​A Random Person’s LinkedIn Post: "Look what I made with generative AI!" 
Me: * Looks at content. Looks at profile. Rolls eyes. *

They're an AI influencer, helping companies go from idea to product in record time. They have no background in creating. I'm guessing these are the same people who didn't take art classes in school, didn't go to art shows, have never gone to a gallery or museum and been swept away emotionally by a work of art that spoke to them.
They don't have a relationship with art, so they don't know art when they see it.

The Problem:
When you refuse to acknowledge people's relationship with art, you're at risk for losing your relationship with empathy and the best of humanity.

​You’ve probably seen the 2025 TIME Magazine Person of the Year cover, elevating tech titans as the Architects of AI, on the humble I-beam.

As a marketer and PR professional who has studied propaganda, my heaviest takeaway is this:
TIME has been compromised, again. 

TIME is not reflecting or reporting on reality. It’s trying to create a new one And who does that benefit? How does that change how people in the future think about history?

The picture suggests:

• They’re just like us, just like the working class, minus a couple billionaires
• They’re architects, only, they’re all not exactly the ones responsible for building anything
• They’re elevated, even though some of them have had recent catastrophic financial failings
• They’re all equally featured, mostly, unless one is getting cropped out while another has ample room

“We’re just not ready for PR,” or, “We’re at a point where we don’t need PR,” are things I’ve heard potential clients say to me, and some of those clients were right. They didn’t need PR at that time. And, while not paying thousands a month for public relations can save you money, doing so at the wrong time can cost you in the loss of customers, failing brand loyalty, and possibly the downfall of your entire business or organization.

So how do you, the founder or manager of a startup, nonprofit, or emerging brand, actually know when you need PR? I’ve set up some questions to help you decide for yourself if your brand actually needs PR right now. 

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Hiring a PR firm is a big step for any new or growing brand. If you've reached this point, congratulations, you’ve gotten farther than a lot of other brands ever have. Here are seven common myths to avoid when considering hiring a PR firm.

1. The Best PR Firms Are Really Big
Choosing a big PR firm that works with big clients can be a bad choice for new and emerging brands for several reasons. Big PR firms are expensive for cost-conscious brands. Unless they have a “small brand” department big PR firms are mainly focused on their big, name-brand clients, because they look good, and they bring in most of the money. Most big PR firms don’t specialize in the nuances of startups. While they may have fancy reports and a fleet of underlings to meet with you regularly, big PR firms don’t usually understand the specific needs of budding entrepreneurship associated with startups. You’re better off looking for PR firms that specialize in, and have results for companies of a similar size and focus to yours.

​Santa’s Village in Scotts Valley California is the abandoned amusement park of my dreams. It closed the year I was born, but that didn’t stop my lifelong obsession with it, nor did it stop me from working for Santa’s Village today, but let’s not start with the end of the story just yet. By the time I first found out about the enchanting Bay Area Christmas theme park, it was only a memory, and someone else's memory at that.

    To put it in Dickensian terms; Santa’s Village was dead to begin with; ​as dead as an abandoned theme park could be.

It was one of three Santa’s Villages across the country; the first franchised amusement park. But the heydays of mid-century modern luxury dissolved into the gas crisis and economic despair of the 1970s. The Santa’s Village Corporation dissolved in the late 70s. The parks went their separate ways and eventually all closed. And you might assume this is where the story of Santa's Village stops, but you'd be wrong.