It’s National Dunce Day! (Don’t look at me like that. I just live here.)

The holiday falls on the day John Duns Scotus died, Nov. 8, 1308. Dude was a Scottish Catholic priest,  Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher, AND a theologian. TL;DR: He was one of the sharpest philosophers of the Middle Ages. He was so influential, his followers, dubbed “the Dunsmen,” ran European universities for about 2 centuries.

Then the Renaissance showed up with new ideas, the Dunsmen refused to learn a single one of them, and their critics turned “Duns” into the word for someone too slow to keep up. A few hundred years later, schools were sticking kids in pointy paper hats and parking them in the corner.

So 1 of the smartest men who ever lived got turned into a synonym for “idiot” by his own fan club. Your followers can do that to you. Choose them carefully.

This week, I gave the rest of history a LinkedIn account to see who else ends up in the hat.

Ghostwriting LinkedIn posts for 4 years has ruined history for me. Someone puts on a Ken Burns documentary, and 20 minutes in I’m on the couch muttering “that’s a carousel” at a black-and-white photo of a dead general.

People have been humblebragging since the first guy figured out how to hold a chisel. Every Roman statue is a headshot with a better jawline, and every cave painting is a carousel about a hunt that went really well. But every exec I’ve worked with thinks they invented the humblebrag. Cleopatra was doing it from inside a rug in 48 BC, with no WiFi and no comms team. So I went back and wrote their feeds for them. Free of charge. You’re welcome, history.

—----------

Tyrannosaurus Rex · Apex Predator | 2 Million Years in Role | Category Leader

Eve · Founding Team, Eden | #OpenToWork

Odysseus · King of Ithaca | Gifting Guy | 10 Years at Sea and Counting

Julius Caesar · Dictator | Ex-Consul | Building in Public

Cleopatra VII · Pharaoh | Speaks 9 Languages | Pattern Interrupt Queen

Community note

Cleopatra had a rug. You can have our Thought Leadership Report, which is less dramatic but has way better data. Officially launching November 17th. Or reply to this email and I’ll give you the preview link, don’t tell my boss.

Galileo Galilei · Astronomer | Contrarian | House Arrest, Remote Only

Napoleon Bonaparte · Former Emperor | #OpenToWork

10 months later

100 days later

Thomas Edison · Inventor | Founder | Self-Made

Pluto · Former 9th Planet | “Dwarf Planet,” Whatever That Means | #OpenToWork

Blockbuster · Company Page · 9,000 Stores and Counting

Michael Collins · Command Module Pilot, Apollo 11

— Sarah Suzuki Harvard

I read “‼️URGENT‼️” emails the way I read terms and conditions—I don’t. Lol jk, but seriously, the red exclamation point is the only punctuation a client has ever used correctly. Every URGENT email I’ve ever gotten has the same shape: “Quick question!!!” at 4:57 p.m., a deadline of “EOD,” and a follow-up 11 minutes later asking if I saw the first one. I saw it, Todd. I’m drinking an espresso about it. 

(We post these on Instagram too, for your recreational panic.)

J.Crew let funny people be funny, which is apparently allowed

Alright, that’s my time. I’m the kid in the pointy hat in the corner. See you next week.

— sarah suzuki harvard 🫡

Chat, are we cooked? Optimizely just dropped a B2B comedy called Murder in Marketing, a whodunnit where a team learns mid-launch that their CEO is dead and everyone’s a suspect. It’s a micro-drama on TikTok and LinkedIn right now, with a feature-length film premiering Nov. 13, and they cast people from Jury Duty and The Righteous Gemstones. A marketing software company has a cast, a movie, and a premiere date. I have Ayo and a Canva Pro login.