Some of you may know me from my previous posts, many of which are among the most upvoted of all time on this subreddit. Just kidding, I’ve never posted here. I’m coming up on day 70 of SR and I figured I would make a post detailing what I’ve discovered.
Introduction
I began whacking off when I was 12. The negative effects were immediate. I went from a popular and liked individual to a member of the untouchable class. Never knew what caused that. Now I do.
At 13, I started working as a blackhat internet marketer. In other words, I was a scammer or con artist. I had immediate success and became “kid rich” in high school. From there, I continued ripping people off until I was 24. (You can read about all of my various scams and schemes in a 255-page book I wrote about my life, and how I changed my life, here. It's free.)
And we're back. Along the way, I became a drug addict. At 14, I discovered weed. At 16, I discovered psychedelics. At 17, I discovered MDMA and other stimulants. My home life sucked (divorced and depressed parents), so I dove straight into the world of drugs.
Overall, from the time I became a teenager, my life revolved around drugs, video games, and scamming people. I also whacked off very generously, considering it to be normal and healthy. I thought it was a waste product. Not an uncommon story.
Accidentally Discovering SR
About a year ago, I hit rock bottom, which you will read about if you decide to read my book. In essence, I was completely broke and living at home, with no friends, and my girlfriend had just dumped me. Coincidentally, I was also whacking off a ton during this time. Go figure.
A string of wild synchronicities led me to read the book Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. Think and Grow Rich was the catalyst that led me to get “kid rich” in high school, so I basically just followed Mr. Hill’s recommendations on how to outwit the devil to the letter… and it worked. I became genuinely happy for the first time in my life. I was crying tears of joy every morning when I woke up.
Frankly, at the time, I was not convinced that lust was a bad thing, because getting attention from women made me feel so good. Still, since the rest of the formula for outwitting the devil was working so well, I decided to completely repress my lust. I even managed to quit drugs under the guise of considering them to be gluttonous.
Life was good. The results were unbelievable. I moved to a new city. After being antisocial my entire life, people were going out of their ways to converse with me. I had tons of friends. Very attractive women were going out of their way to make themselves known to me. I didn’t know what on earth was happening, but my life was better than it had even been before, despite the fact that I was more broke than I had ever been before. Turns out money doesn't equal happiness. Who knew?
After about two months of completely repressing my lust, I decided to have sex. With all of this new attention from women, my lust then spiraled out of control. Repression doesn’t work. Knowledge is the key. Knowledge allows you to want to retain. At the time, I had the belief, but not the knowledge behind the belief, which inevitably led to a lack of faith.
Fast forward a couple months and I was back to where I was before: scamming, doing drugs, etc. Lust truly is the root of all sin. Lose control of your lust and you’re probably going to lose control of the rest of your life to some extent.
Whoops
I once again hit rock bottom in October 2020. I took a big gamble on a big adventure, and it failed. In fact, I came within a minute or two of certain death, and my plans were ruined. Now, I had $300 to my name, no car, no housing situation, and no more possessions than I could fit into a large backpack.
I crashed at a friend’s house and spent two months mostly moping around. At the end of November 2020, I read a random Reddit linking to montalk dot net and had a bout of gnosis.
Here is where things get interesting.
Randomly, I messaged a random Reddit user, and he linked me to The Practice of Brahmacharya. I was sold. I started doing SR, controlling my passion, and being careful to remember that pleasure comes but never stays, the human body is only clay, and everything will pass away. This was the knowledge I needed to WANT to control my lust. Before, after reading Outwitting the Devil, I was doing it almost against my will.
Results
Magnetism. The point of SR, to me, is not to attract women. But there’s no doubt that doing SR will attract women. In fact, it will attract everything and everyone. But the attraction is mostly mental. People subconsciously sense your high vibration and they look at it curiously. You’ll get a lot of love, but also a lot of hate if people are comfortable enough to confront you. Your thoughts begin to influence reality more than ever before.
Invisibility. This is mostly a joke, but I swear it’s real. When you’re vibrating at a very high level, you become invisible to others. Not literally. But I’ll give you an example. I’m walking down this road and the air is completely still. Two women are approaching, gossiping in a negative tone. As they pass, I say hello. They jump, completely startled, and looked at me as if I had just appeared out of nowhere. I was in their field of vision for, like, a minute. They should have noticed me. This has happened a couple times. I’m aware this bullet contradicts the previous one.
Calm. I used to be an explosively angry person. In fact, I used to get violent fantasies. I used to really hate the sheep. I didn’t understand how they couldn’t see through the lies! May as well exploit them. Now, I love the sheep, even though they still chirp at me occasionally, especially with all of this asinine /\/\@$K usage. (I’ve taken a hardline stance and will not put one on for even a second. Since I’m still self-employed as a copywriter, it’s possible to do since my workplace (read: bedroom) doesn’t require it. I’d recommend doing the same if you are sick of the bullshit. We need your help.)
Ability to disconnect emotion from thoughts. Emotions come and go. The error is when you let external influences affect your thoughts. There will be times when you are tense or sad. For example, it’s hard to feel totally good emotionally if you are tired. In the past, I let these emotions go straight into my neural network, which would lead to entire days full of bad emotions, which I masked with drugs. Now, I relax into the emotions, meditate on them, and they pass quickly. I usually learn something in the process. The thought of being able to control my emotions without drugs is awesome.
Ability to heal trauma. If you are not powered by your semen (lol), you’re not as strong and solid as you could be. This makes it nearly impossible to face the trauma of your past, before you woke up. Now that I have healed my trauma, at least to an extent, my life is just wonderful. I’m a complete stranger to my past scammer self, which is fantastic. IMO, the point of life is to realize your trauma, heal it, then link up with the Holy Ghost, Sophia, and help others heal theirs, too. If you’re doing SR but still not loving life, consider reflecting on uncomfortable moments from your past. Don’t repress them, just like you don’t repress your lust.
Loving life, man. If you ignore the ethics of my blackhat marketing, I was always rich in comparison to my peers, and I barely worked. I was also pretty jacked. I happened to be born with a conventionally attractive face and am quite tall. Despite these intrinsic advantages, life always sucked. Now, life always rocks, no matter what is happening. Do I still get down sometimes? Sure. You can’t feel euphoric always. But now I realize that stumbling blocks are part of the equation, and I take them in stride. I get excited for bad moments because I realize I’m about to learn something big which will make my life even better in the long run.
Difficulties / Relapse
I have not yet physically relapsed. But I have definitely let my mental state get out of control before, to the tune of looking at Instagram models, etc. This has happened twice. It SUCKED! Felt crappy for days afterwards.
When I feel it bubbling up nowadays, I take a deep breath straight into my cranium and hold it for a few seconds. It dissipates. I also channel it into my third eye if it’s a lesser urge and I feel like I can actively control it. Learned these two tricks from posters on here.
If I'm out in public, I straight up look away. I never really looked, considering it to be disrespectful. But man, don't feel bad about looking off to the side if there's an attractive woman walking in front of you.
IMO, the mental leads to the physical, and not the other way around. It’s the same as any other addiction. You can’t physically force yourself to stop if you don’t want to stop, because your mind controls your body. So, work on your mind instead of putting all of this effort into repression. Books can provide the knowledge you need to want to stop. Once you want to stop, it’s easy to do so.
Summary
As far as other aspects of my life go, the past two months have been a wild ride, as I’ve healed an absolutely massive amount of trauma in that time. One night, I did the karma meditation on ascensionhelp dot com and ended up screaming at the top of my lungs for two hours, uncontrollably, almost involuntarily. Scamming people for a decade, then realizing all of that karma in a short span of time, will do that to you!
This post has been all over the place, but I just wanted to let everyone know that SR is a very key part to living a good life. Better financial circumstances? SR can help with that. You want peace? SR. Happiness? SR. You want to stop scamming people, even though you’re damn good at it, it’s easy, and there’s no one to stop you? SR. (Side note: I did get sued by Perkins Coie when I was 17 due to one of my early scams, and I was also visited by a 3-letter agency for a particularly illegal scam, but nothing ever came of either of those instances. I’d like to say I talked my way out of them, which I did, but looking back, it was blatant intervention from my Higher Self which allowed me to talk my way out of them in the first place. Thanks, dude!)
SR is not the end-all-be-all to success in your chosen realm, but damn does it ever help. I really like this community because you guys understand the physical, but a lot of you are well-versed in the metaphysical realm too. If you want to do SR to get ahead in the physical world, that’s cool, but understand that the real power of SR is allowing yourself to access the metaphysical and spiritual concepts of this world that are hidden to the masses. Many posters here can give me a run for my money, which I very rarely experience in real life. Peace!
EDIT: Turns out I can't reply to comments on this post since I have no less than 25 karma on here. To u/UniqueUsername203: Fair question. This is an epic trollzor account, minus this post. I've had to branch outside of poker since I'm banned there for 30 days. If I really wanted to scam people again, I know of better avenues than spamming and pretending to be a girl, though I did that in an automated fashion circa 2010. Didn't work that well, only made like $20 - $40 per week and it was weird as fuck (even though I never directly talked to any of my victims).

Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long!
Section One: Assets and Debt
As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design.
The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now.
I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding.
Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar.
Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account).
Equity: None, we rent.
Savings account balance: Approximately $45k.
Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k.
Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance.
Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid).
Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college.
I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck.
Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID.
Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None.
Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost).
Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month.
Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing).
Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc.
Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard.
In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years.
Debt payments: None.
Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times.
Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future?
Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.)
Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share.
Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time.
Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time.
Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month.
Regular therapy: $0
Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies.
Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k.
__________
Day 1
Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though.
I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip).
Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch.
I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point.
Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine.
Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53).
I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week.
Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai.
Daily total: $222.89
Day 2
Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning.
Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants.
I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill.
Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments.
K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01).
Daily total: $22.01
Day 3
Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out.
Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error.
Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point.
Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack.
After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle.
Daily total: $0
Day 4
Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good.
Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48.
Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing.
We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget).
Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly.
Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course.
Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it.
Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast.
K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm.
Daily total: $239.34
Day 5
Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious.
We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin.
Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm.
The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free!
In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip).
Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek.
Daily total: $80.51
Day 6
Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain.
By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners.
On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb.
Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side.
We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo.
Daily total: $0
Day 7
Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay.
One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly.
Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out.
I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet!
I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo.
Daily total: 70.36
Food + Drink: $395.23
Fun / Entertainment: $26.40
Home + Health: $26.60
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $16.40
Other: $170.48
Grand Total: $635.11
I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.

 Remember, Remember, the 5th of NoRender... 

I am surprised there aren’t any posts about Chronicles of Elyria on HobbyDrama yet! The community was so rife with drama from start to finish that I don’t even know where to begin.
Throwaway because I will probably be doxxed if I post on my main.

What is Chronicles of Elyria?

Chronicles of Elyria was pitched as a Kickstarter in May 2016 as a dynamic MMORPG with procedurally-generated quests, a fully destructible environment, closed economy, finite resources, and survival elements. The goal was $900k, but they made about $1.3 million in the initial campaign, and through their subsequent crowdfunding efforts made close to $8 million total over the next few years.

What went wrong?

In terms of lofty ideas, Chronicles of Elyria was right up there with Star Citizen, but with a fraction of the funds. We’d be here all day if I went into detail about all of the game’s proposed features, because it’s like they were trying to be Crusader Kings meets medieval life simulator meets Harvest Moon meets survival game meets action RPG all at once. Browse through their Developer Journals; even without a background in game development, it’s clear that the scope of what they were trying to pull off would have been ambitious for a major studio, let alone a small crowdfunded team.
The game’s initial release date was a laughably unrealistic Q4 2017, so it was no surprise that this would get pushed back again and again over the course of development. However, on March 24, 2020, lead developer Caspian made an announcement that rocked the community: State of Elyria: Into the Abyss (autoplay warning). In his typical long-winded fashion, Caspian spent the bulk of the post outlining the milestones the team reached over the past year, but only in the last few paragraphs did he mention that due to financial stressors from COVID-19, they ran out of money and had to lay off the entire team, shuttering development of Chronicles of Elyria. Because of several factors I’ll cover in the next few sections, the community did not take this well. In less than two weeks, the Washington State Attorney General’s Office reported they had received over 150 official complaints against Soulbound Studios, the most they had ever received for a company in that amount of time. Community whales formed a 'CoE Lawsuit' discord and discussed plans for a class-action lawsuit, demanding accountability and refunds. Some of them even pledged over $20k on the game, and they weren’t going to let Caspian cut and run.
Amidst threats of legal action, on April 9 Caspian dropped another blog post, A Letter from Soulbound Studios to Our Community claiming that the March 24 post came from a “very emotional place.” He said that the community misinterpreted his intent, and that he was actually trying to communicate that he was still working on the game while looking for ways to secure additional funding. As you can expect, this was just as poorly-received as his last announcement.
​

Wait, why did people spend so much money on this game? And how did the drama get so spicy?

By its own design the game stirred up drama even before release. With social stratification based on medieval feudalism literally built into the system, there was no way around it; the developers cheekily called it the “Dance of Dynasties.” There were multiple tiers of "pledges" and if I’m remembering correctly, the prices after the kickstarter were $500 for a Mayor title, $1000 for Count, and $3000 for Duke. The most coveted were of course the King/Queen titles, which had people shelling out a whopping $10000 for the chance to be royalty in an unreleased game. Even with the limited supply (6 kingdom slots per server iirc), these kingdom packages sold out all but one server. A few monarchs even purchased TWO kingdom slots to guarantee their supremacy on their chosen server.
It’s very difficult to overstate the cult-like mentality of the community during the “peak” years of 2016-2018. There was an official CoE discord server where the developers frequently engaged with players, but most of the drama happened in what were called the Discords of Elyria. These were community-run discords for individual kingdoms, duchies, counties, towns, and baronies. Each had their own cliques of ‘advisors’ and elite roleplaying cabals.
No, ‘elite roleplaying cabals’ is not an exaggeration; these people were spending thousands of dollars for a title to justify RPing as nobility to lord over the peasant rabble. This attracted a lot of entitled narcissists; the game’s structure practically encouraged it! I’ll give you an anecdotal example: I was really active within a kingdom discord and was eventually appointed as an advisor (the equivalent of what a guild officer would be in a normal MMO). This title was almost useless until release, so it was mainly just a glorified clique with a secret discord channel where we would theorycraft and talk shit about people we didn’t like in the kingdom. But I was the only one on the advisory council that did not possess a noble title, and a Countess kicked up a big fuss about this. Just like the real-life aristocracy, she was scandalized! Wording it in an RP-appropriate way with paragraphs of purple prose, she claimed that the $60 I pledged to the funding of the game wasn’t enough to prove I was fully committed. She and her cronies were so bothered that they tried to get me off the council. They went around DMing a bunch of people, accusing me of being a spy because I used to RP with some guy that left for a rival kingdom, and dredged up screenshots of year-old discord posts as proof my conduct was “unbecoming” of a representative of the kingdom.
There’s a saga behind that story and many others; I can absolutely go into more detail in another post if enough people are interested in the byzantine “Dance of Dynasties” and the inter- and inner-kingdom drama that went down during the development of this beautiful disaster of a game… and developer involvement in said drama. If you want to waste several hours of your life, there is plenty of RP cringe archived on the read-only forums. For now, that’s just a small slice to help illustrate how detached from reality and cult-like this community was. Going back to the downfall...
​

Early Red Flags

As I alluded to, there were already red flags when the game was first pitched on Kickstarter. Despite hitting the initial $900k and going well into their stretch goals, the devs were still encouraging players to crowdfund long after the Kickstarter ended. There were several additional promotional events (somewhat outdated post that doesn't include everything) selling both cosmetic items and mechanically useful items, despite the developers going through hoops to justify over and over again why the game was not pay to win (it was). Eventually, the constant promotions and gamey tactics prompted community members to question why we were seeing more promotional events than development updates.
The devs then admitted that the original Kickstarter campaign was meant to raise enough to be able to create a demo to attract investors and secure a stream of income that didn’t rely on crowdfunding. Unfortunately, no investors took a gamble on a risky debut from an inexperienced team, and despite Caspian making a few weird statements on Discord and implying they had “other sources” of funding that they did not have to divulge to the community, he too later admitted that they were relying solely on crowdfunding to make this game work.
Well, this news was a departure from their previous claim that all they needed was 900k to develop the game for a Q4 2017 release, and that all funds would be used towards the development of Chronicles of Elyria. No one knew this was all just for a demo to attract investors, and people were justifiably upset.
​

The Community Begins to Turn

There was (and still is, last I checked!) a particularly loyal and obsessive subset of the community. At the slightest hint of criticism they’d quickly jump in to defend the game and devs. The community moderators were no better, and a lot of posts were censored or deleted from the forums. The developers had built up a sort of cult of personality with their over-involvement with the community. Despite a hilarious lack of transparency about the actual development of the game, they were… uncomfortably close to the playerbase.
Caspian complained about specific players on the official discord and publicly accused two kingdoms of cheating during a cheap browser event meant to (surprise) raise more money. A player made a post on the forums saying the community outreach manager should be replaced (he was known for being snarky and condescending). Said community outreach manager actually private messaged people that upvoted the post, basically saying “if you think I should be replaced, please don’t contact me if you ever need anything in the future.”
Yes, that came from the guy handling outreach.
The "Map Selection" event was rife with its own kingdom vs kingdom drama, but the devs weren't able to redeem themselves here. After months and months of delays for a map event, Caspian failed to deliver the high-resolution maps as promised on November 5, 2018, claiming they were taking too long to render.
"Remember, remember, the 5th of NoRender" became a meme and rallying cry across the community in reference to the constant delays and deception, to the point where people were banned just for saying it in the official discord.
Then there was the issue of Prelyria. Prelyria was the low-poly pre-alpha client of the game they were developing. Meant to be like a graybox, it became a lot more involved than that and seemed to eclipse the development of the “real” game. People felt they had been bamboozled when they looked back:
Pre-alpha video May 2016
Pre-alpha video September 2019
Some players with industry experience were pointing out that the amount of time the devs were spending on building the Prelyria assets and developing the low-poly client first (it was a lot more involved than a simple graybox) was actually going to be more cumbersome and definitely not save all the time the devs hoped it would. At this point, Caspian still looked like a well-intentioned idea guy with his head in the sky, and most people didn’t think he was intentionally scamming anyone. Personally, I believe Caspian definitely started out in earnest, but he spoiled his own vision with mismanagement and obfuscation.
Funding was always a touchy subject.
Despite first claiming they only needed $900k to finish the game, then saying no wait actually we need like $3 mil, Chronicles of Elyria raised almost $8 million in total and after 4 years in development had nothing close to a minimum viable product.
We later learned that $500k of that initial $900k came from Caspian himself. This of course was not disclosed until after the Kickstarter.
On March 20, 2020 (four days before the infamous Into the Abyss announcement), the devs released an exciting update claiming that Pre-Alpha Testing Has Officially Begun! Players that had pledged (iirc) $1000 or more now had access to test Alpha I! But excitement quickly faded as players realized this wasn’t really an alpha, but a 10-15 minute demo showing off movement and parkour mechanics and ONLY that. I didn’t have alpha access so I don’t know how bad the demo really was, and those who played it are still under NDA, but I heard it was terrible, and looked like something that could be slapped together in a couple weeks using Unity store assets.
Let’s look again at the timeline Caspian pulled out at the end of 2017 when he admitted the Q4 2017 release date wasn’t going to happen:

1. V3 of the Website (Q3 2017)
2. ElyriaMUD (Q4 2017)
3. Alpha 1 (T1 2018)
4. Server Selection (T1 2018)
5. Settlement / Domain Selection (T2 2018)
6. KoE (T2 2018)
7. Design Experiences (T3 2018)
8. Alpha 2 (T3 2018)
9. Beta 1 (S1 2019)
10. Prologue & CoE Adventure Toolkit (S1 2019)
11. Exposition (S1 2019)
12. Beta 2 (S1/S2 2019)
13. Stress Test (Any paid account)(S2 2019)
14. Launch (S2 2019)

By March 2020, the only milestones they hit were V3 of the Website, Server Selection in November 2018, and Settlement/Domain Selection (after a series of delays that included a period of radio silence lasting over 100 days, it began somewhere around Summer 2019 and never officially concluded).
​

The Downfall

Now for the big question I’m sure all of you have: why was it such a big deal when he announced they ran out of funding?
Indeed, projects are cancelled or become vaporware all of the time. While it's obvious Caspian and team were drowning in too many ideas and not enough tangible progress, why was this scummy enough to warrant hundreds of complaints to the AG and a class-action lawsuit?
About a week before the March 24 announcement, Caspian launched the “Settlers of Elyria” event. It’s hard to explain out of context, but basically all the unclaimed duchies, counties, and baronies were going on sale, and players could purchase them at reduced prices.
Yes, up to a day before he announced he laid off the entire team, he was allowing people to spend thousands of dollars on fake titles. Worse was the fact that this event was designed for new members of the community that didn’t have a chance to buy titles before or weren’t able to because of the prohibitive cost.
Illegal? Maybe not. Fucked up? Absolutely. This, combined with Caspian taking a PPP loan right afterwards painted a damning portrait of a man squeezing every last penny out of this failed endeavor before he ran.
Caspian kept the official discord open for a couple days after announcing the shuttering of the studio, but on March 29, he “fired” all of the community mods and deleted the discord, claiming that people were saying “horrible, unimaginable things” about him. There were rumors that he was cheating on his wife with a (much younger) community member. Apparently, a dev was corroborating these statements and providing receipts. Whether these awful rumors were true or not, Caspian’s reaction in the mod forum was nuclear.

The Future of CoE

After nearly six months of radio silence, a few days ago on December 17, 2020, Caspian gave interviews to MassivelyOP and MMORPG.com and released an “update” video that is a nothingburger rehash of old 'gameplay' footage and platitudes. He keeps saying that CoE is in development, but he has nothing to show. He keeps saying some of the staff have volunteered to work on it, yet based on their LinkedIn profiles it looks like most of the original team have found jobs elsewhere. He refuses to release the results of the studio’s audit. The new FAQ on the website is an obvious attempt to avoid lawsuits and in the two interviews he hilariously continues to extol his own transparency while being as transparent as a brick wall.
People are still able to find justifications for Caspian's actions and to this day are in the community-run discords and subreddit trying to keep the hype train going. Maybe it's a combination of Stockholm Syndrome and Sunk Cost fallacy, but a lot of people still maintain absolute trust in his vision. I personally did not invest a significant amount of money (but I did waste my time, RIP), but it's still as saddening as it is maddening. Yes, those "Dance of Dynasty" posts on the forum might be cringey now, but people put SO MUCH creative energy and passion into coming up with lore for their kingdoms and duchies and towns and such, and despite being a skeptic for most of my time with the community, it was an incredibly unique experience to be part of this group. I just wish they would move on; put that energy into something productive and not waste it on a failed game. Caspian used them and he will continue to use them if people keep giving him a platform.
​
EDIT: added more links
EDIT2: Obligatory "wow I didn't expect this to blow up!" but I really didn't! Thanks for the gold x2!

NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.

Like most of you reading this, I’ve read too many terrible marketing & startup-related books.
Growth Hacker? I suppose it was okay, for it’s time.
This Is Marketing? Took nothing from it.
Traction? It could have been summed up in a blog post.
After searching for ‘Top 10 Marketing Books’ and reading everything I could find on those lists over the last few years, I’ve stopped buying marketing books because almost everyone was either aimed at beginners, were written as a lead-magnet with the aim of selling you consulting or a course, or they simply were written without anything actionable that I could actually ‘use’.
Like many during the last 9 months, my agency moved out of our office and we have worked entirely from home. A positive that came from that I started to read way more often, usually aiming for a book a week.
The first book I read was a gift that I received a couple of years back and had been on my shelf collecting dust ever since. It was the only book that I owned which I hadn’t already read, so to make things simple I started with that. It was The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier.
It absolutely blew me away.
I read it from cover to cover in one sitting and then read it again the following week. I told everyone that would listen: “The Brand Gap is the single most important book I’ve ever read”.
After this, I spoke to friends working in branding, design, copywriting, and project management and asked for book recommendations. I specified that I didn’t want books that only scratched the surface, I wanted to read the books that changed their entire mindset and way or working.
I ended up with a huge reading list (and a few shelves full of books) which I worked my way through over the last few months. There was no filler, and nothing I’d consider to be average — I gained something significant from every single book.
I’ve compiled a list of seven of the books which I’d consider to have had the biggest impact on me.
For each book mentioned I’ll include a link to Bookshop, along with a testimonial and some of the book description.
1. The Brand Gap — Marty Neumeier

“A well-managed brand is the lifeblood of any successful company. Read this book before your competitors do!” ―TOM KELLEY, GENERAL MANAGER, IDEO
THE BRAND GAP is the first book to present a unified theory of brand. The second edition features a 220-term brand glossary and a premium softcover binding. Whereas most books on branding are weighted toward either a strategic or creative approach, this book shows how both ways of thinking can unite to produce a “charismatic brand” — a brand that customers feel is essential to their lives.

2. Everybody Writes — Ann Handley

“All your shiny new channels, properties, and platforms are a waste of space without smart, useful content. Ann Handley’s new book helps make every bit of content count — for your customers and your bottom line.” — Kristina Halvorson, President, Brain Traffic
If you have a website, you are a publisher. If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers.
Everybody Writes is your go-to guide to attracting and retaining customers through stellar online communication, because in our content-driven world, every one of us is a writer.

3. How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know — Byron Sharp

“…marketers need to move beyond the psycho-babble and read this book… or be left hopelessly behind.” — Joseph Tripodi, The Coca-Cola Company
Professor Byron Sharp is the Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia. The Institute’s fundamental research is used and financially supported by many of the world’s leading corporations including Coca-Cola, Kraft, Kellogg’s, British Airways, Procter & Gamble, Nielsen, TNS, Turner Broadcasting, Network Ten, Simplot, Mars and many others.

4. D&AD. The Copy Book

“The Copy Book convinced me that everyone in business should study the art of copywriting.” — Fortune.com
The book features a work selection and essays by 53 leading professionals in the world, including copywriting superstars such as David Abbott, Lionel Hunt, Steve Hayden, Dan Wieden, Neil French, Mike Lescarbeau, Adrian Holmes, and Barbara Nokes.
The lessons to be learned on these pages will help you create clearer and more persuasive arguments, whether you are writing an inspiring speech, an engaging web banner or a persuasive letter. This is not simply a “must-have” book for people in advertising and marketing, it is also a “should-have” for anyone who needs to involve or influence people, by webpage, on paper, or in person.

5. Junior: Writing Your Way Ahead in Advertising — Thomas Kemeny

“If my older and wiser brother were an ad book, these would be his exact words. If he’d ask me to wash his filthy car every Sunday in exchange for his wisdom, I’d say ‘No problem, ‘ knowing I got the better end of the deal.” — PAUL MALMSTROM, Creative Chairman and Co-Founder, Mother
There are a lot of great advertising books, but none that get down in the dirt with you quite like this one. Thomas Kemeny made a career at some of the best ad agencies in America. In this book he shows how he got in, how he’s stayed in, and how you can do it too. He breaks apart how to write fun, smart, and effective copy-everything from headlines to scripts to experiential activations-giving readers a lesson on a language we all thought we already knew.

6. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads — Luke Sullivan

“Classic must-read Sullivan mixed with innovation master Boches make the perfect duo. This is the book that will help guide new talent to great career starts. Required reading for a new era.” — Deborah Morrison**,** Distinguished Professor of Advertising, University of Oregon
Hey Whipple, Squeeze This has helped generations of young creatives make their mark in the field. From starting out and getting work, to building successful campaigns, you gain a real-world perspective on what it means to be great in a fast-moving, sometimes harsh industry. You’ll learn how to tell brand stories and create brand experiences online and in traditional media outlets, and you’ll learn more about the value of authenticity, simplicity, storytelling, and conflict.

7. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind — Al Ries, Jack Trout

The first book to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical, media-blitzed public, Positioning describes a revolutionary approach to creating a “position” in a prospective customer’s mind-one that reflects a company’s own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors.
“…Ries and Trout taught me everything I know about branding, marketing, and product management. When I had the idea of creating a very large thematic community on the Web, I first thought of Positioning….” — David Bohnett, Chairman and Founder of GeoCities

So, there you have it. It’s worth nothing, my list above is just that; my list. I’m sure there are plenty of people that read books from that list and for whatever reason, it just didn’t resonate with them in the same way that Growth Hackersdoesn’t do it for me, either. These are simply the books I’d consider to be game-changing, and now recommend them to anyone working in marketing & e-commerce.
Got a book recommendation? I’d love to hear! Share some recommendations below.

I don’t have to tell you how scared I was when I saw it. Like scared shitless. I didn’t believe it was real at first, I thought maybe I was dreaming, but soon after I concluded that I was dealing with a creature that’s out of this world. It isn’t every day that you meet with intergalactic, demented creatures or demons from hell or whatever other evil places.
I just found it on my couch one morning after I woke up. It was the oddest and scariest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. When it saw me too, it started howling, raging like crazy, probably demanding food.
The game was on and it was watching it like it was the biggest football fan in the world. Then it started dragging its ass on the carpet, circling around me. The creature didn’t attack me or anything, he seemed harmless but still goddamn horrible to look at. It burped and started running through the living room until it went headfirst into the furniture, where it instantly blacked out.
I honestly thought it was gonna bite or kill me when it’d wake up and my heart was racing inside my chest, drumming so hard like Tommy Lee was playing a solo in a Motley Crue live concert.
I saw a letter on the carpet and I wondered where or whom it was from, aaaaaaand, of course, that’s when the troubles started. Let me just write it here verbatim and then I can go on with it. It was written in red ink, the letters were pulsating different shades, and I was pretty sure it had to be supernatural or the likes of that.
Luckily I took a photo before reading it all, you’ll see why it was a good idea.
“Dear Jonathan,
Hello there. Sorry to send Fluffy out of the blue but I am really busy at the moment and I need you to take care of him for a few days. These are troubling times down here, I had a few guys who went overboard with drinking and gambling and they haven’t been doing their duty properly.
I won’t get into detail about how things here work as you’re not eligible for a place yet. You’re very close though!
I don’t even want to start telling you what a crazy party we had on Halloween. We had stripping demon hookers, we smoked DMT, drank whisky that was one thousand years old, brewed right down here with our special recipe. Good times!
I left one bottle in the fridge for you as well. Just be careful with drinking too much or you’ll go insane. It kinda burns your throat like really bad and if you do shots, you’ll be able to breathe flames.
No, not really. Joking, duh! I like bringing the lolz, you know what I’m saying? Seriously though, don’t drink too much in a single day. If you have just a single on the rocks, you should be fine. If you actually do get drunk on it and see the dancing devils just ignore them, they’re not real. Or are they? Lol, jk.
Anyways, the reason I sent Fluffy over is that I have some business to attend here on earth and I can’t leave him alone down there. The last time I did it, he ate my sidekick after he forgot to feed him on time. I can’t carry him with me either because… well, I got important stuff to do that require my utmost attention.
So, I have chosen you to watch for my dear old Fluffers! Ain’t he great? Did he get to run headfirst into the furniture by now? He does that when he’s in a new environment.
Speaking of, you have to feed time every Wednesday, at 12 pm sharp. Not a minute earlier, not a minute later. I can’t even highlight the importance of that!
Even if he is a demon, he still eats the usual raw stuff: raw hearts, raw kidneys, raw muscles. You know, everything meaty basically. Also, aside from that he requires milk daily, just a little, it doesn’t matter when you’ll give it to him, he will not refuse it. Just make sure it’s not too much otherwise he’ll start barking and howling like crazy and your neighbors will hear him and you don’t want that to happen.
No bueno.
He does like strawberries from time to time but I recommend giving those only on Friday mornings and only in moderation (like two or three of them) because he has a tendency of getting bloated and he’ll start shitting all over your house.
And you do not want that to happen because his shits are very acidic and will punch holes in the floor.
You’ll have a shitty floor. Get it?
Anywho, I gotta bounce. I’ll come to get Fluffy later this month.
DO NOT GET PHYSICALLY OR VERBALLY VIOLENT WITH HIM.
Toodles!
Yours truly,
Sa†an
P.S. If you’re lucky and he likes you, he’ll try and communicate with you. So if you ask him a yes or no question he’ll reply with one bark (I personally call them barks) for yes, two for no. Try it if you get the chance.
P.S.S. If I see that you took good care of him, I’ll make sure you get a big fat reward. If no, then…
Right after I finished reading it, the letters scrambled all by themselves into the face of a devil who smirked and winked at me right before vanishing.
What the fuck, right? If you’re like me, then you’re wondering what the hell was going on. I just experienced two supernatural events in less than five minutes and I didn’t even think that there was a word in the dictionary to describe how scared I was.
The tag on his collar was in the shape of a pink heart with the name Fluffy written on it so I knew he didn’t lie in the letter but…
Fluffy? There was a huge discrepancy between the name and the actual way the creature looked like.
Anyway, let me tell you a bit about Fluffy. God, I can’t even say his name without my heart starting to rise up in my throat when I think I had to monstersit the Devil’s pet.
The small creature was approximately three feet tall, it had purple fur all over its body and two crimson tusks, one longer than the other. Its eyes were a bright hue of glowing pink, and it had three legs and four arms. The arms had little claws on them, probably so that it could grab its food better.
I still couldn’t believe it but… I was sure it was real. I had to do what he said in the letter and I had to take care of it.
I found myself in a situation in which I’ve never thought I’d be. I decided to call it a him, just like Satan wrote in his letter, maybe that’d have helped.
Fluffy was waking up and I approached him. He was a bit scared, I could sense it and when I tried to pet him on the head, he hissed at me, and that’s when I noticed his dark orange tail that ended in an arrow-head tip. Classic demon stuff, right?
I let out a ‘Woah!’ and I saw his pink eyes and the tail both lit up in flames. The light was flickering while he focused on studying me and my moves. The tail was colored a bright flamy orange that seemed to contrast the dark hue pretty damn well.
I wondered how should I’d call him, ‘Here, Fluffy’, ‘Here, here, little demon’, ‘Atta monster’???
…
“Fluffy, want some milk?”, I asked.
He started wagging his tail and ran towards my leg. Fortunately, the fire was gone and nothing burned.
“Does Satan gives you milk in Hell?” I asked again and I heard him… bark, sorta.
It wasn’t your traditional dog bark, more like a thousand barks that echoed in one. You know… like could you imagine a creature of Hell doing one? Yeah, that’s exactly how it sounded.
I took a bowl and put some milk in it and he started drinking with his three tongues and spikes started coming out from his back. That probably meant he liked it, I thought.
I felt physically sick when I heard the sound of them erecting from under the flesh and I started shivering with a fear that I’d never thought to experience ever in my life. I made his sleeping spot in the kitchen and I tried to make it as comfortable and cozy as possible.
After all, I didn’t exactly know how to take care of a demon pet, except for the instructions I was given.
Of course, I had to call in sick at work that morning because you know you don’t get the chance every day to monstersit Satan’s pet.
Time passed on and nothing significant happened on that Tuesday. Oh, luckily I remembered I had to get his food for the next day. There was a butcher’s shop nearby so it was a quick errand to run.
I left him sleeping and I wished that nothing bad would happen. I mean… Satan would have him trained by now, right? I bought like twenty pounds of chicken hearts, beef steaks, sirloins, and pork chops and I put them in the freezer to make his lunch the next day.
Then I heard my neighbor Gary blasting that stupid black metal shit and screaming vocals over the original song like a goddamn lunatic.
“Hey, fucking asshole! Mind turning that down, I’m trying to rest?!” I angrily yelled.
“Up yours, ya pussy, this is real fucking music, not that pop shit you listen to!” his wife Karen replied.
“Hey! Fuck you both, you demented scumbags! I’m going to call the cops if you don’t turn that shit down, you hear me?!” I said, blood starting to boil inside my veins.
Five minutes later, the music stopped. Fucking Gary and Karen, what a lovely couple.
I saw Fluffy standing behind me growling.
“Sorry, little guy. I shouldn’t have yelled. It’s that they piss me off sometimes with that stupid musical vomit,” I told him but he didn’t stop growling.
I moved past him but he was still standing there, motionless, just growling in their direction. I assured him it’s alright and told him to come with me, so I can give him some milk. He happily obliged.
Night came and I took Fluffy to bed. Even though he seemed to listen to every word I said there was still some sort of darkness in the way he looked at me. They say that the eyes are windows to the soul so maybe that’s exactly what he was doing. Trying to ‘read’ my soul and see if I was fit to take care of him or not.
“Listen here, Fluffy. Your owner gave me strict rules and told me to be really careful about taking care of you, ok? So please, don’t start throwing tantrums in the middle of the night or become too curious about the neighborhood, ok?” I told him, hoping that maybe he could understand. Still, I was trembling with fear.
Then I remembered what Satan said at the end of the letter. One bark for yes, two for no.
“Do you understand?” I asked him again and I heard him bark once. We were starting to get along pretty good and I went to bed for the night.
Lights out.
Someone knocked on the front door. I got out of bed to see who could’ve been at that late hour in the night. Half asleep I opened the door to see Gary enraged with madness, drunk as a skunk and high as a kite, holding a knife in his hand.
“You disrespected my woman, you piece of shit! No one talks to her like that,” he said, his hands shaking.
“Listen, man. I’m sorry, alright? I shouldn’t have said those things,” I told him, hoping in resolving the conflict peacefully.
Of course, that wasn’t the case, you can’t reason with madmen. His right fist connected with my face and I was sent on the floor, start filling my vision. My upper lip split and I felt blood entering my mouth, the salty and coppery taste was something I haven’t felt since I was in a school fight as a kid.
I tried to punch back but I couldn’t match his enormous size and strength. He put the knife to my throat and asked me if I wanna die. I shook my head as tears starting to form in my eyes. He was pressing the tip of the blade against my neck, I thought that the end would soon follow and I’d die at the hands of a drunken crack addict.
He pocketed the knife and spat at my face, telling me that if I ever even look at them, I’d be dead. He ended by saying that if I’d call the cops, he’ll kill me. Even if he were to be arrested, he’d hire a guy to kill me. Or worse, just cripple me. Make it look like an accident.
I looked in the corner where the kitchen was and saw Fluffly standing there, just watching. I shook my head at him not make a move. Then I pissed myself with fear, the warm liquid staining my pajama pants.
Gary punched me one more time in the ribs and I coughed blood on the floor. “You’re fucking disgusting, you stupid fuck,” he said, right before leaving, slamming the door on his way out.
I didn’t want to call the cops straight away because fear overtook all my other senses and the guy was batshit crazy. I mean he could’ve come back any second and I never trusted a person as erratic as him.
Besides, I had to deal with more important things than my split lip and pissed pants. I raised myself, patched my lip, and went to take a shower.
I was in and out of sleep for a few hours when suddenly I jolted awake when I heard the front door slamming shut. Someone was trying to rob me. I had to deal with a demon, a murderous neighbor, and now a burglar.
Or maybe it was Gary who changed his mind and wanted to finish me off for good.
Shit, shit, shit, SHIT! I thought. I didn’t have anything to defend myself with so I just took a pencil from my desk so I could stab the motherfucker in the eye if push came to shove.
I checked the living room, nothing. I looked around nothing. I went to the kitchen and turned on the lights.
Fluffy was standing there with a human arm in his mouth while his tusks were dripping blood. I recognized Gary’s tattoos on it before I stumbled and fell down on the floor.
Fluffy was different. He was bigger in size and now there were spikes all over him and they dripped with blood too. He started wagging his tail and dropped the arm at my feet, barking at me to take it.
Then he pushed it again with his tusks towards me.
“Oh no, Fluffy… What the hell did you do?!” I yelled.
Big mistake because his eyes and tail lit up again. “Sorry for yelling! Didn’t mean to, it’s just… I’m scared and you shouldn’t have done that!” I said.
Then I saw Gary’s head watching me from the corner of the room, his lifeless dull eyes frozen with fear. I shrieked and fell on the floor again. Then from across the street, I heard Karen letting out a huge scream, one that woke up the whole neighborhood.
I understood why Fluffy did it, he wanted to protect me from the bad neighbor but he left me with a bad situation on my hands so I had to think fast.
“Fluffy, is the rest of the body here in my house?” I asked.
He barked twice.
“Did you leave it in their house?” I said while pointed to Gary and Karen’s house.
Woof.
Well, at least we got that figured out. I was afraid he would’ve eaten parts of him and get me in double trouble. He wasn’t allowed to eat anything except on Wednesday, remember?
I told him to stay put. I got some trash bags for Gary’s head and arm and then stuffed them inside the freezer with the rest of his food. Figured, I don’t know, maybe he’d eat them in a few hours. I then wiped the floor clean with bleach and made sure there wasn’t any more blood in the house.
Fluffy went to sleep like nothing happened.
What a shitshow.
Then I heard the police sirens and as I watched through the window I saw them pull up in front of my neighbors’ house.
I didn’t even notice it was morning. I just stood on the side of my bed petrified, all kinds of scenarios going through my head: jail for the rest of my life, death row, things like that.
11:30 in the morning. Time passed so fast while I stood there like a statue, still and unable to move. Frozen with fear.
I heard a knock on the front door.
Two police officers came to ask me questions. They wanted to see if I know anything about Gary’s killing.
As soon as I started talking Fluffy started barking.
“Hey Fluffy, keep it down please! I’m trying to talk with these officers about the tragic accident that happened last night! Do you understand?”
He barked once.
I’m trying to save both our asses here, I thought.
“His wife told us that you got in a fight yesterday, Mr. Turner. She said that you were pretty aggressive towards them. Mind telling us why?” one of them asked.
I looked at Agents Suck and Fuck over standing on my porch and wished that Fluffy would come and rip their heads off.
“I wasn’t aggressive, officers. It’s just sometimes they took that black metal music too seriously and forget that other people are living in the neighborhood… It was very loud and I was trying to get some rest,” I told them, whimpering.
More questions followed and when I checked the clock, it said 11:51.
“If that’s all, officers…” I said, trying to make them leave so I can feed the “dog”.
“Got somewhere to be, sport?” Agent Suck asked me, patronizingly.
I shook my head and said that I just needed to feed my dog, he’s very hungry.
“Come on, Gary, leave the man be. We’ll be in touch, Mr. Turner. Thank you for your cooperation,” Agent Fuck said.
His name was Gary…. I felt like I was in some sort of bad cosmic joke.
“What happened to your lip?” Officer Suck or Gary asked me. “You got your ass handed to you or something?”
I said that my dog accidentally scratched me while I was training him, it was no big deal. Then they both said goodbye and I was getting really nervous and stressed because I didn’t want to miss Fluffy’s lunchtime.
11:54.
I ran to the fridge and I took the frozen meat and quickly placed them in the microwave, hit defrost for three and a half minutes, and fed Fluffy. The spikes came out again from his spine and I asked them if he liked the food and he barked once and kept eating.
Then I heard another knock. It was Officer Gary again, this time alone. His voice tone was a little bit changed.
“I know you killed him, Jonathan. I know you have his head and arm in the fridge,” he said.
No, no, no, fucking no! This wasn’t happening.
He pointed his gun at me, “On the ground with your hands behind your back! You’re under arrest!” he said while I followed his instructions.
I was basically fucked. I’d go to prison first, then Satan would come after me for not taking care of his pet.
Then Officer Gary started laughing.
“Oh, man! You should see the look on your face right now! Get the hell up, man! I was just messing with you! I told you I like to bring the lolz!”, he said, crying with laughter. “Where’s my Fluffy?”
Then the little creature came running from the kitchen and jumped on Officer Gary, I mean Officer Satan.
I mean… Ugh….
“Thank you for taking care of me for him. My business here finished earlier than anticipated and I am truly grateful for your absolute dedication towards the little fella here,” Satan said. “Mind if I take all the meats from your fridge? Including the… you know.”
I nodded.
“Jonathan. I told you that you’ll get a reward for being nice to my Fluffers, didn’t I?” he asked me.
I nodded and he told me that my mortgage has been paid off in its entirety.
“I’ll be seeing you around, Johnny boy. I like you, you could work for me. Think about it, will you?” he said. “Come on, Fluffy. To the Batmobile!” he finished.
They hoped on in the car and started driving into the distance.
Well, my piece of shit neighbor died. That meant no shitty black metal music unless Karen decided to go solo on the vocals. Maybe I’ll get Fluffy again and teach her a lesson too if I get the chance.
At least I’m debt-free so I got that going for me which is nice.
Might as well pour myself a glass of Satan’s whisky now.
Join the party.

Like most of you reading this, I’ve read too many terrible marketing & startup-related books.
Growth Hacker? I suppose it was okay, for it’s time.
This Is Marketing? Took nothing from it.
Traction? It could have been summed up in a blog post.
After searching for ‘Top 10 Marketing Books’ and reading everything I could find on those lists over the last few years, I’ve stopped buying marketing books because almost everyone was either aimed at beginners, were written as a lead-magnet with the aim of selling you consulting or a course, or they simply were written without anything actionable that I could actually ‘use’.
Like many during the last 9 months, my agency moved out of our office and we have worked entirely from home. A positive that came from that I started to read way more often, usually aiming for a book a week.
The first book I read was a gift that I received a couple of years back and had been on my shelf collecting dust ever since. It was the only book that I owned which I hadn’t already read, so to make things simple I started with that. It was The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier.
It absolutely blew me away.
I read it from cover to cover in one sitting and then read it again the following week. I told everyone that would listen: “The Brand Gap is the single most important book I’ve ever read”.
After this, I spoke to friends working in branding, design, copywriting, and project management and asked for book recommendations. I specified that I didn’t want books that only scratched the surface, I wanted to read the books that changed their entire mindset and way or working.
I ended up with a huge reading list (and a few shelves full of books) which I worked my way through over the last few months. There was no filler, and nothing I’d consider to be average — I gained something significant from every single book.
I’ve compiled a list of seven of the books which I’d consider to have had the biggest impact on me.
For each book mentioned I’ll include a link to Bookshop, along with a testimonial and some of the book description.
1. The Brand Gap — Marty Neumeier

“A well-managed brand is the lifeblood of any successful company. Read this book before your competitors do!” ―TOM KELLEY, GENERAL MANAGER, IDEO
THE BRAND GAP is the first book to present a unified theory of brand. The second edition features a 220-term brand glossary and a premium softcover binding. Whereas most books on branding are weighted toward either a strategic or creative approach, this book shows how both ways of thinking can unite to produce a “charismatic brand” — a brand that customers feel is essential to their lives.

2. Everybody Writes — Ann Handley

“All your shiny new channels, properties, and platforms are a waste of space without smart, useful content. Ann Handley’s new book helps make every bit of content count — for your customers and your bottom line.” — Kristina Halvorson, President, Brain Traffic
If you have a website, you are a publisher. If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers.
Everybody Writes is your go-to guide to attracting and retaining customers through stellar online communication, because in our content-driven world, every one of us is a writer.

3. How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know — Byron Sharp

“…marketers need to move beyond the psycho-babble and read this book… or be left hopelessly behind.” — Joseph Tripodi, The Coca-Cola Company
Professor Byron Sharp is the Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia. The Institute’s fundamental research is used and financially supported by many of the world’s leading corporations including Coca-Cola, Kraft, Kellogg’s, British Airways, Procter & Gamble, Nielsen, TNS, Turner Broadcasting, Network Ten, Simplot, Mars and many others.

4. D&AD. The Copy Book

“The Copy Book convinced me that everyone in business should study the art of copywriting.” — Fortune.com
The book features a work selection and essays by 53 leading professionals in the world, including copywriting superstars such as David Abbott, Lionel Hunt, Steve Hayden, Dan Wieden, Neil French, Mike Lescarbeau, Adrian Holmes, and Barbara Nokes.
The lessons to be learned on these pages will help you create clearer and more persuasive arguments, whether you are writing an inspiring speech, an engaging web banner or a persuasive letter. This is not simply a “must-have” book for people in advertising and marketing, it is also a “should-have” for anyone who needs to involve or influence people, by webpage, on paper, or in person.

5. Junior: Writing Your Way Ahead in Advertising — Thomas Kemeny

“If my older and wiser brother were an ad book, these would be his exact words. If he’d ask me to wash his filthy car every Sunday in exchange for his wisdom, I’d say ‘No problem, ‘ knowing I got the better end of the deal.” — PAUL MALMSTROM, Creative Chairman and Co-Founder, Mother
There are a lot of great advertising books, but none that get down in the dirt with you quite like this one. Thomas Kemeny made a career at some of the best ad agencies in America. In this book he shows how he got in, how he’s stayed in, and how you can do it too. He breaks apart how to write fun, smart, and effective copy-everything from headlines to scripts to experiential activations-giving readers a lesson on a language we all thought we already knew.

6. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads — Luke Sullivan

“Classic must-read Sullivan mixed with innovation master Boches make the perfect duo. This is the book that will help guide new talent to great career starts. Required reading for a new era.” — Deborah Morrison**,** Distinguished Professor of Advertising, University of Oregon
Hey Whipple, Squeeze This has helped generations of young creatives make their mark in the field. From starting out and getting work, to building successful campaigns, you gain a real-world perspective on what it means to be great in a fast-moving, sometimes harsh industry. You’ll learn how to tell brand stories and create brand experiences online and in traditional media outlets, and you’ll learn more about the value of authenticity, simplicity, storytelling, and conflict.

7. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind — Al Ries, Jack Trout

The first book to deal with the problems of communicating to a skeptical, media-blitzed public, Positioning describes a revolutionary approach to creating a “position” in a prospective customer’s mind-one that reflects a company’s own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors.
“…Ries and Trout taught me everything I know about branding, marketing, and product management. When I had the idea of creating a very large thematic community on the Web, I first thought of Positioning….” — David Bohnett, Chairman and Founder of GeoCities

So, there you have it. It’s worth nothing, my list above is just that; my list. I’m sure there are plenty of people that read books from that list and for whatever reason, it just didn’t resonate with them in the same way that Growth Hackersdoesn’t do it for me, either. These are simply the books I’d consider to be game-changing, and now recommend them to anyone working in marketing & e-commerce.
Got a book recommendation? I’d love to hear! Share some recommendations below.

ISLAM- The belief that an All-Knowing, All-Powerful God decided to reveal his doctrine for mankind, to a 7th century illiterate Arab slave trader(slave and sex slave owner who had regular sex with his 9 year old wife) ,in a cave where no one else was there to verify, through Angel Gabriel over 23 years rather than just beaming it into his brain.

Islam is an extremely Arab-centric religion, it seems as if it was completely made up by an Arabic person/people. The more a religion is tied to the culture of whatever society created it, the less likely it is to be legitimate. An omnipresent All-Knowing God wouldn’t care where on earth the primates he gave sentience to come from. This is what I will be discussing.

THE KAABAThe holy site for pilgrimage is very conveniently located in their backyard (Saudi Arabia.) This would be like a religion of Japanese origin claiming the holy site for pilgrimage is in Tokyo. Muslims have to pray towards the Kaaba which is located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Pre-Islamic Arabia was extremely underdeveloped and primitive. Literature wasn’t important and credible texts were rare so sometimes historians have to go with the biased Islamic perspective. According to the Abrahamic religions(Islam included), Abraham lived at around 2100-2200BC which is thousands of years before Islam was born in the 7th century. Islamic sources claim Abraham built the Kaaba for Islamic practises and it was his most important accomplishment. However the Bible never mentions the Kaaba and some Muslims claim Allah is the same God of the bible. Strangely the Kaaba was never mentioned in Judaism and Christianity. Only Islamic sources claim Christians and Jews also respected the Kaaba religiously. It was difficult to unify the many sects of Judaism and Christians on many things but not one sect of either religion mentioned the Kaaba. This suggests this idea was entirely fabricated. Islamic sources claim that the Kaaba in Mecca was a well known, important trade centre. Most Historians agree this is false as there was no mention of the Kaaba by the powerful Roman Empire, and the neighbouring Persian Empire and neighbouring Northern African Rulers until the birth of Islam . All historical evidence indicates the Quran was built by Arab Pagans a few centuries before Muhammad, not Abraham, yet again another false Islamic claim made by early Muslim Arabs or Muhammad.The Zamzam Well is a well located in Mecca, Saudi East of the Kaaba the holiest place in Islam. According to Islam, it is a miraculously generated source of water from God, which sprang spontaneously thousands of years ago when Ibrahim (Abraham's) son Ismael (Ishmael) was left with his mother Hajar (Hagar) in the desert, thirsty and crying. Ibrahim made a request to Allah- 14:37: "{O our Lord! I have made some of my offspring to dwell in an uncultivable valley by Your Sacred House (the Ka'bah at Makkah) in order, O our Lord, that they may perform Salah (prayer). So fill some hearts among men with love towards them, and (O Allah) provide them with fruits so that they may give thanks.}" Muslims believe Zamzam was the first among many fruits provided to Ibrahim by Allah. provided to Ismail and Hajar were in the desert. Very conveniently the Holy Water in Islam is located in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The water is so holy it is taught to heal diseases and sickness; there is no scientific evidence to support this. This appears to be a knock-off version of a biblical story (one of the many in Islam) where Abraham’s concubine and his son Ishmael were left in the desert of Paran in Palestine. The Hadith Sahih Muslim 31:6046 says that ZamZam water is special, can quench hunger,feed you and make you gain weight;there is of course no scientific evidence to support these claims. Islam makes it appear as if it is a miracle that there is water well in the desert which is expected coming from primitive Arab desert dwellers with little scientific knowledge. Water is underground in most deserts because as rainwater falls, it is absorbed underground and flows through the underground including under a desert.

IMPORTANCE OF ARABIC
Allah stated His holy book must be written, memorised and taught in Arabic(conveniently Muhammad's language) to Prophet Muhammad even though there are thousands of other languages in the world. Vulgar Latin or Middle Chinese were the most spoken language in the world in the 7th century when the Quran was revealed,English and Mandarin are the most spoken languages in the 21st century. Only 5% of the world's population today speak Arabic (Arabic is the 5th most spoken language in the world) so it is illogical, confusing and absurd why God wanted "the most important words for mankind" to be specifically delivered in Arabic. If Allah had revealed his doctrine to all cultures and corners of the world, there would be an independently verifiable method to confirm that every language in the world received the same message from the same God. This would be very powerful evidence in favour of Islam. It is a shame he decided against this:
Quranic Verses on Importance of Arabic:
41:3- "A Scripture whereof the verses are in detail, a Lecture in Arabic for people who have knowledge"
7:1: "Alif, Lam, Mim, Sad (These are the names of letters of the Arabic alphabet and in this sequence only Allah knows their meaning here;this is one of Allah's many miracles)."
12:2: "We have sent it down as an Arabic Quran so you people may understand/use reason"
14:44: "We have not sent any Messenger except with the language of his people (Arabic) so he can make things clear to them. Allah misguides anyone He wills and guides anyone He wills. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise."
42:7: "So We have revealed an Arabic Quran to you, in order that you may warn the mother of cities(Mecca) and all who live nearby..."
44:58: "We have made the Quran easy in your language (Arabic) so that they might be reminded."
26:198 - "And if We had revealed it (this Qur'an) unto any of the non-Arabs" - 26:199. "And had Muhammad recited the Quran unto them, they would not have believed in it "
41:44: "If We had made it a foreign Quran, they would have said, ‘If only its verses were clear! What? Foreign speech to an Arab?’ Say, ‘It is guidance and healing for those who have faith, but the ears of the disbelievers are heavy, they are blind to it, it is as if they are being called from a distant place." - Could Allah's book not also be unclear to Non-Arabic speakers which was the vast majority of the world in the 7th century and the 21st century?
Why the Almighty God would have a preference for one language over the thousands of others is unclear. Muslims believe Arabic has a special status in Islam. It is compulsory to learn Arabic to be a Muslim and perform activities like the 5 daily prayers, recite the Shahadah and read the Quran. Millions of Muslims around the world memorise the Quran and verses for prayer which are entirely in Arabic whilst not knowing the meaning of what they are saying when they pray everyday and read the Quran. It is estimated up to 10 million Muslims around the world (the majority not Arabic speaking in countries like Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan) have memorised the whole Quran. Most of them barely understand a word of what they have memorised It seems likely an All-Wise, All-Powerful God would be able to come up with a better way for people to show devotion to Him than reciting words in a foreign language they don’t know. God’s chosen messenger was an Arabic Person. Islam is filled with Key Arabic terms like Hajj, Shahadah, Taqwa, Taraweeh, Ramadan, Zakat and encourages Arabic customs like keeping a beard, eating dates and women covering their hair.
SPLITTING OF THE MOON
54:1 The Quran states: "The Hour draws near; the moon is split in two". And if they see a miracle they turn away and say 54:2 "Passing Magic," Sahih Bukhari 4:56:81 Narrated Anas states : \"*That the Meccan people requested Allah's Apostle to show them a miracle, and so he showed them the splitting of the moon."*The Quran and Hadith claim that the people of Mecca,Saudi Arabia asked Muhammad to prove that he had divine powers so he miraculously split the moon into two pieces and then, presumably, put it back together again. There is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever that the moon has ever been split into two. Since the moon is visible to half the planet at any given time, we should expect to see numerous accounts from different parts of the world attesting to this event if it actually happened. The Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, Chinese and Indians had avid astronomers who should have seen this event and recorded it in their histories. The absence of historical record from other civilisations, contemporary to Muhammad, is a strong indication that this event never happened. Yet again another Islamic lie. The Quran states in 4:82 "Do they not then consider the Qur'an carefully? Had it been from other than Allah, they would surely have found some contradictions." The Quran appears to tell us it certainly didn't come from God as we have clearly found a contradiction in the book between what it says and what actually happens/happened in reality as the moon never split. The Quran also says in 2:256 "Whoever believes in Allah, then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold(The Quran) that will never break. And Allah is All-Hearer, All-Knower." Clearly the Quran is broken and is not trustworthy as it has lied to us and tried to deceive us about Science. The lie of the splitting of the moon disproves many of Allah's 99 names such as AL-HAQQ(The Absolute-Truth,) AR-RASHEED(The Infallible Teacher,) AL-ALEEM (The All-Knowing,) AR-RAQEEB(The Watchful One,) AL-HAKEEM(The All-Wise,) ASH-SHAHEED(The All Observing Witnessing, AL-MAJEED(The Glorious-Most Honourable,) AL-HAMEED(The Praiseworthy,)DHUL-JALAALI WAL-IKRAAM(Possessor of Glory and Honour, Lord of Majesty and Generosity.)
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DESCRIPTIONS OF HEAVEN/PARADISE
The invention of an afterlife by religions such as Islam is to serve our primitive desires to stay alive and is a result of the fear of One's mortality. The invention of an afterlife is also means to satisfy our primal desires to feel pleasure and Islam provides this as it sates in 41:31- "You will have therein(Paradise) whatever yourselves desire, whatever you want." The sole purpose of a Muslim's life is to enter Paradise and according to 29:64- " This life is nothing but diversion and play (to distract you from the ultimate goal of paradise)" The way heaven is described in a religion is usually reflective of the culture the religion originated from; this is expected as religions are fabricated by humans not sourced from divine beings.

The Islamic Paradise (Jannah) is described in the Quran and in Hadith as a place with lots of magnificent gardens, nice greenery and weirdly obsesses on how there are many rivers and sources of water in Paradise. Here are some verses on the Islamic Paradise:
36:34 - “And We have made (In Paradise) therein gardens of date-palms and grapes and We have caused springs of water to gush forth therein.”3:193 - “But as to those who are careful of (their duty to) their Lord, they shall have gardens beneath which rivers flow....”16:31 - “The gardens of perpetuity, they shall enter them, rivers flowing beneath them; they shall have in them what they please...”47:15 - "The description of Paradise which the righteous have been promised is that in it are rivers of water the taste and smell of which are not changed..."5:119- "...There are gardens, with rivers flowing beneath – their eternal Home. Allah is well-pleased with them, and they with Allah. That is the great salvation."9:72- "Allah hath promised to Believers, men and women, gardens under which rivers flow, to dwell therein, and beautiful mansions in gardens of everlasting bliss."61:12 - “These it is (Paradise) for whom are gardens of perpetuity beneath which rivers flow,”54:54 - "Verily, The Righteous, will be in the midst of Gardens and Rivers in Paradise."18: 33. "Each of those two gardens brought forth its produce, and failed not in the least therein, and We caused a river to gush forth in the midst of them."
The fascination with gardens and water appears to be a reasonable depiction of heaven coming from primitive desert dwellers who didn’t have much access to greenery and vast areas of water. Most people don't think of water when they think of a heaven except of course primitive Arabs who lived in the sweltering heat of the desert.
Islam is famous for having an extensive list of things which are forbidden under the religion (Haram) . There are customs like drinking alcohol, gambling, wearing gold and women being able to dress freely, and beautifying one's appearance which was and is part of most cultures including Pre-Islamic Arabia that were subsequently banned under Islam. I believe the reason religions like Islam ban trivial, inconsequential thing like beautifying one’s appearance is because if you can force people to give up something so intrinsic to their society and to being human, it is much easier exercise control. Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying: The world is a prison-house for a believer and Paradise for a non-believer. Sahih Muslim 2956. The purpose of tedious rules is to make its adherents cement themselves more concretely to the religion. Muslims are being controlled massively by the the commands of a fictional being(Allah) and unfortunately do not seem to understand that. There is no other reason. The rules do not benefit you but the business. Every time you follow these rules with no evidence they came from a divine being, you are paying another subscription fee until you decide you are being used and drained to the religions benefit, not yours. Muslims are obligated to follow the Quran and it's rules as it is supposedly the word of God- 4:59- "O you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger (Muhammad ), and those of you (Muslims) who are in authority and if there is deviation amongst yourselves, refer back to Allah, His Messenger (and Quran ), if you believe in Allah and in the Last Day. That is better and more suitable for final determination."
FASCINATION WITH WINE IN PARADISE
The fascination with wine in the Islamic heaven indicates that the Arabic authoauthors were into alcohol all along. Allah is clearly a confused man who doesn't even understand and abide by his own words as he says in 5:90 that alcohol consumption is the work of Satan but then promises alcohol in heaven for righteous Muslims. 5:90- "O you who believe! Intoxicants (all kinds of alcoholic drinks), gambling, Al-Ansab, and Al-Azlam (arrows for seeking luck or decision) are an abomination of Shaitan's (Satan) handiwork. So avoid (strictly all) that (abomination) in order that you may be successful." It seems weird to condone something in Heaven that you said is bad to do on Earth.Here are Quranic verses on Alcohol in Paradise:76:5 - "Indeed, the righteous will drink from a cup [of wine] whose mixture is of Kafur."76:17 - “And they will be given to drink a cup [of wine] whose mixture is of ginger. “47:15 - “The description of Paradise is that in it are rivers of water the taste and smell of which are not changed; rivers of milk of which the taste never changes; rivers of wine delicious to those who drink; and rivers of clarified honey (clear and pure)....”
FASCINATION WITH WOMEN AND SEX IN PARADISE
The Quran forbids men and women especially women from beautifying themselves, tells men to lower their gaze, tells men and women to be modest in dress and behaviour, and discourages the provocative sexual display of their bodies and and discourages hyper-sexuality however extensively discusses sex and the beauty of the women in heaven. Yet again, it seems weird to condone something in Heaven that you said is bad to do on Earth.
24:31 - “And tell the believing women to lower their gaze (from looking at forbidden things), and protect their private parts (from illegal sexual acts, etc.) and not to show off their adornment except only that which is apparent (like palms of hands or one eye or both eyes for necessity to see the way, or outer dress like veil, gloves, head-cover, apron, etc.), and to draw their veils all over Juyubihinna (i.e. their bodies, faces, necks and bosoms, etc.) and not to reveal their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husband's sons, their brothers or their brother's sons, or their sister's sons, or their (Muslim) women (i.e. their sisters in Islam), or the (female) slaves whom their right hands possess, or old male servants who lack vigour, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex. And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment. And all of you beg Allah to forgive you all, O believers, that you may be successful.”
Here are Quranic Verses regarding the beauty of the women in Paradise:
2:25- “...they shall have therein Azwajun Mutahharatun (purified mates or wives), (having no menses, stools, urine, etc.) and they will abide therein forever.” This means God will provide pure women for men to have sex with in Paradise.55: 70-“Therein (In Paradise) will be fair (wives) good and beautiful.”37:48- -“And with them (believing men) will be chaste females, restraining their glances (desiring none except their husbands), with wide and beautiful eyes.” 37:49. “(Delicate and pure) as if they were (hidden) eggs (well) preserved.”2:25- "Virgins await those who enter paradise."
78:31-34 - “Verily for the Righteous(men) there will be the fulfilment of (the heart´s) desires; Gardens and vineyards, And a cup(of wine) overflowing; And women of equal age with big and firm breasts”
Quran 55:54-56 - “They(righteous men) will recline on Carpets...In them will be houris(virgins) restraining their glances, and no man or Jinn has ever opened their hymen with sexual intercourse, which of your Lord’s blessings would you deny?
The obsession and fascination with women's beauty and sex in the Islamic Paradise and lack of regard for female sexuality with no Quranic verses appealing to a Woman’s desire for sexual gratification clearly illustrates this was made up by sexually aroused Arabian Men who were implementing their sexual fantasies into their ideal paradise. It is oddly suspicious that there are no Islamic verses describing the handsome men in Paradise for women. The misogynistic objectification of women by portraying them as commodities and treating them like prizes to be won if One is faithful to Allah is typical of the ideals of the time, where women in most civilisations were treated as second class class citizens and had limited rights compared to men.
Bonus Quranic verses on women in Islam:
4:34- "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion from, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and beat them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great." This verse means men are in charge of women, because Allah made men to be better than women. Women must obey men, and if they refuse they must be punished. Refuse to have sex with them and beat them into submission.
2:223- "Men,your women are soil for you (to cultivate/farm) so go to your soil as you please, and send (good deeds) before you for your souls, and fear Allah, and know that ye will (one day) meet Him. Give glad tidings to believers, (O Muhammad)." In the mind of Allah, women are like a dirty field for men to put their penises through. Plough them whenever you like (as long as they're not menstruating, of course.)
4:24- "Also forbidden for men to marry are women already married, except those whom your right hands possess(captive women aka sex slaves)." This verse means Allah permits men having sex slaves.
OBSESSION WITH DATES
Islam has stressed the holiness of the date and the date palm more than any other religion. In fact, the Prophet Muhammad said that Ajwah dates—grown in the Madinah region of Saudi Arabia—are from paradise. The date palm, mentioned more than any other fruit-bearing plant in the Quran 22 times is a symbol often associated with Muslims. Muhammad argued that seven dates in the morning protected one from poison and witchcraft. The Quran states that Mary was advised to eat dates while in labour with Jesus, to ease childbirth and strengthen the body. The Prophet was once reported to have said, “People in a house without dates are in a state of hunger.”
Some of the many Islamic verses on date-palms:The Hadith - Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 3464 states: “ The prophet says: whoever says: Glory is to Allah the Magnificent, and with His Praise, a date-palm tree is planted for him in Paradise.”36:34 - “And We have made (In Paradise) therein gardens of date-palms and grapes, and We have caused springs of water to gush forth therein.”55:11 - ”Therein are fruits, date-palms producing sheathed fruit-stalks (enclosing dates)."(This verse means thankfully Allah has provided humans with date-palms on Earth)17:91- "Or you have a garden of date-palms and grapes, and cause rivers to gush forth in their midst abundantly."55:68- "In them (both) will be fruits, and date-palms and pomegranates."80:29- "And olives and date palms"54:20- "Plucking out men as if they were uprooted stems of date-palms."(Allah bragging about the punishment and torment he inflicted on innocent disbelievers using a strong wind)
It seems very convenient and oddly suspicious that God has created a special status for date-palms in his religion and talks about dates an awful lot, given the fact dates are a staple food in Saudi Arabia (It’s eaten regularly and mass produced in the Arabic World). It is very easy for a culture that loves and places great value on dates to then say that God also gives dates a special status. Why the creator of the universe would have a liking to the common fruit in the Middle East over all the thousands of fruits that exist is unclear. It would be suspicious if the God of a religion of Japanese origin claimed Sushi is a holy,special food and described how much sushi there would be in heaven e.g "For those that believe, there will be plates of sushi for them in Paradise."

PORK
The Quran offers no explanation as to why pork is impure is it states in 6:145 when God says, in reference to the flesh of swine (pig), “for that surely it is impure.” Arabs generally didn’t eat pork and thought it was an unclean animal before Islam came so it was very convenient that Allah said Muslims shouldn’t eat pork as it was unclean and impure. This highlights how the Arabs were scientifically illiterate and didn't know proper cooking kills pathogens. Why would the creator of the universe view some foods the mere humans he created eat as disgusting but others perfectly fine for them to eat. This seems like a human trait that is usually dependent on One's culture. For example, a person from the USA may view eating snails and horse meat as disgusting whilst a person from France may view this as perfectly normal.
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SPREAD OF ISLAMIslam was spread by Arab Conquest & War and Arab traders. The most Islamic regions of the world are in the Middle East/Arabic countries. Doesn't Allah know his "beautiful words of wisdom" for mankind would be spread through violent ways and evil dictators who forced it upon lands they conquered. Allah is All-Knowing, Benevolent and All-Powerful therefore he could have stopped these from happening or created a better way for his doctrine to spread through Mankind. Quran 2:256 states: "There is no compulsion in religion. Verily, the Right Path has become distinct from the wrong path." and 15:9 states: "Verily We: It is We Who have sent down the Dhikr (i.e. the Qur'an) and surely, We will guard it (from corruption.)" This verse clearly means the All-Powerful Allah and his Angels dramatically failed on their promise to protect the Quran from corruption and misuse as we know how much evil that has been committed in the name of the Quran throughout history especially given the infamous rise of Radical Islamic Terrorism over the last few decades. 99% of all terrorist attacks that occurred throughout the world from 2010-2020 were Islam related. This disproves many of Allah's 99 names such as AL-MUHAYMIN(The Preserver of Safety,) AR-RASHEED(The Guide, Infallible Teacher,) AL-HAQQ(The Absolute Truth,) AL-AZIZ(All Powerful,) AL-MUHAYMIN AL-‘ALEEM(The All-Knowing.) Doesn't Allah realise that by revealing his doctrine exclusively to Arabs, he engineered the cultural isolation of the rest of the world from his doctrine, he engineered the circumstances of Unbelievers' disbelief that live in the far corners of the world like South America,New Zealand and the Pacific/Remote Islands of the world therefore he created a punishment (Hell) for a situation he knowingly created. It is very suspicious that Allah is Arabic-speaking, Arab-centric, yet will punish non Arabs millenniums later for not believing the message they received through a game of telephone.
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RENAMING OF JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN FIGURES
The Quran also arrogantly claims that key figures: Jesus(Isa), Abraham(Ibrahim), Noah(Nuh), David(Dawud), Ishmael(Ismail), Isaac(Ishaq), Joseph(Yusuf), Ezekiel(Dhulkifl), Moses(Musa), Solomon(Sulayman) ,Jacob(Yaqub) in the centuries old religions of Judaism and Christianity were actually Muslim and Islamic Prophets and gave them Arabic names instead of their Aramaic and Hebrew names. ARABIC NAMES ARE BRACKETED.
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FASTING“The month of Ramadan [is that] in which was revealed the Quran, a guidance for the people and clear proofs of guidance and criterion. So whoever sights [the new moon of] the month, let him fast it; and whoever is ill or on a journey – then an equal number of other days. Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship and [wants] for you to complete the period and to glorify Allah for that [to] which He has guided you, and perhaps you will be grateful.” (Quran: 21:85)Fasting in Ramadan is one of the 5 pillars of Islam and must be performed if One is fit,healthy, not pregnant,not ill and not menstruating. Islam requires fasting from dawn till dusk in the holy month of Ramadan which is approximately 12 hours in Saudi Arabia. If the authoauthors were in Northern Europe where dawn till dusk can last up to 22-23 hours in the summer months, leaving a 1-2 hour window to eat a day for a whole month, they probably wouldn’t have made this difficult, extremely unhealthy and dangerous task a requirement. The author is also clearly unaware that there are parts of Northern Europe near the North Pole where the sun never sets in the summer months. This phenomenon is colloquially known as the Midnight Sun. For example Svalbard, Norway is known for having a Midnight Sun. In Svalbard, Norway there is no sunset from April to August and no sunlight from November to January. Islam was born 1400 years ago so how would people living in these parts of the world be able before the invention of mechanical clocks 600 years ago is unclear. The Quran makes no provisions for Muslims living in these areas, the Quran states in 6:38- " We did not leave ANYTHING out of this book," this is weird given the fact the Quran is meant to be the perfect,final word from the All-Knowing All-Powerful God who knows about the existence of the midnight sun.
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THE ONLY ANIMALS,PLANTS, CITIES AND PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THE QURAN ARE THE ONES FOUND IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

The only animals and plants mentioned in the Quran are the ones found in the Middle East. Never ones specifically in Australia, Europe, Antarctica North America or South America.
The only cities, nations and continents mentioned in the Quran are the ones found in the Middle East area. Never ones specifically in Australia, Europe, Antarctica North America or South America.
The people mentioned in the Quran all lived in the Middle East area.The Quran doesn’t mention people living in Australia, Europe, Antarctica, North America or South America.
The Quran never mentions smoking even though it was popular and existed in the Americas long before the 7th century when the Quran was written.
All the miracles in the Quran occurred in Saudi Arabia and nowhere else in the world. No miracles from Allah. No miracles in the Quran in Australia, Europe, Antarctica, North America or South America.

ISLAM'S OBSESSION WITH ARABIC AND ARABIAN CULTUREReligions are fabricated by humans, consequently, they are tied and intrinsic to the particular culture it originated from and Islam is no exception. Religious and Non-Religious people agree that 99.99%+ of religions are fabricated by humans as there are thousands of religions that make incompatible claims,each claiming to be sourced from a divine being. Islam is obsessed with Arabic and Arabic culture, every page you turn to you see a reference to Arabic culture, this isn't the case for Christianity. The Majority of people don't think of Israel, Hebrew and Israeli culture when they think of Christianity. Like I said, the more a religion is tied to the culture of whatever society created it, the less likely it is to be legitimate. An omnipresent All-Knowing God wouldn’t care where on earth the primates he gave sentience to come from. A religion that professes its universality and its suitability for all mankind, 81:27 "Verily, this (the Quran) is no less than a Reminder to (all) the 'Alamin (mankind and jinns)," seems rather centred around a specific group of people (Arabs).
All evidence points to the fact Islam and the Quran was a completely made up by Arabic People and/or Muhammad who had no contact with a Deity and other cultures beside Arabic culture adding to the fact it is filled with hundred of contradictions, inconsistencies and scientific inaccuracies. The fictional character ,Allah, was clearly obsessed with Arabs and Arabic culture and couldn't go a few pages without a reference to Arabic culture; this guy is meant to be the creator of the universe. Islam appears to be a local Arab folklore to unite nomads under the banner of one God through the violent political campaign of Muhammad. Islam claims to be global but all knowing Allah forget to send prophets outside of Arab world. The evidence of contradictions, both big and small serves as clear evidence of human tampering. If the Quran came from Muhammad it was nothing more than fabrication from a power hungry megalomaniac, with his claims of divine inspiration being nothing more than an attempt to conquer Arabia and Islam being nothing more than just another false desert cult to emerge from a sea of desert cults.