This Started With a Scrapbook

3 hours ago

3 min read

I have a confession to make: I think I was doing environmental marketing before I knew what marketing was.

I was probably in Class 4 or 5 when I made a scrapbook called GO GREEN.

I used to collect anything green I could find like pieces from newspapers, magazines, book covers, random pictures, random cut outs, basically anything that had the slightest "green". I would cut them up, stick them together and make these pages full of green things.

It was basically a junk journal before I knew junk journaling was a thing.

Once it was done, I would send it around the classroom. Someone would look at it, then give it to the next person, then the next. I was, in my own tiny way, trying to get 55 people to look at something and think, “Hmm. Maybe trees are actually important."

Looking back, that's probably the first time I understood that if you want people to care about something, you have to give them something to care about first. I made something I thought was cool and put it in front of people.

Which, honestly, is still pretty much how I operate right now, even though I have this immense fear of talking to people live or holding conversations..I love posting constantly online for people to see.

type shi i made in class 4 (example only)

Then came 2020.

I started volunteering with Green Bhumi, and one of the things I got to do was plant flowering plants in our front balcony, our portiko, basically that big open terrace/balcony space that Indian houses somehow manage to turn into a garden, laundry area and occasionally a place to sit and sip chai.

Me and my mom obviously tried to turn mine into a garden.

And then somewhere between the scrapbook, the plants and everything else life threw at me, I ended up starting Whln Studio.

Which brings me to the slightly unexpected part of this story.

I found Grow-Trees through Ecosia, and I started thinking about how I could bring something like this into Whln Studio without making it feel like an obligatory “sustainability initiative” that businesses put on their websites because they're supposed to.

I wanted it to actually be connected to something I was making.

So for the 2027 calendar, I decided to do exactly that.

The calendar is filled with my own artwork. And now, through my collaboration with Grow-Trees, every calendar purchased will contribute towards planting a tree.

One calendar. One tree.

So you're buying something made by a local artist, you're supporting a small independent business, and you're also helping put a tree somewhere. That was the part I really wanted.

Just: you're already buying something. Why can't that purchase do a little more?

And yes, I am actually doing this. This isn't me putting a little green leaf emoji next to my brand name and calling it sustainability. 😭

But there's another thing I've been thinking about.

When I was in Class 4, I had 55 people.

Fifty-five extremely captive customers of my content.

I could literally hand someone my scrapbook.

“Here. Read this.”

And they did.

Now I'm on the internet trying to figure out how to get people to care about something for longer than the 0.8 seconds they spend deciding whether to scroll past my post.

Back then, I had 55 people who would actually sit there, look at what I'd made, consume it, talk about it and maybe think about it.

Now I'm like:

Where the hell are my 55 people?

If you know where they are, please send them here

And apparently, I have quit my job too.

GUYSSSSSSSS.

Yes. I quit my job.