Member-only story
The Woes of a Wayward Anthropologist
In my freshman year of college, I decided to take an Anthropology 101 class. All I knew about anthropology was that it was the study of humans. I figured that we would learn about ancient empires, fascinating artifacts, and weird rituals around the world. And we did, but we learned something more valuable.
What makes people tick.
Or at least, we tried.
Still, asking that core question — why do humans do the things they do? — was transformative for me: It taught me to dig deeper (pun intended) into every situation. It showed me that my initial assumptions were likely wrong. It gave me the tools to unpack every situation — even painful ones.
And that’s how I started my career as a writer and marketer.
In anthropology, you learn to think of people as walking amalgamations of cultural input and biological impulses. As the saying goes, no man is an island. We’re all bits and pieces of our genetics, our society, our mental quirks, cooked up in an illusion (delusion?) of self-importance and a desperate need to find the meaning in everything. Or rather, make it.
Understanding the human phenomenon, or at least trying to, is a crucial step toward being able to better connect with them. Marketers have known this for years and have often hired anthropologists to…
