Claire Brito is a social content strategist at Hearst with four years inside one of the largest media companies in the world, but her real preoccupation runs ahead of the job title. She came up through Georgetown, spent time at the UN Foundation helping orchestrate the Girl Up Leadership Summit for 500+ participants across international development, briefly detoured through energy litigation research, and eventually landed in social editorial, moving from editor to senior editor to strategist with the kind of quiet momentum that comes from being consistently right about what's next.
What are you working on currently?
I’m a writer, editor, and content strategist at Hearst. I’ve recently relocated from NYC home to Austin, Texas and have enjoyed getting acquainted with the local print media scene here.
Dream collaborator (living or dead)?
Sophie Calle
Any advice you would give to someone just starting out in your industry?
Be curious. Pay attention to what people are working on. And always be reading outside of your vertical– if you write about design, read about tech; if you write about fashion, read history. It always connects and it gives your writing weight, something to bite into. The reader can feel it.
What’s a belief you hold that most people in your industry would disagree with?
I think for a long time journalists in the digital space have been trained to chase traffic, clicks, impressions–mass. And with social, that’s turned into more impressions the better. But with how the internet is changing, I think we’re going to see social changing as a second order effect. More lifestyle posting, kind of cheugy? If everyone’s an influencer, no one is? So I think we have to change that mindset that more social, the better in the same way things have changed from more traffic, the better.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ignored?
To stay in New York! Great advice that I’m currently not living by. (I think about Paul Graham’s Cities and Ambition essay a lot, and it’s been fun seeing what’s going on in Austin)
What’s something you’ve changed your mind on in the last few years?
Health. My grandma just turned 90 and she’s very un-optimized, very European.
Overhyped/underhyped?
For how mainstream talking about ‘nervous system regulation’ is, I think we’re going to see more in the true language of addiction (gabor mate becoming to gen z what brene brown was to millennials)
What do you spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about?
I think about the idea of luxury a lot in the context of what we put online. I think we’re going to swing really into privacy, being really offline and getting all of your info from short-form video is going to be seen as really cheugy (being ‘very on’ smartphone in general, posting about a dinner you attended, etc. who’s opting out? Who can’t afford to opt out?). Real craftsmanship and expertise you have to prove. I think about the switch from a textual/literary society to primary video, and what that’s doing to our brains, what we think we should look like, how to perform (wealth, health, taste, and otherwise).
And romance, which I think overlaps. What makes someone sexy.
Fav product?
Muji 0.7mm gel ink ballpoint pens
What’s the last text you sent and who did you send it to?
Trying to get booked in with my Human Design reader. She’s very busy!
Who is doing something (anything) great that you’d like to shoutout?
Kathryn Jezer-Morton has a book coming out in August that I just pre-ordered. I think her writing about family life is brilliant.
Most interesting reads of late:
Stop Talking About Mental Health by Ashley Frawley for Compact
About ADIN
ADIN is a highly AI focused pursuit (bringing algorithmic venture with the full force of AI agents). ADIN is also just as much about the people. We’re building a network where early-stage funding happens faster, fairer, and with more incentives for the people on the bleeding edge. If you want to be part of that, apply here to be a scout or investor and follow ADIN as we keep opening doors.
You can follow Claire on X.
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