As I’m closing out on a week long water fast. I thought I’d re-share something that tips the scales in your favour if you use it ethically.
One of my favourite films wrapped in biblical lessons which a lot of people seem to overlook…
We’re gonna talk about the 1995 film Se7en.
The one where Morgan Freeman out acts gravity itself, Brad Pitt’s jawline does most of the heavy lifting, and Kevin Spacey plays a serial killer who treats the Ten Commandments like a Pinterest mood board made of human suffering.
And that ending…
That gut hollowing, soul scraping, what’s-in-the-goddamn-box finale that still makes me want to shower in steel wool.
The thing is. I’ve been beating this drum for years, in different shapes, wearing different hats, probably while drunk on at least two of those occasions.
It’s basically marketing is sin-jujitsu.
You take the audience’s worst, most feral, most lizard-brain-in-a-business-suit impulses and you don’t fight them. You redirect them. You use their own momentum against them like some kind of capitalist aikido instructor who also maybe needs therapy and even if you get through all of this and don’t use it, being aware of it will make you realise you’re having this used on you to buy and become addicted to some of the most mundane things.
Let’s get going.
LUST
You’re not just a shoe salesman. You need to think to yourself and know that you’re selling longing in leather form. You’re not hawking perfume. You’re bottling the throat closing sense memory of someone’s ex, the neck, the collarbone, the whole olfactory crime scene. You’re selling want. Raw, undignified, lip biting want. Everything in this world is a re-frame. You hear it all the time, but if you can re-frame an idea or an emotional response. That’s pure power.
But people forget that lust isn’t really about sex. That’s the amateur reading. Lust is about the gap. The howling, electric space between what someone has right now and what they’re convinced they need so badly their teeth itch. Your job is to widen that gap. Tease it open. “Click to reveal.” “Unlock the secret.” Leave them trembling at the edge of the BUY NOW button like it’s a cliff and they’re already leaning.
GLUTTONY
Feed them until they rupture.
More content. More deals. More more more MORE. Autoplay the next video before their pupils even refocus. “Suggested for you.” “Based on your recent activity.” “People who bought this also bought a tiny shard of their own disappearing free will.”
See, gluttony isn’t about satisfaction, satisfaction is the enemy of gluttony. Gluttony is about the ritual of consumption itself. The mechanical act of shovelling. Cram their cart. Stuff their notification tray like a Thanksgiving turkey made of dopamine and regret. Watch them chew through subscription after subscription like a starved rat gnawing through your abdomen while somebody heats the bucket. (Google “rat torture” if you want nightmares. Or don’t. I’m not your dad)
The point: Never let them feel full. Full people stop buying.
GREED
“LIMITED STOCK.” Countdown timers ticking like bombs strapped to their wallets. “Only 3 left!” There are three thousand left. You know it. I know it. The algorithm knows it. Nobody cares.
People always think that greed and money go hand in hand, but those people are wrong. Greed is about panic. It’s the cold sweat certainty that someone else, some faceless, luckier, less deserving someone else, is about to snatch YOUR thing. Your treasure. Your precious. (Look at how wild and deranged people get on Black Friday as an example)
Turn your buyers into dragons. Sad, hoarding, credit card wielding dragons sitting on a mountain of plastic trinkets and limited edition bullshit. “Exclusive access.” “VIP tier.” “You deserve this.”
They don’t deserve it. But, and here’s the secret, fuck it, neither do you, neither do I, none of us deserve anything, we’re all just meat puppets on a rock hurtling through space. So sell the trinket.
SLOTH
One click purchase. Pre filled forms. “Skip the tutorial.” “We remembered your card so you don’t have to.” How thoughtful. How convenient. How utterly, terrifyingly efficient.
Sloth is often linked to laziness. Don’t mistake it for that. Sloth is impatience turned into a weapon. It’s the understanding that every single micro decision you force a human being to make is a tiny off ramp where they might wake up from the purchasing trance and think, “Wait, do I actually need a fourth identical hoodie?”
You cannot allow that moment of clarity.
Reduce every decision to a reflex. Autofill their lives. “Subscribe and never think again.” Make the path from desire to purchase so frictionless it’s like greasing a waterslide with bacon fat. They’ll thank you. They’ll love you for it. They’ll whisper your brand name with gratitude while their decision making muscles atrophy into warm pudding.
Think of the “Netflix effect” every single person and their pet goat has a low ticket recurring offer that a lot of people forget about and ending up being billed until they die. Nobody really notices $9.99 every month. Obviously there’s layers to it. So use the information wisely.
WRATH
Hot take incoming, strap in…
Outrage is glue.
The stickiest, most industrial strength emotional adhesive on the market. Pick a side. Any side. Doesn’t really matter which. Now make your audience furious at the other side. “Don’t let THEM win.” “They want to take this from you.” “Are you going to just SIT there?”
Wrath doesn’t have to be about conflict. Conflict is just one of the many delivery mechanisms. Wrath is tied to loyalty. You unite your tribe against a common enemy. Real, imagined, slightly exaggerated, doesn’t matter and suddenly you’re not a brand. You’re a banner. A flag they’ll march behind into the trenches of a culture war fought entirely in comment sections.
Sell pitchforks. Sell torches. Market share isn’t a pie chart. We’re at war, and your customers are the soldiers who showed up voluntarily and brought their own weapons.
Terrifying? Sure. Effective? Obscenely.
(Look at political sides and the current war/s going on. People are being played like a fiddle and deep down they don’t even know why they love it. It’s because they can choose a side and flaunt it loudly on the internet…)
ENVY
Stage the perfect life. But, and this is the key, make it look effortless. Curated imperfection. A strategically messy bun. A latte held just so. “Oh this old thing?” This old thing cost four hundred dollars and was photographed nine times before we picked the one that looked most casual. (Even though I believe the influencer lifestyle is dying, you can’t go wrong emulating it, even if it makes your skin crawl)
“Look what THEY have. Look how they LIVE.”
I always thought that Envy was about wanting. Wanting is too clean a word. Envy is comparison as self harm. It’s scrolling through someone else’s highlight reel at 2 AM and feeling your own life curdle like milk in August. Filter everything. Retouch everything. User generated content, which, let’s be honest, is just free labour and it turns your followers into unpaid billboards who are also somehow stalking each other.
Make their neighbour’s grass literally greener. Digitally. With what might as well be spray paint… (Kevin Trudeau was a master at this, even though he went to the dark side…)
PRIDE
“You’re not like other people.” “You’re special.” “Be legendary.” “Treat yourself, king.” “Treat yourself, queen.” “Treat yourself, gender nonspecific royalty of consumerism.”
Pride does not equal confidence. Confidence is quiet. Confidence doesn’t need a gold plated USB cable. Pride. The sin variety, the marketing variety, is our own built in narcissism with a price attached to it. It’s selling people their own reflection, but polished, retouched, pixel perfect, and mounted in a frame that costs extra.
Premium memberships. Titanium credit cards. “Because you’re worth it.” Four words that have separated more people from more money than any casino ever built.
If you think you’re selling a product, you’re wrong. You’re selling them themselves. Except it’s the version of themselves they wish they were. The shinier, better, more worthy version that only exists on the other side of a transaction.
And they’ll pay. Oh, they’ll pay…
So there it is.
Seven sins. Seven levers. Seven ways to reach into the screaming machinery of human psychology and pull.
Now. Am I telling you to DO all of this? To gleefully manipulate people like some kind of dopamine puppeteer?
No. Maybe. It’s complicated.
What I’m telling you is…
This is how it works. This is the machinery. These are the gears. Whether you use this knowledge for good, for evil, or for selling artisanal hot sauce on Etsy that’s between you and whatever deity or void you report to.
But you should understand the machine.
Because if you don’t, someone else will use it on you.
Now go write something. And maybe watch Se7en again. With the lights off. Like an adult.
Stephen Walker.
I swear the 90s had some of the most twisted and eye opening films of all time…