INSOMNIA

Is the art that our culture producing valuable and pushing the limits of creativity? Or should we reject modernity and go back to the drawing board? Big tech and other companies such as Nike; have adopted a new type of art style commonly referred to as "Corporate Art Style" or as I like to call "Corpo-Art." It consists of homogeneous, non-representational and, nonoffensive characters doing daily life activities. Is this reflecting the core values of our society or, is it how big tech sees us?: Simple and harmless sheep how are willing to give away our data and privacy?. The subtle authoritarian vibe that Corpo-Art gives people is quite disturbing, like big brother creating a dystopian future in the name of "equality." If "Corpo-Art" reflects a homogenous dystopia, what will happen to our desire to be exceptional and transcend? Exceptionalism needs to be brought back into the creative world, and reject the mediocrity that modern times have brought. Our duty as artists, is to not only reflect the times but to also show how we can improve things through our art. 

In Vol. 9, author of "I Took Her Name: Lessons From My Journey Into Vulnerability, Authenticity, and Feminism," Shu Matsuo Post and I discuss one of the hot topics of our generation: Feminism. Some people love it and, some people demonize it; what exactly is feminism? Is it about stunning and brave women fighting for equality? Or is it about man-hating women trying to emasculate the male population and take control of the establishment? Is there a way for us men to be more honest with our emotions and be more attuned with our feminine side? In this episode, we will discuss: 1) Feminism from two different male perspectives. 2) The importance of us men being more attuned with our emotions. 3) The true meaning of equality.  We'll find out more about the true meaning of feminism in this episode! 

Often times we are told by keyboard warriors, the media and big tech, that it is important to have a cause worth fighting for. We are told that it is important to have a support social movements like women's rights, economic inequality, global warming, black lives matter, etc. Inside this tornado of Social Justice and Virtue Signaling, there was a brief moment of silence and clarity that came to me thanks to my mentor. Are some causes more important than others? Are we detracting attention from major world problems like the Ethnic Cleansing happening in Uyghur or the Genocide caused by communism in Venezuela with our well intentioned causes?  In Vol 8, we have my dear friend and mentor Tyson Batino, Owner of 3 highly successful businesses in Japan. Tyson and I will discuss controversial yet important topics such as human privileges, virtue signaling, selfish activists, people using their causes as coping mechanisms and major world problems such as the Uyghur Ethnic Cleansing, Venezuelan Crisis, Human Trafficking and much more. 

After all the hard work you to put in order to get to the top of your industry, imagine being canceled and having everything taken away from you just for thinking different. There is a cancer going in our modern society in which people get canceled because they made "insulting" or "offensive" comments. Why are we so interested in other people's political views or opinions? Moreover, who the hell are we to make petitions or ask companies to fire certain types of people that have different opinions for ours?  In today's episode we will discuss cancel culture, the dangers of bringing this mentality and other "western ideals" in japan. Last but not least, we will talk about what do people with opinions different from the mainstream media need to do to fight back this purge. 

When I interviewed Cindy from Let's Travel and Eat, she told me something that really stuck with me for a while: "Originality takes courage." The current landscape of the travel industry in Japan is quite stale, everyone is optimizing their articles while forgetting what makes a good brand: "Heart." In Vol. 6, Cindy will teach us how to become original in an industry that values sameness and generic content. In addition, we will learn about how to create a brand from scratch and leverage our personality and uniqueness to create an original brand.  Cindy's YouTube channel Website

Conflict creates drama, in order to for a story to go forward there has to be a contrast between the protagonists and the antagonists. In the world of marketing, we often brand by formula and we advise companies to stand for something. The question I often tell my clients is "What do you stand against? What bullshit rule do you want to abolish in Japan?" For Apple it was complexity, and for One Coin English, our challenge was, how to develop a brand that creates a contrarian rule based on other 英会話 malpractices. In this episode, will discuss how to create our own contrarian rule to better position ourselves in the market while creating a clear contrast between our brand (the protagonist) and our competitors(the antagonists).

It seems like nowadays we live in two completely different worlds: our objective material world and the distorted illusion that people on social media have created. It is easy to share achievements, promotions and good things on LinkedIn but whatever happened to balance of content? It's difficult to share failures, bad news and frustrations. When we only post positive things on our social media, we create the illusion of perfection, this can be very dangerous not only because it creates unease on people but also because it creates people and brands that are very difficult to relate and empathize with. Let's discuss how to create a more authentic brand through the power of empathy and vulnerability. 

This week, Yoshiro Mori, president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee made a comment that lit social media on fire. While the comment made from Mori san was politically incorrect and inappropriate, why are we reacting in such a emotional way? Why do we let the words of an old men hurt us so much and take so much for our mental space? What does that say about the state of our society's mental toughness? Virtue signaling in rampant in the foreign community and people have made comments such as "all women are queens" and "I have never met more hard working people than Japanese women", my question to that would be: "all of them are hard working?". Objective reality seems to be lost in emotions, the best way to judge people is to do so as individuals, not as a group.  In today's episode we will discuss why it is importance to see your audience as individuals and the dangers of people trying to westernize Japan. 

In November 2020, Nike Japan released a commercial that broke the internet in the archipelago. While some were praising its bold statement and beautiful cinematography, other people said they would never buy Nike again because of this anti Japan piece of propaganda. In this episode,  Ángel breaks down this bold commercial and talks about the disconnection between marketing executives and their audience in Japan. 

Pandering has taken over creative industries and destroyed the artistic vision of the individual. How can companies create effective marketing campaigns with strong artistic vision?