Strands of Genius: When Colonial Attitudes Explode on Live TV, When Veteran Journalists Erase Local Voices: Amanpour's Gaza Blind Spot, How To Acknowledge Colonial Crime Whilst Avoiding Consequences
Guest curated by Rob Scotland, Head of Brand x Communications
This edition of Strands of Genius is guest curated by Rob Scotland, Head of Brand x Communications (Faris and Rosie will be back next week!)
:: A BIT MORE ABOUT GUEST CURATOR, ROB SCOTLAND ::
LOCATION: Copenhagen
I'm Rob, a modern culture anthropologist who evolved into a brand marketeer, though I'm still not entirely sure which came first. The lovely humans at Genius Steals decided I was worth nominating, which either means I've fooled everyone or they appreciate someone who thinks the most interesting insights come from the weirdest places!
My day job is to marshall the Veo brand to consistently democratise AI-powered sports space, while teaching the next generation of strategists and trying to decode why humans get obsessed with brands, teams, and trends. When I'm not doing that, I'm probably writing about modern culture on my 'No Gatekeeping' Substack or watching some sort of sports event at weekends.
I'm a firm believer that the best creative connections happen in the margins - between anthropology and advertising, between culture and commerce, between a perfectly timed meme and a million-pound campaign. Also that most 'breakthrough' ideas are just old ideas wearing new clothes, which is basically anthropology in a nutshell.
Always curious about what makes people tick and things stick.
Editor’s Note (Rosie): I’m so thankful to have Rob this week, especially on the heels of Cannes. More thoughts coming next week as we have a chance to fully debrief, but one thing that stood out at the festival was what wasn’t there: any real reckoning with the Russia/Ukraine war, the genocide in Gaza, or conflict in general. Money lubricates everything, I guess. Amid all the glitz, the conversations felt hermetically sealed — like a perfect bubble that blocked out the difficult parts of culture. Maybe that’s why I kept bringing these topics up myself. (Big props to Faris’ former colleague, Yusuf, who was the only person who really engaged on the topic with me.)
Within our work and within our newsletter, we don’t shy away from the provocative or the political — we believe true creativity is part of culture, and culture doesn’t happen in a vacuum. That’s exactly why I appreciate Rob stepping in this week with a curatorial lens that doesn’t look away.
:: WE ASKED ROB FOR HIS HOT TAKES ON AI ::
AI isn’t going anywhere—it’s evolving, spreading, seeping into every corner of marketing, creativity, and communication. And while the headlines keep recycling the same buzzwords, the real questions are messier. For strategists, creatives, and brand builders, AI isn’t just a tool—it’s a tectonic shift. The key isn’t whether you use it—it’s how. What’s automatable? What’s sacred? And how do we keep the signal from being drowned out by the spam?
How are you actually using AI? No fluff, just facts.
I'm building custom knowledge bases, not just using ChatGPT. I start with the assumption that AI is inherently dumb—it needs massive, selective information input to be useful. My process: First, I populate custom GPTs with best-practice examples, reports, educational materials, and my own written work. Then I use contrast and comparison to identify powerful themes that synthesise with my approach. Every week, I add relevant copy examples to keep the knowledge base current. The real power comes next: I create specific prompts based on this foundation and get the AI to generate new prompts based on my interests and methodology. Concrete example: For a Nike client, I'd load five years of annual reports, senior management interviews, then do the same for Adidas, On, Under Armour—plus all the nimble niche brands eating Nike's market share. Then I'd add best-in-class brands from other categories for comparison. The GPT finds the communication themes, strategic patterns, and gaps before lunch. My editorial team has transformed from doing basic tasks to exploratory work because AI handles the heavy lifting. I'm building different GPTs to act like CEOs, CFOs, and clients to anticipate strategic opportunities. The fundamental misunderstanding in marketing communications is thinking AI is innovative. It's not—my team is. But when AI does the research aggregation and initial analysis, it frees us to actually be creative. It's computational power leveraged correctly: my GPTs are my second brain, far surpassing what I can recall, allowing me to focus on refinement, strategy, and innovation. Start training your own GPTs. It's actually quite fun.
:: THE LINKS ::
WHEN COLONIAL ATTITUDES EXPLODE ON LIVE TV
Why this matters: The 2023 Good Morning Britain exchange between host Richard Madeley and Guyana's President Irfaan Ali wasn't just bad television—it was a masterclass in how colonial attitudes persist in mainstream media. When President Ali calmly explained how Britain's current prosperity stems directly from colonial exploitation, Madeley responded by slamming his hand on the desk, laughing dismissively, and centring the "burden" on modern Britons rather than the ongoing harm to formerly colonised nations.
This exhibits four devastating patterns: borne from the coloniser's perspective, adopting patronising tones, erasing ongoing colonial legacies, and reinforcing media power imbalances. For anyone in leadership positions, this serves as a critical lesson in recognising how unconscious bias can explode into conscious harm when authority meets accountability.
Why this clash remains culturally seminal: This incident captured colonial authority defending itself on live television—the desk-slamming and dismissive laughter revealed how quickly supposed neutrality weaponises when genuinely challenged by historical accountability. (YouTube; Peoples Progressive Party/Civic)
WHEN VETERAN JOURNALISTS ERASE LOCAL VOICES: AMANPOUR’S GAZA BLIND SPOT
Why this matters: During an April 2024 appearance on The Daily Show, veteran journalist Christiane Amanpour made a telling slip that exposed deeply embedded colonial thinking in media. When discussing Gaza coverage, she stated: “Our major problem covering Israel, Gaza, this phase of it... is that we can't get there. This is an unprecedented situation. Journalists are not on the ground in Gaza.” Jon Stewart immediately corrected her—there are indeed journalists on the ground, specifically local Palestinian reporters risking and often losing their lives for their reporting. Amanpour's clarification only deepened the problem: she emphasised the absence of "independent Western journalists" and suggested only outsiders could serve as proper "eyes and ears" for the world.
This exchange reveals how colonial hierarchies operate even amongst well-meaning professionals—the automatic assumption that Western journalists possess superior credibility whilst local voices are somehow less "independent" or trustworthy.
Why this blind spot matters culturally: Amanpour's slip wasn't malicious, which makes it more revealing—it shows how unconsciously we've internalised the idea that “real” journalism requires Western validation. The fact that a veteran journalist could accidentally erase Palestinian reporters exposes how colonial thinking operates beneath conscious awareness, treating local expertise as supplementary rather than primary. (X; The Daily Show)
HOW TO ACKNOWLEDGE COLONIAL CRIME WHILST AVOIDING CONSEQUENCES: MACRON’S HAITI MANOEUVRE
Why this matters: In April 2025, President Macron made headlines by acknowledging for the first time that France's forced "independence debt"—150 million gold francs demanded from Haiti in 1825—had a "devastating effect" on the nation. This seemed like progress until you examined what he didn't say: any mention of reparations or concrete redress for what economists estimate as $115 billion in lost development. Instead, Macron announced a "joint Franco-Haitian commission to study the impact," a classic colonial move that transforms urgent justice into academic exercise.
The framing was revealing—whilst admitting historical "burden," Macron simultaneously deflected responsibility by noting that "Haitian leaders also bear responsibility" for current crises. This rhetorical dance allows colonial powers to appear enlightened whilst maintaining the economic benefits of historical exploitation.
Why this diplomatic theatre matters culturally: Macron's acknowledgement reveals how modern colonial management operates—enough recognition to claim moral progress, not enough action to threaten economic advantage. When even explicit colonial debt extraction gets reduced to "studying the impact," it shows how institutional power can weaponise acknowledgement itself as a form of continued control. (Le Monde)
:: AND NOW… SOME FAST FAVORITES ::
Game :: The Madden NFL Franchise
City :: Tokyo, Japan
Book :: Astrophysics For People In A Hurry by Neil Degrasse Tyson
Podcast :: The Right Time with Bomani Jones
Song :: Capone'n'Noreaga; "Stick You"
:: MEET ROB ::
:: ‘TIL NEXT TIME ::
This edition was guest curated by Rob Scotland you can find him on LinkedIn. Your regularly scheduled hosts, Rosie & Faris Yakob, will be back next week!
:: THE TINY AWARDS ARE HERE ::
Some friends of mine and I are trying to celebrate the bits of the web that *aren't* dead or dying - via The Tiny Awards now in their third year, which exist to celebrate the best of the small internet - non-commercial, frivolous, poetic, silly, anti-algorithmic and, basically, just fun and interesting.
We hope that they celebrate the wonderful, brilliant, human creativity which still sits at the heart of the best of the web, regardless of the rise of AI slop and the dominance of 3-4 social platforms. The Tiny Awards are designed to celebrate the creative, independent and homemade web, the stuff that people make because they just love making stuff, and that feels like quite a 2025 aspiration.
Nominations for the Awards opened last week and will run for a month; they will then be judged by a panel of online creatives and digital culture experts before being opened up to a public vote, with the winner set to be announced in early September.
If you fancy writing about the awards in any capacity, or if you'd like to be kept updated about eventual nominees and the winner, that would be great! It’s obviously not BIG NEWS, but equally it feels…sort of quite current, in the general ‘everyone whinges about how crap the internet is these days, so why don’t we do something about it?’ sense.
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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.
Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. We have a distributed team ourselves, an accounting team is based in Tennessee where our company is registered, our admin extraordinaire is based in Playa del Carmen, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.
Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)