Welcome to WeTransfer. Please leave

People are burnt out. Creative work has suffered. And that has to change.This is our response. A campaign to highlight and encourage people to use our intuitive tools and then get back to what’s important in their lives

Since the beginning of WeTransfer all the way back in 2009, our team has envisioned technology as a tool to help humans and facilitate creativity — and nothing more. Simple.

But as the tech industry has matured over the past decade, it’s become very obvious that others have taken a very different approach.

We are targeted based upon our habits and fed dopamine hits to keep us coming back. In the rush to monetize and boost engagement rates, ads have become disruptive to workflow. Notifications and constant pings to lure people into an app or platform have escalated.

Something that has become apparent is that there is a huge disconnect between the way people would like to engage in the world and the way we actually live. It’s not that we are untrue, it’s that life and technology gets in the way. We’re so busy running from meeting to meeting, from update to update, from post to post that we forget about our values momentarily and hide behind the shield of the internet that allows our actions to be invisible.

People are burnt out. Creative work has suffered. And that has to change.

This is our response. A campaign to highlight and encourage people to use our intuitive tools and then get back to what’s important in their lives:

“Welcome to WeTransfer. Please Leave.”

This film was inspired by the findings from our Ideas Report — a global study revealing how and where over 10.000 creatives get their best ideas.

The campaign embodies WeTransfer’s values: building technology that sparks inspiration and moves ideas. Keeping you in flow. Because when you’re here, you’re not there. And the best ideas happen offline. We crafted a poem that is read by Roxane Gay and encapsulates this message:

Have you ever thought about the other you?

Another you.

A you that you felt truer to.

What would you say?

If you saw yourself wasting away.

Stuck online.

Inhaling content… Exhaling time.

But oh, the you,

the you that flew the coop to prove that life could move

in any way — you got to choose.

You left the screens, you ditched the memes, looking for the life between

the life you have now, and the life of your dreams.

You found it there,

swirling, twirling, in the crisp, fresh air.

Everything you’ve read about, tweeted, liked and posted out,

this is where it all comes from.

The real world.

That ‘you can feel’ world.

And when this other one of you returned to see what it could do

with all the feelings it knew was true,

you poured your heart into the keys, as quickly as possible to see

what to keep and what to free.

Then once again, it was time to live,

it was time to leave.

We’re sharing this poem to remind ourselves and others that it’s time for a cultural paradigm shift in our relationship with technology. Tech is a tool. Its purpose is to serve us, not the reverse. It’s designed to help us build better lives, work better and strengthen our relationships. We need to get better at recognizing that. Go outside. Get coffee with a friend. Put your phone down.

Our view was, is, and always will be: people first, creativity second, technology third.

We’re a team of creative thinkers. We see you. We hear you.

We believe great things happen when things just flow.

And if you made it all the way down here, it’s probably time to leave.