The mark of an official grown up? Getting our first job. And for us teenage dirtbags, as the internet lingo goes, the extra cash from it was our taste of freedom. Yes, we were in it for the money, but it taught us a life lesson or two—even if we had to learn from trial and a lot of error. So dive into our career origin stories and what we’ve learned.

A resurgence, a renaissance, a re-definition, a revival.

What does this tell us? That our current world is looking for a do-over anyway it can find it, giving us marketers a second chance at building a media world that’s different and who knows…maybe better.

As human beings, everything and everyone we come in contact with each day ultimately has a cause and effect on our behaviour, perception, choices and cognition. This relationship between our physical surroundings and how we think, feel and act (by definition, the study of Environmental Psychology) has a significant impact on our well-being and output as people.

Prior to March 2020, many of us had become accustomed to a certain freedom of choice about the environments around us: what city to travel to, what restaurant to eat out at, which gallery to visit, what concert to attend, and who to spend time with. On some level, we had control over how to diversify our stimulation in order to maximize our happiness. Then the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. What happened next, we’re all too aware of. The world shut its proverbial doors, cutting us off from the fluid access to activities and people we’ve traditionally sought out to enhance our own personal worlds with. Self-isolation and stay-at-home orders meant that diversity of stimulation flatlined, fast. Even the vast landscape of the internet is now a personalized sea of sameness, thanks to sophisticated algorithms serving us exactly what we want to see, read and hear. This is a scary thought when you consider that creativity—the ability to put together ideas in new, useful combinations to solve problems—is augmented when we are exposed to new environments, situations and ideas.

One of the reasons I loved going to an office each day, pre-pandemic, is that it was a constant source of inspiration. Our shared desk pods and open concept rooms contributed to the collaborative environment, and the buzz of productivity could be felt as coworkers tossed around ideas and built each other up. Our work space, like many others, had been socially engineered to stimulate encounters that spark innovation. In essence, the employees of Mint were absorbed in a creative space five days a week that was specifically designed to positively impact our collective performance and generate ideas. Then of course, without warning, offices across the globe, including ours, were sent to work from home. All those thoughtfully designed environments now sit unused, as the stay-at-home workforce has adjusted to virtual life.

Given that our physical and social surroundings correlate to our output, how has the pandemic and stay-at-home orders affected our relationship to creativity and productivity? How are people closing the “inspiration gap” when you’re not really supposed to leave the house?

Keen to learn more about maximizing the output of creativity and productivity in a personal environment that currently has a stimulation diversity gap, I looked to the remote working experts and creative office expats for suggestions to emulate. The good thing is, we now have control over our work environment—it can be what you want it to be. (That is, until the kids, cats or dogs roll in.)

Just over a week ago, Lil Nas X graced us with his presence in the Twitterverse to premier his new single – now gay anthem – “MONTERO (Call Me by Your Name)”. The song itself is what a lot of music is about: love. However, the video is what blew up our feeds and had everyone from your Aunt Karen to Nike talking about it.

The video is a crystal-encrusted Missy Elliott (via ‘Work It’) inspired nod to the story of Lucifer and his infamous fall from heaven. The scenes from the video depict Lil Nas X in the role of Lucifer ascending down a stripper pole on his way to hell. Spoiler: he lands on the lap of the devil, seduces him (and all of us) and ultimately takes his place on the throne of Hell. The film is fun, sexy, wild entertainment…And yes, set a bomb off on the internet.

Maybe we on the Mint Strategy team had a case of Baader-Meinhof. Maybe it was the Silicon Valley algorithm gods creating our fate. But after watching “MONTERO,” the devil started showing up everywhere: