Coffee With Tanya #36
AI that acts on its own, fonts with feelings, the friendship crisis nobody talks about, the dark truth behind chocolate, immersive theater’s next chapter, and why everything looks like a Wes Anderson film. Grab your coffee ☕
Hello coffee lovers! ☕
February was… a lot. Proper chaos. But in between the madness, there were good moments, small surprises, and a few memories I’ll keep for a long time.
Mostly it was work, work, work, building a business while living inside it. A real rollercoaster. Some days feel exciting, some feel completely doomed. Still, I wouldn’t trade it.
Even the sky felt dramatic this month... planets lining up, full moon and all. Nothing mystical, just a quiet reminder that we’re part of something bigger. That perspective helps. a lot!
Lately I’ve been thinking about connection... the kind we lose, the kind hiding in the tools we use, the kind AI creates for us, and the ancient kind built over a warm drink and a shared pause.
So grab your coffee (or hot chocolate), and let’s get into it. ☕
Here's what's brewing on this month's menu:
- Tech - The agentic AI shift: when AI starts acting for you 🤖
- Art - Typography’s hidden world: yes, fonts have feelings 🔤
- Social- The friendship recession: where did our adult friends go? 👥
- Food & Drink - Chocolate’s darker past 🍫
- Theater - Sleep No More - The power of immersive storytelling 🎭
- Cinema - The Wes Anderson aesthetic takeover 🎬
- Word Bites - Forelsket 📖
- February in History 🌍
"If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room." // Confucius
When AI Starts Acting: The Revolution 🤖
Last year, I was demoing a product when a client stopped me and asked:
“Can it just… do it for me?”
Not guide me. Not suggest. Just do it.
I remember thinking: we’re not there yet.
Well… we’re getting there. Fast.
What is agentic AI?
Until now, AI has been reactive. You ask, it answers.
Agentic AI is different. It sets goals, makes decisions, and completes chains of tasks on your behalf.
Think: asking for directions vs. handing someone the wheel.
And trusting they won’t crash.
We’re talking about:
- AI agents that book meetings, read emails, draft replies — without you touching a thing.
- AI that adjusts marketing campaigns in real time.
- Agents that write code, test it, deploy it, while you make coffee.
- Even AI that reprioritizes your backlog based on live usage data before your Monday sync.
This isn’t a feature upgrade. It’s a behavioral shift.
If you want a deeper dive, IBM has a solid explainer on AI agents.
The real question
This isn’t just a tech shift. It’s a trust shift.
Who’s responsible when it gets it wrong?
What if it optimizes for the wrong goal?
Where does human judgment still belong?
The most interesting design challenge right now isn’t building smarter AI.It’s building AI that knows when to act and when to ask.
Very interesting times we're living in...
World of Typography: Fonts Have Feelings 🔤
Here’s something I never expected to care about: fonts.
Not in the “oh, that looks nice” way.
More in the “wait… someone dedicated their entire career to perfecting the curve of the letter G?” way. What?! 🫢
Typography is everywhere, and we barely notice it. But the fonts you scroll past every day carry personality. Authority. Warmth. Nostalgia.
The serif on a law firm’s website says something very different from the rounded sans-serif on a baby brand.
Fun fact: Max Miedinger designed Helvetica in 1957 to be completely neutral. No personality. No agenda. Just clarity.
And designers have been debating ever since whether that neutrality is genius, or the problem.
In product design, I’ve sat in meetings debating font size for 45 minutes. It felt excessive at the time. Looking back? It wasn’t.
Fonts shape trust. They shape emotion. They quietly influence whether someone clicks “Sign up”, or closes the tab.
If you want to fall down this rabbit hole, the Helvetica documentary is worth it. You’ll never look at a menu or website the same way again.
The Adult Friendship Recession 👥
Somewhere in my early thirties, I noticed something.
My calendar was full. My social life looked fine on paper.
But the list of people I’d actually call when something went wrong?
It had quietly shrunk.
Turns out I wasn’t alone. The number of people with no close friends has quintupled since the 1990s. We’re more connected than ever by every metric that doesn’t count.
Why?
Life. Work. Kids. Moving cities.
There’s no anniversary for friendship. No built-in reminder to maintain it. And social media creates this illusion of closeness, you see their photos, you like their promotion post… but you haven’t really talked in years.
It’s intimacy debt. Paid in likes.
There’s a thoughtful piece from Harvard’s Leadership & Happiness Lab that dives deeper into what they’re calling the “Friendship Recession.”
Lately, I’ve been more intentional about this. Blocking time just to call people I miss.
Not to network. Not strategically.
Just because they’re someone I care about.
Simple.
Bryce Fuemmeler
The Dark History of Chocolate 🍫
February. Valentine’s Day. Chocolate.
You’d expect this to be the feel-good section. It kind of is. But also… not.
Chocolate has a 4,000-year history most of us rarely think about. The Olmecs in Mesoamerica were likely the first to cultivate cacao around 1500 BCE. For the Maya and Aztecs, it was sacred, used in rituals, as currency, and consumed as a bitter drink nothing like today’s hot chocolate.
When Europeans arrived, they fell in love with it. And, as often happened, built a global industry on exploitation to sustain that love.
Today, about 70% of the world’s cacao comes from West Africa. It’s a $130+ billion industry that still faces serious scrutiny around child labor and poverty wages.
I’m not giving up chocolate yet. Dark chocolate (sometimes with chili or lemon) is still one of my favorites. But ethically sourced, fair-wage chocolate exists. It costs more. It tastes better. And knowing the story changes the experience.
If you want the deeper dive, there’s a powerful documentary that lays it all out.
When Sleep No More Closed - Inside the Story 🎭
When Sleep No More closed, something shifted.
For those who never experienced it: this wasn’t a regular play. It was immersive theater inside the McKittrick Hotel, a massive building transformed into a 1930s noir dream.
Over 14 years.
5,000+ performances.
2 million visitors.
$240 million grossed globally.
But numbers don’t explain it.
There were no seats. No stage. You wore a mask and wandered through five floors of rooms, opening drawers, reading letters, following actors down dim hallways. You chose who to follow. What to watch. Where to linger.
No two people saw the same show.
It was immersive. Chaotic. Intimate.
You weren’t watching the story.
You were inside it.
What’s next for immersive?
- Punchdrunk, the creators, are now building an immersive adaptation of Arcane: League of Legends.
- Netflix is opening “Netflix Houses”, physical entertainment spaces in Philadelphia, Dallas, and Las Vegas.
- Denver is building the world’s first dedicated immersive theater venue, opening March 2026.
The stage isn’t dead.
But passive storytelling might be.
We don’t just want to watch anymore.
We want to enter.
Long live the experience. Check out a tiny piece of Sleep No More:
Wes Anderson Effect - Comfort of Symmetry 🎬
Picture this: a perfectly centered doorway. Soft pastel walls. A character speaking calmly in a carefully composed frame. Nothing feels random.
That’s Wes Anderson.
Through films like The Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Royal Tenenbaums, he created a visual language so distinct that the internet adopted it.
Scroll through TikTok or Instagram and you’ll see symmetrical train stations, pastel buildings, deadpan narration, all tagged #WesAnderson. There’s even an entire community, Accidental Wes Anderson, dedicated to real places that look like they belong in his films.
Why does it resonate?
Because everything is intentional, the symmetry, the palette, even the typography. In a chaotic world, that kind of order feels comforting.
It’s the visual version of a deep breath...
Word Bites! 📚✨
Forelsket (Norwegian)
That dizzy, euphoric feeling when you're falling in love ❤️ with someone, and the whole world looks slightly different because of it.
Before it's serious. Before it's complicated. Just the pure, almost unbearable feeling of someone new mattering.
There's no direct English translation. Which feels right, some feelings are bigger than the words we have for them.
February in History 🌍
- February 4, 2004 - Facebook Launches 🌐 What started as a Harvard dorm project grew into one of the most influential social platforms in history, reshaping communication, politics, and identity.
- February 6, 1952 - Queen Elizabeth II Ascends to the Throne 👑 At just 25, Elizabeth became Queen after the death of King George VI. She would reign for 70 years, the longest in British history.
- February 11, 1990 - Nelson Mandela Released ✊ After 27 years in prison, Mandela walked free, a defining moment in the dismantling of apartheid.
- February 15, 2005 - YouTube Is Founded 🎥 A small video-sharing startup launched and went on to redefine media, culture, and fame.
- February 21, 1848 - The Communist Manifesto Published 📜 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto, a text that would go on to shape global politics and revolutions for generations.
Recommendations 🌟
What I'm watching / listening to this month:
- 🎧 Listening - Smooth Vocals and Deep Grooves (YouTube Playlist)
My current weekend/work soundtrack. Rich, warm, unhurried music that makes everything feel slightly more cinematic. Put it on while you make coffee and thank me later. - 📺 TV Series - The Pitt
Quiet, precise, and completely gripping. The kind of show that doesn't need to shout. If you haven't started it yet, this is your sign. Spoiler - it's ER so there is blood and stuff, so if you're not into that, skip it. - 🎬 Movie - Blue Moon
A beautiful, slow-burning film that lingers with you. Ethan Hawke delivers a brilliant performance as lyricist Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s movie. Some reviews describe his acting as "sensational," "captivating," and "masterful," marking a potential career-defining role.
Wrap-Up
That's all for this month. Stay tuned for the March edition...
I'm also here:
You made it all the way here.... thank you for sharing this coffee with me ☕❤️.
If there's a topic you'd like me to dive into next, just send it my way.
Ciao!
-Tanya
If this piece was forwarded to you, sign up now to never miss a monthly edition!