Baz Richardson

Creative Director at For a cause… not applause

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

Client: "Can you make coach holidays sexy?"

Me: "Hold my Horlicks"

6months in the making, 2wks in Italy, approval from The Vatican, a StarWars/James Bond villa on Lake Como, AND turning down a Bond Girl as our leading lady… the concept and script I wrote is now live on TV 😎

[Dustin @r0ck3t23]

AI can now generate images more beautiful than anything most humans could make. Sam Altman just explained why nobody cares.

Altman: “The value that people put on that effectively rounds to zero.”

Not less valuable. Zero.

A flawlessly generated AI image, technically superior to almost anything a human could produce, valued at nothing.

When visual perfection becomes instantly available to everyone, it stops being scarce.

And when it stops being scarce, it stops being valuable.

The scarcity that gave art its worth was never the beauty. It was the human who made it.

Altman: “Without the person effectively signing their name to it, we seem to not care.”

That sentence is the entire shift compressed into one line.

We don’t consume art. We consume the person behind it.

The struggle. The intention. The specific human consciousness that decided this particular thing should exist.

AI can replicate the output. It cannot replicate the origin.

Altman points out that if an artist uses AI as a tool but still has something they were trying to express, the work retains its value.

The human intention is the product. The image is just how it arrives.

Remove the person and the beauty becomes noise.

This is what nobody building AI art tools fully absorbed. They optimized for the output and assumed the output was what people valued.

It wasn’t. It was never the pixels.

It was always the person.

AI isn’t going to replace human artists. It’s going to do something more disorienting.

It’s going to make technical skill irrelevant and force the entire market to pay for something that was always there but never had to be named.

Presence. Intention. Proof that a human consciousness cared enough to make this particular thing.

Abundance makes perfection free.

Meaning becomes the only scarcity worth paying for.

And meaning can’t be automated. Because meaning requires a consciousness choosing to say something specific to someone specific for reasons that matter.

The artists who survive won’t be the most technically gifted.

They’ll be the most undeniably human.

AI gave the world infinite art and proved that what we actually want is irreplaceable.

[Bottom Official @official_bottom]

We are so lucky to have shared planet earth with Rik ❤️❤️❤️

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

“In the future you won’t walk around with a calculator in your pocket” 🤦🏻‍♂️

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

“It [creativity] requires a ‘stupid bravery’”
👌🏼

[Billy Oppenheimer @bpoppenheimer]

This is one of the greatest displays of the creative process I’ve seen.

It perfectly illustrates something many of my favorite artists have described.

When you go to the studio, Mayer was asked, what do you do to generate ideas?

“Well, I don’t always do it,” he admitted, “because it requires a stupid bravery all the time.”

Mayer strums a couple chords without singing. A nice melody begins to form—“you can sit here all day [doing this] and go, ‘Okay, maybe that’s something.’”

“But if you don’t go,” and then he starts improvising vocals,

“Sunlights beating on the corner of the walls / and I’m a Mr. know-it-all / heaven calls / get yourself right / get yourself right,” he stops, raises his finger to his mouth, and explains, “if you’re not ouija boarding immediately, you’re wasting time.”

“You just stare at the corner of the wall,” he says, before improvising some more,

“Stare at the corner of the wall / try to get it going on / but I can’t sometimes / you just keep going 'til you get something / maybe I’m a little bit shy / maybe someday I’ll tell you why.”

He stops singing to say, “you gotta keep forcing it, forcing it, forcing it. It doesn’t matter [what comes out of your mouth]...You gotta get fearless, fearless, fearless, fearless…It’s hard to do.”

Takeaway:

When talking about their creative processes, many artists describe something similar to what Mayer refers to as “ouija boarding”—spitting out words and phrases, without worrying if they’re good or even make sense).

When asked where his ideas came from, Pablo Picasso said, “As soon as I start to work, [ideas] well up in my pen. To know what you’re going to draw, you have to begin drawing.”

Joan Didion famously wrote, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.”

And Judd Apatow said that his movie scripts are all a product of the Down-Up theory: “Get the ideas DOWN then fix them UP.” “Give yourself permission to suck,” Apatow says. “Anything goes. Just get something down.” Make it exist, as they say, then make it good.

There’s a neural explanation for this process...

I recently shared a clip of Dr. Andrew Huberman explaining what happens in our brain when we sit down to focus. Whether we’re trying to read, write, create a song, or generate ideas—when you sit down and try to focus, Huberman explains,

“The brain circuits that turn on first are of the stress system...The agitation and stress that you feel at the beginning of something—when you’re trying to lean into it and you can’t focus: you feel agitated and your mind’s jumping all over the place—that is just a gate. You have to pass through that gate to get to the focus component.”

He uses a great analogy: “You have to wade through some sewage before you can swim in clear water. That’s the way I always think about it.”

Essentially: you become creative by creating, you get more creative the more you create.

At the start of a focused creative session, bad ideas almost always come out first. You just have to wade through the sewage of bad ideas, “just keep going ‘til you get something,” as Mayer sang, ‘til you reach clear water.

- - -

“You gotta keep forcing it, forcing it, forcing it...You gotta get fearless, fearless, fearless, fearless.” — John Mayer

Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

Them: NFTs will never catch on

McDonald’s: Hold my milkshake

Congrats @doodles @Pharrell 👏🏻

[doodles @doodles]

the wait is over - McDonalds x Doodles holiday cups are now available at participating @mcdonalds locations nationwide

celebrate the launch with a teaser of the upcoming Doodles Records release, Good Mornin' by Marley Bleu & @Pharrell → now playing in Times Square✨

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

Great video. Great movement. Great causes. (and a great, great man too) @MabGwalia #mabgwalia

[michael sheen 💙 @michaelsheen]

What is @MabGwalia?

Find out. Join the movement. Be the change. #mabgwalia

[Ana 🦁 @maxvcalloway]

The new Honda comercial features Max and Senna. This is so beautiful 🩷

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

@adamdriver85

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

@rshotton @jburnmurdoch Visually sponsored by Colgate

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

Even if this is fake… it’s still Superb! 👌🏼

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

@SkySportsF1 Makes Sargeant look like a World Champion

[Library Path @LibraryPath]

15 Deep Quotes That Will Make You Think:

1.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Another Rudy Willingham's impressive creation: 120 paper cutouts recreate Simone Biles' routine

[📹 rudy_willingham]

[Nathalie Vincent @awlilnatty]

Are you looking for a day to night bra with bounce proof technology that will leave you feeling 98% more… Now the men aren’t listening, girls, have you worked out who you’re voting for? #generalelection #registertovote #swingitgirls

[Ryan Goodcase @RyanGoodcase]

This is my favorite joke from my Netflix is a Joke set

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

@HillF1 Ah yes, the lesser spotted prancing arrow fan

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

This is the down-facing-dog’s bollocks

[Nicole Minét @mouvement33]

This is a masterclass in photobombing.

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

Forget Margot Robbie in the bath, the champagne-in-the-hand continuity is shocking

[Emir Han @RealEmirHan]

Best bathtub scene in a movie? 🛁

I’ll start:

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

@katylcowan Behind the scenes snap from a shoot last week but as you can see, proudly on display are my old Macs… G4 ‘lamp’, bondi blue iMac, their keyboards, original iPod, iPhone3, and a big ol’ beige Macintosh powerpc from the early/mid 90s. A shrine to Steve if you will

[Baz Richardson @b4z4]

@mitchell_david Hi David, just emailed you but got the OOO that you've left EDCH. DM'd you on LinkedIN... and following up here. OMG I now fear you think I'm your new 'Martha' stalker 😂 I promise I'm not. Would be keen to talk to you about your work with philanthropic NFTs if possible?