Anti-Creepy Pledge

It is my pledge to you that I will conduct my business in a way that is ethical and respects your privacy and freedom. In this Age of Information & Technology, there are countless business tools — particularly online ones — that maximize marketing contacts, sales conversions, and overall business success. And by success, I mean profits. This means that everything a business does is with the primary purpose of making money off of you. And typically, it’s not enough to make money off of you once; most business practices also center around retaining customers — meaning they’ve designed their marketing to keep you dependent on their product/service and spending your money there over and over again.

I Refuse To Do That.

I firmly believe in the words Christ spoke on the Sermon on the Mount:

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other;

or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

- Matthew 6:24

Mammon, of course, means money.

Do I think there’s something inherently wrong or evil about making money? Absolutely not. In this fallen world, money is the currency by which our lives function. We simply cannot get around that. But there is a difference between making money to provide a living (at any standard) and being so obsessed with money that it governs your life — and business decisions.

I’m an old-fashioned capitalist; I believe in a truly free market wherein each individual/family makes an abundant living by providing a product or service that serves the needs and demands of the community. What I DON’T believe in is the corporatism our world has adopted, which says that any way I can make a buck (or MORE bucks) is okay to do — especially if every other business is doing it too.

I am not a corporation. I’m not looking for ways to make billions of dollars at the expense of my fellow man by sucking them into an endless funnel of my wares. I’m not going to creepily collect my customers’ data and personal information every time they visit my website or open one of my emails, just so I can know the exact right way to psychologically manipulate them into buying more of my stuff.

I am also not a brand. Basically, the idea of branding is nothing more than the fundamental outlook that all humans are simple-minded and stupid, and that the only way they would patron your business is if you presented an oversimplified, one-dimensional message neatly packaged in a tidy little box for easy consumption. Branding is also psychological manipulation on a mass scale. The more simple the message, the more widely appealing to the masses, the more sales come in.

I’m not saying these tactics don’t work. On the contrary, the fact that we have many multi-million and multi-billion dollar corporations in existence today says that these tactics ABSOLUTELY DO WORK.

What I’m saying is: I DON’T CARE. I will not participate in them.

Why? Because I care more about my integrity and authenticity than I do about money. I care more about my standing before God than I do about money.

Do I like money? Of course I do! Money is great. I would love to earn a lot of it. But I don’t worship it. I don’t serve it. I worship and serve GOD — not money. If I can make money while serving God, then GREAT! I would love to do that.

But if I’m presented with a business practice that violates my code of ethics, violates my personal integrity, violates my values, violates my identity in God: then I will not use it. Because I will choose God — every time.

And if that makes me less money, so be it.

See below for a breakdown of different business tools I either refuse to use or use in very limited capacity, for the sake of keeping my integrity and pledge to you.

“If I wouldn’t do it in person, I won’t do it online.”
— Julie

  • AI is EVIL and I WON’T use it. Not to create art, not to write emails, not for ANYTHING. Period.

    Why? Well… that’s a long explanation. If you’re not privy to transhumanism or the Singularity, I suggest learning about those first as you dive into the research and origins of artificial intelligence (as well as its purposes).

    For my no-holds-barred take on the subject, check out the frank words God inspired me to write on the canvas of my work in progress “Manifesto: Angel of Creativity.”

  • Branding is everything a business uses to brand themselves. This can include their logo, slogans and taglines, and even the colors and fonts they use. However, it often extends to things like messaging, tone of voice, and other aspects of the public persona. For example, a high-brow member’s only club probably wouldn’t use humor in their website copy because it would be considered “off brand.”

    When it comes to my own business, I like approaching things in an Anti-Branding kind of way — to a degree. Yes, clearly I’ve stuck to a particular color palette and certain stylistic choices. But my approach is, as always, to eliminate the psychological manipulation as much as possible. Believe it or not, there are people whose sole job it is to study the psychology of certain colors, fonts, and phrases, and how they affect human behavior. It is all to manipulate your feelings and decisions. I don’t believe in doing that. So when I choose my branding colors, or slogans, I’m choosing what reflects ME… not what I think will get you to buy stuff from me.

    I’m also not going to “stick to my lane” when it comes to branding. There are branding archetypes that businesses use to, again, communicate certain messaging to attract customers. My messaging is whatever the hell I want to talk about today — most of the time that’ll be art, but it might also be natural health, homeschooling, homesteading, the evils of communism, the importance of freedom, or any other random thing — and I’m not going to censor myself to attract customers. Simple as that.

    Ultimately, my promise to you is that my branding will only ever be about my own preferences and style choices when it comes to communicating my genuine, authentic self; it will never be about manipulating you, either consciously or subconsciously.

  • Google is evil and I only use the most necessary tools for basic online business running. Further details on the various business practices of Google I won’t participate in are coming soon. I plan to fully dive into this.

    The basic summary is that I use basic digital tools like email, spreadsheets, and documents. I will not use tracking analytics of any kind.

  • Pixel is creepy and I don’t use it.

    Pixels, in general, are little pieces of code attached to digital items like images that track activity.



    Meta Pixel (or Facebook Pixel) is a specific pixel for websites that track the activity of visitors. It would allow me to track which pages on my website you visit, how long you spend on each page, what items (if any) you view or add to your cart, etc. The purpose of this tracking is to —surprise, surprise — know how better to psychologically manipulate you to buy stuff. If I know what pages you looked at the most, then I’ll know what best catches your attention in order to advertise to you more effectively.

    I won’t do that. EVER. Because I wouldn’t do it in person. If you walked into my brick-and-mortar store, I wouldn’t demand your personal information when you walked in the door and then creepily stalk you down every aisle to time how long you looked at everything and analyze how best to sell you something. And I certainly wouldn’t follow you down the street, on your way to work, or into your home at night to bombard you with carefully strategized sales tactics until you relent and give me your money.

    You are a person whose identity and dignity I honor and respect. If you want to browse my website or my shop, I would be thrilled and honored. But I will not infringe on your freedom to browse in peace and give you space to make your own decisions about where you spend your money. What you purchase, especially for your home, should be authentic to your values and desires — it shouldn’t be from me pressuring or manipulating you into it to line my own wallet.