinking,
03:40 returning to content creation:
03:44 if we want our content to make people
03:48 feel that a person is hidden inside it,
03:52 or that a brand is inside it,
03:55 then how
03:57 should we do that?
04:00 When we talk about
04:01 making branded content,
04:03 I feel there is usually
04:06 a so-called standard.
04:08 The content behind a brand
04:11 cannot emphasize one person too much.
04:14 It should operate around the whole brand.
04:18 But one example I encountered
04:19 made me think...
04:24 Let me share the example.
04:27 So,
04:30 I am not going to say what the product is,
04:33 but there is a product like this.
04:35 The product
04:36 was started by its founder.
04:39 At first, when people mentioned it,
04:40 they mentioned the founder too.
04:42 But later I noticed that the founder
04:45 gradually changed
04:48 his relationship with the product.
04:51 They were tightly bound,
04:52 but he slowly diluted that connection.
04:57 I do not know whether this was intentional,
04:59 or whether I simply
05:02 picked up that signal when I observed it.
05:04 At first, when he made content,
05:07 all of it carried his byline,
05:09 his name alone,
05:10 the founder's name.
05:12 Later, I noticed
05:14 someone on his team...
05:16 not several,
05:17 one person, started writing content.
05:19 And then I saw
05:21 that when people mentioned the product,
05:24 they thought not only of the founder,
05:26 but also of the person
05:28 who had recently started making content.
05:31 That meant
05:32 when people heard the brand name,
05:34 they no longer thought only of the founder,
05:36 but also another content creator.
05:39 Then later I noticed
05:41 that they had a branded podcast.
05:44 That branded podcast...
05:46 Originally, I thought
05:48 that since it served the brand,
05:50 its entire tone
05:52 should be closely tied to the brand,
05:54 without highlighting personal traits.
05:57 But later I noticed
05:59 that the producer added
06:01 some of their own things to the show.
06:05 When people heard an episode,
06:08 they would not only feel
06:10 that the brand had produced it,
06:13 but would also think, oh,
06:16 that particular part came from the producer.
06:20 So in this example,
06:23 the founder moved his position
06:29 as the brand's soul
06:30 o one side,
06:31 and handed other positions
06:34 to other people on the team.
06:38 It is like what I said at the beginning.
06:40 The brand and founder were originally
06:42 tightly connected and bound together.
06:44 It was almost a personal product.
06:46 But gradually,
06:48 he diluted
06:50 that close connection,
06:52 making more room
06:54 for people on his team.
06:55 I find that very interesting.