Do you KNOW me?

So there I was… lying in bed on Mother’s Day… listening to Molly and Steve destroy the kitchen in an attempt to make me pancakes for breakfast.

“No, Molly, wait, not like that!” I hear Steve yelling from the kitchen, along with the sounds of the electric mixer 😅

Shortly after, Molly comes into the bedroom. “Don’t come out, Mum. You have to stay in here. We’re making you a surprise.”

I bet. 😅

“Sure thing, baby,” I say, and pick up my phone. I figure I’ll check my emails, maybe play a little Whiteout Survival on my phone (some nerdy phone game I’ve discovered and really wish I hadn’t given how addictive it is lol).

I see a reply to my most recent email, from some bloke we'll call Keith:

“Cass,

I've studied pattern interrupts extensively—how does your swearing help

Do you really think people respect you for it?

Your emails lack class. You over do it.”

—Keith

A few minutes later, I'm at the dining table eating pancakes with my little family.

“Got some hate mail,” I tell Steve between mouthfuls.

“What did it say?” asks Steve.

“What's hate mail?” asks Molly, as she smothers her pancakes in ice cream.

“It’s when someone sends you a mean letter,” I explain to Molly, before continuing, “That I lack class.”

Steve nearly chokes on his pancakes. “Do they KNOW you?”

“Hey! I’ve got plenty of class!”

“What’s class?” asks Molly.

I watch her as she picks up her pancakes and eats them like a burrito, ice cream oozing out of the bottom. “Never mind,” I say.

“Cass, I'm married to you,” says Steve with a smirk. He grabs another pancake before asking, “Did they say anything else?”

“Just that I overdo the swearing,” I tell him. “Apparently he’s studied pattern interrupts exTenSiVeLY. He has a PhD.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “People like that are why I never bothered getting a PhD.”

“I thought you never bothered getting a PhD because you were always getting drunk on the weekends.”

“Well, that too.”

“And I’M the one who lacks class??”

He gives me a look. “Are you bothered by this?”

“No,” I say. “I’m actually sitting here wondering if I can turn this conversation into an email about it.”

He shakes his head. “Reply and say thanks for the content, cunt.”

😅

But for real… I literally SAY on my website don't subscribe if swearing offends you. 🙃

I've only had two complaints about swearing… compared to over a dozen compliments. Plus, I've actually written about the psychology of swearing a few times before.

Here's an extract from another of my emails:

The upsides of swearing:

• Swearing acts as social lubricant. It signals a high level of trust, telling your audience, “I'm comfortable enough to drop the mask.”
• It's a high-arousal tool. The famous Stephens study showed swearing actually increased pain tolerance. People who cursed while holding their hands in ice water could hold them there significantly longer than those who used neutral words.
• Research also shows a correlation between profanity and honesty. Useful in a world filled with AI and automation (although I'm sure you could train your AI to drop f-bombs if you really wanted to).

The downsides:

• If someone has a bias against swearing, they'll subconsciously label you as unintelligent of lazy—even if what you're saying is fucking brilliant. 😋
• The effectiveness of a swear word relies on shock value. If every second word is a profanity, it becomes linguistic filler (like “um” or “ah”) and it loses its edge. (When around my brother-in-law Dave, we both definitely start dropping f-bombs like they're “ums” lol.)
  • Combine this with the above point, and it's really no wonder my email with the highest unsubscribe rate as yet was “Trust me bro” where there were 4 f-bombs in 535 words (still less than 1% keyword density, but more than enough to trigger a few people).
• From a practical standpoint, certain platforms hate it. It's why I censored the subject line (lest this email end up in spam) and also why you'll generally see me censor myself on LinkedIn a bit to avoid my reach being throttled. 😬

While the unsubscribe rate was actually pretty low on the email in question, I will caveat that if I'd spent more time writing it, I'd have probably cut out one of the f-bombs in the marketing tip section of the email… just so the frustration from the story section had greater impact.

…But I wrote it in 20 minutes, so YOLO. 😎

Now, here's my final marketing tip for this email:

1. Some people will ALWAYS complain
2. You're not writing for them

Fuck the haters 😘

Cheers,
Cass