Moonbird in the time of genocide
A Note from the Founders
It is October 2023, and we haven’t considered our current lives because we are busy. We have full-time jobs and caregiving responsibilities. There are groceries to buy, and Google calendar invites to send out. Most days are a relentless list of chores, calls, and deadlines, peppered with small joys like food, pets, and supportive partners.
Steady pay is a lullaby that deludes us into thinking we are making a difference at work. We put our heads down, churn out content and chart out roadmaps— thinking if we do what we do well, then we make the world better. But people are dying— live-streamed on social media. So we start to remember the parts of us we’ve stopped listening to. Devastation awakens you from the numbing of daily living. The mundane cannot survive murder at such a scale.
It is November, and we are split across two worlds —one where nothing makes sense and the other where we sip iced lattes and discuss UI/UX. In one world, homes are destroyed and children are crushed inside. In the other world, we watch this on social media and tell ourselves to limit doom scrolling— we must avoid existential dread and depression.
It is December, and the quiet apathy of people in our professional lives is starting to get stifling. How do we play business as usual when schools are being used as target practice? How do we dissociate from the horror of whole neighbourhoods being bombed and turn our attention to branding strategies for user acquisition?
We feel foolish. It’s awkward to bring up genocide at work. Staying silent is easier than saying “Are you seeing this? Why the hell are we all not stopping this?” during a corporate meeting. Yes, awkwardness has also enabled genocide. We are not sure how to live with this truth.
It is 2024. We protest in public spaces, voice outrage online, and gather with communities showing solidarity. We walk in parks and share handouts with links to journalists reporting live from Gaza. We get shuffled back by the police— cajoled, warned, threatened with arrests and worse. Keep your activism on social media and stay off the streets.
So we finally bring our activism to work. We go on strike one day and write an email to our whole company, pleading for their attention to the injustice. Perhaps, in an attempt to wash our globally complicit hands clean from the genocide.
We get no response to the email.
But something has changed for us. We can no longer continue to delude ourselves into the idea of a good life, a stable job, and a secure future when humanity is still capable of this. We begin to consider our current lives— really consider it. Sure, the starving millions won’t get the lunch we didn’t waste. Our thoughts and prayers won’t stop bombs falling like rain. Our protesting doesn’t save anyone, but it does remind us of who we are.
We start to meet people around the world willing to speak out publicly about Palestine— many of them risking their professional reputations and livelihoods. Palestine has awakened us to the precarious state of humanity around the world, be it in Sudan, or in India, or even in our own seemingly perfect corporate jobs.
It is February. We find we can no longer work for a company that is incapable of empathising with its own customers, let alone be remotely considerate of the suffering of people far away. We’ve decided to embrace fragility, quit our full-time jobs and align our daily lives to our values. We are done playing corporate-corporate under a carefully tailored mask of apathy, exchanging marketing jargon with mediocre men whose only concern is weekly growth numbers and monthly ad spends. We want to show up authentically, informed, interested, and fully connected with the precarious humanity of the world. We want to work with curiosity, kindness, and courage. There is no such thing as apolitical work. Silence is not professional, and it benefits nobody.
It’s March.
We’re as raw and confused as a giant flightless bird that finds itself on the moon. We want to trust in humanity, but we know that to do that, we must trust in ourselves first.
We do know three things for sure.
It is possible to stand up for what is right and work with people who value that. Those of us who are privileged can and must normalise taking a stance in our professional lives. We choose to work with people who refuse to look the other way when it comes to the lives and livelihoods of our collective world.
It is possible to practice our values in every aspect of the day-to-day. Voluntarily jumping out of a job without a safety net is a luxury in comparison to the reality we witness everyday. But this aligns with our deepest values, and we’ve never feared the results of doing things that make our hearts expand. If not us —now, then who? —when?
It is possible to remember that humanity has also consisted of revolutions, resistance, joy, love, and the beauty of the unexpected: In fragility is creativity. And we welcome that precarity into our new venture.
It’s April, and we’re ready.
We’re awkward, but outspoken. Goofy, but informed. Deeply affected by the state of the world, but really really good at what we do.
Welcome to Moonbird. We serve brands who create with care and regard for their customers and communities.
Will you make some humanity with us?
