Thoughts on King Adz’s “Stuff You Can’t Bottle”

I spent too much on books while at the Africa Investigative Journalism Conference in Joburg, and among those books was this large cream-colored book that I bought for an excerpt quote it had on the back;

“You have to understand that there is a difference between youth as a young spirit and youth as an age. There are some people who are in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, who are much younger than people who are in their twenties.” – Oliveiero Toscani

That quote and the fact that it was pretty cheap. I was averaging 280 rands per book, and this one cost 120.

The frank truth is reading this book was a challenge. Written in 2013, it provided a what was then a brilliant analysis for where digital media was taking advertisement and storytelling, especially in context of youth culture as a commercial target, which was then only in its second generation and undergoing a radical change due to popularization of social media. The problem with reading this brilliant prediction of the future was I already lived in that future. Everything that is supposed to seem like a revelation is already happening.

It’s like the author predicted a world and, I, who has known no other world than the predicted one do not know what was, and so cannot comprehend the enormity of what is. The work was in trying to understand what was.

Once you get over this familiarity problem, however, you can see how the King highlights the now evergreen conversations about creativity, feedback, and foresight in creating evergreen work, even while keeping an eye out for vanity and virality metrics.

King’s central thesis is that good communication is grounded in consciousness, belonging, thoughtfulness, and a genuine representation of ideas. I would recommend for anyone who’s trying to get a sense of what is real in the work of storytelling, and what is not; what will remain and what will not. The books forces you to understand how the transition between broadcast to digital really happened, and what the world seemed like before digital and content-based advertisement became normalized/prioritized. When you know what has remained through that transition, you’re more likely to know what will remain after what we know as contemporary communications has disappeared.

For example, King mentioned repeatedly that at the time of the book was being written, many brands did not have social media presence because they felt it was fringe, unfamiliar, or just not important (I wonder what that has to say about Threads/Bluesky). All of this makes it easier to see what will remain after this phase is also gone, and the inevitability of changing formats and platforms. It grounds you in the simple but important questions to ask to understand the basics; culture, creativity, representation, community.

Again, from a young person’s perspective, a lot in the book looks like predictions, and a few are debatable; like the prediction that commerce and culture will merge and the lines will become even blurrier. I think while there are definitely fronts where culture and commerce have blurred, the percentage has not necessarily increased. This blurring takes a particular level of skill, creativity, and genuineness that not many brands or organizations have yet, or will probably ever have – especially as folks continue to use Generative AI as an alternative to human creativity.

Lastly, it’s also a pretty disjointed book, but that disjointment helps accomplish a lot in understanding different intersection of our work as storytellers and society. The book provides some of the most brilliant insight on the differences in culture, media evolution, and socioeconomic context across the world and how experts in those regions adapt to them in very creative ways. For example analyzing cultural independence in India and Africa, describing advertisement/communication in China as democratic campaigns in a communist country, and explaining Brazil’s very chill-based culture and radical difference to hustle culture in US/Europe…

I’d definitely recommend if you are trying to have a deeper understanding of media and storytelling as opposed to just finding quick actionable insights. It’s also a pretty cheap book for its size. This thing is like the size of my grandmother’s bible.

PS: Expect more stuff like this. My goal is to post more about lessons I am learning on storytelling over the next few months, especially as I get into different formats and platforms. Also open to discussing anything that might have piqued your interest while reading this further, reach out!

Bye!