[Transcript starts at 0:40]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people and thank you for joining me and Rupi, if you're watching
this, you can see, this is his favorite spot, he sits on the chair, he literally sits on the top of the
chair behind me. So if you are tuning in, watching, hopefully you're watching, listening on the day
that it drops, it is Monday, May 25th, welcome to the last full week of May, damn. This month has
absolutely flown by.
By far, of all the months this year, gone by the fastest and I got some traveling coming up, Lex
and I got traveling coming up in June, which means that month will also go by fast, so hopefully
you are enjoying your May, you enjoyed your May, Northern Hemisphere peeps, our time to
shine, summer is coming up, giddy up, although, let's be real, I live in Southern California, it's
always summertime, but I'm wishing sunny days and amazing weather for everyone, except for
Trump and his whole fucking administration, fuck Trump, now, always and forever, but speaking
of things that are whack and largely a lie, let's get into the main topic for today's episode, which is
the dead internet theory. So if you're not familiar, I can't, I love it, the Rupert's here, if you're not
familiar with it, the dead internet theory, it's not new. The origins of having the coherent name and
putting it all together, dead internet theory, that dates back to 2021, and a small forum called
Agora Road's Macintosh Cafe, Rupert has left, and a user by the name of Illuminati Pirate, and a
thread titled Dead Internet Theory, most of the internet is fake, so anonymous, forum born, no
single definitive creator, this character, Illuminati Pirate, hopefully, can you hear those sirens,
maybe, we got so many sirens going on, that person, Illuminati Pirate is the closest thing to a
quote unquote author, but that person was largely synthesizing ideas that were already floating
around on some of the message boards and such, but the theory is that the internet quote
unquote died around 2016, 2017, so what we are scrolling through now and seeing is mostly
bots, it is AI generated content, and it is algorithmically curated material, right, there's likely not
nearly as much human interaction on there as we would think, right, the internet that we knew,
early 2000s internet has been replaced by this, you know, synthetic feed that's designed to keep
you on it, it's designed to keep you scrolling, designed to keep you engaged, and depending on
how far you take the theory, it's designed to manipulate your opinions and behaviors, I 100% buy
this, and part of the reason I'm bringing this up, and I just read an article, and it was talking about
Bieber, Justin Bieber, and how his set at Coachella and like the hullabaloo around it, hullabaloo, I
think there's another letter in there, all the stuff around it was fabricated, and how, you know, it's
called clipping, this is not a new thing, and just how we know that our attention is being guided
and driven in a certain way, and that most things are not as organically popular as the internet
would have us believe, right, I buy it 100%, there is another layer of it, it's a bit more, you know,
conspiratorial in nature, and it adds that the government and corporations are doing this
intentionally and manipulating things, which I also buy, but that's not the point of, I will take my tin
hat off for right now, that's not what I want to focus on right now, what I want to focus on today is
the heart of the theory, which is that most of the shit that is on the internet, in this case what we're
going to talk about today is Instagram, that it's designed solely to keep you scrolling, and the
majority of the comments and engagement, the likes, things like that, that you see are mostly
bots, not actual humans, now don't get me wrong, there are still a ton of people and dope people
using social media, but what I want you to focus on is and are the actual humans that you interact
with on there, right, stop looking at the vanity metrics, I've always said this, but I'm just like, I'm
gonna make another episode, maybe now hopefully you'll do it, stop looking at the vanity metrics,
followers and likes, because they're fake, they're made up, stop automatically assuming that your
content is shit, this is a big one, not that your content is the shit, that your content is shit, that it's
bad, right, the algorithm pushes what will keep people on the platform, and like, admittedly, some
people's content is bad, yes, and if you're just starting, maybe your content's not that good yet,
but I watch as people just like rip themselves apart, and they're just like looking at their own
character, and they're just like don't want to put anything out, because they don't know if it's good,
like, and they're basing it off of what the algorithm pushes, at the end of the day the algorithm is
going to push what keeps people on the platform, and I watch as these creators who have just, I
don't say they've just gotten lucky, but a large part of going viral is is luck, there's a luck
component, there's a timing factor, there's do you look the part, what are you talking about, when
are you talking about it, a lot of things that mean that everyone cannot and will not go viral, and
so I see some of these creators go viral, and the advice that they give other people is basically
like your content sucks, shut up, your content sucks, and it's like that's aggressive, and
objectively not always true, all right, so one of the speaking of followers, and what are influencers,
right, one of the things that inspired this episode was that Instagram recently, you know, cleaned
out a bunch of accounts, a bunch of bot accounts, I have no idea when they choose to do this,
why they choose to do this, how they actually do it, how they choose to do it, anything about it,
right, I have no idea about the why, anything behind the scenes, but what happens is that people
lose followers, anywhere from like tens to hundreds to like tens of thousands of followers
overnight, if people bought followers, they'll lose a lot of followers, so I don't be looking at my
metrics like that, but I did lose probably about 400 followers, now I have never bought followers
ever, but I have always said that the follower count is fake, Instagram inflates the shit out of that
number, and I firmly believe that it just gives you fake followers when it wants you to stay on,
right, it's like oh, well, let's give them some house money, you know, follower count goes up, what
does this mean, you got 20,000 followers, you're getting 10,000 followers, are they real people,
no, I do not believe that, are some of them real, yes, are most of them real, no, I do not think so,
it'll give you more, it wants you to stay on there, it wants you to stay creating content so people
can consume it, it wants you to stay consuming content so it can put ads in front of you, right, it's
just, it's house money, it's made up, Instagram giveth, Instagram taketh away, right, and
especially as your account gets bigger, you can't keep track, I don't know if these are real people,
you go through and you're like, you can't be checking all of them, so you're just like, whatever,
right, I know for a fact that when I speak out about things politically, and it's always anti-Trump
because fuck Trump, now always and forever, my account loses quote unquote followers, but my
engagement stays the exact same, sometimes it goes up, actually I get more comments, right,
and I don't think that I'm losing actual people, I think meta is trying to punish me and get me to not
post that kind of content, right, I also think that if I was to be more angry about it, more polarizing
about it, and get people to stay on the platform, and it would notice how their actions are, it would
give me more followers, I think that my followers are, my Insta fam is very educated, I think that
they, we think we all doom scroll, but I think that they're also very good at like, I gotta shut this
thing off, I gotta take a break from it, and Instagram doesn't like that, and so it's like, hey, you
create content that people who don't consume content or for people that have boundaries, they
consume that kind of content, and so we're gonna punish you, stop creating content for educated
and informed and boundaried people, we punish you, we take followers away, create content that
is divisive, that is inflammatory, that keeps people on, that attracts people, that are just gonna
stay on and keep scrolling, cool, we will give you more followers, I firmly, firmly believe that,
because it's just fucking made up, right, they be punishing me with fake followers, and I've said
this since day one, right, yes, absolutely, I think that a percentage of your followers, my followers,
my Insta fam is real, absolutely, but as that number grows, as your follower count grows, the
percentage of fake followers absolutely grows, absolutely, right, accounts that buy followers and
rely heavily on ads for growth, we know a shit ton of those followers are fake, just go look at the
comments, right, they are all bots, and the internet is very dead there, and you can very much
see this dead internet theory there, and I have heard firsthand, I went to a conference, I spoke at
a conference, and I was like kind of blown away, and I was like, well, good on you for the
transparency here, but one of the speakers, one of the male speakers, he spoke about using ads
and like this kind of gamification, not even gamification, gaming the system, it's not gamification,
gaming the system, and using the fact that there are bots in order to like make the account grow
without buying bots, so as I understood it, he would run ads to like places like India, where there
are a lot of bot accounts, and then get like the watch time, and the view time, and the comment
count up, and it was all bots, and that kind of helped with like, you know, how it ranked, and like
social proof, and then they would run the ad here, and I was like, that is some crazy shit, it's all
fake, wow, clearly 100% do not recommend doing this, and I literally have no idea if it works
financially, like if you end up with like good quality followers because of this method, I don't know,
I would never do it, it sounds crazy to me, but I know that it is the thing, I heard it firsthand, and I,
and it further supports my belief in, you know, dead internet theory, on the other side of this, I
have friends with very big online businesses, and some of them spoke at that same conference,
and they serve a lot of actual people, right, because again, yes, there are still absolutely people
on the internet, my push with this episode is to have you focus on those actual people, to focus
on those genuine interactions, and not get caught up in the algorithm, right, focus on serving the
hell out of your current clients, your initial followers, it's a small number, lean in, don't be scared of
these small numbers, you got one person to buy, fucking amazing, over deliver the shit out of
that, right, I want you to figure out how to stay in the Instagram game long enough to give
yourself a chance at quote-unquote winning, right, when I say winning, I mean, you know, your
posts get in front of more people, actual people who want to buy your stuff, right, I am currently
doing all of this messaging work, if you want help with messaging, check out the offers, I'm loving
it, it's going incredibly well, I'm actually going to revamp some of the offers, but I'm loving it, and
as much as we all hate Instagram, there is still so much value to it, because of the amount of trust
that it can build, there's so many touch points, in so many different ways, I can see your face, I
can hear your voice, I can see your life, I can learn and feel your values, I can really get a feel for
you and see, is there this congruence, or is it there, you know, things are incongruent, and you
say this thing, but then you act this way, and like, you just get a feel for people, right, people can
fake it, but still, right, and it's tough to get that much, that many touch points, that much repetition,
and that variety of trust building activities, actions, anywhere else, again, I'm doing all this
messaging with people, a lot of it is focusing on their websites, and I will argue that the most
important part of copy, is who is saying it, it's not what's being said, so who's saying the thing,
think of any quote, just think of any words ever, just think of one word, right, think about Rihanna
saying it, cool, or maybe at worst, you're indifferent, think about fucking Trump saying it,
immediately, no, throw that word, throw the whole word in the trash, I don't even want to hear it
anymore, right, because we know the values that, and such, that come along with that word,
that's being said, right, because the person who's saying it, gives us context, right, Instagram can
do that for us, which is why I continue to use it, even though it can be the worst, because it can
also be the best, right, so if you are using it, keep your eyes on your own paper, and really dive
into the genuine and actual interactions, but get into your stories, Instagram is pushing them like
crazy anyway, I've been saying this for a million fucking years, right, stories, stories, stories, show
me your DMs, and I will show you, and tell you how your business is doing, where do the DMs
come from, stories, that's how people are DMing you, they're gonna watch your stories, and
they're gonna respond to one of the stories, and you get DMs, I've said it, you want more
engagement, do more stories, not more posts, Instagram is actually making it incredibly difficult to
make posts, I was just trying to make a post the other day for my sister for her birthday, and I was
like, how the fuck, I have to like go to the one screen, and the thing in the top corner, before there
was like a million different ways to make a post, and I'm like, they just want you to consume,
consume, consume, right, as it relates to the posts, right, I said make stories, when in doubt,
make stories, but as it relates to the actual content, making posts, right, my void, my vote, my,
wow, I can't speak, my vote is always to just make it, you know, make content that keeps you
playing the game, make the content that you enjoy making, the flip side of that is that the content
you enjoy making may not be what Instagram is pushing, right, and so if you need that external
validation, or if you know you're really affected by metrics, or if you're new to the Instagram game,
or the online business game, and you're trying to grow, yes, the reality is that the content that is
being pushed by social media is interest media now, right, the algorithm is so fucking sensitive,
and it is showing you what you're interested in, you want, you pause on a video for like a fraction
of a second longer than the other one, and it's like, okay, a million more of those, because it
assumes you find it interesting, and it ties it into this, and this, and this, so it is a slippery slope
when we talk about, you know, making content that's interesting, and content that is entertaining
with no substance, especially, right, that is really tough to create that kind of content, and attract
an intelligent audience that's actually going to give you their hard-earned dollars, right, so this is a
reminder that entertainment, and ultimately people are, they're on Instagram to be entertained,
inspired, and educated, right, in that order, but entertainment takes many forms, and traditional
entertainment, we think in adventure, comedy, emotion, inspiration, surprise, your ability to teach
something that you're passionate about, succinctly, that's entertaining, your ability to teach
something with humor, if you're funny, if you're not funny, oh well, it's fine, that's entertaining, your
ability to teach through storytelling, entertaining, maybe you're just teaching, and you're showing
your regular life, that's entertaining to people, because they haven't seen your life, they don't
know your life, all right, there are a bunch of different ways to go about this, but that's, honestly,
it's not even the point of this episode, I just want to give you some action items, because I hate,
like, putting out problems, you know, saying problems, and no solutions, no action items, right,
the point of this episode, and my point here, is that there, that yes, so much of the internet is
made just for the algorithm, it's made by AI at this point, and a lot of the interaction that you see
on social media is AI, it is bots, but there are absolutely still people on it, and using it, and
wanting connection, right, and using social media to inform their purchases, right, do they trust
the brand, I know, I go on there and see, like, what is this thing about, so lean into the genuine,
authentic, actual interactions that you are having, right, and lean into starting small, double down
on the actual people, I've said this from day one, over-deliver love on your early adopters, they
will spread your message farther and faster than you ever could, all right, let's wrap it up, the
dead internet theory, it is true, in my humble opinion, but there are still legit, dope humans on
there, so curate your experience, create the content that you want to consume, and double down
on the actual humans that are interacting with you, all right, that's it, as always, endlessly,
endlessly, one more time, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you, until next time,
friends, Maestro, out.
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