don’t kill the cow – hamburger and handbags – emotion and intrigue

weirdest blog to date……

some while ago i stumbled across a book by matthew dicks called ‘storyworthy’ about improving storytelling, which i mentioned in my blog, and it has helped me tremendously, resulting in my talks last year garnering some amazing feedback, and resulting in my 26th talk of the year, for the foreign office, sending me feedback last week that modesty stops me from sharing, but it really was powerful, so thank you matthew for helping me improve my craft.

so as well as writing books, matthew also writes a blog every day, hardcore, and here is his website in case you wanna sign up.

so this week he sent me a blog, which i have basically written verbatim below, as i could not share it better.

it’s got nothing to to do with bigmoose, but hopefully it’s thought provoking, and starts discussions, feel free to share.

so, over to you matthew

in 2024, an art collective embarked on a new piece called ‘our cow angus’.

here’s what they did:

1. bought a young cow.

2. named it angus.
3. presold angus as 1,200 hamburgers and four leather handbags.

4. exchanged customer’s cash for “angus tokens” – redeemable when angus reaches slaughtering age.

then they waited for angus to grow up.

two years later, it’s time.

angus is approaching slaughtering age, and it’s up to the owners of the angus tokens to vote on what happens next.

if, by march 13, 2026, more than half of the buyers cancel their purchases through an online portal, angus lives the rest of his life in an animal sanctuary.

if not, he dies, and hamburgers and handbags are added to the world supply.

so far, 31.8 percent have voted to keep angus alive.

angus needs about 18% of token owners to cancel their orders by the end of march, or he’s off to the slaughterhouse.

so this art collective has turned the process of meat production into a story, filled with stakes, suspense, and ultimately, possibly surprise.

it’s a story containing emotion and intrigue.

heroes and villains.

questions of practicality and morality.

i’m not sure if it’s a good story, and i’m not sure if we needed to turn cheeseburgers into high-pressure, live-or-die decision-making, but it’s admittedly compelling.

i’ve already added “check on angus” to my calendar for march 13, which is the sign of a good story:

one that creates a narrative that you can’t wait to see play out.

if you’re as intrigued as i am about how this will play out, here’s the link.

have a great week, i’m off to finish my book (12 years in the making)

blue skies,

jeff

c