Red Pill or Blue Pill: Strawberry Support & B1-66ER

 

Strawberry Support and B1-66ER were released together as two contrasting fragrances to raise funds for PCRF.  The two scents were represented by red and blue coloring, referencing the iconic red pill and blue pill imagery from The Matrix. We commissioned artist  Cha Tran to create the digital illustration for this release, which remains one of my favorite artworks we've commissioned. 

At the time, I was working in the beauty industry alongside millionaire business owners and influencers, many of whom held increasingly conservative views. Although our lifestyles and backgrounds were very different, we became close friends through shared interests, particularly in pop culture, entertainment, and media. Over time, however, I began to recognize how differently we interpreted the same stories, cultural references, and social issues.

I was particularly interested in how the red pill concept from The Matrix had been appropriated by right-wing online communities, often disconnected from the films' broader themes of liberation, identity, and systems of control.

Around this time, I first learned the term "dog whistle" and started recognizing patterns in conversations that I had previously dismissed as isolated, uncomfortable quirks. Comments that once seemed like awkward jokes or individual opinions began revealing something more troubling about the values of people around me.

I would hear things like, "If all gay people were like you and your husband, nobody would hate them," or "I want to help the children in Palestine, but THEY have already gotten to them." Even seemingly unrelated positions, such as strong anti-vaccination beliefs, took on a different meaning as I noticed how frequently they appeared alongside conspiratorial thinking and other prejudiced attitudes.

I began to understand that these weren't always isolated opinions. Sometimes, they reflected a broader worldview shaped by distrust, exclusion, and selective empathy. What I once interpreted as harmless eccentricities increasingly felt like signals of something more deeply rooted.

I found it especially interesting that some of these same people enthusiastically embraced The Matrix and the idea of being "red-pilled," while seemingly overlooking the stories about oppression, identity, and liberation embedded in the media they loved.

These two fragrances became a way for me to explore those contradictions, using familiar cultural references to begin conversations about subjects that were otherwise difficult to discuss within my professional and social circles.

B1-66ER / THE BLUE PILL

• Top Notes: Aldehydes, Black Pepper, Metal, Bergamot

• Heart Notes: Incense, Smoke, Geranium, Lavender, Leather

• Base Notes: Patchouli, Amber, Galaxolide, Woods

B1-66ER takes its name from a character in The Animatrix, specifically The Second Renaissance, which explores the events leading to the conflict between humans and machines in The Matrix universe.

The character's name, which visually spells "BIGGER," references Bigger Thomas, the fictional Black protagonist of Richard Wright's 1940 novel Native Son. The novel explores systemic racism, poverty, oppression, and the psychological consequences of living within a society structured by racial inequality.

In The Animatrix, B1-66ER is a domestic robot who kills his owner after learning that he is going to be destroyed. He is subsequently put on trial and condemned, with his case becoming a catalyst for a larger movement demanding recognition and rights for machines. The resulting conflict eventually leads to a world in which humanity is enslaved by the technology it created.

What interested me was how the story used artificial intelligence as an allegory for oppression, exploitation, and the struggle for autonomy. The treatment of machines draws parallels to historical patterns of dehumanization, slavery, and the denial of rights to marginalized communities.

At the same time, I was witnessing an almost unquestioning enthusiasm for generative AI among people in my professional and social circles, particularly the idea that it could replace human creative labor.

The sudden AI boom made me deeply uncomfortable. At my workplace, employees were being pushed to incorporate AI into their workflows to reduce costs. The company also began moving away from commissioning artwork and illustrations, despite having built much of its identity around creativity and its relationships with artists.  

This felt particularly contradictory to me because the business owner had an art school background and had become known for working with artists across her different ventures. I had watched a company that once celebrated creative professionals begin treating their work as something technology could cheaply replace.  I was in a space where they once celebrated the idea of helping small businesses/artists and now angry at my choices to still pay for artwork.

As part of B1-66ER, I wanted to explore the absurdity of this enthusiasm for generative AI art and question the assumption that these tools could replace human creativity.

I wasn't particularly familiar with ChatGPT and people kept telling me that the quality of AI-generated work depended on knowing the right prompts, almost as if there were some secret formula for extracting creativity from a machine.  So I decided to try something simple: I asked generative AI what kind of fragrance B1-66ER would want to wear if the character were alive today.

The response was remarkably generic, which was largely what I expected.  florals, woods, white musks... It reinforced my frustration with the idea that generating a plausible description was somehow equivalent to having imagination, cultural understanding, or lived experience.

Instead, I developed a post-apocalyptic fragrance inspired by the world of The Animatrix, interpreting its atmosphere of technological collapse, conflict, and exploitation through scent.

I even incorporated some of the generic fragrance notes suggested by the language model. They were so conventional and inoffensive that they could fit into almost any composition. However, the formulation, narrative, and artistic interpretation remained entirely human-directed and the accord built by hand drop by drop.

There was an intentional irony in using a story about artificial intelligence and oppression to question the uncritical enthusiasm surrounding AI, especially among people who celebrated The Matrix while overlooking its progressive and queer resonances.

The project was also a reminder that a technically acceptable result is not necessarily a meaningful creative expression. The cultural context, intention, and choices behind a work are just as important as the final product.

STRAWBERRY SUPPORT / THE RED PILL

• Top Notes: Gotu Kola/Centella Asiatica, Vines

• Heart Notes: Strawberry Seed Oil, Berries

• Base Notes: White Musks, Baked Sweets

Strawberry Support was released alongside B1-66ER as its red counterpart, but with a more direct humanitarian purpose.  The idea came from seeing headlines of destroyed food supply for the Palestinians including that year being the first without the strawberry and fruit harvests.

The fragrance was created to express solidarity with Palestinian children and raise funds for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF), an organization providing medical and humanitarian assistance to children in need.

At the time, I was working in an environment where public expressions of compassion and concern for children did not always extend to conversations about Palestine.

I was close friends with the business owner, but we had very different perspectives on whether these issues should be discussed publicly. She wanted the wave of political controversy to disappear, while I felt increasingly uncomfortable with the silence surrounding the suffering of Palestinian children.

She had previously promised to support my creative work, so I began thinking about how I could use that opportunity to reach an audience much larger than the one I had through my own small fragrance business.

Strawberry Support became that opportunity.  Through the fragrance, I was able to introduce the humanitarian issue through my art and discuss the PCRF fundraiser publicly on her platform.

She allowed me a few minutes to speak about the project during one of her livestreams. Immediately beforehand, she told me that she thought the effort was a lost cause and that she didn't agree with it.  Although I disagreed with her perspective, I still appreciated the opportunity to introduce PCRF to her audience of millions.

For me, Strawberry Support wasn't only about raising money. It was also about using whatever access and visibility I had to bring attention to an issue that I felt was being overlooked within my community.

The fragrance became both a fundraising initiative and a way to open conversations that otherwise might never have happened.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO

Although B1-66ER and Strawberry Support explore different subjects, they share an interest in how we interpret stories, recognize the humanity of others, and make choices based on our values. 

The red and blue imagery was intentional. Borrowing from The Matrix, I wanted to use a familiar visual language to encourage people to reflect on the choices they make, the information they accept, and the beliefs they carry into their everyday lives.  At a surface level glance I did want people to see it as Blue Pill choosing AI and Red Pill choosing humanity since "red pilling" has become to mean "seeing the truth in reality" and the obvious choice is to choose people but the story telling is also there for those who want to dive deeper.

I was still relatively unknown in the perfume industry when these projects were developed. My initial audience consisted largely of friends and acquaintances from the Los Angeles beauty, entertainment, and influencer communities.

I wanted to use references they already recognized, whether science fiction, popular culture, or familiar fragrance concepts, as starting points for conversations about issues I had been thinking about.

The fragrances didn't make a particularly large impact online, but they accomplished something meaningful for me personally.  They gave me a way to have difficult conversations with my peers, better understand the values of the people around me, and reflect on my own.

Both projects emerged from the discomfort of recognizing prejudice, including anti-trans attitudes, antisemitism, homophobia, and indifference toward marginalized communities, within social environments where I had previously felt a sense of belonging.

I was also confronting the realization that sharing interests with someone doesn't necessarily mean sharing their values. We could love the same movies, appreciate the same artwork, and enjoy the same cultural experiences while understanding their meanings in fundamentally different ways.

Rather than separating those experiences from my creative work, I used fragrance to process and communicate them.

PERSONAL NOTES

I knew these projects would be polarizing, particularly because of the conversations surrounding generative AI and fundraising for Palestinian children.

Looking back, however, they remain some of my most personally significant fragrances because of what I learned while creating them.

My relationship with my former friend and employer had become increasingly toxic. One of the most difficult contradictions was her strong opposition to my decision to pay artists to illustrate my personal projects when generative AI tools were readily available.

For me, commissioning artwork was never simply about obtaining an image. It was about supporting another creative person, building a relationship, and allowing their individual perspective to become part of the project.

That is why all the art illustration we comission remains so meaningful to me. It represents the human collaboration and artistic exchange I wanted to preserve at a time when those relationships were increasingly being treated as unnecessary expenses.

These experiences also helped me recognize that I no longer wanted to remain in an industry environment where my creative and personal values felt so disconnected from the people around me.

Perfumery gave me the independence to explore those ideas on my own terms, connect with different communities, and eventually leave an environment that had become unhealthy for me.

B1-66ER and Strawberry Support represent a turning point in how I understood my creative practice.

They reminded me that perfume doesn't need to exist solely as a commodity or a pleasant scent. It can be a way to question familiar narratives, document personal experiences, support causes, and create space for difficult conversations.

More importantly, these projects helped me see the people around me, and myself, more clearly.  Thanks for reading!

James