> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.gabriellas-edit.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Issue No. 28: Your Niche Might Just Be Your Lore - URL: https://www.gabriellas-edit.com/issue-no-28-your-niche-might-just-be-your-lore/ - Published: 2026-10-22T14:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-22T14:00:10.000Z - Author: Gabriella Quansah - Tags: #template, Issues The internet told us to pick one thing. Meanwhile, the people we actually remember have running jokes, oddly specific opinions and a backstory. Plus: whether you can ever go back to the company that laid you off, a very good LA birthday dinner and enough fall layers to require a system. *Career. Style. Restaurants. Life upgrades. And whatever else happens to be living rent-free in my brain that week. Every Thursday. Happy you're here!* --- ## BOOKMARK THIS 🤎 Ask the Archive — your shortcut to every recommendation, restaurant map, and answer: https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/ 🤎 My Amazon storefront — finds, beauty, home, little life purchases: https://www.amazon.com/shop/gabriiellas15 🤎 My ShopMy — outfits, shoes, accessories, everything I wear: https://shopmy.us/gabriiellas 🤎 Barry's free first class: https://share.barrys.com/gabbysep15!4ba0f95fc8!a 🤎 Subscribe for a discount on your first lash appointment at Pampered Nail Salon — DM me after for the code 🤎 Subscribe for a discount on your first nail appointment at Blossom Nail Lounge — DM me after for the code [![photo placeholder](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/no.-28--2-.png)](https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/live-edit?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) **Have you been to* [**Ask the Archive*](https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) *yet? You should.* --- ## What's Got Me Thinking This Week This week, a coworker quoted my own newsletter back to me in a meeting. Not the advice—the joke. Then a friend texted asking where to take her parents for dinner in Walnut Creek because, and I quote, “you’re the restaurant girl.” Neither of those things is my job title. Neither is on my LinkedIn. But somewhere along the way, the random things I kept talking about became the things people actually know me for. So this prompted...Wait. Is this my lore now? --- ## THE BIG THOUGHT > Your Niche Might Just Be Your Lore [![photo placeholder](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/8023C97B-13ED-44A9-ABF3-2AA4C751977E_1_105_c.jpeg)](https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) For years, the internet’s favorite piece of creator advice was: pick a niche. Choose one topic. Make it immediately clear what people should follow you for. Career. Style. Food. Pick a lane and stay in it long enough for the algorithm to understand you. I tried that. I kept everything clean: career, style, food, done. I stopped sharing the messier personal stories, the hot takes and the extremely specific internet rabbit holes. It looked more professional. It also looked like everyone else. ### The engagement was fine. The connection was basically zero. Slowly, I let the other things back in. A deep dive on gaslighting. A conversation about when a public callout becomes a pile-on. Friday File stories inspired by conversations with friends, shit to do on the weekends. Every time I wrote one, I had the same panic: Is this too random? Too personal? Is anyone even here for my opinions? And every time, those were the pieces people answered. Not just liked. Answered. They sent their own stories. They forwarded the newsletter to a friend and came back with exhibits A through F. They told me the argument they had processed 48 hours too late—which, unfortunately, is also one of my signature moves. I do not always have the perfect response in the moment, but please know I will return in two business days with supporting documentation. Paak has accepted this as a feature, not a bug. Then there are the restaurant recommendations. Give me the neighborhood, the occasion and the budget and I will have an answer, plus a backup in case the first one is booked. And the tiny lowercase quotes on Instagram with maximum feelings. People send them to each other with “this is SO you,” which means my internal monologue is now public record. None of that fits neatly into one topic. It does, however, sound exactly like me. ### That is the difference I had been missing. A niche is what you talk about. Lore is the collection of details that makes people recognize you no matter what you are talking about. The word itself is having a moment. Sprout Social named “lore” its 2026 Social Media Word of the Year after tracking more than 10 million mentions. Their point was that audiences are increasingly drawn to backstory, recurring characters and the small details that build a shared world—not just isolated posts designed to perform. [Read the report](https://sproutsocial.com/insights/press/lore-crowned-the-2026-social-media-word-of-the-year-according-to-sprout-social/?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) Which makes sense. The people we remember online are rarely the ones who only repeat a category. They are the ones with a point of view that follows them from category to category. For me, the thread is standards. My bio says “life upgrades,” and I meant it. I research everything, form a strong opinion and will absolutely tell you when I think a better option exists. That is true whether I am talking about a restaurant, an outfit, work, marriage, hosting or why a five-minute bad interaction should not automatically become a 45-million-view public execution. ### The topics change. The taste does not. And the recurring pieces become part of the world: Paak’s Edit, the restaurant recommendations, the unexpectedly personal hero story, the reader who arrives in my inbox with her own receipts. Even Sh\*t Worth Doing in the Bay is becoming its own thing. It is not just my lore anymore. It is ours. There still have to be boundaries. My family’s privacy is not a content strategy. Paak appears the way he appears in my actual life, not as material for a recurring character arc. Work specifics stay protected. Anything I am still genuinely processing stays off the page until it becomes a story, not a wound. But outside of those lines, I am done treating personality like clutter that needs to be edited out. Maybe the goal is not to be known for one thing. Maybe it is to be recognizable across everything. ### Content gets saved. Lore gets answered. --- ## One Thing I Learned > The Von Restorff Effect [![outfit photo placeholder](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/A51D7C9C-FA7A-4574-8FFC-CCA25AE1E215_1_102.jpeg)](https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) ### The concept: The Von Restorff effect, also called the distinctiveness or isolation effect, is the idea that an item that noticeably differs from the rest is more likely to be remembered. [APA Dictionary](https://dictionary.apa.org/distinctiveness-effect?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) ### In plain English It is a memory principle, not a command to manufacture a personality online. But it explains why the oddly specific detail usually sticks longer than the perfectly polished category. People may forget the fifth general restaurant recommendation they saw that day. They are less likely to forget the woman who always has a backup reservation, returns to arguments with exhibits and gives her husband his own fashion section. ### What I’m stealing from this Your niche tells people where to file you. Your lore gives them something to remember. --- ## WHAT I WORE > Layers on Layers, Finally [![outfit photo placeholder](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/IMG_1495.jpeg)](https://shopmy.us/shop/collections/8428866?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) Link to fitties: [Shop the look →](https://www.amazon.com/shop/gabriiellas15/photo/amzn1.shoppablemedia.v1.883f446a-3a96-472c-a524-52041b170106?ref%5F=aipsfphoto&ref=gabriellas-edit.com) top & glasses [Shop the look →](https://shopmy.us/shop/collections/7390223?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) bottoms The weather finally remembered it is fall, which means I can stop pretending one shirt counts as an outfit. For dinner, I layered a mid-blue oversized denim shirt over a white base, added the khaki faux-leather funnel-neck gilet and doubled down on denim with barrel jeans. The silver anchovy and molten necklaces keep it from feeling too literal. It is a lot of layers, yes. That is the point. Sue me. ### The Outfit Details Seam Detail Barrel Jeans · Mid Blue Oversized Denim Shirt · Khaki Faux Leather Funnel Neck Gilet · Silver Anchovy Necklace · Silver Molten Necklace · Shop the full look: [https://shopmy.us/shop/collections/8428866](https://shopmy.us/shop/collections/8428866?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) --- ## WHERE WE ATE > Budonoki — Los Angeles [![restaurant photo placeholder](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/IMG_0674.jpeg)](https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/map?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) We went to Budonoki for Paak’s birthday with a group, and it was exactly the right choice: lively, very vibes, and built for a dinner where nobody wants to spend 20 minutes negotiating what to order. [![restaurant photo placeholder](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/IMG_0662.jpeg)](https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/map?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) For larger groups, they preset the menu. Honestly, everything hit—and it was a lot of food. The glazed jidori chicken wings with hot honey soy-garlic butter and the aburi salmon crispy rice with shiro miso and serrano were standouts on our table. And don't get me started on the curry pan, which was a very unique surprise! The room has that fun izakaya energy without becoming impossible to talk in, and the drinks stay within beer, wine, sake and shochu territory rather than a full-liquor program. Best for: a birthday dinner, a group celebration or a date night that needs actual energy. Honest note: Come hungry. The preset menu did not believe in sending anyone home with room left. Address: 654 N Virgil Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90004 Menu + reservations: [https://www.budonoki.la/menu](https://www.budonoki.la/menu?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) Full list of LA spots → [https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/](https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) → ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/Screenshot-2026-10-21-at-8.15.15---PM.png) ## More reservations worth making > Azizam — Silver Lake Azizam is the Silver Lake walk-in for homestyle Persian cooking, warm bread and dishes that taste like someone cared long before you arrived. Researched save—not a personal review yet. Menu: [https://www.azizamla.com/menu](https://www.azizamla.com/menu?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) · Map: [https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=Azizam 2943 W Sunset Blvd Los Angeles CA 90026](https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=Azizam%202943%20W%20Sunset%20Blvd%20Los%20Angeles%20CA%2090026&ref=gabriellas-edit.com) > Camélia — Arts District Camélia blends French bistro technique with Japanese flavors in a polished but warm Arts District room. Researched save—not a personal review yet. Details: [https://cameliadtla.com/](https://cameliadtla.com/?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) · Map: [https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=Camelia 1850 Industrial St Los Angeles CA 90021](https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=Camelia%201850%20Industrial%20St%20Los%20Angeles%20CA%2090021&ref=gabriellas-edit.com) > More restaurant recommendations Ask the Archive → [https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/](https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) --- ## THE EXTRA STORY > Would You Go Back to the Company That Laid You Off? The Rehire Question [![photo placeholder](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/74EA44E8-7BA2-42C1-9D2A-20A9593A901A_1_105_c.jpeg)](https://ask.gabriellas-edit.com/curate?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) I have been laid off. It suckeddddd. And after working in Bay Area tech marketing, I have watched layoffs happen in basically every direction. But one story still lives in my head. A close friend was laid off in a big “restructuring” email on a Tuesday. Seven months later, the same company and same team posted a new role. The title was fancier and the pay was better because the market had moved. They reached out to her first. She took the meeting. She did not take the job. ### The ask itself told her everything: they did not miss her. They missed the headcount math she represented. Still, I understand why going back is not an automatic no. A 2026 survey of 1,000 recently laid-off U.S. workers found that 46% would consider returning to the employer that let them go. Women were less open to it than men—39% compared with 52%. The same survey found 63% received no severance, including 66% of women surveyed. [Read the Zety Layoff Experience Report](https://zety.com/blog/layoff-experience-report?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) Honestly? Whether I would go back would depend almost entirely on how I left. If leadership was honest, gave me real notice, offered real severance and treated me like a human being, the door would not be welded shut. Business is business. The new role would have to be genuinely better—not my old job with a rebrand—and I would need proof that whatever “caused” the layoff had actually changed. ### I am not re-boarding a plane that just announced turbulence is the business model. Better pay alone would not do it. That is a signing bonus on a bad situation; it spends the same and the anxiety comes free. An apology is nice, but it is still words from the same system. I would want new leadership, more stability and some evidence that the role is not first on the chopping block during the next restructuring. And to be very real: sometimes you go back because you need the job. There is zero shame in that. Rent does not care about your principles arc. The part I would have the hardest time forgiving is the how. Finding out because Slack logged you out. Hearing the news from someone reading a script who cannot answer a single question. Being walked out like a security risk after years of “we are a family here.” You can survive being laid off. What you do not forget is being treated like a corrupted file someone needed to delete before lunch. Companies get to call layoffs business decisions because, for them, they are. But you are not a number to yourself. You are the person who gave that job late nights, good ideas and a small piece of your identity. ### So this is where I land: do not automatically take the decision personally. Absolutely take the treatment personally. ### That part was a choice. --- ## HIS EDIT — PAAK'S PICKS > Relaxed Proportions, Zero Fuss ![photo placeholder](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/IMG_0637.jpeg) Paak kept the color palette neutral and let the proportions do the work: a Bershka white long-sleeve tee, sand-washed wide jeans and cream Climacool Laced shoes. The silver chain and A$AP Rocky x Ray-Ban frames make the neutrals feel intentional without doing the absolute most. A$AP Rocky x Ray-Ban glasses: [https://www.ray-ban.com/usa/eyeglasses/RX3927Vrb3927v optics by asap rocky-arista gold/8056262904183](https://www.ray-ban.com/usa/eyeglasses/RX3927Vrb3927v%20optics%20by%20asap%20rocky-arista%20gold/8056262904183?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) Sand-washed jeans: White long-sleeve boxy tee: [https://www.bershka.com/us/long-sleeve-boxy-fit-t-shirt-c0p228202946.html](https://www.bershka.com/us/long-sleeve-boxy-fit-t-shirt-c0p228202946.html?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) Cream Adidas Climacool Laced shoes: [https://adidas.onelink.me/ihha?pid=AppSharePDP&af\_dp=adidas%3A%2F%2Fproduct%2FKJ8969&af\_web\_dp=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.adidas.com%2Fus%2F-%2FKJ8969.html](https://adidas.onelink.me/ihha?pid=AppSharePDP&af%5Fdp=adidas%3A%2F%2Fproduct%2FKJ8969&af%5Fweb%5Fdp=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.adidas.com%2Fus%2F-%2FKJ8969.html&ref=gabriellas-edit.com) JAXXON 5mm Cuban Link chain in silver: [https://jaxxon.com/products/cuban-link-chain-5mm-silver](https://jaxxon.com/products/cuban-link-chain-5mm-silver?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) --- ## THINGS MAKING LIFE EASIER > Tiny Oval Frames [![product photo placeholder](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/51uCY3pmS6L._AC_SX679_.jpg)](https://link.amazon/B04RQgqmi?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) The tiny oval glasses have officially joined the outfit rotation. They give a basic look just enough attitude and, as demonstrated above, work very well with aggressive fall layering. Shop → [https://link.amazon/B04RQgqmi](https://link.amazon/B04RQgqmi?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) > The Coffee-Lover Variety Pack [![product photo placeholder](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c3/39/c3392474-380a-44ad-82cb-cc4e18b95ed0/content/images/2026/10/71pS-LtpmCL._SL1500_.jpg)](https://link.amazon/B07IKBeOF?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) A 40-count mix of K-Cup pods for when committing to one coffee flavor before I have had coffee feels unreasonable. Because we need more flavors...always. Shop → [https://link.amazon/B07IKBeOF](https://link.amazon/B07IKBeOF?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) --- ## CLOSING VIBES Watching: The Diplomat Binged it, and boy oh boy was that good. Smart people making extremely high-stakes decisions while their personal lives quietly combust? Unfortunately, my genre. Also Watching: East of Eden I have never read the book, but woooofff. Great television. The fun bit: the new limited series was created by Zoe Kazan, whose grandfather Elia Kazan directed the 1955 film adaptation starring James Dean. So this adaptation has its own family lore before you even press play. [More from Netflix](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/east-of-eden-release-date-photos?ref=gabriellas-edit.com) Okay, that is it from me this week. Go be specific enough to become someone’s group-chat reference. Love ya! xx, Gabriella