Standing Out
The new narrative alpha
It’s 2026 and everything is fake.
Fake content by fake influencers with fake engagement from fake followers, launching fake products with fake testimonials. A Potemkin village on a global scale, a glossy facade propped up by heaps and heaps of beige slop. Temu for content.
In this world, the real has never been more precious, refreshing, special, and rare. We need real people, building real things that actually matter, through real discipline and effort, with real outcomes in the real world.
The definitions will soon blur; the line between real and artificial is dotted and only getting dottier. But today we still know the difference, and that difference is the source of narrative alpha.
A quick recap and then I’ll explain:
In 2024, the biggest opportunity for comms was going direct. At the beginning of that year, most CEOs still relied on outdated, or outright hostile, intermediaries like traditional media. The shift began with desperados and contrarians who were fed up with gatekeepers, but the early adopters showed that going direct had way more reward than risk, and it soon became the default.
In 2025, the din of direct-goers turned into cacophony as even the stodgiest of companies started factory-farming for “CEO content” and “storytelling.” The edge now came from winning attention, primarily through video. Cue the avalanche of corporate podcasts and cinematic launch videos. Some built quality dedicated audiences while others, in blind Icarian pursuit of engagement, went the way of Talk Tuah.
In 2026, narrative alpha will come from doing real things.
That means:
Putting in real effort to create beautiful durable things that exhibit taste and craftsmanship, with zero tolerance for slop. As Thomas Paine wrote during the American Revolution: “What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”
Showing real evidence for real outcomes, not flashy claims or vagueposts
Designing real world events and artifacts, leaving people with memories that far outlast the cheap “impressions” generated by brainrot content troughs
Showing up as real humans, with real flaws and foibles, instead of ultra-polished personas following AI scripts
Forming real relationships that will weather time and tide
Be forewarned: these are not necessarily the things that will get the most engagement or clicks. And that’s ok! I love the big viral moments as much as anyone, but virality is never worth sacrificing quality, dignity, or taste.
Second downer: doing something once isn’t enough. Real narratives take 6, 12, 18 months to build. They require sustained effort and consistency - and patience! There are no shortcuts, but it’s worth it.
To quote The Velveteen Rabbit: “Once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
I can’t wait for real events where you meet real people to make a comeback. Goodbye online courses and webinars
“Putting in real effort to create beautiful durable things that exhibit taste and craftsmanship, with zero tolerance for slop. As Thomas Paine wrote during the American Revolution: “What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.””
Bingo. I wrote about this last (!) year: “[W]riting is an act of respect. You sweat the small stuff so your reader doesn’t drown in it. You spend the hours and the blood and the rewrites and the self-loathing and the tears so your reader can glide—effortlessly—over a surface that took you months to sand smooth. A good sentence is a sheet of ice slowly, secretly melted down from years of someone else’s hard labor. The reader skates; the writer bleeds.
And slop is what happens when nobody bleeds.
Slop breaks the sacred compact between writer and reader, artist and appreciator, beauty and beholder.
It says: you do the work. You decipher my half-thoughts. You wade through my sludge. It’s contempt disguised as content and connection. And it’s the inevitable byproduct of the Outreach Industrial Complex, whose chief export is pure, unadulterated spam.”
More: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/slop-is-contempt