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Do you ACTUALLY want your life? · The Inspiring Real Life

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hi babies and basties, and do you remember the Stanley Cup craze of a couple years ago?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And think about all the micro trends that you have probably participated in in the last couple years.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: My other question is why in the world does everyone's dream living room look like a Scandinavian boutique hotel?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like we aren't all morphing into the exact same person.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: What is going on?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we're looking for an identity, and so we turn to what we're being told on social media, and then we're making that our entire identity.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Whoops.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about one of my favorite examples is everybody feeling like their house isn't good enough, or their apartment, or wherever they're living.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: What has happened recently?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: There has been a massive death of a modest, quirky home, and like that being good, we all want to skip like the starter home, starter apartment phase, and move on to like this McMansion suburban dream.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or we want an apartment in the city with bay views, big glass windows, and views of the skyline.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what happened to the ritual of having to live somewhere kind of cruddy?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: As a reminder here that all of these homes owned by 30-year-old influencers, that's not normal.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: That is not most 30-year-olds or even 40 or 50-year-olds.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Your peer group by and large is not living in big, nice houses.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: We are living in starter homes, we are living in homes, you know, where we just wish the plumbing and electric would work a little bit better.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're not living in a$5 million home with big, nice pools, garages full of cars, closets full of designer handbags.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the majority of us, but what you're seeing on your phone is the homes of the creators that you watch.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what you're seeing through your phone that you're thinking is normal is what people who make millions of dollars a year are showing you.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have some numbers on this.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're starting to work in the content creation industry.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning about how much money, even with people with a small following, can make, and it's kind of mind-boggling.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a creator who has roughly a hundred thousand followers, they can make around$200,000 a year.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And from ones that I have specifically seen talk about what they make, that's on in some ways the lower side of what they're making.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's what some are making in a quarter.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if someone has a half a million followers, they have an estimated earning potential of a half a million dollars and up.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And creators with a million plus followers are making a million plus up into the tens of millions of dollars if they're an A-list creator.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: These people are making celebrity money.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of them are getting deals with reality TV shows.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Alex Earl did a Super Bowl commercial and they're starting businesses, which are making these people celebrity-like money.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So instead, you're looking at your phone and thinking that it's normal to see this girl in this kitchen, but she's making the money that high-level execs have been trying to work their entire career to make.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: These kitchens are not your peers' kitchens, they're your parents' really wealthy friend's house.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you're seeing, but we see it so often with these creators, and we're seeing such an intimate look into people's homes that we think that that's normal, and we're the ones that are behind, just on a whole other level.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever watch architectural digest?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: When I watch a video of a celebrity's home, I'm never like, ooh, I want that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Jennifer Lawrence, for example.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I never thought I could be like Jennifer Lawrence.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I never thought I could have what Jennifer Lawrence has.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not an actress, I didn't start in the Hunger Games, but now we look at influencers that, you know, are just using their phone and they're making content, or so it seems.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, oh, well, I could do that.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So they start to look like they could become our model because it feels so much more relatable, but in reality, they're making celebrity money.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not relatable.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this woman from France, her name is Renee Girard.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: She developed this sociological concept and it's called the mimetic theory.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: The foundational premise of it is that human desire is actually not autonomous.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: We don't really own our desire.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: While our basic needs, so food, water, shelter, those are stenate.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: We just have those.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Our abstract desires, so career paths, status symbols, clothes, relationship goals, etc., are copied from other people, whom Girard calls models.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you're taking your people that you look at, and so we're going back to this influencer versus like A-list celebrity idea.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm never gonna use Jennifer Lawrence as the model for what I should do in my life.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I watch Emily Kaiser's videos.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: She is talking to you, like she's on a FaceTime, yapping to her friend.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen her move homes a couple of times.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we get a relatively intimate look into her day-to-day life with day in the life videos.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like she feels very relatable.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Emily Kaiser is not making relatable money.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that should not be who your model is.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, because of social media, we've now started taking our models for what we should expect out of life for people that are not even remotely relatable to where we're at.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas historically, we would look at peers and look at their lives and what they were doing, and that was kind of what we would take our model from, and we would gauge how well we're doing.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, love it or hate it, I don't disagree that this is something we all do.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: We all have a tendency to look left and right at the people around us and see if we're at least on par with what they are.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: It can go beyond to judging them, judging ourselves, but at minimum, we like to look around.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not super helpful.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it's something we should do, but I'm saying it's something that we do do.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: What does this mean on like a really surface level for us and our identity if it's kind of all becoming this amorphous glob that social media has created?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I got to go to the Olivia Dean concert in Austin last month.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: It was fabulous, but one of the first things I noticed is that 80 plus percent of the girls there had polka dots on.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I didn't have polka dots on was because I couldn't find a dress that I liked.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because I'm superior.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wearing them today for this analogy.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think Olivia Dean even wore polka dots that many times on the tour, but it was something that was trending, and our algorithms were all feeding us the same thing, and we all had this same collective thought of, wow, you know what would be so cute for this concert is if I wear polka dots.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost eerie that we all had the exact same thought.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: We think we're being unique when we pick out our fashion choices, and then we show up somewhere and we're like, shoot, I'm part of the majority that used to shop for outfits for vacation.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would buy a vacation wardrobe for whatever trip I'm about to take.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then I realize I don't ethically align with Sheen, and then it's really hard to buy a whole new wardrobe from scratch for a week if you're not buying cheap clothes.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So then I would go around and I would like source a couple of really nice pieces of clothes of what I think would allow me to fit into wherever I'm going.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: But then I would like step out of the hotel and get on the subway in New York and be like, I'm wearing the exact same outfit as like five other girls just on this train car, and mine doesn't even look as good because it's not me.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to imitate something instead of just being myself.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So now I don't even shop for bake.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I buy clothes that I like and I wear them when I want to wear them.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if it overlaps with someone else's style, cool.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to London soon.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of looking up London fashion, I'm just wearing what I like to wear.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's cute, it's what I'm gonna wear, and then I maybe won't look like every other girl.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: The beginning of the spring, I was looking for some outfits just for like to revamp my summer wardrobe.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I had lost some weight.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I get a few new pieces at the beginning of every season, and we had our honeymoon coming up.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, it might be fun to like buy a nicer piece or two that I can wear on the honeymoon than throughout the summer, and then wear again for the next couple years.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that was a fun piece of honeymoon clothing.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like sussing out that this trend of mid-length silk skirts with polka dots was like something that was cute.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was girly.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was seeing a few people with it, and I was like, I think, I think I might buy this.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really glad I didn't.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I got to Paris on my honeymoon, and it was like so many girls were in mid-length silk polka dot skirts and trench coats.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, it is like copy and paste.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I travel to Paris a fair amount.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm in Paris, I'm used to seeing quite the plethora of outfits.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, this was like copy and paste girl, copy and paste girl, copy.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, what in the Pinterest inspo pick is happening here?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: My husband was driving, and we were in the car, and we were crossing a crosswalk, and I was looking at all of the women waiting, and I was like, you all look the same.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: You are all dressed the exact same.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was almost freaky.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, fashion specifically, like with a micro trend.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Someone makes a video about something they saw a couple times on a runway that they've seen somewhere and they post by it, and it gains traction and becomes wildly popular.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then other creators, in an attempt to A, monetize and B, get views, likes, engagements, they also talk about the same micro trend.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly the micro trend of polka dots is born because it's monetizing well for people, and then we're looking into it more, which means more people are talking about polka dots.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this self-fulfilling prophecy of polka dots until someone decides and posts a video and says polka dots aren't trendy anymore, and then everybody's like, ah, I can't wear my polka dots, and then we won't see any more polka dots.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we actually all want the exact same things at the exact same time?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we want the exact same things at the exact same time?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we go back to that model of an influencer, and I think that Emily Kaiser is a really good example because she's done a really nice job despite being a wildly popular and well-monetized influencer of keeping the girl next door vibe.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So she seems like someone we could actually be friends with.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas on like the other side of the spectrum is Becca Bloom.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: When I read the comments on Becca Bloom's videos, people are not watching her videos to be a role model or to figure out how to have her lifestyle, they're watching, and the comments will say stuff like watching to see how the 1% lives, or it's like it's so interesting how the 1% lives.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I know she gets a lot of hate, but people aren't looking to Becca Bloom to figure out necessarily how to model their life after her.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're looking at someone like Emily Kaiser.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: But if we all have fixated on the same few models, we're gonna all start to look the same way, and we all want to live the same lives, we're all looking for the same partners, the same houses.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: We start to look for the same niches of content creation, the same jobs.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: While we fight and clash over wanting the same things, it's because we're all looking to the same models.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we're all wearing polka dots.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Someone at some point wore polka dots, and we all were like, yes.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So then we have this whole issue of the algorithm as well.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Our social media feeds are built and designed in such a way to do two things to keep you watching and so that they can sell you something.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Both are ways for them to make money.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, what the algorithm wants is for you not to feel any friction while you're watching.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't want to make you angry, it doesn't really want to challenge you, it wants to keep you happy and complacent and scrolling so that you're spending time on the app and spending money.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what that means is a friction-free experience, means that essentially it becomes an echo chamber.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is feeding you information that you want to hear.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not irritating you, it's not even a style of hook you don't like.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you know, if you watch some day in the life videos and you interact with them, it's just gonna feed you more because that's what you like to watch.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: If all of your friends are liking posts about polka dots, it's gonna show you posts about polka dots.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is really hard to escape the echo chamber.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: The algorithm was built to hook and hold you in.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I saw a video last year and it was a therapist talking about the algorithm.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: She works a lot with teens, and she was having this whole, she had this string of individuals that were coming in and they were addicted to vape pens of all things.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: She started asking them, why are you wanting to do this?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you vaping?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: What's the allure?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: What's the draw?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Well, it's all over TikTok.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, all of the kids are vaping.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, it's not bad for you.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: It tastes really good, it's cool.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's all this pro-vape messaging.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the therapist was like, What?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: No way.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So she opens up her TikTok and she's typing in all these things about like vapes being good.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: She can't find a video.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Every video she sees is vaping is bad, vaping is not healthy, nicotine addiction, all the things that make sense for her to see.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: She has to make a fake account in the age demographic ultimately of her clients in order to even find and start to start seeing this pro-vaping messaging.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: It exists, it's out there.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: She just couldn't find it.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the ramifications of that of like we are intaking so much information, but we are intaking a hand-selected, curated amount of information.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing to change our way of thinking, nothing to help us really grow.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is what we think we would like.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like aspirational content to what I could be that doesn't really rub me.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it's feeding you.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not change and grow content.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I typed in something once about a Sarah J mass book, and every single book talk video that I see is something to do with fantasy.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, guys, I don't even read that much fantasy.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I do now.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: I started reading a lot more fantasy because that's what's constantly in front of my face.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: See?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: It affects because that's what it thinks I want.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: The model that you are building for your life is being specifically hand fed to you.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that you're having an original thought.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's that you're being you're being told what to think.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're being told what to buy.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're being told how to raise your kids.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like the internet is so small because I'm in a corner of it.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're like learning how to do content, they talk about there's a niche for everybody.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many pieces of content out there.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: There is a piece of content for every single way of thinking, but you can't even find them all if you wanted to.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to keep it away from you because it doesn't want you to get mad at the app and stop using it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Social media is inadvertently writing your 10-year plan.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's not you.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this Frenchman named Pierre Bourdieu who in the 80s wrote a book called Distinction.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole point of this book essentially is that we don't really independently pick things that we like.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's like picked for us based on our socioeconomic background, and that like better taste is a higher class, and like what we actually like is very classist.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, like hot take, but think about it in this lens: you have social media and you can see when did we ever have an intimate look inside the life of someone that makes multiple millions of dollars a year?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're looking on social media and we now have these models like we've talked about that make a lot of money.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're seeing that, oh well, if you want to be successful, this is how you live your life.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, someone that's making$2 million a year, and then someone like myself that was a nurse and is making, you know, less than$100,000 a year, our ability to spin is very different.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: My paycheck barely covered the basics.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: What this essentially means then is because people are seeing things they wouldn't normally see in social spheres they're not normally in.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're buying things that might be out of their budgetary means.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: But then all of their peers are watching the same videos and so they're buying the same thing.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this is how you end up going into debt to buy a Rolex because it's not just the Rolex, it's the promise that the Rolex will allow you to be seen as a legit finance pro.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, maybe you go into debt to buy a Birkin because then people will take you seriously and know you have money and think you know fashion.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like the list goes on and on.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: But all your peers also have Rolexes and Birkins.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Also, interesting point because both of those companies create false scarcity to sell more products, and there's a lot of people that have Birkins and Rolexes.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's a little bit besides the point.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you think that you own something that's scarce, that in fact everybody else in your office owns, but you think will make you look more affluent and then more hirable or will be taken more seriously in whatever sphere.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're not just being sold an item, we're being sold a false promise.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: But that's really what you're paying for is how you think the item's gonna work for you.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why else would you go into debt?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're thinking it's going to do something.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch of hidden debt that's now been generated through social media because people are trying to purchase fully formed lifestyles in like one go instead of curating over time because we feel like we have to have it all right now.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: We live in the world of instant gratification.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And truthfully, if you don't get it right now, the next trend will move on and you'll missed out.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, in a 2019 study from Schwab, 49% of millennials, so age 22 to 38, say that social media has influenced them to spend money on experiences.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that's gone up now because that study was pre-COVID, was seven, it's a seven-year-old study.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they say social media has influenced them to spend money on experiences.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: 48% of those same people say they've overspent one with friends, whether it's dining out or on group vacations.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're all going into debt, which is then piling on each because if you the problem, even with going into debt to buy something, is it's not going to like fix all of your problems.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: So then when something else comes down that you're like, oh, well, that will fix.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then you go into more debt for that.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're not even just getting into debt to buy one item and then digging yourself out.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're now burying yourself in debt so that you can keep up with the Joneses.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this concept of keeping up with the Joneses is really interesting.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was a term coined by the New Yorker in 1850.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: There was this woman named Elizabeth Jones who was a socialite in New York and she built a summer house out on the coast.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, this thing was so elaborate that all the people that live near had to remodel their houses to feel like they could even like be worthy to like be on the same street with Mrs.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Jones.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So for the past 170 years, we've all said, Well, keeping up with the Joneses.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say that, what most people think of is a suburban, nuclear family in the most like basic of basic senses, with a white picket fence, nice two-story house, smiling at their neighbors.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we say keeping up with the Joneses, we're keeping up with people on social media, which is so dangerous because nothing is private anymore.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is on display.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: There is an item for everything, there's a way to optimize everything.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: But then you feel like compelled, even if you don't post it online, you privately feel compelled to buy that.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: So Ally Financial of Ally Bank did a survey and it was called Minds on Money, and they surveyed over a thousand US adults.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what they found is that 40% of Gen Zers regularly take on debt for impulsive purchases of items or experiences they saw on social media.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even think about it.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: We've all been there, you're doom scrolling at 10 p.m.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly you're like, if I don't buy that, my life is over.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I can't show up in public anymore.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have to have this.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what you do?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think about it, you don't sleep on it, you hit add to cart, and it shows up in your house.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: You get a little bit of dopamine when you hit the order button, you get another one when you open the box, you get another hit when you use it for the first time, and that's the value it gives you.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't something you thought about, you know, you looked at other options.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like a sweater that you were like, I think I want this.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let me think about the color.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do I like the blend?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, am I like cool with cashmere?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Can I take care of wool?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this other brand has something very similar, and I actually like that it has some cotton in it, and you know, you didn't educate yourself and then you bought it.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's fine.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the kicker: we're going into debt to go a copy and paste the person at the cubicle next to you.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we are going in debt to have the exact same things as the person next to you.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: There is such a massive identity dysmorphia.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: What is your identity?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, it's what social media tells me it is.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: We would never say that out loud, but that's really what we all are.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're a polka dot girl this summer because social media told you you're a polka dot girl this summer.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: The other cost of all of this homogeneousness that social media is creating is this term called airspace.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is coined by a cultural critic, whatever that is, Kyle Chaika, an essay in 2016.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So this is 10 years dated.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this idea of airspace describes this global homogenization of physical spaces.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we're talking like cafes, Airbnb apartments, hotel lobbies, co-working spaces, and all of these spaces basically look the same.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: You could be in Hong Kong, LA, London, Boston, Johannesburg, and it's gonna all look the same.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: But this aesthetic is honestly just driven by algorithms and digital platforms.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like not even like inspired by some amazing designer.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's why everything looks the freaking same and like everything is devoid of character.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Silicon Valley deeply prizes this concept of frictionless experiences.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing I was talking about earlier about your algorithm being frictionless.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: We want to make things as easy for you as possible, and we don't want you to be uncomfortable.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Discomfort is bad.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like that's where growth or anything happens.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you stay in an airspace hotel, you hop down to your airspace cafe around the corner, you get a regular airspace latte, and then you head into the airspace office.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, this means you can be anywhere in the world and nothing's jarring.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's all the same.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can expect the same basic experience no matter where you're at.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: We can be completely devoid of local culture.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's this safety blanket that isolates wealthy mobile elite.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the silicone.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the other thing here is this airspace gentrification.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're just gentrifying neighborhoods to also be like airspace neighborhoods and a lot of like neighborhoods that have a lot of cultural.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And background and diversity, we just are whitewashing them essentially.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't want to see it.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be uncomfortable.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: We haven't even taught ourselves how to engage with a culture that doesn't match with ours.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want in any way conform ourselves to something else.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: We want the world to conform to what we're comfortable to.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: We want it to fit into our algorithm tied with a bow.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: This essentially isolates and prices at local residents that don't fit in with the aesthetic.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's terrible.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: So are you scared yet?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so am I.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And like, what does this all even mean?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is really heavy stuff.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: You could break up with social media entirely, but the world around you is still very informed by it.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't just disengage from it and be removed.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're going to have to engage with a world that is informed almost solely off of an algorithm in social media.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: You need an individual identity.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: You need to recognize individual identities and other things.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we travel, I really enjoy staying at boutique hotels.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Boutique hotels have a certain aesthetic that is related to them, but in some ways I don't feel like it's as whitewashed.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking for things of local culture when we travel.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I am okay with being uncomfortable so that I can experience other things.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean this in like traveling to an Instagram famous destination.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: The first time I went to the Amalfi Coast, I found myself like beboping around on like the Instagram and TikTok like highlights real version of the trip.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was like, well, TikTok says we should eat here.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they're full.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing else is trending right now.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or well, we need to go there so I can take a picture for the feed.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about this, it's not on social media.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: My mom was like, let's go in.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need a social media guide for everything.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about last week.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Be creative, be curious.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: You need to experience things for yourself without the lens of an algorithm or filming it for social media without this layer of social media and the internet over it.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: You have to experience things for yourself and then draw up conclusions and then just like be happy with your conclusions.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: You want your taste to be informed by lived experiences.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's so much cooler.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: For example, the reason I have such a deep connection with Dior was I ended up scoring free tickets to the Dior Museum in Paris.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I already really liked Dior, I liked the architecturalist saddlebags.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciated what I knew about them.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I learned so much about Christian Dior and where all of his designs were inspired by flowers in his childhood gardens.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm like walking through this museum, I'm like, oh wow, yeah, I really see all of the floral aspects, and I still see it in a lot of Dior's designs today.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: I can't afford to wear a wardrobe of Dior, but there are certain items, whether or not they're supposed to look like Dior or not, they're like maybe a little bit more floral, maybe have a very interesting architectural edge, that I'm like, oh, I really like that because I'm informed by the experience of going to the Dior Museum.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: I found a really architectural blazer.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't look on TikTok to see if that was cool.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I bought it because I liked it and I knew I liked it, and it reminded me of a jacket in the Dior Museum.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the reality is, is if you're like, I want to make a spindy purchase, maybe you do want to buy a Rolex, for example.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're doing it because you want it and not because you're being told that you want it.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it is so much better to be able to buy something and not regret it, and also do it in a way that's financially wise, then you can actually enjoy the item.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: The question to ask yourself is is if I wore this forever and no one commented on it, would I be okay with that?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Am I just happy that I like it?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or if I never posted this to social media or no one ever saw this skincare mask, would I be okay with that?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you solely buying it so that you can talk about it and feel like you're in the in-group?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in middle school, we had a thing um where all of my friends would get Starbucks grappuccinos, and my mom was not into all of the sugar and how expensive they were, and I felt so incredibly left out not getting one.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: People were like, Hannah's poor.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, no, my mom doesn't think I need like a milkshake adjacent drink.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like five dollars at the time.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let's not bring up what they cost now.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my mom just didn't think that was wise, and my mom, to her credit, wasn't just gonna do it because everybody else was, and so that I didn't have to be uncomfortable again with being different.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is the reality.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: We want everything else to fit into the in-crowd so we can have that frictionless life, right?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is about making everything as instant and as comfortable as possible because heaven forbid we're uncomfortable for a second.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: As much as your algorithm tells you, a peptide mask is not gonna change your future.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: But money in your bank will.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And having a peptide mask and talking about it at work the next day is not gonna buy you real clout.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: If that's all that matters to those people, they're not people you want to be friends with.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: They have nothing genuine and nothing deep about them.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: But being able to relate over, you know, how hard it is to save money and what you're doing to save, like that's a lot more of a genuine connection than over the latest TikTok shop buy.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, what we do is we justify purchases because, like I said earlier, we think we're buying more than the purchase.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Every single item promises to do something for you, even if it's like to fix your sad lonely self.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's saying it will fix it, but it never does.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we logically know that, but it's an addiction.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Some of our shopping and our trying to mimic others and our losing of our own identity is an addiction because it is easier to copy than to build an identity for yourself, get real with what you like, and learn about culture and learn about what you like.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is just easier to copy everybody else.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I will remind you again, algorithms are designed to keep you scrolling and to keep you shopping.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have to be smarter than a computer.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Influencers will sell you things all day long, every day.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Brand deals are how they make their money.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're not just doing all of this for fun.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: So at some point, just like you don't believe every commercial when you're watching TV, you don't have to believe every single added influencer is telling you, or you can just brush it off and say, I don't need that.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you can create some things and spend time away from your social media, it will probably help you feel less like you have a grip on you.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have started breaking my phone every day when I get done with work, and I really feel like it has massively improved my life.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm hanging out with my husband in the evening, I'm not just like doom scrolling in the background, reinforcing that I need to buy a polka dot skirt, like it's off to the side.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or when I can't sleep, I'm not doom scrolling, and there's none of that, like most of my purchases that I regret or that was like just spindy to be spendy were late in the evening.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I brick my phone and I remove the temptation entirely.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so instead, you know, I'm watching Sex in the City and I'm like, I love Manolos because they remind me of Carrie and they're so fun.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Forming opinions for yourself that don't have to necessarily match the person next to you.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: So my biggest suggestion is turn off your access to social media at least once for a small point every day and go do something else.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is so easy on our commute to scroll if you take public transit, it's so easy between like work and dinner or when you're awake queue anywhere.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a quick little time filler.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Get the brick and you will be floored of how often you open the social media app when you don't even mean to open the social media app and it's just a reflex.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: But then you get sucked in and then you are losing your identity and you're spending money.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, in order to not join the homogenous blob that is starting to feel like the world, um, just turn off the little phone in your hand and go live your life.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but until next time, have a fabulous week, babes and besties.