You’re making me uncomfortable

some thoughts on discomfort and how much risk you can take when doing content

“Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” — David Foster Wallace

I have no idea from whom, but I got this quote from an email. I love it because I feel part of the first group and wish to disturb the second, but I bring it here because it made me think about storytelling. While fiction can afford to be unsettling, like humor, brands can’t always.

The advantage of unsettling is that it:

• Makes content memorable
• Leaves you top of mind
• Engages the reader

How much discomfort can there be in a brandstory? Or a podcast? If it’s not unsettling in any way, how do we engage the audience? Can we avoid feeling discomfort at all? These are some first answers to those questions:

1. How much discomfort we can tolerate depends on the context we build around it.
2. If it’s not unsettling in any way, something has to compensate the lack of tension.
3. Even if the content is comforting, the process of creating good content isn’t.

Let’s dig into this.

1. How much discomfort we can tolerate depends on the context we build around it.

Creepypasta vs. Lullabies and Folk Songs

Creepypasta refers to any horror legend published on the internet, usually related to the paranormal. The Slenderman, figures with long tongues, deformed faces, metamorphers. These are stories made to disturb everyone. People who read them want to be unsettled. It targets a niche that craves the lingering uneasy aftertaste of terror.

The reason it’s hard to tolerate, though, is not the content itself. The violent theme is not to blame. It’s actually everything around it, the way these people take something familiar and break it until it becomes something terrible and threatening. Through music, certain vocabulary, colors.

My counterargument are songs like Rock a Bye Baby, murder ballads (I discovered those in this episode of Dolly Parton’s America, a must hear), and why not Electric Avenue and the merry Beatle’s song Run for your life. Songs about poverty, detailed descriptions of murders, and abuses, which are nevertheless used to lull babies to sleep, as background music, or to dance at parties.

I mean, murder ballads are a musical genre born to travel the stories of murders from town to town until they became local legends everywhere. How can we idly sing we beat someone to death so indifferently? Because they were made to be listened to through pleasant harmonies, slow rhythms and sweet raspy voices. The context built around makes it tolerable yet memorable and engaging due to its familiarity and closeness to the audience.

Takeaway for brands: this means tone matters. Paying attention to how content is delivered means what we’re saying gets more liberties without necessarily sacrificing audience. Picture this as a matrix made up of two parallel axis, the what and the how, and how we moderate these create nuances.

It’s comparable to the MAYA design principle, which means “most advanced yet acceptable”. It means something is disruptive but not to the point of generating resistance. Discomfort works in a similar way, how much of it can you put at stake without spooking out the audience.

2. If it’s not unsettling in any way, something has to compensate for the lack of tension.

There are a series of content and stories that have no conflict, and people love them. Or at least, they decide to consume them repeatedly. Phrased like this it sounds strange but here are two examples.

1. Interviews with celebrities or notable figures: there are interviews that have some spice to them, yes. Some literally, like Hot Ones. These tend to channel discomfort through one variable: not knowing if the interviewee is set out for a trap, or if they’re going to be asked something extremely hard to walk away from airily. That creates anticipation. But there are others like this interview with Jacob Collier where all the interviewer’s questions come from a place of admiration. We know from the start that nothing will get in the way of a very pleasant dialogue, and that’s fine because it’s made for fans who just want to hear Jacob speak his mind. In this case, the interviewee is justification enough for the content to exist, compensating for the lack of uneasy tension.
2. Meditative feel-good content: ASMR* object restoration videos, oddly satisfying videos, bedtime stories from meditation apps, they all share the struggle to eliminate any discomfort. They are specifically sought out as a safe, pleasant space and that makes up for the lack of tension.

*Videos are storytelling as much as any song, book or ad, the principles are the same. They share enough to be put in the same bag at least for this topic.

Takeaway for brands: no one likes your post about the award you one or how you renamed human resources to people because there’s nothing in it for the audience. It’s a formality post. If you’re going for something with no heartbeat, you have to think about how you’re gonna make it up to the people reading (in this or another post). Take some advice from the youtube videos linked above: Is there something visually pleasing? Pleasing to the ear? Meditative? An interesting person or topic involved? A job opening? Why would someone enjoy this lack of tension, in what context?

3. Even if the content is comforting, the process of creating good content isn’t.

Discomfort is not always a thing. There are times when it is clear from the beginning what the concept is, why the content is captivating, how we’re gonna go through with it, etc. It ‘s common. Companies land a good streak, channels on different platforms get a good rep, sometimes the people who hire us to write their book, or tell their story in whichever format have plenty of clarity.

In those cases, discomfort doesn’t weigh in as much on the final deliverable. But any content curation process that’s worthwhile has a dose of discomfort.

Findings, or insights, are called that way because you have to look inward, drill the surface and reach for something hidden that has more value. Doing that involves some discomfort: What do I ask? Where do I start? What is the best way to tell this story? How do I navigate this interview? When do I involve each team member? How long should this post be?

The deliverable may be under our control, but the process is something you struggle with and some discomfort is a symptom that you’re doing it well.

Takeaway for brands: If the content comes out bland and it’s not clear why, check the process. Look for the places where things got mechanic. Change how information is obtained, or how it’s translated into copy. When a process has is repetitive and has no friction for those who carry it out, be wary because it’s unlikely you’re generating valuable content. Good work has effort behind it. And working is uncomfortable.

To wrap this up and honor Foster Wallace, I leave you with a song plotted on the wall of a museum, with a phrase that comforts me and may disturb some: “Raise if not a family, at least a little hell”