I was struck by two things I encountered online this week: a video about a bell foundry and an interview with a fashion designer. I suppose both subjects lend themselves to my interests in some vague way, but not very closely.

What struck me about both was that, entirely through storytelling, the creators behind the pieces brought something alive and made it worth spending some time on, made it worth reflecting on.

Tom Scott’s video (the first in his new series travelling around England’s counties) didn’t just show how bells are made. It told the story of a craft, it explained the engineering, and allowed the personalities of the foundry workers to show that their craft is still alive. The video did not show the foundry as a museum, and it didn’t tell the story in the past tense.

Om Malik’s interview with Brunello Cucinelli sat with me for similar reasons. The tone was very different, but I felt that Cucinelli’s personality was coaxed out with careful questions and time for interviewer and subject to sit with ideas. I started reading the interview with a sense of doubting whether it would hold my interest, but found myself reading to the end and thinking about the piece since.

In a media environment of hyper-personalisation, the TikTok or Instagram feed in all its algorithmic glory, storytelling has a power to take us out of whatever stream of consistency we are floating along in, and show us other perspectives.