This week in storytelling

Blake of Today is one of my favorite storytellers on Instagram. A copywriter by trade, he crafts beautifully deep narratives in 60 seconds or less, each one compelling me to watch the next or go back and watch all the previous videos again for the 3rd or 4th time.

It takes about 225 words to fill a minute’s worth of video end-to-end. Yet, when I mention storytelling to people, their thoughts immediately drift to writing novels or lengthy blog posts about topics most will skip over because they need to return to doom-scrolling meme videos to satisfy their dopamine addiction.

As compelling as Blake is at getting me to pay attention, he’s missing a huge opportunity with me, and probably others, because he doesn’t have anything to sell.

I regularly check his link-in-bio to see if maybe he’s dropped some new merch, a course on short-form storytelling, or a book he’s written (Blake, if you don’t publish a book titled “This Year in Fatherhood,” soon, I’m going to lose my shit).

Now, I don’t know what Blake’s motivations are for his stories, but I need more than the 60-second snippets, and I’m waiting with my wallet.

That’s what good storytelling does.