“But she’s really sweet.” They say as though it’s a get out of jail free card for the absence of any distinguishable personality trait. This is a harsh start for a very first blog post. It wasn’t meant to go like this. But I got triggered by an overly sweet exchange and here we are. Also, maybe it’s a fine way to introduce who we are.

I’m Anna, one of the co-founders of Meow Meow Woof. The other co-founder is Taryn. We met working as writers at Ogilvy Cape Town, where we became close friends. And now we are launching this advertising studio together. 

Taryn and I didn’t become close friends by being “sweet” to one another. We became friends by allowing disconnection to be – by not needing every interaction to be agreeable and encouraging. In fact, one of the first interactions we had was Taryn just standing at my desk and not saying anything. It was weird, but at least it was real. And so, by not filling the space between us with “Totallys!” and “Amazings!” delivered in unnaturally high pitched tones – we left space for something real to develop. Not intentionally, but maybe in retrospect. 

Now that you know how we came to be co-founders of Meow Meow Woof, let’s get back to sickly sweet people and why they are such an insidious lot.

Now before you think I’m advocating being an aloof and indifferent dick face, let me just clarify something quickly. Arriving in a conversation with kindness is just decent. Always be kind. NOT because you never know what someone else is going through – that’s not a good reason, actually. That’s a conditional reason. But because being kind is kind. And you’ll never regret being kind. (Take it from someone with loads of regrets.) But smothering an entire interaction in sickly sweet nothings? That’s not kind. And yet, so many do. Their anxiety to have a “nice” social interaction prevents them from having a real one. And so, rather than responding proportionately to what the other is saying, they respond with excessive sweetness, obliterating the interaction and forcing the person on the receiving end to question why THEY are such an asshole for hating every fucking second of the well intentioned exchange. 

But it’s not just about overly sweet people being painful, it’s about the harmful effects their sweetness has on society. Let’s look at an example below:

Unsuspecting person goes to a dinner party. (In the old world). She gets seated next to smiling sweet person. Smiling sweet person doesn’t fucking stop smiling, or being sweet. In fact, when smiling sweet person hears that unsuspecting person recently went to Vietnam, they respond with “How lovely! What a wonderful time you must have had!” Unsuspecting person actually considered jumping off the third floor balcony of the dilapidated villa she was staying in. Not in a funny hyperbole way, in a real, had-to-Skype-her-therapist way. But now, unsuspecting person feels bad about all this. So instead, she responds with “Ya, it was great. The War Remnants Museum is crazy.” And just like that, an opportunity for a real and open conversation that could have resulted in real friendship and maybe even a small advertising agency, is taken out at the ankles. See how harmful sweetness can be? 

But it’s not sweet person’s fault. Somewhere along the way, sweet person was led to believe that their true feelings/perceptions/thoughts were not okay to verbalise. Which is why they keep turning to sweet nothings. Contemporary British philosopher, Alain de Botton, sums it up well in his School of Life video titled, ‘How to Not Be Boring’:

“We bore when we lose faith that it really could be our true feelings and responses that would stand the best chance of interesting others. Out of modesty, and habit, we push some of our most interesting perceptions to one side in order to follow respectable but dead conventions of what might impress.” 

Why am I so passionate about this? I mean, isn’t it obvious? If we stop connecting with one another, we’ll eventually stop pro-creating and we’ll go extinct. Humanity is under serious threat and it’s not from global warming, it’s from “Cands” who responds “Ah amazing!” before you’ve even finished your fucking sentence. Or “Nix”, who thinks the fact that you just chilled at home this weekend is “Ah that’s the best! It’s nice to just relax sometimes.”

What the hell does this have to do with advertising? Well, being sweet and following conventions of what might impress won’t work for your brand either. For your brand to connect, your brand needs to be honest and real. Which is why our tagline is ‘Say something interesting.’ You see, we believe that while advertising can’t change the world – it doesn’t have to bore you to death either.