This week I heard Scott Galloway (net worth $100M+) say he spends about 2 hours each night on social media. I was curious what could capture his attention so much time so I checked out his “Threads” feed. Mostly what I saw was him commenting or reposting memes, videos and tweets that I had already seen before.
Then later that day, I was listening to Joe Rogan (net worth $200M+) talk to Elon Musk (net worth $500B) about social media, society and government. It was clear from their discussion that each spends multiple hours online each day seeing the exact same crap that I do.
I thought these men would have very different online interactions than me. They have vast wealth, families, successful businesses, friends, spouses, fame, notoriety and power. They fly private, travel frequently, spend lavishly and have no financial concerns.
And yet, they are spending more time online than I do looking at the same low quality garbage that fills my screen too often.
It occurred to me that everyone must be seeing this crap. It’s not just me. Nor is it “the algorithms” being finely tuned to my preferences. I think we’re all being served the same top 20 news stories, videos, headlines and images.
- Some of us ignore them or tune out (me).
- Some get outraged and incensed.
- Some latch onto them as factual, without digging beyond the headline or caption.
I have a theory about this.
Wealthy famous people are just as bored as non-wealthy people. So they go online browsing for mindless entertainment the same way most people do.
The difference is that due to their fame, these people fall prey to the social media feedback loop of likes, comments and retweets. I don’t, because I’m not famous and almost never participate in social media.
I also don’t care what others think about me (mostly). I had a brief flirtation with the seductiveness of anonymous “clicks and likes” when I first started blogging, but quickly discovered them to be irrelevant and meaningless.
A common trope is that we are all living inside our own little bubble of custom curated content, news and social media. Maybe that’s not actually true.
Maybe we’re all watching the same 3 channels.