When the story goes against you...
...change the story.
Chuck Sherman, a subscriber and fellow soulbender, sent me this photo in response to my post on whether humor is still possible. While the picture made me laugh, I can’t help getting all rhetorical up in that.
Chuck says he bought the car in 2016. Back then, Elon Musk just seemed some crazy jillionaire carmaker with a yen to settle Mars. (Disclosure: the internet here in my writer’s cabin comes through Starlink; I mean, “satellite.”) These days, driving a Tesla is like wearing a Kid Rock tee shirt at a Phish concert—except that it’s unlikely someone will set fire to your tee shirt.
As a resident of northern New England, Chuck was able to rebrand the car by taking advantage of mud season in classic swamp-Yankee fashion. He did what I tell clients to do: When the story goes against you, change the story.
That’s the essence of framing. (You’ll find my posts on framing theory here and here. Ask, “What’s this really about?” That’s the abracadabra, the magic charm of framing. In Chuck’s case, is he flaunting the Dogeman brand or just driving an electric car?
In my frequent video chats with high school classes, I offer a similar framing strategy to torture their siblings. When they get into a family fight, they can try: “This isn’t about me at all, is it? Are you okay?” They reset the frame by changing the story, not the mention the protagonist. It’s not about me but about…your horrible love life? Students love that trick.
In Chuck’s case, he’ll have to avoid washing that car until mud season ends. This year it seems likely to last until November.
He is driving just an electric car, but paid for the interest of a man, and may be he believed the mars story. Why we dont just buy a car for its function and manipulated by that shitty “vision” stories