Is Social Media the new TV?

Generations before us, everyone used to watch TV. Shows from the 70s and 80s had 10s of millions of people tune in for specific shows. Jerry Seinfeld referenced his finale had 80 million people watch it in the US. MASH had 100+ million people watch their finale, and that’s just in the US. I know people around the world, including Canada, watched that show as well.

But now TV ratings don’t matter at all. No one watches television anymore, at least not the younger generation. Cable is getting completely phased out. People have Disney plus, apple+, Netflix, crave, Hulu, etc. Because they get to watch shows when they want to instead of when they’re told to.

We’ve switched to an on demand economy. We want everything now. Uber, a car comes to our house now and instantaneously drives us. We don’t have to call a cab company and wait 15 minutes to see if the guy will even show up. We can track his every movement to see exactly how far he is.

Amazon purchases. We love the convenience of getting something directly to your house without going somewhere to find it. The instantaneous-ness of the world, even with shipping times. Don’t get me wrong; there are definite benefits, particularly in a pandemic environment. We don’t have to go the store or mall anymore to buy it. I miss going to malls in some ways, but I also know from a macro sense they’re completely phasing out, unless they’re really high end ones. There’s not going to be as many so all the smaller malls and shops are getting completely phased out. People can their food through Uber Eats and Doordash. They don’t have to drive around their neighbourhood looking for the best shop and places to eat.

Everything is instant. Just like social media. It’s an immediate dopamine hit. It immediately feels like we’re a part of the world that’s so much bigger than what we can imagine. We can look at the beautiful landscapes of Hawaii and the latest fitness model showing her ass all instantaneously. It keeps us on the app longer, this feeling that we’re a part of something. But it’s all BS. It’s just distracting us from living a fulfilled life. Doing things for you and not what someone else thinks. Not chasing digital likes.

People are making decisions entirely based on their digital profile, not who they are as a person. I’m sure there are tons of influencers who are miserable and trying to figure out the next way to sell their bodies so they can sell a product. Don’t get me wrong; they have every right to commoditize their body.

That’s the other thing social media has done is allow people to have jobs that didn’t use to exist. The influencer of the old days had to be rich and powerful, or really connected to publications to get talked about. Now you can create a whole career based on selling products for other companies for your 100k followers.

But that disappears after a while. People don’t stay hot their whole lives. Eventually all of these influencers are going to be out of a job if they don’t diversify and use their influence in more sustainable ways. Actually pretty interesting to learn about the future of the creator economy because there are some very smart people who are involved in it. They understand that this game they’re only playing is correlated to the amount of work and time they put in. Are they ready to create content for that long, like decades? I’m sure some creators will, and create production houses to generate their own content.

But it’s exhausting. The people I used to follow when I was 18 I don’t care about anymore. My priorities have shifted. I don’t need to see girls in bikinis selling fitness tea. It just doesn’t do anything anymore. It’s also just so tiring. To be constantly looking and improving and monetizing your digital profile. Like it never stops. I do have to respect the people who have done it for a while like King Bach, but goddam it must be so tiring. Do you really continue to love filming in front of screens and create stupid skits for decades? I don’t know.

But that being said, creators are the new actors. They’re the people the new generation is looking at as role models. Look at Logan Paul and Jake Paul. Classic examples. They’ve now figured out a way now to monetize their Youtube attention in a different format. The Floyd mayweather fight is so smart because they can generate enough fans. Advertisers still want eyeballs to sell their stuff and with the attention some of the creators can get, they’re still willing to pay top dollar.

It’s just hard in entertainment to maintain a multi-decade career doing the same thing in and out. How many actors have been in great movies for decades? There’s probably a handful. In those cases though, they’re not entirely in control of the movies they get. Hollywood is so much more complicated in terms of who works with who, agents, managers, actors being typecast to specific roles. So actors themselves, unless they become big time actors who have been in the game for a while, don’t get to create their own stuff.

You really just have to love the process. The art of creating. The constant work and tinkering. Figuring out your audience. Really understanding what they want, and evolving with them. That’s how you maintain it. The process, the grind, the little things.

To me, that’s what it is with investing. It’s so interesting. Yes, money is nice to make, but it’s more than that. It gives you understanding of the world and allows you to play the same game as anyone else. It levels the playing field. Everyone now with the Internet has access to all the info and you get to put yourself up against some of the best people in the world to see if you can compete.

You’re constantly competing with the best, but also yourself, at this game. You’re going toe to toe with people who have been in markets for generations. That’s what makes it so much fun though, you get to compete in the same field and see if you can even touch what they’ve accomplished. It’s also nice to be able to make the money and use it in other ways to live the life you wanted. To do the things you want to do. The idea is to make it sooner than later so that you can get more time. You can use the time to live the life you want, doing whatever you want. Off the grid or on the grid if you want.

You’ll get paid immense amounts of money if you can make good judgement. If you can understand the world a little bit better than most of the other people. That’s it. That’s the game. There’s a reason the smartest people in the world and the ones are the most successful are big readers. They’re always learning and figuring out how the world works. Seeing problems that other people don’t see and doing something about them. Investing seems like a good one because it’s so wide ranging. It allows you the time to learn about everything and anything you want. Biology, physics, chemistry, philosophy, history, human psychology, etc. They’re all important to playing the game that is investing.

Just keep learning dude. Eventually you’ll get to a point where people are looking at you as the voice in the room. It takes time to get there, but it also takes a lot of learning. Of doing a little bit every day. Of understanding history and how the world was before you got here, and how the lessons of history are playing out in today’s world. It’s all connected, but it just looks different today. The amazon, google, tesla of today are the Microsoft, yahoo and cisco of 2001. Sure they’re continuing to grow but how long can they keep the rest of the market propped up? People are hurting, badly.

The ongoing mental health pandemic is devastating. I’m sure tons of people are committing suicide now, more than we will have seen in years. Because people are isolated. And yet rich people keep getting richer, every single day. Billionaires made TRILLIONS of dollars last year. One million is equivalent to 11.5 days, one billion is 31.25 years and one trillion is 31,710 years. Think about that for a second. That’s how much money the richest people made in the world as a collective last year.

This wealth gap issue is much bigger than people understand. The establishment is ready to be challenged. The last time we had an economic crash in 2008, the economic disparity between rich and poor was not like what it is today. Assets have continued to go up, equities included, because of the US fed, and they’ve added that amount of money to people’s wealth. You literally can’t spend that money fast enough. But think about how much good it could do for governments and for people. To be able to tax it and distribute it more equally.

I really think this universal basic income idea is going to catch on in droves in the next decade. People are going to realize, especially with the next stimulus bill, that rich people are getting richer than ever before and it’s time to share that wealth. Expect socialist and communist policies to become more popular because you need to level the playing field.

This is also why the Internet is so special because it levels the playing field. You have to put your ideas against many other people and you can become whomever you want on the Internet. It’s scary because you never really know whom you’re talking to and what they’re like as a person through their messages, but it also allows people to be on level playing field. As long as they can get access to the Internet. This is the other discrepancy is a lot of people don’t have good Wifi connections. Stuff like a stable Internet connection we take for granted so much. To be constantly connected. It’s a privilege, and a curse.

But the overarching thing is all the people spending time watching TV in the old days are now looking at their phones and trying to connect themselves with everyone else. You can be anywhere in the world and as long as you’re providing value, the Internet will reward you according to how good you are.

It’s fascinating to watch unfold.