Persuasion

How to make an Inner Ring morra alive

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This morning I drove about 20 miles to a little coast town where I used to spend my childhood summers. Excepting one quick driveby six years ago, it was my first time back since I was 11.

The place was unrecognizable. Built up, and polished, and deforested. It almost made me physically sick to walk around, the modern reality at such odds with what I remember.

But one thing was still comfortingly the same.

At a sunny seaside bar, on a Saturday morning at around 11am, there was a group of old men.

They were throwing down hand signals on the table and yelling at each other. Numbers, corrupted from Italian:

Šije!

Šete!

Šije!

Šije!

It’s an old game. In Italian, it’s called morra. In Croatian, šije-šete (bastardized Italian for six-seven).

The game is basically like rock-paper-scissors, but with numbers instead of rocks, and five options instead of just three.

I read a bit about the history of morra. It was apparently played even in Roman times. For the past century, it has been banned in much of Italy because it’s considered gambling and, more important, because it seems to lead to drunken knife fights.

And yet, the game lives on. A short while ago, a video went viral on YouTube, showing 9-year-old kids playing morra with full fury. It’s just what men in these parts do. And these boys, at 9 years old, know it, and they are getting ready.

I’ve written before about the Inner Ring.

It’s a powerful motivator. A big part of what it means to be human.

We want to belong to a community, or to a dozen overlapping communities.

In the ancient, precorona world, these things happened spontaneously — work cliques, friend groups, drinking buddies.

Today, the need for the Inner Ring is serviced online in the form of masterminds, lairs, and various kinds of membership programs.

But here’s the thing:

A lot of these online communities suck. One reason is that they are missing rituals.

Rituals are enjoyable for their own sake.

But rituals also keep the structure of the Inner Ring.

Everybody performs the ritual because everybody else performs it, and nobody wants to fall out of the Inner Ring by being a drag.

Men around here play šije-šete because it’s fun and it’s competitive and because they can get a free drink out of it. But also, because a giant and frightening void starts to open up if they don’t play when their buddies do.

So that’s what I’m suggesting to you too.

Maybe you have an online community you run already. Or maybe, like me, you’re just thinking about creating one.

​​In either case, think about rituals you can introduce to give your community some structure and coherence. Even if they lead to drunken knife fights on occasion. It’s a small price to pay for unity and the wonder of the Inner Ring.

Want inside my own Inner Ring? Oh no, it’s not so easy. But the first step is to join my email newsletter. You can do that here.

Forming a marketing cavalry without money or influence

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One morning in late October of 2018, professor Samuel Abrams arrived to his office to find that pictures of his family, which he normally kept on his office door, had been torn down. In their place were dozens of notes stuck to the door and lying on the floor.

QUIT
QUIT QUIQUIT QUIT QUITITQUITQUIT
QUQUIT QUITTIT QUIT
QUIT

A few of the notes offered more detail:

“Our right to exist is not ‘idealogical,’ asshole”

“QUIT go teach somewhere else you racist asshat (maybe Charlottesville?)”

A few days earlier, Abrams had published an editorial in the New York Times, titled “Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators.” The editorial reported the results of his own research.
​
Among first-year college students, Abrams said, there was a two-to-one ratio of liberals to conservatives. Among university professors, that ratio jumped to six-to-one. But all of that was dwarfed by the ratio of liberals to conservatives among university administration: 12-to-one.

This was incendiary enough to prompt an emergency student senate meeting at Abrams’s university. Abrams said the result of this meeting a declaration calling for him to be stripped of tenure and dismissed from the college.

I got on the spoor of this through an article in the Economist, which looked at the spread of wokeness from universities to the mainstream.

The Economist claimed it took a few key ingredients. The one that caught my sparrow eye was the role of university of administrators.

It turns university bureaucrats have been mushrooming in recent decades, outpacing both student and professor growth. For example, administrator numbers at the University of California, where I went to college, doubled since 2000.

Yesterday, I promised to tell you how to get other people to fight for you. One way of course is to have money and to use that to buy yourself an army. That’s what I talked about yesterday.

But if you don’t have money or power, well, you can still have an army. Or, rather, a cavalry.

Ideal recruits are to be found among newly arrived, low-grade influencers. People who have some power at the moment, but who are very insecure about their position and their future. Like university administrators.

If you can offer these people a new way to shore up and legitimize their position by championing you or your product or idea… well, they will do it, even if you don’t pay them.

“Uhhh… I really don’t get what the hell you’re talking about,” you say. “How exactly would I use this to get other people to promote me or to make money?”

Ok, let me give you a sketch that might help. It’s based on my vague memories of a story told to me by a friend who is active in the crypto space.

My friend was telling me there is some fraction of the crypto world, filled with new businesses and investors. Let’s call it Segment X. People in Segment X are invested in some new crypto approach, and they are flush with cash.

But they also have a ton of anxiety about where their sliver of the crypto market is going, and if any of them will be around in a year.

My friend had started a podcast around crypto. At the start, it didn’t have too much reach or audience.

But he occasionally turned the focus of his podcast to Segment X.

And as a result, all those people, and all their resources, latched onto his podcast and helped push it and promote it.

That’s basically what I’m telling you with all that wokeness stuff above. Find yourself a stable of nervy and twitching parvenus. And then get your saddle ready. Because, in the words of Al Ries and Jack Trout:

“The truth is the road to fame and fortune is rarely found within yourself. The only sure way to success is to find yourself a horse to ride. It may be difficult for the ego to accept, but success in life is based more on what others can do for you than on what you can do for yourself.”

For more horse-talk, you might like my daily email newsletter.

A quick and cheap boost in status and authority

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Today, I read about a guy who writes a Substack newsletter about parenting, and it’s made him a celebrity throughout his neighborhood.

Well, it wasn’t really the newsletter.

Rather, it was a specific fact about his own parenting success, which he revealed inside the newsletter. This one fact spread like wildfire among his neighbors, and soon everyone knew him, or at least wanted to. For example, when the guy got his hair cut last week, the following conversation went down:

“Hey, I know you, don’t I?”

“What? How’s that?”

“You’re the guy who has two sons at Harvard.”

“Yeah, that’s me.”​​

Status. All of us are aware of it. And the most pure of us all quest after it like Galahad after the Holy Grail.

I’m not saying anything new here. But here’s an unrelated idea, which might be new to you, and which can help you if you quest after status:

Don’t give too much proof. Argumentation and proof are sure ways to put a ceiling on how authoritative you seem and how much status you have.

“This guy sounds like a leader… but why does he have to buttress his claims with evidence and explain everything in so much detail? Something’s off.”

So cut down on the proof and avoid ruining or hampering your status.

And as with all things authority, things go in both directions. In other words, you can also get a quick and cheap boost in status simply by refusing to make an adequate argument for the claims you’re making.

You might think I’ll just leave that claim hanging as a way of demonstrating my point.

Not so.

For one thing, I’m actively avoiding pursuing status. I have other ideas of how I want to get into people’s heads.

For another thing, none of what I told you is really my idea. ​​I don’t mind telling you I heard it all from Rich Schefren.

​​So if you want proof for what I just told you, you should haunt Rich, and see if maybe he slips up into explaining why he believes all the stuff I just told you. If you don’t know Rich, you can get to know him here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKSG9Ug9FKrFCYxSlTRwGiA

Do you ignore emails with the word “secret” in the subject line?

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Dear probationer,

It happened to a direct response entrepreneur whose name has become synonymous with success, power, and wealth.

Early in his career, he had to write an important sales letter. But he was completely blocked for a good hook.

In a last minute act of desperation, he drove down to the Library of Congress.

There he managed to track down a copy of an ancient, highly successful sales letter he had heard about years earlier. And he adapted the hook for his own letter.

Result? His letter tripled response over the control, and stayed unbeatable for over five years…

And the point of my story is this. There is a lot of value in old sales letters if you start to dig around in them.

I like to dig around in old sales letters. And today, I want to share a complimentary copy of one such letter with you.

But before I do that, I’d like to ask permission to see if you’ll get anything out of the letter that I share. To find out what kind of marketer or copywriter you are. To get some idea whether clicking on the link below will be something you enjoy or not.

And so right in this email, you’ll find a short psychological quiz. Answer the questions truthfully, and then I’ll give you an interpretation based on your results. Ready? Here goes:

1. Have you read John Caples’s Tested Advertising Methods (any edition)?

2. Have you watched two or more comedy specials in the last year?

3. Do you check your spam folder often and even read emails that clearly are spam?

4. Do you have a place in your home or office where you save classic ads you’ve hand copied?

5. Do you harbor private doubts about the marketing mantra, “If they pay, they pay attention?”

6. Do you ever prefer reading transcripts of podcasts or videos to actually watching or listening?

Interpretation: generally, the more questions you answered with “yes,” the more value you will get from seeing the sales letter at the link below.

What I’ve learned is that you’re somewhat curious (you check your spam folder). You’re also systematic about getting better at copywriting (hand copying ads and even saving the result).

You value surprise (watching multiple comedy specials). You’re also a reader (preferring transcripts on occasion). You value deep, proven information, even if it’s not trendy (the Caples book).

In short, you are a person who values insight and who is highly dedicated to getting better at your craft. Moreover, the fact that you’ve allowed yourself to be tested shows a coachable, adaptable personality.

My test also shows you value information for its own sake (the “if they pay…” mantra). And that’s why you are likely to value what you will find at the link below.

It’s a short sales letter — only 4 pages. But it illustrates very powerful techniques of influence. Techniques which will only become more relevant in the coming years.

“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt,” said Shakespeare’s Lucio circa 1604. Oh Lucio, that thou wert alive now and could attempt to click the link below. What insights! What involvement devices! What deep psychology!

https://bejakovic.com/psychology

The mysterious, two-pronged power of teasing

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A few weeks ago, I found myself at a restaurant staring at a fat kid.

He was sitting in the corner, picking his nose, and playing a racing game on his tablet. It was uncanny. He was as close to Nelson from The Simpsons as I’ve ever seen a kid in real life, including the two-tone ha-ha laugh he kept repeating.

My dinner partner, a healthier and more rooted person than I am, thought the kid was great. “Look at how much energy he has! So full of life!” All evening long, he kept calling Nelson to our table, pinching him, tickling him, teasing him. Of course, Nelson loved it.

Ha-ha!

I’ve long wondered why teasing works so well.

Playfully accuse somebody. Push them away. Even jokingly insult them. And odds are, they will love you for it.

I don’t have a good mental model for why that is. It remains mysterious to me, even when I end up teasing people or getting teased myself.

The curious thing is, in English at least, we use same word for a completely other kind of behavior, one I understand better.

I’m talking about stringing somebody along for a while, leading them by the nose, revealing bits and pieces but not giving the whole thing away.

This second kind of teasing is equally as powerful as the first kind. As copywriter Dan Ferrari wrote:

19) One of the most powerful tools in marketing is the tease. It could be as “small” as 2-3 lines of copy that build up a reveal. It could be as “large” as dangling a new product release in front of existing customers FOR MONTHS (<—do this often and you’ll be able fly private to Hawaii to thank me personally).

This was part of an email Dan sent out a few days ago.

Dan doesn’t email a lot. But he’s sure to do so at least once a year.

Each year, on his birthday, Dan sends out X direct marketing lessons to match his X years on the earth. He just turned 37 and so he shared 37 lessons.

Maybe you knew that already. Maybe you missed out.

If you did miss out, then let me tell you Dan’s birthday emails generally include no illustrations. Only valuable insights.

I’ve found they merit reading and rereading. I sometimes come to a smart conclusion, and only then realize that it’s something Dan had written years earlier in one of these emails. It finally make sense.

The thing is, Dan doesn’t post his emails anywhere publicly. And if you want to sign up for his email list, so you get any future emails he sends, whether for his next birthday or sooner, well, even that’s a problem. His optin page wasn’t working when I last checked it.

It might be worth checking again now. Or tomorrow. Or in a few months’ time. How’s that for a tease? Here’s the link in case you’re intrigued:

http://www.ferrarimedia.com/new/

The case against deadlines in your marketing

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Now, the ant may have a fault or two
But lending is not something she will do.
She asked what the cricket did in summer.
“By night and day, to any comer
I sang whenever I had the chance.”
“You sang, did you? That’s nice. Now dance.

Imagine a squat little ant and a tall, lanky cricket, waving to each other across an empty field.

That’s how the sales graph looked for the Influential Emails offer I ran last week.

On the first day, I had a squat but reasonable number of sales. That’s the ant on one side of the empty field. That ant — or rather, the proactive ants who took me up on my offer early — made up 15% of the total sales I got in terms of revenue.

For the next 6 days, I made some sales each day, But really, it was nothing to sing or dance about.

And then, on the very last day, just as I was ready to wrap it up and hunker down for a long and hungry winter, I got a bunch of orders. A tall and crickety spike in the sales graph. Totaling 47% percent of the whole.

So what’s the conclusion?

You might think this is a classic example of why nothing in the world ever gets done without a deadline. And that it’s foolish to allow people to buy your stuff whenever they want, because your garden variety of wanting is not enough to get crickets to act.

That’s one way to look at it.

Another way is that perhaps some of those come-lately crickets would have bought earlier had I not made this into a time-limited offer. Maybe they know they tend to put things off, and they would have acted to prevent this from happening.

Perhaps others would have bought over the coming weeks and months, had I kept reminding them and teasing them with regular, interesting emails.

And perhaps still others would have bought in time who will NOT buy now, because the offer is no longer available.

All those are reasonable arguments against putting a deadline on your offer, at least if you’ve got a good way to stay in touch with your prospects.

The fact is, we will never know.

I run time-limited offers with deadlines because I like it that way. Because it motivates me, and because it’s in line with my own cricket-like nature. And because I’m happy enough with the results, even if those results perhaps could have been higher through some other way of doing business.

Marketer Sean D’Souza was once asked if he has any data to show his contrarian business model works. He replied:

Do we have any data? No, we don’t.

The customers are using this every single day. I’m not actually here to prove anything to you.

What I’m asking you, when you go to a restaurant, does it work for you? When you go on a dating thing, does it work for you? When you go on the Apple site, does it work for you?

If you don’t think it works for you, don’t put it into place. I don’t have data. I started out as a cartoonist, I moved to marketing, and this has allowed us to take three vacations, buy houses, travel, do all the things we really wanted to do. We earn more money than we need.

The point is, if you think it works for you, put it in place. If you don’t think it works for you, that’s not a problem.

I heard this early in my marketing education. It’s stuck with me ever since. Both Sean’s attitude of, “Do we have any data? No, but it works for us.” But also the contrarian view of marketing that Sean was talking about.

Perhaps you don’t know what that contrarian view is. That’s a shame.

Because like Sean says, his way of marketing… well, it allowed him to achieve everything he wanted, on his own terms.

It might give you some good ideas as well. So if you’re curious, little cricket, check out my email tomorrow. That’s where I’ll tell you about the “it” that allowed Sean those vacations and those houses and that money. And you can then see if it might work for you, too.

The End of Marketing and the Last Mail

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If you want to get influence and become famous in the near future, I have a strategy you can start using today.

Let me set it up by telling you about Francis Fukuyama. He was the 90s version of Jordan Peterson. A sober academic… who somehow exploded into the high heavens and became an international celebrity.

But unlike Peterson, Fukuyama did it without the help of YouTube. Instead, he did it with a book called The End of History and The Last Man.

In that book, Fukuyama prophesied that there be some standing here (meaning 1992, when the book was published)… who will not taste death before they see liberal democracy ruling the world.

That seems a bit naive today. We got empires like China and Russia on the ascendant… we got huge corporations, controlling more power than most elected bodies… we got the Taliban flag, hoisted over Kabul once again.

But whatever. That’s how it goes with predictions. Most predictions, even by experts or otherwise smart people, end up ridiculously off the mark. In fact, a reliable way to get a laugh is to bring up stupid past predictions:

“The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage.” — Charlie Chaplin, 1916

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” — Albert Einstein, 1932

“Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone. My answer is, ‘Probably never.'” — David Pogue, The New York Times, 2006

No matter. Francis Fukuyama became a star by making a bold prediction. And so can you.

Because like kicking the cat, predictions give us a feeling of control in an out-of-control world. And as the singularity nears… and as the fog over the horizon continues to get thicker, limiting our field of view with each passing month… we as a society feel more and more need for dramatic, outlandish, and yet believable predictions.

That’s why I keep making my ongoing prediction about the end of marketing. Or at least the end of classic-style DR marketing, with its flashing neon signs and blaring warning sirens.

My personal bet for the future is on influence instead of persuasion… insight instead of desire… and breakthroughs in print instead of salesmanship in print.

So make a prediction. Even if it ends up being proven wrong. That’s my free idea for you to start building influence today.

I have more such ideas inside Influential Emails, the training I’m offering right now. In fact, I got got to thinking about this prediction stuff because of my “12+4 Most Influential Emails.” This is one of the free bonuses inside my current offer.

This free bonus contains 12+4 emails, including one which influenced me more than any other email I’ve ever gotten from a marketer. The email was all about a prediction. And the crazy thing is, the prediction didn’t even come from the marketer who wrote the email.

Instead, it came from somebody else… writing in another format, years earlier.

That’s the power of influence, and of influential writing.

The initial idea stuck around… lived on in somebody else’s head… made its way into my head… and I will now be passing it on to people who join my Influential Emails program.

Perhaps that will be you. Or perhaps not. But if you’d like more info to help you make that decision, I predict you’ll soon find it here:

https://influentialemails.com/

My special time with Barack Obama

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On January 20, 2009, a friend and I drove down from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. At the time, I personally had nothing to do with the government.

But my friend had been involved with the Obama campaign from its unlikely beginnings. Thanks to him, we were now going to D.C. to watch Obama’s inauguration from a very special place.

D.C. was a madhouse that day. The streets were filled with hundreds of thousands of people.

My friend and I managed to park. We started making our way towards the National Mall. Barricades had been erected to corral and direct the masses so they could pile up in front of the Capitol building. Fortunately, this did not apply to my friend and me.

I’ll wrap up my experience from that day in a second. But first let me tell you why I bring this up.

I got an email today from a reader named Jon. Jon is a copywriter. One of his clients is an organization filled with high-status, high-authority persons.

But for reasons I cannot divulge (because I don’t know them), these powerful and authoritative persons must remain anonymous. Even their direct contacts must remain anonymous.

So Jon wrote in, and using his best Ali G voice, he asked me how to “big up an authority figure if that figure needs to stay anonymous?”

So here’s one thing I told Jon — maybe it will be relevant to you too:

If you want authority, but you got nothing else to work with, you can name tangential contacts.

Trump. Putin. Gary Bencivenga. Whoever the biggest person is that you can get.

It doesn’t have to be particularly meaningful connection — the name is more important than a really close tie. If you ever met once, even for a few seconds… if you ever attended the same event… or hell, even if you were ever in the same town at one point.

So I guess you see where I’m going with this.

Back on that 2009 Inauguration Day, my friend and I got carried around in the sea of people. We soon realized we wouldn’t see a damn thing if we pushed our way into the crowds in front of the Capitol. So we turned around, and by a circuitous route, we made it to the Washington Monument.

There were a bunch of people there also. They were looking at large-screen TVs showing the inauguration. I jumped up in place, and for a moment I could see the Capitol building above the crowd. I must have seen Obama, somewhere up there, for a split second. I guess.

And I guess you might have had enough of me and of this email by now. But hang on.

Because there are a few caveats about this authority by association stuff. Here’s how to actually make it useful:

1. Don’t make it absurd. The association doesn’t have to be super tight or flattering. But it has to be a little tighter and a little more flattering than my connection to Obama.

2. Don’t telegraph what you’re doing. For example, don’t make your loose association in an email where you explain that very technique.

3. Don’t bring up people your market doesn’t care about. Like Obama. He’s pretty irrelevant today to the space of direct response marketers and copywriters.

So is that the best I got? Obama, maybe, 12 years ago? Don’t I have even a tangential association to anybody more interesting in the direct response space?

Maybe I don’t. Or maybe I just choose to big up my authority in a different way. In the poorly chosen words of my friend, Barack Obama, while he was trying to make the case for government-run healthcare:

“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.”

If that makes little sense to you, perhaps you’d like to join my email list. I don’t promise it will answer this particular riddle… but there are many secrets and mysteries inside you might like. Click here if you want in.

Skipper trump card test

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“I was walking on the dock. Alan was walking towards me. There was a girl in between us, maybe around 15, walking towards him and away from me.

“All of a sudden, the girl seemed to lie down. She hit the stern line, rolled around it, and fell into the water.

“I didn’t understand what was going on. But I saw Alan take off his shirt and throw his cell phone on the ground and dive in after her.

“The girl was sinking. He pulled her up to the surface and I pulled her back out on the dock.

“The girl had had an epileptic seizure. Since she was walking towards Alan, he saw her and realized what was going on in time. She would have drowned in a few moments more.”

A few nights ago, I found myself in the company of a bunch of sailboat skippers.

At first, it was like they were speaking a different language. But after a while, in between the industry jargon and the inside jokes and the unfamiliar names, I slowly began to grasp what was going on.

They were playing a game. Like a card game, but with stories.

One skipper would tell a story — for example, a terrible experience working for a charter company. Then somebody would tell another story on the same topic.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” was the implied criterion.

Eventually, one of the skippers would pull out the trump card — a story so good that nobody else could top it.

There would be a few moments of quiet appreciation. That skipper had won the round, and his standing in the group seemed to rise a bit.

Then a new round would start, with another topic. (The story above of the girl and the seizure was part of the “near-death experiences” round. It wasn’t the trump card, it turned out.)

Of course, skippers are not unique in playing this game. I was an outsider in this group, so it was easy to see what was going on. But we all do this, all the time.

Stories, jokes, explanations… they are social currency.

They help you play the game. Maybe even win a round. Get a few moments of appreciation… and have your standing rise a bit.

So in case you’re wondering where this is all going, let me give you some industry jargon and maybe a familiar name.

If you want free traffic, then this same process can work in your favor.

From what I can tell, all you have to do is put something new out there… and make sure it’s big enough to beat the cards that came before it.

As an example, take Rich Schefren in the Internet marketing space. That space is full of outsized claims — “How an Oklahoma farm boy cracked the online code to earn $1,123,234.23 in 0.1221 minutes.”

Eventually, no such claim becomes any bigger than any of the others.

So Rich created a new story, which could beat all the cards that had been thrown down on the table till then. “You are an opportunity seeker,” Rich said, “and you will never get where you want to go by continuing on that path.”

Result?

Millions of downloads of Rich’s Internet Business Manifesto. Not through ad spend. Not through SEO. Not through the manual labor of going on stage to speak the gospel. But entirely through the efforts of other people, playing a game like I described above.

This is not how-to advice. You can’t take this and use it to come up with an idea that will get shared.

But it is a test you can apply to an idea you’ve already got.

Maybe your idea doesn’t pass the skipper trump card test. It can still be successful. You’ll just have to push it out into the world, and you might have to spend money on ads.

But if you don’t like pushing, or you got no money for ads, then you can come up with more ideas. And more. Until you find one that does pass the skipper trump card test. Because…

You want to give your market value?

This is value. Not how-to advice. But social currency they can use to benefit themselves… and indirectly, to benefit you also. After all, you’re the house. And the house always wins.

By the way, I’ve got casino. Wonderful games, free to play. Bring your friends Would you like to join for a few rounds? Here’s the secret door in.

More real than real

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One by one, the desperate warriors in the besieged city looked up. And they started shouting for joy. There was hope!

On the peaks around them, the bonfire beacons were burning.

The signal was clear.

After centuries of competition and distrust, two ancient and proud kingdoms were finally uniting against a common foe.

There was no other option. The enemy from the east, in his quest to enslave the known world, had sent his enormous army to the very gates of the city.

If the city fell, so would all the lands that lay behind it. This wasn’t just a battle. This was the last stand for all the free creatures of these western lands.

And then the fearless warrior-king rode out to face his troops, his armor shining in the sun…

But hold on. What the hell am I talking about?

Is this some Lord of the Rings thing? When the kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan united… fought to protect the last bastion of freedom, the walled city of Minas Tirith… and broke through the evil armies of the dark lord, Sauron?

Um, no.

But I can’t blame you if you thought so. I tried pretty hard to build it up that way.

What I actually described above, after massaging and omitting key details, was the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

The Sultan’s massive army was at the city gates.

And while the Polish and the Habsburg kings didn’t like each other very well, they decided they could either team up… or stop worrying and start learning Turkish. So when the Polish troops arrived at Vienna, they lit bonfires in the hills as a signal to the defenders inside the city.

Did you know any of that?

If you’re like me, then nobody ever told you the story of the Battle of Vienna.

But you’ve probably known about the LOTR story for years. Maybe you’ve watched it or read it multiple times.

So my question to you is why? Why do we all know the made up LOTR stories inside and out… and why do we know nothing of the very consequential story of the Battle of Vienna?

Here’s one possible answer. I got it from a book that I suffered through earlier this year, called Simulacra and Simulation. I couldn’t understand almost anything in this book. But I think I got the central gist of it. And that is:

We humans have let go all grip on reality. We now live exclusively in a space of hyperreality.

In other words, we have no more use for the “real” world. Instead we want things that are more real than real.

The Lord of the Rings is more real than real. The good guys are impossibly good. The bad guy is ultimate evil itself. And the white city of Minas Tirith, it’s kind of like a medieval walled city… but its turrets are infinitely more numerous… its walls are infinitely taller… its rampart is infinitely more spectacular. The old town in Dubrovnik just cannot compete.

Maybe you’re wondering what the point of all this theory is. So here’s my advice to you, in case you want to influence others:​​

People say they want true and authentic. They say they want a balanced account. They say they want stories.

Lies, lies, lies.

Give people what they really want. More real than real. Exaggeration, caricature, simplification. Not stories, but grand opera — drama the way it could never exist in real life.

Fail to do this, and you will be forgotten like the defenders at the Siege of Vienna. But use this powerful weapon… and all of Middle-earth can be yours.

At least that’s my attitude. I give the people what I want. Well, at least the ones who want to hear more from me.