Blink. Blink. Blink. Miss a decade a.k.a. “Why I am breaking up with marketing”.

Téa Smith
Téa Smith’s Blog
5 min readJun 7, 2019

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I’ve been staring at a blinking cursor, on this neglected Medium account, for about 15 minutes. It’s not the first time it’s happened, and not the first time I have tried to write this story. In fact, it’s been brewing for about 9 months. It’s still brewing, really.

Each time I have tried to write about it, though, it’s the same blinking cursor.

Why am I breaking up with marketing?

Where do I even begin?

Ironically, it starts with that blinking cursor paralysis.

Because I never used to have that problem.

Back in the olden days (known as the 90s and 00s), I was a prolific and talented writer. I’d write a blog post daily, effortlessly. I was funny, candid, and shared stories and snippets and thought experiments when few were. Admittedly, I shared more than I should have (and I was groan-worthily precocious in my twenties). I would write about politics, motherhood, digital technologies, design, music, relationships, business. Basically, whatever I wanted to write about, because I was Téa, a person — not a product.

It’s hard to imagine it, but the internet was once a place where conversations were fun, rather than tedious. Where keeping stats on your blog was lame, and bragging about them to anyone made you a wanker. We built our audiences based on the strength of our ideas and our willingness to collaborate with others — not…

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Téa Smith
Téa Smith’s Blog

Telephone Sanitiser, Digital Designer & Social Scientist who really just wants to make people think critically and laugh heartily. Preferably at the same time.