Welcome to {WAYY}

Hi there, I’m Linda, a professional wordsmith and amateur pop-culture nut, phone photographer, digital and IRL artist, comedy nerd, wellness fan, outspoken activist, and 13-year-old-pug mom. A friend said I should really change my website to lindasegatto.com, but WhyAreYouYelling has been a home to my creative bits and bobs since 2006 (on tumblr, on wordpress, on IG, etc.). If you’re just here for my work stuff, that’s cool. I’m pretty proud of it so keep on scrollin’ and tappin’.

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Testimonials

Linda is a talented Content + Copy professional and uniquely helps others develop a stronger appreciation and expectation for the strategic nature of the Content Design function. She is an effective and collaborative communicator. Linda is inquisitive and inclusive, and cares deeply about her work and the people around her. She is naturally empathetic and lifts others around her with her care and humor.

Kelsey L, Meta Product Manager

LEAD CONTENT DESIGNER

Meta

THE COMPANY FORMERLY KNOWN AS FACEBOOK

I spent three years at Meta working on optimizing existing flows and building brand new ones across apps, like the “new device experience,” contact point management in the new Accounts Center, and survey design templates. In my second role there, I got to work on organic and paid retail-ad formats.

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ASSOC. DIRECTOR, COPY & CONTENT

Freshly

MEAL DELIVERY

As the first writer at Freshly, I created, oversaw, and wrote just about everything (stuff for partnerships, product UI, packaging, social and video copy, billboards, commercials), establishing the brand voice and editorial tenets while pumping out projects. Startup lyfe!

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SENIOR COPY MANAGER

FreshDirect

ONLINE GROCER

I spent almost five years at FreshDirect crafting everything from product descriptions and emails to box inserts and print ads (and everything in between—and I do mean everything). As the only copywriter for the beginning of my career there (and eventually managing editor of freelancers, interns, and an in-house copywriter), I was an integral part in shaping the brand into what it is today.

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Essays

An inconsistent mix of reviews and thoughts from over the years… read more.

Poetry

There is more to come soon… probably… one day… read more.

Photography

Building this out too. But for now there’s some stuff there, sure… see more.

Drawing & painting

Also under construction. I draw women as food. That’s something to look forward to.

TESTIMONIALS

They like me,
they really like me

★

“Linda’s contributions to our team were invaluable. I highly recommend her for any challenging project where her ability to distill complicated information into an informed strategy and drive external alignment can be put to the test.“

★

“Given we’re a centralized team, our work is incredibly complex. Linda’s ability to synthesize and communicate those complexities continue to benefit our content designers. I was also struck by the amount of people that had a higher view of content design because of her impact on them.”

Since I posted in April… 1. I said goodbye to my trusty orange Honda fit. My last 3 years have been a sandwich of layoffs on both ends, cross-country moves from NY to FL to CA to NY, lots of time alone in my car. So getting rid of it felt like a whole “thing,” as usual—another closed chapter, another marked ending, another heavy farewell. I asked the dealer to make sure it goes to someone cool because this car has been all around the country and likes adventure. A bit of a wild stallion, that one. 2. I went into the office for the last time before getting laid off from Meta (during which I ate two lunches—that’ll show ‘em). 3. I spent a bunch of time with 🐶+🐱. And a bunch of time taking pictures to organize into little boxes that each hold a tiny little memory that no one cares about but me to post on the internet. 4. There were fun distractions too—hosting my pal Steph and remembering the fun parts of having a roommate, celebrating a friend’s bachelor party like people in their late 30s, attending a taping of the Daily Show (before the writers strike), pretending my legs weren’t cramping during the entirety of Sweeney Todd on Broadway, eating a hot dog and pretzel while rooting for NY Liberty at Barclays, watching every weird documentary and prestige TV show I could find. 5. I took the orange Fit on her last road trip down to FL to spend a little time with family, including all the family pets, and drove back up with Donna with a little stop in Charleston on the way. 6. I finally went to the doctor after, like, a very long time. Cried a little. Realized (again) that genetics are inevitable. Felt proud of myself for facing that shit. 7. Rejection emails. Website portfolio updating. Repeat. Most recently, a downer week spent catatonic in bed, reminding me how unemployment is just not a good look on me. 🔸🔹🔸 BUT here we are! We’ve made it to June! The gayest month of the year! Tomorrow my best pal comes to visit bc my depression is best behaved when we have company 💅. Then soon enough I’m off to celebrate that bachelor friend’s (gay) wedding as people in their late 30s do (very expensively, in the south of France). Aren’t you glad we caught up? Took my car on a last road trip down to Florida, spent time with family and lots of pets, drove back up with Donna and stopped in Charleston and Fredericksburg on the way (where we were almost eaten by an alligator, never forget), caught a WNBA game in Brooklyn, and drove upstate to see our family and friends before sending Donna off at JFK. After two weeks of adventures, Queens has felt very quiet this past week. Feeling funky and low the past week, but Finny and I just walked to the water and saw the cherry blossoms in bloom. Even against an overcast sky 🌫️ they looked perfect. They’ve been my favorite ever since I walked into a full field of pink cherry blossom trees at the Brooklyn botanic gardens way back when—we happened to hit the season just right, and I never have seen it quite like that again. Anyway, I’m reminding myself of all the things I’m grateful for, Friday will mark 25 years since Mike and I lost our vibrant, smart, hilarious mom. One night she was there and then she was gone, and you never really get over that. 25 years later and some days I feel her loss more than ever. She was robbed of so much dying so young, and the pain of that just compounds over the years as more and more things happen without her. I am now a few years older than she ever got to be, and not having my mom as a role model as I grow older is a whole new side of grief. I will never know what she would have looked like with gray hair or what wisdom she would’ve shared to help me through this new phase of my life. As always, I try to forge my own path and live the best life I can… for the both of us. I swear to god I was working for most of this trip innit. Thanks to my former Meta boss @kellyyouknowit for showing me around London. 1:30 AM in London and I’m just over here laying in a hotel bed making reels of my dog that make me cry. Life in color, pets in black and white. Blue eggs 🪺 were worth double the price for the novelty alone. Pro tip: add frozen dragon fruit to every smoothie. I know I’m itching for spring when I organize every shelf and cabinet in my apartment. I bought an expensive office chair and then returned it for a cheapie blue one with a wide seat I saw on Amazon; Felix and my tush approve. I’m headed on a work trip Saturday morning, and while I’m very excited (and anxious) to experience new stuff, I also know how good it’ll feel to be back in my own bed with my two buddies after 8 nights away. Got home from my Yonkers visit with Donut (and Jackie and Gil) just in time to see the remnants of a heavenly sunset in LIC 🌅. Even the drive back had a beautiful sky 🥰. My posts (and thoughts) have been morbid lately with all the mortality chat. Ever since I had a near death-experience last year, I’ve felt a constant fear of life getting cut short. (On top of the strong foundation that already existed from losing my mom when she was only 35.) It’s been hard to shake—I feel the fear of death in my body multiple times a day, whenever my thoughts wander, when I wake in the middle of the night, and it’s chilling. I’ve started to accept that I can’t make it stop so now every time it happens, I’ve started to say to myself, “I am alive,” over and over like a mantra. I’ve found it calming to find fleeting moments of beauty, joy, pleasure anywhere I can, and I feel so much more aware in general of life in the moment. So when the voice of an angel (in the form of @wynstarks) belted out music in the middle of the office, in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of Black history month, in the middle of a little crowd of admirers, I felt the music deep down in my bones. I think the whole 15th floor was moved by the moment along with me. What a blessing, what a gift. So here’s today in pictures—a day I am very much alive and so are you. (Make sure to check out my kewl IG fanny pack at the end.) Took a stroll along the waterway with my valentine. (Thanks for the tip that this marsh walkway existed, @caitlinmcelroyyy.) I still have so much exploring to do. I’ve had lovely moments of reconnection since being back in NY, reminding me why I switched roles at Meta to get back home. It was definitely a trade off and I’m still finding my footing, but seeing old friends and experiencing NY in this new era feels right. * Donna asked what my mom would’ve wanted to do for her 60th birthday, and I think it would’ve looked a lot like this weekend: wandering around a museum, feeling the energy of NY, eating good food, spending time with human and furry friends. * I went to see the Guillermo Del Toro Pinocchio exhibit at MoMA after watching it over Christmas break with my parents. The movie is dark and bizarre, and its message in the end (which you can see in one of the collages) felt profound and has really stuck with me: “What happens happens, and then we are gone.” I have been feeling that more and more every day, every week, every year, and it’s frightening but also the only way to keep myself in the moment, seeking meaning where I can and letting go where I can. * After a yummy meal at Wagamama, I took a cab home and remembered that my favorite part of going out in my 20s was coming back to BK over a bridge and looking out at the water and skyline and window lights. In the early years, I would try to take pics out the window with Anne’s digital camera or my silly flip phone. Now I can share a video in an instant. Experiencing the cycles, circles, parallels, progress of life has been trippy lately, man, especially with grief sneaking up on me today, reminding me that as long as I’m alive, I’m experiencing joy for the both of us (and maybe many, many more on down the line). Whatever happens happens, over and over again, between us and around us, and then we are gone—but the little tiny impact we make by existing at all, as our truest selves, can never be undone. That’s what I’m holding onto anyway. OK back to Love Island 😎. (Very relevant Super Bowl content.) A collage of mostly my own dang selfies throughout this 37th year of mine. This year I learned a lot about being alone, which was often tough but sometimes truly beautiful. I stood in deep forests and on cliffs, boats, and balconies with only my own thoughts. I watched sunsets and a whole lot of TV, alone. I learned that I want deep, meaningful community, but that I also don’t have to accept less than I deserve. And I’m not afraid of raising the bar when it comes to how I am willing to be treated because I know how to find pleasure and joy in my own company. Drawing that line, of who gets access to my heart and care and time, has also helped me be more intentional about the relationships that do fill me up. And while I was alone today on my birthday, I didn’t feel lonely. It feels like what I put out may start to come back to me, whether it’s from the universe or the people I care about. This weekend I drove upstate for a wake, and driving around Rotterdam, seeing all my old childhood houses and haunts on the way to pay my respects, was a good reminder of how important it is to both remember and be present. 37 was the year of realizing that I’m getting older in a meaningful, no-going-back kind of way, and that it’s a natural stage in my life to notice how things and people and memories and bodies change over time—it’s part of how we weave and make sense of our own stories. I have been thinking a lot about ancestors and family lately—how we capture & honor traditions both consciously and unconsciously, how we can feel who our people are in our bones, how so much is lost between just a couple generations. Long story short: I’ve been chewing on some big stuff, and it’s not going to all make sense yet. Maybe it never will! The privilege of getting older is that you get to collect more and more puzzle pieces as time goes on. Some pieces will always be lost with time or buried underground with our dead, but the picture can still come together and show us what we were building all along, something that we had sometimes seen in brief flashes when we were sitting in the quiet moments of life, alone with our thoughts. * Anyway, I’m 38 😎💅🙃. Enjoy the many faces of 37.

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@WHYAREYOUYELLING

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Let’s talk. About work, sure, but also TV, politics, pugs, favorite seltzer flavors—whatever!