"Knowing that we were doing good work and the stories were good. They were original and charming. They weren't particularly violent or sexy or any of that. They were just unique and that had a good feel to it"
About this Quote
Jacobi is describing a kind of creative confidence that feels almost extinct in today’s attention economy: the quiet thrill of making something good without needing to spike the dopamine loop. The telling detail is what he leaves out. “They weren’t particularly violent or sexy” isn’t prudishness so much as a small, pointed rebuke to the market logic that equates intensity with value. He’s praising work that doesn’t beg to be noticed.
The repetition of “good” matters. It’s plain, unshowy language, the way practitioners talk when the work itself is the proof. “Original and charming” reads like an actor’s love letter to craft: charm here isn’t fluff, it’s precision, tone, and an audience’s trust that the piece won’t betray them for a cheap jolt. When he says “unique,” he’s not chasing the algorithmic version of uniqueness (quirk as branding). He means something rarer: material with its own internal rules, not a remix engineered to hit familiar beats.
Subtextually, Jacobi is also sketching an era of production where success could be measured by coherence and care, not just by shock value or “edginess.” The line “that had a good feel to it” is almost wistful - the memory of a set culture where people sensed they were building something durable, not merely generating “content.” It’s an actor’s argument that restraint can be radical when spectacle is the default.
The repetition of “good” matters. It’s plain, unshowy language, the way practitioners talk when the work itself is the proof. “Original and charming” reads like an actor’s love letter to craft: charm here isn’t fluff, it’s precision, tone, and an audience’s trust that the piece won’t betray them for a cheap jolt. When he says “unique,” he’s not chasing the algorithmic version of uniqueness (quirk as branding). He means something rarer: material with its own internal rules, not a remix engineered to hit familiar beats.
Subtextually, Jacobi is also sketching an era of production where success could be measured by coherence and care, not just by shock value or “edginess.” The line “that had a good feel to it” is almost wistful - the memory of a set culture where people sensed they were building something durable, not merely generating “content.” It’s an actor’s argument that restraint can be radical when spectacle is the default.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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