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We Owe Everything to Social Media (Seriously) · The Unsexy Businessmen

• Alex Skinner: Welcome to another edition of the Unsexy Podcast, where we talk about all of the unsexy things that go in to the finished product. I am Alex Skinner, as always joined by my brother, Aaron Skinner. And today we're talking about something more for education and just so you're all aware of how things work. And it's going to be how social media works. Now I'm going to stop really quick and just do a little assessment of what I think, do a Jim Gaffigan right here. People are probably saying, Hey, we're not stupid. know how social media works, which maybe you do. But my guess is you don't realize to the extent that social media is controlling you. Like I know everyone does like the little jokey joke thing of like, ⁓ it sounds like my phone heard me. Is that not a huge problem? If your phone can actually hear you and knows what you're talking about and then can start serving you exactly what it wants to hear. So this is coming from. one of Aaron's recent posts that he did about carbs, which he is playing the game. I don't know if you want to describe how that went, Aaron. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, so ⁓ the the game is you have to have some sort of like controversial topic like controversial not topic. It is a controversial controversial topic, but a controversial take on your thumbnail that gets people angry and then they click on it and then it's actually not what they think. And so mine was about carbs are the enemy. I think it was the title or something like that or carbs are making your fat or something ⁓ but Alex Skinner: think it was that carbs are making you fat. Aaron Skinner: carbs are making you fat. And so the actual point of the video was that's not true. But that's what I believed for years and years and years. And I had it kind of all wrong. The interesting thing about it was one of the first comments I got was, this is a stupid take. ⁓ It was, what do you say? Like this, I should pull it up. But it was like, this is a dumb take. Nice try buddy. And then luckily the comment, the guy rep... some other guy replied that comments like, did you even watch the video? He literally, he literally didn't, he was literally saying that's not true. ⁓ But it's just funny. And then later the guy responded, he's like, I'll be honest, I actually just saw the first five seconds and didn't watch the rest of it. ⁓ So like, was just in a bad mood. So I just was leaving bad comments on things. was like, and I think that is where we're at with a lot of people nowadays is. It's like a place to vent your frustrations with life or whatever it is. Not realizing that there's an actual person behind. I mean, I wasn't offended when he put that. I think I immediately responded to him. was just like, dude, you should probably watch the whole video. I said like the same thing the other guy said. Cause the guy's like, that's literally not what he says in the video. You should probably watch it. But it's just interesting that it's, even though we're not ⁓ like the content creators, Alex Skinner: safe place. Aaron Skinner: aren't faceless, like we are talking to people with our faces. The commenters are faceless because 99 % of the time it doesn't have like an actual picture of them and they're not probably themselves creating content. ⁓ So it's a safe place where they can just go vent some frustration or whatever it is. ⁓ I think the way I was, think even with all of our other posts where we've gotten like negative feedback, I just always respond. positively, usually if it's like a super hateful one, like thanks for the comment, like whatever, thanks for the engagement, man. But it's annoying. is annoying just like how people, I don't know, dude, how often, Alex, are you posting comments on a stranger's video? Alex Skinner: rarely if at all and if I ever am doing it, I must have been incredibly intoxicated. So that would be have been like years ago. The goal of all social media is to keep you on the platform as long as possible. The longer you're on the platform, the more ads you're going to see, the more ads you see, the more money that platform is going to make. So what does it do? It rewards the content that keeps people there for as long as possible. And what it does is has a short little window whenever you post, whatever it is, the amount of engagement, primarily engagement, not even necessarily like likes, Aaron Skinner: Yeah Alex Skinner: or like double, it's like how much time did people watch this video compared to like your average videos and compared to they have all the data, all of the videos in our ecosystem and how many people are actually engaging as in like talking, leaving comments and going about it. And those are the things that are going to get rewarded. And typically it's going to be that way. And Aaron and I play that game, right? Like we play the, all right, so we have to do this like our Iran one, our Bad Bunny one, where you just, you put in, a not true title and then you essentially say the exact opposite of whatever that title was. And the problem with that is people only read the title and they... they are just going to naturally agree with or disagree with that title. And then that engagement happens where they like comment on it. And then more people are going to go and see it. So that's good for us, the content creators. But I think it's bad as a whole for like the entire, the entire ecosystem. so to your question, Aaron of how often I am commenting on strangers things, it's almost not at all. And I would imagine a high percentage of people are like you and I, where we are not constantly posting or commenting on people stuff, we live more in the real world. The reason why I wanted to chat about this today is because it is becoming increasingly more frequent that all humans are spending more and more time on social. I used to teach a class of 18 to 22 year olds and I would do the classic, all right, so we're gonna see who spends the most time on social media. And like, you know, start off like, all right, who has like one hour a day? That seems like too much to me. But anyways, one hour a day. everyone raise their hands. All right, two hours a day. Maybe you'll lose a few. Three hours a day. Yeah, you're starting to lose a few people, but you're at one eighth of a person's day at that point. So this is YouTube technically counts, even though there is like this entertainment platform part of it, but a lot of what we were looking at was Instagrams, TikToks, which are also entertainment platforms that are trying to keep you there for as long as possible. Then you get to four hours, five hours. The people who always have the most are in like that eight to 10 hour range. And I know there's going to be people out there like, well, that's crazy. But I will tell you this, it is not uncommon. it, like what I mean by not uncommon is you're like, that's gotta be like 1 % of the people. I have a class, total students that I've ever taught, like 150, and there's 10 of them. That's closer to like eight, seven or 8%. That is a high number. And I bet you a lot of those other kids are lying because it's embarrassing to say that you're on social media. Like even for me, like as I said, the YouTube thing was like, I actually spent a lot of time watching YouTube. ⁓ so I'm probably in like the high two, maybe to three hours if you include YouTube, there. So I'm, I'm, I'm almost like, Aaron Skinner: We're lying. Yes. Yes. Alex Skinner: just proving the point that it's someone like me who thinks that they aren't on it as frequently as possible has just realized in his two minute long monologue that in fact I am on it quite a bit. So my guess would be a lot of other people are using this too. And the reason that it concerns me is if we're having like essentially there I saw this Socrates Plato one of those guys where it's like it talks about intelligence like highly intelligent people talk about ideas. moderately intelligent people talk about events and unintelligent people talk about people. And that entertainment side of things is really you are talking about people. You see that thing Jimmy Kimmel did. Did you see that thing Trump did? Did you see that thing, et cetera, et cetera? And some of these could also be intermingled with events, but it's the, that people are stopped, are no longer having the dialogue about things that are going to get better that is the concern. Not that it's really going to impact my everyday life, but making sure that people are spending less and less of their time talking about those two other things. know, Socrates could be wrong, but are talking about those two other things, people especially, because I just don't, I don't know how the world, don't, because I'm not a doom and gloom guy, like where it's like, ⁓ the world is going to hell in a hand basket. Like we evolve and we change, but like there's just a... We didn't, I've said this before, we just didn't evolve fast enough for the technology that we have right now. And I don't feel like we'll get to a point where we use it properly ever because we can't evolve near as fast as this other technology. Now you have AI's, you have, now you have people who are engaging with content that's made by nobody. Like literally just like a click of a button and now it's up there and the people are like, ⁓ this is so stupid. Like, I don't even, you're talking to some guy in Pakistan, Bangladesh, China. Or someone just like down in their basement who created these AI agents who are now creating content like who are you even engaging with anymore? End of rant. Aaron Skinner: Well, that's the, think that's one of the things you and I talked about a lot is, is the way that things seem to be going. And especially as like content creators, you probably see this a lot too, Alex. Like I get inundated with create videos, just using AI. This is the, you know, the new way to do it. And I can't stand that because we're going to get to a point where you can't even tell. And I think maybe we are at a point where sometimes you can't tell that it's a just a completely generated AI person that's doing it. There was a chick that, actually, I don't know if it was a girl or not that started the channel, but it was a girl avatar where it's like a pretend podcast where she's and of course she's super hot. Of course, like, cause you have to have a super hot girl to do this. And it was like, essentially the platform was like her having fake podcast conversations. So it was like the, the videos are her like this talking. Alex Skinner: Absolutely. Aaron Skinner: And, but it doesn't show her talking to anyone, but it's like having a, know, whatever controversial take on some, whatever and hundreds of thousands of views on for all of the videos. And it's not a real person. It's literally just probably an AI script that's written out and then an AI bot that is, or a avatar that's performing the actual visuals. And then you have an AI voice that sounds super real nowadays where that's all it is. And so. Alex Skinner: Somebody's talking back. Aaron Skinner: to your point, like if people are mad about whatever that fake, whatever that thing is talking about, you're getting mad at something, at an imaginary thing. And it's just, I see the value in social media because you know, you can get cool recipes, you can get cool ideas, you can build a business. I think the thing that's most annoying for me is like the effort that you and I have put into building like unsexy businessman and like all of the videos we've made and all the stuff we've done for it is being like usurped by someone who spends 30 seconds on AI and they just get it all done. And then those are the ones that are really popular. ⁓ Is that gonna be frustrating? Not at all, no. Alex Skinner: And they're not even in our niche, like not even in our niche. Like, so like, it's not, it's not a like, ⁓ we hate the competition thing. It's a, the eyeballs are being taken by and, you, and I, I can already think of like everybody. They're to be like. Aaron Skinner: No. Alex Skinner: Well, I don't know. It's just like, what's there like you get fed what you like, you just get fed the same thing over and over and over again, as long as it keeps you there, as long as it keeps you there. And maybe there's like a more of an entertainment aspect to the stuff that, that, that, like that you're describing Aaron, but I have to do a lot of this. Like, I think I've talked about this before. Like my thing is the LeBron versus Michael Jordan stuff would pop up all the time in my social like, ⁓ Michael Jordan had this, but LeBron had this because I would, I wouldn't, this is the crazy thing. I wouldn't like it. I wouldn't comment on it. I would just click read more to see what the entire image was. And then I just kept feeding that. Why? Because I clicked see more and I would stay on that piece, reading it for 10, 15, 20 seconds, however long it took me to read that. And it kept me on the platform. So something that I've had to start doing proactively is when I'm like, ⁓ I've been caught in a honeypot. There is a thing in the top right corner. You click the options. you can do show less or stop showing me from this creator. What I've found is it's better just to do the stop showing from the creator because whenever I do the like stop showing less content like this, they still show me that content. And then I fall back into the honeypot. So essentially it's anytime I see it, was like, yeah, you wanna know what? I think my opinion has changed ⁓ based on. Aaron Skinner: Are you sure? You sure you don't wanna watch this? Yeah. Alex Skinner: based on the assist and player efficiency rating numbers that have been added here. And the incorrect data. That's another thing that's huge too, not to like pivot too much is like types of content that perform really well, inaccurate claims. I've seen this a lot with those specific ones that I'm talking about where it be like, ⁓ this is the only person to ever win three championships. They're like, and then people go like, you're so fucking stupid. This person won four championships, this person won five, this person won six. And that person's just going, thank you for giving this content. Like, so it's not just entertaining stuff. It's whatever is going to get you to engage with it. And I just, every single time, like there's this one called it's in like, it's a Salt Lake. It doesn't matter what it's called, but all it does is create fun AI videos about Utah. And I got tricked the very first time. Like, ⁓ my gosh, that is so cool that that little sheep helped the frog cross the road. Aaron Skinner: Yes. Alex Skinner: ⁓ I don't remember what it was, but anyways, like this is what we're dealing with. And then I finally went, that's fake. And I had to stop following it. Cause you see these people who are like engaging with me, like, is so awesome. Like, it's so cool. All of these uplifting stories, people would send it to me and you go, man. Yeah. I was like, these are people that I respect and I got fooled by it too. Right. I didn't share it or comment on it, but I watched it. so maybe we'll get to a point where, ⁓ we're like better at. Aaron Skinner: Yes. Yeah. And I was gonna say, it gets shared. Yeah. Alex Skinner: analyzing this, but I just don't think that's coming. And Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, they're not incentivized to have like AI checkers on there. YouTube is doing something with that right now. Google is doing something with that right now, but I have not, don't think we're gonna see a time where Facebook, Instagram and TikTok start doing it unless they start seeing engagement go down. Aaron Skinner: I think that's the most dangerous part. The most dangerous part is like the fake information. And you're just like, well, it's on this. it must, I know it sounds stupid. I was like, yeah, don't believe social media. But I think something happened. But the problem is like, I fell for it one time. What was it? I'm trying to remember it. Like, ⁓ it was something that you and I had talked about. And then I talked about it with other, with our brothers. What was it? The Mark Hughes thing? Like Mark Hughes, that he was part of. Alex Skinner: But we do. ⁓ yeah, Mark Hughes owned D.A.R.E., the D.A.R.E. program. Aaron Skinner: that DARE was an MLM, which we, like, I mean, the reason, I know why I got fed all this stuff because I've been watching some like, I don't like MLMs that have been watching some those like people that were talking about that. But it was like something where Mark Hughes, who probably nobody knows except for us, was the ⁓ founder of Herbalife and our dad was involved with Herbalife. And so one of the stories that I just believed was like, ⁓ that the DARE program was an MLM. Alex Skinner: I hate LMLMs. Aaron Skinner: And Mark Hughes and like the evidence was Mark Hughes was like on the board of directors or something like that. And I was like, Oh, that's crazy. I was like, that's insane. Oh man. And instead of like researching it and like finding out if it was true or not, it fit, it fit my narrative of how much I don't like MLMs or whatever. And I told Alex and I was like, this is crazy. And then we were talking to our brothers and then I think, I think Nick looked it up. He's like, I don't think this is true. I was like, Oh my gosh, I feel so, I've been telling so many people about this and I'm so stupid. Alex Skinner: I've been telling so many people about this. Aaron Skinner: Like, yes, I guess I learned from my mistake. I mean, luckily it was a very innocuous thing. wasn't like telling people that, you know, vaccines are bad or whatever, but it's like, it's just one of those things like always, always double check, always double check. I did the same thing. Cause on the last, on the last episode, we're talking about using AI for fitness stuff and which we both do, but I will still double check numbers just to make sure like, you know, is that the right amount of calories? Is that the right of? amount of protein is it like, I always double check now. And ever since I'm glad it was something as small as that, that I had to learn from that now I just because you see it and it fits what you already believe you should still double check before you just start spreading the rumor. Like, I don't know. think in the end, I think the other thing too is like, we have kids and our kids like you and I Alex didn't grow up with social media. ⁓ But our kids are growing up with social media and the AI is just gonna get better and better and better. And like how that's going to affect our kids and the information that they're getting and like teaching them, hey, you still need to verify all of the things you think you're learning to make sure it's true. ⁓ I mean, then we could just get at a, this would be another part, because this is how horrible social media is for kids in general. ⁓ I mean, I'm in the camp of where we're not gonna let our kids, and I think most of my friends are the same way, like no social media until you're 18. And they can bitch about it and be mad about it. And they'll be, well, my friends are on TikTok or whatever. my thing is I was like, you can hate me now, you'll thank me when you're older when you realize just how horrible social media really is. Yes, giant waste of time. Alex Skinner: me later. Kind of a waste of time it is. Man, I wasn't even thinking about the kid aspect of this because you start going into like the really, really dark, scary things of like kids killing themselves over fake things or false claims that are made about them. Obviously this is... Aaron Skinner: Mm-hmm. Alex Skinner: more, but we've been more talking about is like fake posts, sensationalized things, but you can also start seeing people start creating fake stuff about your kids, about other people. And I think that's the thing that sucks about humans in general is every single good technology we bastardize. Honestly, how we do it is every single like new technology is like, how can we make this work for sex? And how can I make money off of this? And how can I hurt other people to help myself? Usually goes in that usually maybe money first, then sex. But it's always like, how can we? You know, that's why the jokes always like, ⁓ sex bots. ⁓ As like we're talking about AI or like there was already a movie called Her way before we actually had advanced AI. Right. ⁓ Anyways, I digress, but not. Aaron Skinner: Yeah. Yeah. Or robots. Yeah. Yeah. Alex Skinner: I'm, I just, this comes back to like something that we're talking about. Like, I also like, don't know like how to fix that because we're talking about 8 billion people in the world. And I would say not that most people are dumb. That's like not the right way of framing this. It's just like, most people don't have the time or don't care. Most people have like really crappy lives or not most people. People are going through crappy times and they just. don't want to spend the time educating and getting better at it. Like myself included, there's times where I have not been as great at this and I'm trying to think of how we. how we even resolve it because I think a good indicator that something as bad as when the person who has created it doesn't allow their children to use it. So I was just talking to someone who talked about someone who worked at Deseret News and they wouldn't let their kids watch TV. A person who is very much in the television industry because they know exactly how it is. If you watch the social media documentary on Netflix, forget what it's called, off the top of my head. social media something. But anyways, like all the people who like invented the social media stuff, they try not to use it and they keep their kids away from using it because they know how terrible it is for kids. ⁓ Probably something similar with cigarettes. I don't know. I could go look back at cigarettes. Maybe people who are producing cigarettes were giving them to their kids. I don't know. That was that was way before my time. But Aaron Skinner: Yeah Alex Skinner: If you see the person who's producing it doesn't want to use it as frequently or doesn't want other people that they're close with to use it frequently, usually a red flag. And then also I think it's more of just getting back to that thing I was talking about with the Socrates example where it's like, just like talk about these things with people in real life and not from like a super combative thing. Like, cause you're talking about events a lot of the time. Cause like, I think I'm thinking about someone very specific right now. who doesn't listen to the podcast, but a friend of mine's mother-in-law. And like every single time that I'm around them, which is not very frequently, it's always like the mother-in-law is like, Trump did this, or like the Democrats did this. Did you know that Nancy Pelosi is part of a pizza drug ring or sex trafficking ring, ⁓ yada, yada, yada, which I always go back to how does that impact you? first, I guess it should be like, first, is that even real? And then two, how does it impact you? But in reality, I always just do the, does it impact you? Even if it is real, ⁓ not at all. Doesn't change. Doesn't change your life one bit, but like that's the type of person that we're dealing with. And I'm like, can we just like, I don't, it's every now and then I wish we could just like turn off the internet. Like, cause I feel like it's gotten to a point, ⁓ or not gotten to a point. I feel like it's been like this since internet speeds have like improved where it's just Everyone thinks they know everything, myself included. Like I try to say, I don't know much more now than I did in the past because like, I don't have time to know. I'm not, I'm not an encyclopedia, right? But I almost wish we could just like turn off the internet and like, we get, we get internet on Saturdays. I don't know. Like something where it's just like, all right, we're going to have to start rationing ourselves on this. Aaron Skinner: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, well. The interesting thing about that is like one of the best vacations I went on was a place where we didn't have like, I mean, there's the internet, but like, I was just like, I'm turning my phone off. Like we'll turn it on when we get back, cause we weren't with our kids. So, you know, we needed to have access to if something was going on, but ⁓ it was like so freeing of, I mean, I think smartphones and social media are... very synonymous. And so we're, what's the first thing you do when you're bored? Boom, you start looking at your phone. I just watched this video that came up, I think it was on like Reddit. was just, was about like how long the lines were to get into the Delta Lounge. Every single person that was waiting that line was just this. Every single person. And so it's like, we're so, I mean, again, probably another podcast, but we're so addicted to our phones, me included. I mean, I'm not saying, I can't believe people were looking at their phones while they're in line. Like that was me at Disneyland, this, but it was usually like, all right, what's the next fast pass I need to do or whatever. Instead of being engaged in what was actually happening, a lot of times I have to tell myself that I was like, my, know, put the phone in the pocket or whatever. The one rule that I do stick to is if I'm having dinner with somebody or I'm with friends doing something, my phone does not come out of my pocket. And it can be an issue sometimes because I've had times where someone's trying to get a hold of me or, know, it's usually through like a tag. If my phone starts ringing, you know, I'll look at it. But if it's like a text message or something like that, and I don't respond for, you know, the amount of time that I'm with friends or with family. And, but I think that's a good way to do it. Like stay engaged. Dude, there's nothing, you and I have talked about this a lot. There's nothing more frustrating than when you're going out with somebody and they're just looking at their phone the whole time. Like, dude, we're having lunch together. Put your fucking phone away. Like, Alex Skinner: through there. Aaron Skinner: I'm here with you right now, let's live in the now, let's all talk, let's have a good time. And then I think those are the people that are most frustrating to me, they just, have to be on their phone constantly. Even when you're trying to have like an intimate ⁓ conversation or moment with them. And by intimate, I just mean a one-on-one or you're all together trying to have ⁓ a communal meal together. But I think that's the only thing that I'm, to toot my own horn, I'm pretty good at. is if I'm having a conversation with somebody in really any capacity, my phone is just in my pocket. Cause I don't want that distraction. And I wish everyone would do that because it is really frustrating when they don't. Alex Skinner: Yeah, used to have like try to do no phone Sundays and then like. It's really like after like looking back on it, like nothing bad ever happened. Like essentially Monday morning, you'd have like the text that came in from people who trying to reach one Sunday. Maybe they were like wanted to do something, so I missed out on something, but I'm like. It's all good. I need to start doing that again, because I do I do. Maybe it's not even Sunday, maybe it's just like. Aaron Skinner: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Alex Skinner: every single day, like a specific time. Like I've thought about this a lot. like, sometimes I feel like I was born for like, I love the technology we have because obviously like booking trips way easier. Getting reservations at restaurants way easier. Maps. being able to navigate to places way easier. I shouldn't, like I'm very grateful for like the amount of time saved because we have this technology. But I wonder if I would have been so much better if like I was just like one of those nine to five people who like the only time you can reach me is if you send a memo to me at work or you call me on my work phone. Because good Lord, you can get, and I would say for the most part, my clients are really great at avoiding. Non-worked hours like to reach out to you, but like sometimes like they think that they have an emergency and it'll be a saturday They think they have an emergency and it'll be like 7 pm 6 pm, ⁓ that's very rare very very rare, but like That would never happen Prior to me having a smartphone just like can't get me Don't know don't know what to tell you Aaron Skinner: Sure, sure. Well, it's also because we grew up in like the 90s or whatever. it's the nostalgia thing that we talk about with our kids where it's just like, they're like, how would you, I just remember my daughter one time was like, how would you like meet up with your friends if you don't have like cell phones? It like, we would say, hey, we're going to the movies, we're gonna be there at seven. And then people would show up there at seven or whatever it was. Like you just told, you made plans ahead of time and. everyone kind of just showed up. And it was like a lot more, I don't know, this is gonna turn into like, nowadays sucks. Like, listen, I love the technology. I love all the ease of, like you said, being able to book trips and do all this stuff is fantastic. But there is sometimes, and it's usually whenever we go back home and we're just like walking around outside. So we grew up, we didn't grow up rich at all, but we grew up on like a decent sized piece of property. And just remember going outside and playing. Alex Skinner: stuck to the schedule. Aaron Skinner: Like just going outside and playing and that was our entertainment. Like, yeah. Alex Skinner: imagination to like it's not like we had a lot of toys to play with maybe like the trampoline but I remember doing a lot of like just like exploring around the property and like pretending like I'm fighting people jumping on felt fallen trees felled trees whatever the word is felt felt felt Felden and like I do feel like that is and it's so sad like whenever I see Teddy doing it my son nobody come after him ⁓ Aaron Skinner: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, felt, felt trees. No. Alex Skinner: I'm just like, ⁓ that should be happening way more frequently than it is. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, yeah. mean, God, there's so many different, there's so many lanes we could go down with this with like just. Alex Skinner: I know that we're getting off the social media train, but it is like the technology is meant to, so like with cell phones too, it's just like, please buy our phone. It's the fastest. It takes the best pictures so that you can remember every single moment of your life. ⁓ And it allows you to have the social medias right here in your pocket immediately. Aaron Skinner: But haven't we got to the point where like phones are fine? I get it, but we're get off and like, do we really need anything? Excuse me, do we need, like what giant innovation is really happening with all these new phones? Sorry. Where like you have, I haven't gotten a new phone in, I don't know, three years. That's more like, more laziness that I don't want to have to like go re-log in to everything. Alex Skinner: Three. Aaron Skinner: But, figure out the new way that you have to find things on your phone or whatever it is. I've had a, dude, Verizon keeps letting me know I have a free phone available. And I'm just like, I'm fine. I don't need a free phone. I'm like, again, what is this massive leap in technology that I need a new phone for? I was gonna make another point too, but, we can talk about this for, Alex Skinner: We only do it whenever the free phone is offered. That's the only time we get a new one. Aaron Skinner: for hours and just complain about it. Oh, but I did, okay. So one thing that you can do to game the system that I like to do, cause we're out there, like you said, Alex, we're always joking about our phones are always listening to us. So when I want to buy something, I'll be like, man, I wish I could get a discount for whatever thing I'm looking for. And crazy enough, it's happened multiple times. All of a sudden I get an email of this promotion that's happening where I can get 25 % off of the thing that I wanted to buy anyway. So I do. I try and game the system that way. Now that I've said it, there's just like, don't send him emails. ⁓ But it's actually worked multiple times where I've done that. It's kind of crazy, but that is one way that you can kind of game the system. you're already in the market to buying something, start talking about it then start talking about if you could get some sort of discount, you would definitely buy that product. Alex Skinner: They don't care. There's a reason that they, yeah. Aaron Skinner: And then lo and behold, it doesn't happen every time, but it's happened multiple times where lo and behold, I will get an email with some sort of promotional offer and works out great. Alex Skinner: I saw this guy post on LinkedIn that that's not true. Like it's not true that your phones are listening to you. And then he go like, that's like his headline. Of course now everyone's to start reading it. Cause it's just like, we've thought that this is true the entire time. And like he goes into, like, yeah, if you turn off your security settings, most people don't do that. Most people when they're going through adding an app, just say, yes, yes, yes, you can have access. Yes, you can have access. Yes, you can have access. So yes, there is a way that you can go in and turn all of these things off so that it isn't recording, recording you at all. ⁓ Aaron Skinner: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Alex Skinner: people are too lazy and they just say yes to every single thing so they can get to the point like get to it so I hated his like his thing was just like it's not listening like yes it is because everyone's saying give is giving consent to the apps to listen to them yeah gosh I thought it was such a disservice like it's just another Aaron Skinner: But it worked, it worked exactly, exactly. Alex Skinner: tying it all back together. Yeah, it got people to engage with it. But like, I'm just like, it's a disservice because all people are going to read is that first line. Say your phone's not listening to you and be like, ⁓ well, this guy's like really, really smart. It's on LinkedIn. This guy's like in the industry. All right, so I don't have to worry about this anymore. No, read the entire thing. You do need to worry about it. You do need to worry about it. Aaron Skinner: Well, it's just like my Mark Hughes thing. Like you read like the headline or whatever, like, ⁓ it's true. I'm gonna start telling everyone this like, dude, no, no, there's a guy who's in the tech industry who said that that's not how that works. And so, ⁓ really, what did he say? I don't know, I just read the headline, but it's not true. They're not listening to you. And then that gets spread and yeah, good old misinformation. Alex Skinner: everybody. Right. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I have like a real wrap up for this one, except anyone who does listen to this, like I, this is like another one of those, like we all, myself included, we all just like need to get better at this because it's, we are not equipped to handle this. And so a lot like Aaron mentioned, we didn't grow up with these things and now we're having a new generation that is native growing up on these platforms, native with the Internet. I see it with my son where I'm just like, ⁓ you know what? If I wanted to watch a video, I had to rewind it either in the actual VCR or in our fast rewind like Rewinder. The faster wind would take like less than a minute. Like, you know, it was pretty fast, maybe two minutes, but I still had to wait two minutes before I could watch one thing. And then when I'm watching like YouTube with my son, he's like, can I watch raw fear by 21 pilots? Boom, one second. You got it. Halfway through the song. Hey, can we listen to drag path? Boom, there you go. There's that. There's that song for you. Even like cassette tapes, like if we want it, since he's listening to music in this example, like we don't have to wait for anything anymore. And I, that is the cause of all anger and frustration in the world. right now is I want it and I want it now. I want Iran to be over now. I want Iran to be destroyed now. Like whatever side of the thing. I want Bad Bunny to be canceled now. I want the NFL to be over now because I'm mad at it. Like I want all of these things right away. Anyways, I'm not happy. Aaron Skinner: Well, it's like that joke. I can't remember who did the joke of ⁓ the internet on the airplane. like for, yeah, like we didn't have it for years and then we get it. And then people are like, I can't believe how slow the internet is on the airplane. This is insane. Like we just got it. What are you talking about? Like it's crazy. Yeah. Like it's so crazy. I just want to real quick when you were mentioning what it was like growing up, we not. Alex Skinner: Louis C.K. Yeah, we're in a tube in the air. Aaron Skinner: Not over the VIA, if we wanted to watch something like a movie on TV, you had to wait until that movie was on. You didn't get to like, like, I want to watch it now. We are like, all right, what time is it on? You had to like kind of plan your day around that. And so it was completely different. Yes, exactly. You'd have to figure out what it's actually going to be on. And then you had to take your bathroom breaks work during commercials. Yeah, it's just, it was just, I would say simpler times, but I guess not simpler, but maybe. Alex Skinner: On Demand. Open the TV Guide. Aaron Skinner: ⁓ more nostalgic times. Alex Skinner: Well, we're like not any more intelligent now. Like you would think that all of this technology and things that we have would make us like incredibly informed. But because there is so much more misinformation that you have to wade through, it actually slows down the process. We miss the I missed the I'm not that I ever looked like I missed the Tom Brokaw's. I did listen to Tom Brokaw. Like I miss where it's just like, oh, you can just trust this person. Because all they're doing is like they're not there. Aaron Skinner: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, there was a giant bias. Alex Skinner: Their goal is not like we need you to keep coming back. Their goal is like we're the only one that has the information that you should have. ⁓ And now I like say what you will about Fox News, CNN, like whatever way that you lean. I'm just like. Nobody's even like trying to hide it anymore. Like just like ⁓ Okay, this is like we just need to keep our base coming back over and over and over again so we can keep selling ad space and making money off of life alert commercials. Need insurance? Need insurance at the age of 75? Yeah, good luck at that insurance. That's ripping you off people. Don't go buy it. Anyways, well thank you everyone for listening and I think I'm optimistic. think I always feel like. Aaron Skinner: Billions of dollars, yeah. Yep, that's exactly right. Alex Skinner: the world swings on a pendulum and it does feel over like, especially like with the, think the AI thing is just making that pendulum swing a lot faster. It does feel like there is a lot of people who are looking to swing back to a little bit of status quo. And I just hope that my feelings are not incorrect and that is in fact the case, but just be smarter. Just don't engage with the content. Aaron Skinner: We should change this. We need to change ⁓ this podcast to Aaron and Alex complain about things. Alex Skinner: Aaron and Alex like the podcast. This one would be we hate technology, but secretly love it. ⁓ yeah. Well, everyone have a wonderful rest of week and just do a little bit better and we'll catch you next week. Aaron Skinner: Yeah. How technology is ruining your life.