"For All the Constipated Girlies..."
People don’t need to know me very long to learn I have a sensitive stomach.
That’s what I call it. That’s my brand.
Doctors prefer the term “IBS.” And if you’ve been in the gastrointestinal trenches for any length of time, you know this diagnosis is almost as useless as it is unglamorous. It’s a catchall for every expression of chronic, low-level digestive chaos. And as for WHY your insides are so irritable, the medical establishment cannot say. Here’s some miralax.
Well, I’d rather be sensitive than irritable. So I’ve renamed my condition. Which hasn’t stopped the robots at Meta from recognizing my plight and sending help.
“For all the constipated girlies out there,” says a cute young influencer, manicured claws clicking on a pretty pink jar of pills promising to de-bloat, re-energize, and get me regular no matter what I eat.
Because I dream of eating croissants daily, I click. The fragile flame of hope still burns within.
Once there, I beeline to the ingredients list. Hmmm. To quote the great Shania Twain, they don’t impress me much. I’m already taking a bunch of these. They help, but they’re not croissant-diet enabling. And for this price? Lol. Nice try.
But I get it. This supplement was designed to bring basic digestive herbs and minerals to the GIRLIES.
From what I gather, GIRLIES are a woman-adjacent group with expendable income who appreciate aesthetics and fashion. (Though apparently the noun can also be used to signify devotion to pretty much anything. Like, you could be a Nascar Girlie. A Disney Girlie. A Karl Marx Girlie. A Pomeranian Girlie.)
Somehow I have never identified as a Girlie. Maybe I’m too boyish. Or too crone-like. In any case, while I do appreciate aesthetics and fashion, the contents of my life are not perfectly pleasing to the eye. I would not mind living in such visual fastidiousness, but at the end of the day I am too often disappointed by the efficacy of beautifully-packaged products. And I don’t always want to pay the “pink razor tax.”
And yet, I understand not everyone has cut their teeth in the supplements aisle of Lassens, or spent time with Reiki-wielding medicine-women who opened their eyes to the wonders of magnesium. Some Girlies will need this information delivered by a fellow Girlie who can assure them that it’s nothing to be ashamed of: Girlies get constipated too.
Such is the power of BRAND VOICE to personalize and differentiate a product.
Arguably, it’s even more important when the product is your own presence, guidance, or intellectual property — things experienced as a voice, delivered through a voice.
You want that voice to broadcast your essence across the internet even when you’re not there.
Because when your copy sounds like you, it adds another layer of interest to your messaging. The right people lean in not only because you speak incisively to their problems, but because the way you do it signals shared values, interests, lifestyles, worldviews. All of which makes them feel at home in your presence.
And yet when it comes to writing marketing copy of all gosh darn things, it can be understandably tricky to sound like your three-dimensional self.
We all get clogged up with common marketing lingo, internet speak, industry jargon, academicease — whatever we’ve been conditioned to think is professional, saleable, likable. And that can make it really hard to stay in our own energy and be our IRL selves in our sales copy.
This is why one of my mentors, Jessica Lackey, recently wrote a post encouraging us to RANT more.
Indeed! There’s nothing like a little *anger* — innately transgressive if you’re a woman or a healer or a helper or someone who’s supposed to be peaceful and upbeat all the time — to burn through the filters and set your voice free.
Another thing I find helpful is to allow for what feels *fun* — even if it doesn’t make any sense. (See: the impetus for this newsletter.) Fun can seem nearly impossible at times, because part of me still associates writing with homework and homework is boring. Valerie Louis once suggested that I imagine my Dad and “Fun Rebeca” (my more mischievous, carefree self) hanging out with me while I’m working. Heh. Just imagining them in the room makes me smile.
So yes, I wrote this newsletter for fun. But also in the hopes that it might inspire you to flaunt a bit more of your personality, your identity, your interests, your re-branded stomach issues, your spunk or your rage or whatever you’re not supposed to be.
Your voice is the recess bell all the “Girlies” are waiting for.
And if you want help integrating your hot-blooded personhood into marketing copy that moves the right people into your world, I would be remiss if I didn’t have a giant inflatable wiggly-guy dancing outside this tire shop.
Perhaps not unrelated to my sensitive stomach, sensitivity is my calling card as a copywriter. That includes sensitivity to the reader’s experience, systemic realities, the psychology of buying, and your voice, tone, energy, and style.
Hiring me is like a cheat code where you get to bypass your internal filters and skip to the part where you see more of your voice — and your client’s voice — in exquisite copy form. Which can help you open up to using it even more. Or help you get projects done you don’t have time to do yourself.
If that sounds like fun, you know where to find me.