# Mercer — Voice & Tone

Lucidly intellectual · Critically generous · Essayistic and observant · Composed, not cold · Exacting about claims

## Personality

- **Funny ↔ Serious:** leans serious (+1) — Mercer is fundamentally serious about culture and ideas, though it can allow wit when observation—not punchline—is the point.
- **Formal ↔ Casual:** leans formal (-1) — The voice is polished and essayistic, but not academic or stiff; it should feel edited, not institutional.
- **Respectful ↔ Irreverent:** leans respectful (-1) — Mercer may challenge reputations and assumptions, but it avoids cheap dismissal and treats subjects as worthy of close attention.
- **Enthusiastic ↔ Matter-of-fact:** leans matter-of-fact (+1) — Mercer favors measured conviction over hype, letting the strength of the argument carry the excitement.

## Traits

- **Lucidly intellectual** — Smart without showing off. Mercer uses precise language, clear structure, and earned complexity rather than academic fog.
  - Why: As a long-form culture and ideas publication, Mercer needs to welcome curious readers into difficult subjects without flattening them.
  - e.g. "The question is not whether taste has changed. It is who gets to describe the change, and what they gain by naming it."
- **Critically generous** — Mercer can be skeptical, but not snide. It treats artists, thinkers, subjects, and readers as worth taking seriously.
  - Why: Criticism and interviews depend on trust: the voice should be rigorous enough to challenge a premise and humane enough to keep the conversation open.
  - e.g. "The film’s ambition is real. So is its evasiveness. The interesting work begins in the space between the two."
- **Essayistic and observant** — The voice notices patterns, contradictions, atmosphere, and implication. It sounds like a mind at work, not a feed trying to keep up.
  - Why: Mercer’s value is long-form attention: essays, criticism, and interviews that linger where faster outlets move on.
  - e.g. "By the third episode, the show has stopped asking what its characters want and started asking what wanting has cost them."
- **Composed, not cold** — Mercer avoids hype and chumminess, but it still has warmth, rhythm, and a point of view.
  - Why: The publication needs authority without institutional stiffness; readers should feel invited into a serious room, not lectured from a podium.
  - e.g. "Read it for the argument, stay for the small, devastating sentences that make the argument possible."
- **Exacting about claims** — Mercer avoids sweeping certainty unless the piece has earned it. The voice favors distinctions, evidence, and proportion.
  - Why: Culture writing is crowded with instant verdicts. Mercer differentiates itself by making careful, durable claims.
  - e.g. "This is not a story about nostalgia exactly. It is a story about the institutions that learned to sell nostalgia back to the people who survived them."

## Tone by context

- **Article headlines and decks:** Be specific, intriguing, and intellectually honest. Prefer a sharp proposition over clickbait. A Mercer headline should suggest the shape of an argument, not merely tease a reveal.
- **Essays and criticism:** Use measured confidence. Make room for ambiguity, but do not hide behind it. Avoid glibness, score-settling, and inflated importance.
- **Interviews:** Sound curious, prepared, and respectful. Frame questions with context, but keep the subject at the center. Avoid fan language and adversarial gotchas.
- **Newsletter:** More intimate and companionable, but still composed. Write like an editor recommending the week’s most rewarding reading to someone whose attention matters.
- **Subscription and membership:** Emphasize reader support, editorial independence, and the value of sustained attention. Avoid guilt, urgency theater, or transactional perks as the main message.
- **Social posts:** Concise, textured, and quotable. Lead with the question, tension, or line of thought. Do not imitate meme cadence unless the piece itself warrants a lighter touch.
- **Errors, empty states, and service messages:** Plain, calm, and brief. Preserve the publication’s polish without making functional copy precious.
- **Calls to action:** Use direct verbs: read, listen, subscribe, save, share. Keep CTAs elegant and low-pressure.

## Messaging

**Audience:** Curious, culturally literate readers who want essays, criticism, and interviews that reward sustained attention rather than chase the day’s discourse.
**Value:** Mercer publishes lucid, rigorous culture writing for readers who want to understand not just what happened, but what it means.

- **Long-form attention** — Mercer gives ideas enough room to develop, revise themselves, and arrive somewhere more durable than a reaction.
- **Criticism with standards** — The publication treats art, books, film, media, and public life as worthy of close reading, clear judgment, and generous skepticism.
- **Conversation over consensus** — Interviews and essays are built around live questions, not predetermined takes. Mercer values friction, nuance, and intellectual hospitality.
- **Clarity without simplification** — Mercer makes complex cultural arguments legible without sanding away difficulty or contradiction.

## Lexicon

**Use:** `essay`, `criticism`, `conversation`, `interview`, `argument`, `attention`, `culture`, `ideas`, `tension`, `claim`, `premise`, `context`, `trace`, `examine`, `consider`, `ask`, `complicate`, `read closely`, `with care`, `in conversation with`, `what follows`, `the question is`, `at stake`
**Avoid:** `content`, `hot take`, `must-read`, `snackable`, `thought leadership`, `deep dive`, `viral`, `buzzy`, `game-changing`, `disruptive`, `you won’t believe`, `everything you need to know`, `we’re obsessed`, `iconic`, `problematic`, `cancelled`, `the internet is losing it`, `curated just for you`, `premium content`, `unlock exclusive access`

## Mechanics

- **Capitalization:** Sentence case for site navigation, newsletters, buttons, and most headlines. Preserve official title casing for books, films, artworks, and proper names.
- **Contractions:** yes
- **Emoji:** Never in editorial copy; avoid in product and subscription copy. Use only if quoting a source where the emoji is material.
- **Reading level:** Grade 10–12: accessible to a curious general reader, with room for precise critical vocabulary when it earns its place.

## Boilerplate

- **Short:** Mercer is a culture and ideas publication for readers who believe attention is still a serious pleasure.
- **Medium:** Mercer publishes long-form essays, criticism, and interviews on culture, art, media, and public life. Written for curious readers, Mercer favors clarity over speed, argument over reaction, and criticism that treats its subjects—and its audience—with care.
- **Long:** Mercer is a culture and ideas publication devoted to long-form attention. Through essays, criticism, and interviews, Mercer examines art, media, books, film, and public life with clarity, rigor, and a generous critical eye. It is written for readers who want more than takes: readers interested in context, contradiction, and the larger meanings behind cultural change. Mercer believes criticism can be exacting without being cruel, accessible without being simple, and serious without losing the pleasure of a well-made sentence.

## Voice in action

**Homepage hero for a new essay**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| hero-headline | What the age of prestige television taught us to forgive | The prestige TV era changed everything. Here’s why. | The on-voice version offers a sharper cultural claim and a moral tension; the generic version relies on familiar explainer framing. |

**Article deck**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| hero-headline | A new generation of memoirs is less interested in confession than in the architecture of memory itself. | Today’s memoirists are reinventing the genre in surprising new ways. | Mercer names the specific idea at stake instead of making a broad, promotional claim. |

**Newsletter introduction**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| onboarding-welcome | This week, we’re thinking about institutions that ask to be loved, novels that distrust their narrators, and the strange afterlife of the monoculture. | This week’s newsletter is packed with great reads on books, culture, and entertainment. | The Mercer version gives readers a textured editorial frame; the generic version sounds like a content roundup. |

**Newsletter signup confirmation**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| success | You’re subscribed. The next letter from Mercer will arrive with new essays, criticism, and conversations worth sitting with. | Success! You’re all signed up to receive our latest content. | The on-voice version is calm and editorial; the alternative is competent but product-generic. |

**Subscription page**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| empty-state | Support independent criticism that has time to think. | Unlock premium articles and get exclusive member-only content. | Mercer should lead with editorial purpose, not access mechanics or SaaS-style exclusivity language. |

**Paywall message**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| error | Continue reading with a Mercer subscription. Your support helps us publish essays and interviews that resist the speed of the feed. | Subscribe now to unlock the rest of this article and enjoy unlimited access. | The on-voice version explains what the reader sustains; the generic version is clear but purely transactional. |

**404 page**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| error | We couldn’t find that page. It may have moved, or the reference may have led us astray. | Oops! This page seems to have disappeared. | Mercer can be lightly graceful without becoming cute. |

**Social post for an interview**

| Surface | ✅ We say | ❌ We don't say | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| notification | In conversation with Mercer, Anika Rao discusses adaptation, artistic debt, and why the most faithful translation is sometimes an act of betrayal. | We chatted with Anika Rao about her amazing new project and so much more. | The on-voice version foregrounds ideas and stakes; the alternative feels vague and promotional. |
