An Age of Inauthentic Content

I really enjoyed engaging with readers on last weeks newsletter. It continues to be one of the more rewarding aspects of this newsletter. So to everyone who wrote to me, thank you!

This week I wanted to share two topics that aren’t really related to one another but have been on my mind lately. They relate to digital age trends, how we interact with the world online, how other individuals and brands interact with us online, and an emerging scapegoat for systemic failures.

Doing Online Content The Wrong Way Creates Inauthentic Experiences

One of the byproducts of the post-Covid social media era is that we realized that everyone is now a content creator. Whether you’re sharing photos of your life on instagram, “shitposting” on Twitter, going viral on TikTok with some funny dance move, or writing your thoughts on some random topic that you blog about on a recurring basis. We’re all becoming content creators.

The point is that a majority of people share “things” online for others to consume in some capacity. And because we have a growing understanding that there’s value in reaching large audiences on a global scale, many social media users end up chasing clout and influence.

Online influence from large, global reach is worth real money and a growing number of people know that.

In many ways, this new understanding has led to gamified content creation and sharing. A lot of what you now see on social media is because people are learning about how the algorithm of their favorite app works and exploiting it to achieve more reach. In other words, they’re creating “stuff” specifically to get more eyeballs on their content. Because more eyeballs equals more influence and more influence equals an opportunity to make money.

The net result is that there is some really good content out there that’s genuinely enjoyable to consume. But mostly it leads to a lot of really bad, inauthentic content because people fundamentally misunderstand the social media algorithms. Inauthentic content is especially common when it’s created for the sole purpose of achieving reach.

It causes people to copy each other in an effort to recreate viral success and this copy cat behavior in turn waters down our social feeds with a lot of garbage.

The real truth about content online is that originality and authenticity outside of the “mainstream” are what get rewarded with reach.

You get rewarded for authenticity and living a life that others aspire to live or that they might at the very least find interesting. A lot of times though, people mistakenly think they are being unique when in reality, they don’t have a full grasp of how large the online world is. In reality, their blind spot for the size and scope of the content landscape online means most people are just regurgitating someone else’s opinion to their localized online community.

Unless what you share is original, you just come off as inauthentic. And if you sound like everyone else, you’re unlikely to get much reach because that’s just not very interesting or useful.

Why does this matter? And why am I bringing it to your attention?

The things we consume are altered by the fact that more people are chasing algorithmic boosts, reach, clout, and money.

Going viral is addicting but also very profitable and a growing number of people understand that. As a consequence, what people and brands produced is designed to capture as much support from social media algorithms as possible.

It’s created a very inauthentic digital landscape that we now have to navigate.

If you’re able to take a step back and understand that simple truth, you’ll also be able to understand that this influences what people create and why they create it. (Chasing money and influence within their respective communities)

This truth should influence what you consume and the types of content you allow to influence you. Ask yourself, why am I seeing what I’m seeing? Is it a genuine, authentic, and original perspective? Or is it programming designed to chase clout via an algorithm that penetrates the mainstream thought bubble?

In many ways, the algorithm is now a representation of mainstream digital age thought. If something is appearing on your social feed that you don’t actively follow, it’s likely been placed their for a reason. ie: it’s popular by mainstream/conventional standards.

What you produce and consume tells the world how you’re programmed.

It dictates how you’re influenced by the mainstream algorithms and programs how you connect to the digital ecosystem of ideas and belief systems. A lack of originality and authenticity isn’t necessarily a toxic trait. But it can inform a lot about how a person lives their life.

The Fear Mongering Around Birth Rates

I’ve been seeing a recurring narrative forming over the past year and a half. A lot of people believe that demographics are destiny. Said in plain english, they believe that falling birthrates in developed countries are one of the most important issues facing society. That the falling birthrate is a leading indicator of structural issues coming to the world.

It’s a simple premise, birth rates are falling in developed world countries while they remain high in less developed countries. The fear is that the birth rate is falling below the replacement rate for many countries. That means new generations will be smaller than their parent generations. A falling fertility rate manifests as a bunch of potential problems over long periods of time. As an example, an aging population that isn’t meeting it’s replacement rate will have less resources to care for the aging population. It means less workers to do jobs. Less economic growth.

But what if I told you that the people most concerned with falling birth rates are only concerned because it means the music will stop on the multi-generational entitlement ponzi scheme that's been underway since WWII.

Think about what happens to tax revenues and entitlement spending as the current generations age into retirement age but the replacement generations aren’t large enough to tax and fund entitlement spending. ie: there’s not enough young workers earning incomes to tax and redeploy money towards entitlement spending. There’s not enough warm bodies to keep the party going and sustaining national economic growth.

With a falling birthrate you can't keep shoveling the costs of societal problems onto the next generation if there is no next generation.

The fear is that the bill for massive entitlement spending will finally come due as the consequences of declining fertility rates become reality. This plays really well into last week’s newsletter on the realities of a ballooning debt to GDP ratio. ie: When you combine the spiraling debt doom loop with the realities of a declining birth rate, you get a better idea of the timescales we’re looking at for financial crisis. It is a generational time scale but on a timeline that is accelerating and likely not as far off as you think.

Just a little food for thought.

Rapid Fire

• The US-Led World Order Faces a New Challenge - “Existing BRICS members represent more than 42% of the world’s population and account for 23% of global gross domestic product. Some 19 other countries have expressed interest in joining, with Saudi Arabia among those that have formally applied, bolstering the BRICS’ claim to a bigger seat at the global table.”

• Another podcast with Katherine Boyle - A simple observation - her views on American Dynamism and the America-first investment trend, is a manifestation of multipolarism in private capital markets. Very interesting to observe that trend with that framing.

• Investor Home Purchases Fell a Record 49% Year Over Year in the First Quarter - “While investors are purchasing fewer homes than they were before the pandemic, their market share remains relatively high; they bought 17.6% of homes purchased in the metros tracked by Redfin in the first quarter.“

• Patience Is Beautiful - Arthur Hayes on financial markets and why isn’t the financial carnage we’d expect to happen taking place? “My answer to those skeptics? Patience. Nothing goes up or down in a straight line – we zig and we zag. Remember “Kaiseki:” the destination is known, but not the path.” “the goal of this essay is to explore why I believe the fireworks and the real Bitcoin bull market will begin in the late third and early fourth quarter of this year.”

• U.S. Manufacturers Seek China Alternatives as Tensions Rise - The global economy has entered a new phase. One in which success is dictated by a firm understanding of the tradeoffs between just-in-time manufacturing and the systemic supply chain risks posed by Covid-theatre, Russian imperialism, China’s goals of superpower dominance, and a general remapping of geopolitics towards multipolar systems. What’s a global manufacturing company to do when balancing profit margins against these risks?

Extras

To Work Fewer Hours, They Put AI on the Job