Here is an example of superb marketing stop-the-scroll that is tactical genius, plus weaponised manipulation. I’m screenshotting it because I don’t actually want anyone to click on it in case someone gets accidentally traumatized by the content like me. But let’s face it, I’m a wuss and I’ve been protective of my mental state in recent times, so you might read this and think, what’s the big deal? Get over yourself. Eh, it is what it is. I am what I am. A giant wuss. Not gonna apologise for that.

Let me set the scene… it’s Sunday morning, I’ve hopped on Substack for a quick check-in, just to see what’s going on. Someone I respect has restacked a post with a very innocuous caption which has a picture of a KitKat bar and what appeared to be a list of fast facts. Me, seeing the harmless caption but KitKat bar thinking, oooh, I want to know about the KitKat bar. Me likely chcocolate. Instead this is what happened:

I have been actively avoiding much of the news as it was giving me extreme anxiety. Saw a post on Substack which was just a list of fast facts and thought I could handle it. Nope. All the anxiety feeling symptoms came roaring back even with just a quick hit of a bunch of stuff going. I got sucked in by the picture of a Kit Kat bar, but the poster buried the quick fact about a 400,000 Nestlé KitKat bar shipment was stolen in Europe, raising concerns about an Easter shortage at the very end of the post. I’m sure there’s some tactical intention regarding that placement that 1. Sucked me into clicking on the link to read and post, and then 2. Putting it at the very end so I had to scroll to get to the one thing I was interested in. Smart, but now I have heart palpitations.

Genius. Tactical. Manipulative. And now I need a lie down.

This is my Sunday morning lesson. Make of it what you will.

PS. I should also have read the first line under the heading and known better. That’s on me.

PPS. The psychology behind my first postscript above is also a very human reaction to internalize and recalibrate. It it’s still Sunday morning, so I’m not going to go any deeper on this topic. Maybe another time… or never…