We Used to Pause. Now We Schedule Through the Apocalypse.

Hope this finds you well—in the middle of a collapsing timeline.

There was a time when tragedy struck and we hit pause. The tweets stopped. Emails were unscheduled. Carousels were quietly yeeted into the void. Not because a consultant advised it. Not because the optics were bad. But because it was the human thing to do.

Now? It’s June 2025. And apparently, there’s never a “good time” to pause anymore—only time to pivot.

When the Feed Never Stops, But Everything Else Is Falling Apart

We’re living in an era where every headline feels like a personal attack. The protests haven’t stopped. The courts are on fire. You can’t open your phone without accidentally stumbling into another human rights crisis before you’ve had coffee.

And yet the content…keeps on coming. We tweak the caption a little bit here, and we soften the CTA a little bit there. Maybe we add a sentence about “how heavy this moment feels,” and hit publish like we didn’t just read three dystopian headlines in a row.

Because the calendar is booked, the algorithm is hungry, and capitalism said “no days off.”

Uvalde and the Ethics of Silence

In May 2022, after the Uvalde school shooting, I pulled all client posts. Nineteen elementary school kids and two teachers were murdered. That’s not a moment for marketing. All but one client understood. The one who didn’t? Thought it was about them.

(Dear Reader: It wasn’t.)

It was about knowing that sometimes, the most professional thing you can do is stop talking. They questioned my work ethic, but the truth is: this is my work ethic. Knowing when to speak and when to shut the hell up.

When the News Cycle Moves On—And You’re Still in It

A few months later, I was the crisis. Hurricane Ian hit Southwest Florida in September 2022. I lost contact with my mom during the storm. Our family home was destroyed. Everything we owned was gone—including all the photos and keepsakes from my late dad and papa.

I went viral trying to find her. #GetCaroleHome trended. News outlets picked it up. It was a whole thing.

(If you’d like to Google it: Beth Booker + Hurricane Ian. I’ll wait. Actually, I won’t. Onward.)

She was eventually found alive, on the couch, dry as a bone, surrounded by what used to be a home. The moment passed, and the national media moved on to the next big story. But I was still there—organizing donations for victims and first responders, handing out bottled water, shoveling hurricane muck, rallying volunteers, figuring out how to move my mom into my house—and somehow still managing PR campaigns like nothing had happened.

I wasn’t curating a lesson in resilience. I was too busy surviving the sequel to Noah’s Ark, sweating through disaster cleanup and figuring out where my mom was going to sleep.

The Hustle We’re Rewarded For—and What It Costs

And look, I’ve played the game. I’ve pitched clients from a hospital bed. I’ve fielded interview requests from the front seat of my car in the school pickup line. I once ran a client interview the same day I had surgery because the outlet was too good to pass up and I am, apparently, insane.

I’ve been everything this industry rewards: available, unbothered, overly scheduled, slightly concussed.

And for what? A screenshot of a placement and a Slack emoji reaction.

But some agencies still remember what a boundary is.

When wildfires hit LA, Horowitz Agency paused all pitching. Their PR director told Campaign Live it wasn’t about brand safety—it was about doing the right thing.

Imagine that: doing less…on purpose.

Meanwhile, We’re All Just Sending Emails During the End Times

This isn’t just a PR thing. This is an anyone-who-has-ever-hit-send-on-an-email-during-a-crisis thing. Founders. Journalists. Social Media Managers. Creators. We’re all expected to be emotionally intelligent and algorithmically optimized. To perform care without breaking tone. To sound like a human while behaving like a brand.

And meanwhile? We’re all just people, living through overlapping global traumas, sending emails that open with “Hope this finds you well” like we’re not actively disassociating, staring into the depths of our nonstop inboxes.

In this economy? Be serious.

It’s not burnout anymore. It’s moral whiplash.

We’ve Run Out of Precedents, But the Posts Keep Coming

And maybe it’s a millennial thing, too. We were raised on “wait 72 hours before posting.” We drafted the “in light of recent events” emails. We were trained to read the room before the room had a feed and an FYP.

But we’ve lived through so many “unprecedented” events, we’ve run out of precedents. 9/11. Recession #1. A global pandemic. January 6th. The fall of Roe. Recession #2. Taylor Swift re-recorded her entire discography out of spite—and our to-do lists didn’t even flinch.

We’re not shocked anymore. We’re just tired. And the content machine does not care. Now we’re being told to post through political collapse, as long as it aligns with the brand voice.

The Pause Is the Point

I miss when silence meant respect, not disengagement. When we didn’t have to justify skipping a post or justify a quiet day online. When care came before KPIs.

Because the pause wasn’t just a PR move. It was a boundary. It was how we said: This moment matters more than metrics. We weren’t waiting for approval. We were making space for grief, for outrage, for decency. So, maybe the most radical thing we can do now…is remember that.

Not every tragedy needs a take. Not every brand needs a stance. Not every crisis needs a Reel, a Canva slide and a call to action.

Because being human isn’t off-brand. And everything else? It can wait.

Hoping this actually finds you well,

Beth

I’ve done PR from hospital beds, hurricane zones, and back-to-back Zooms with no Wi-Fi. Subscribe if you’re also out here doing your best with a browser full of tabs and a soul that needs a nap.