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Let’s start with you. Who are you, and what lens do you bring to understanding people online?
I am a coffee enthusiast, Oxford comma loving, sushi eating, reading and chronically online intelligence leader working at the intersection of data, culture, and human behavior. As a strategic storyteller at heart, data has always been the thing that keeps me grounded.
I bring a curious and generous lens to my work, paying close attention not just to what people say online, but why and when they say it, and who is doing the talking. To me, we are in a new era where digital spaces function as living systems. Algorithms reflect a very human paradox: what we deeply believe and need, where we feel trust, belonging, and control, alongside the societal norms we are trying to coexist with.
Understanding people online is really just understanding people. That requires a different kind of data approach, one that blends art and science. It is in that space, between storytelling and analytics, where I do my best work.
What’s a working theory you have right now about how people behave online?
People don’t go online to be informed as much as they go online to feel oriented. Platforms don’t act as arbiters of truth. They arbitrate visibility and velocity. As a result, content that offers certainty and identity alignment spreads faster than content that asks people to sit with nuance.
In moments of uncertainty, which has been more often than not lately, people look for narratives that help them interpret what’s happening and where they belong within it. Platforms reward clarity, blame, affirmation, and click optimized framing that promises resolution. This makes emotionally decisive and often oversimplified content easier to spread than content that invites complexity or reflection.
This is why misinformation often outperforms corrections and why trust is built less through facts than through perceived alignment. Online behavior is driven as much by emotional need as it is by belief. To understand how people behave online today, you have to understand what a piece of content fulfils for them, not just whether it is true.
What’s an insight you surfaced that you still think about? What one stuck with you?
One insight I still think about came from an unexpected conversation about the inside of a smartwater bottle. In a small but active corner of the internet, people were sharing close up photos and commentary about the bottle’s interior, treating it almost like a design feature rather than packaging.
What struck me wasn’t the subject itself, but what it revealed. Without social listening, this kind of conversation would be invisible. It showed how deeply consumers engage with everyday products and how meaning can emerge in places brands are rarely looking.
That moment reshaped how I think about insight generation. Cultural opportunities don’t always announce themselves at scale. They often start in niche, playful, or seemingly insignificant conversations that signal how people are forming emotional relationships with brands. With smartwater, a widely loved American consumer brand, we consistently found these kinds of moments, small signals that pointed to larger opportunities for storytelling, design, and connection.
It reinforced a belief I carry into all my work: some of the most valuable insights are not about volume or trend size, but about attention. You only see them if you’re listening closely enough.
What’s the weirdest rabbit hole your work has ever sent you down? And what did it teach you?
One of the weirdest rabbit holes my work has sent me down was a deep Reddit thread about broken dishwashers. What surprised me most was not the issue itself, but how passionate people were. Users were writing long, detailed paragraphs about their dishwashers, documenting failures, fixes, timelines, and emotions in a level of depth you would expect from a much bigger life moment.
Those posts were not really about appliances. They were about frustration, reliability, trust, and the disruption of daily routines. People were not just venting. They were seeking validation, advice, and reassurance that they were not alone in the experience.
That moment stuck with me because it revealed how emotionally charged even the most ordinary parts of life can be online. It reinforced that some of the most honest insights come from unglamorous, highly specific corners of the internet where people are not performing for attention. They are simply trying to make sense of something that matters to them.
It changed how I look for insight, reminding me that passion often shows up where you least expect it.
What skills or mindsets do you think the next generation of analysts will need?
The most important mindset the next generation of analysts will need is judgment.
Technical fluency in data, AI, and automation will be expected, not exceptional. What will differentiate great analysts is their ability to question outputs, recognize bias, and understand the downstream impact of how insights are used. Analysts will need to know when data is directionally useful and when it is misleading, incomplete, or ethically risky.
Equally important is the ability to translate. The best analysts will be those who can explain complexity clearly, tell stories that resonate beyond data teams, and help decision makers understand not just what is happening, but why it matters. In the midst of a data boom, value comes from what you choose to do with the data and how thoughtfully you shape it to answer the right questions.
Curiosity, humility, and responsibility will matter just as much as technical skill.
What’s a niche community, account, or corner of the internet you’re watching right now? And why?
I find myself spending time in two very different corners of the internet: CleanTok and agency and marketing meme communities like Digital Chadvertising.
I’m drawn to CleanTok because it offers a sense of order and resolution. There’s something about the ASMR of cleaning, the repetition, the sounds, and the visible progress that feels grounding. Watching people reset their apartments and move through familiar routines often inspires me to do the same in my own space. It’s not about perfection. It’s about orientation. These videos quietly model how to regain control through small, tangible actions, and I find myself using them to reorient my own environment and mindset, even as a mostly passive observer.
On the other end, industry meme accounts act as a collective mirror for people working in marketing and communications. The humor is sharp because it reflects shared experiences. Burnout, shifting power dynamics, and unspoken truths surface through jokes faster than they ever would through formal feedback or research. It’s cathartic.
I watch both because they fulfil different emotional needs. One provides calm and structure. The other offers recognition and belonging. Together, they illustrate how people use digital spaces not just to consume content, but to orient themselves within their lives and their work. And yes, there’s a bit of doomscrolling at play too.
Last non-work thing you read that shaped your thinking?
A recent essay on Alex Mathers’ Substack about what he calls the “anxiety tax” we pay through constant checking and external validation. He describes how small, habitual behaviors, refreshing inboxes, monitoring likes, waiting for responses, quietly drain our nervous systems over time.
What resonated with me is how easily that dynamic shows up in everyday leadership moments. Even something as simple as sending a team message over Slack and watching for emoji reactions can unconsciously become a proxy for validation. Reading it helped me recognize how often we outsource reassurance to signals that were never meant to carry that weight.
It reminded me that resilience, personally and professionally, comes from separating meaning from metrics. Understanding that our reactions are shaped less by events themselves and more by the stories we attach to them has influenced how I show up, how I lead, and how I protect my energy in a very online world.
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