Are you popular?
The secret the freaks already know + my consultancy – Popular Co.
I’ve never been popular. Have you?
That’s a trait of the outgoing, gorgeous, glam people of the world.
But then again – maybe we are.
Popular.
Because everyone knows the freaks and geeks, the people at the margins of society are the ones creating the movements. With enough energy and passion to push the idea of being popular so far down it gets mopped up and away.
Here I am reclaiming the word, Popular. The niche outsiders that plow through the mainstream and into the mainstream.
And here’s where I land on the name for my new strategy studio – Popular Co.
I make brands popular. Popular ice cream. Popular app. Popular home goods. Popular beauty. Popular online food store.
Start with the freaks.
Fifteen years ago, I co-founded a textile studio in NYC with my friend Alexandra Segreti. We met online—on Tumblr—and created offline. We weren’t making weavings for everyone. We were making them for our own eyes and satisfaction.
Then something funny happened: people wanted it. Badly.
side note, I wrote about how I met Alex in the post below –
What this taught me: We met online, created offline, came back online to share. We weren’t chasing the mainstream. The mainstream came to us. From the bowels of tumblr to the sales shelves at Anthropologie.
In 2014, I started posting on Instagram under @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y. One photograph from the 1970s snowballed into a phrase: “The Future is Female.”
It wasn’t viral. It was a zeitgeist moment. I was posting for the lesbians I knew, the people pushing culture forward. Then one day, the phrase showed up on t-shirts. On protest signs. In the cultural lexicon. We still have the endless morphing messages that share the the prefix “The Future…”. And of course, the valid critique of the whole thing (thanks Koa Beck).
I didn’t make it popular. We made it popular. The community did.
Then I built Lex—a text-first social app for the LGBTQ+ community.
We could have tried to be everything to everyone. Instead, we built it for queer people. Actually started out for queer women, trans, non-binary. Actually it was even more niche – try selling this: We understood the nuances. The inside jokes. The need for safety. The hunger for real connection.
It also drew a wide audience with its distinctly queer lexicon. People advertised themselves with phrases like “dykefag fatty”, “shy genderqueer”, “transmasc dyke”, “power bottom”, “witchy” and other terms that would attract dismissive or abusive posts on a mainstream dating app, but were familiar and meaningful to LGBTQIA people. (via The Guardian)
1M+ users. $7.2M raised. Zero dollars spent on marketing.
What this means for you: We weren’t chasing popularity. We were building it from the inside out.
The Pattern
Every time I’ve made something that became undeniable, it followed the same arc:
😎 Build for the insiders first. Not everyone. The people who get it. The people who recognize themselves in what you’re making.
👄 Make it so good, so real, that they can’t help but tell everyone they know. Word of mouth isn’t a strategy—it’s a symptom of something that actually matters.
🎸Stop trying to reach the mainstream. Let the mainstream come to you. When you’re building something real for a real community, the mainstream eventually has to pay attention.
That’s the gag. The more niche you go, the more powerful you become. The more you build for the outsiders, the more undeniable you are.
That’s what Popular Co. does. We help founders build that.
Starting in January, Work Unseen becomes Popular
Popular Co. is my strategy studio for ambitious founders and brand leaders who refuse to stay invisible. We help you build the communities, relationships, and narratives that turn your work into cultural momentum.
I remember that rug!!!!!!!!!!! Love this next step ~~~
Is it possible to read this without the popular song from Wicked playing in your head? Surely not