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Neil Oldman

Neil Oldman

Neil Oldman is hanging on by his claws. If I'm going down, somebody's coming with me. One of us will end up wearing the other's skin. Here, have this cool rock.

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No Commision, No Middle Man

3 min readAug 17, 2026
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Grape leaves and chocolates, Neil Oldman Ideogram

I saw on Instagram a funny Chinese woman in a promotional video for a grape leaves canning factory. She speaks enthusiastically in a thick accent which I find hilarious and made me question just how racist I am for thinking so. Okay. Like.

Then I made the mistake of seeking out another video from the same profile. Now I get multiple videos in my feed from Sherry at artjusgrapeleaves every day. I watched a couple, still amused. After half a dozen, I had had my fill.

But still Instagram serves up the shorts. Now IG has decided I would probably like a different Chinese lady who sings songs about the “complete” engines she has for sale. A third Chinese lady points out all the features available in a prefab home. But by this point, I’m no longer amused by Chinese ladies barely speaking English.

One of the versions of the artjusgrapeleaves promos features Sherry in a car, spliced together with scenes from a Leonardo Dicaprio movie, where through the magic of editing, she appears to have a conversation with Leo about the virtues of Artjus grape leaves. IG now serves me up a promo with a different lady having the exact same conversation with the exact same clips of Leo, but selling engines. I have been presented with a Chinese knockoff of a Chinese viral clip. But I guess these days that’s just called a “trend.”

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Neil Oldman
Neil Oldman

Written by Neil Oldman

Neil Oldman is hanging on by his claws. If I'm going down, somebody's coming with me. One of us will end up wearing the other's skin. Here, have this cool rock.