Ep. 205 - How Social Media Is Changing Our Personalities | Dr. Kibby McMahon & Connor Flannery

How is social media changing the way we see ourselves and connect with others? In this episode, Dr. Kibby sits down with social media expert and creator Connor Flannery to explore how growing up online can shape our identity, self-esteem, relationships, and mental health. They dive into everything from comment culture and online validation to parasocial relationships and what might be lost when more of our social lives happen through a screen.

• Transcript

  0:00

  Interesting to think about what identity is in psychology.

  And there's all these different theories, but the the main theory is identity is basically how you are relating to other people.

  It's like you and who you are in space relative to other people, right?

  0:18

  So like our interactions with people shape our identity.

  I know we're not supposed to say that because we're supposed to, you know, have self worth independent of everyone else.

  But to be like I'm a policeman or I'm a helpful person or I'm a bad person, that's all informed by data of like we've had interactions and now I help people professionally, right?

  0:40

  Hi guys, welcome to a little help for our.

  Friends, a podcast for people with loved ones struggling with mental health.

  Hey little helpers, Today I have a really interesting and different guest for you guys.

  His name is Connor Flannery and he's here to talk to us about social media.

  1:01

  And.

  Specifically how social media warps our personality, our mental health, and our identity.

  So I, I know that I would have talked about social media generally, you know, it's this kind of hand waving way where we know it's a big thing.

  1:19

  We know that it's not good for us to doom scroll for hours on Instagram or TikTok.

  We're worried about our kids being on the phone too much, right?

  And we know that it can affect your mental health, right?

  There's famous court cases against Meta about this right now about how is it affecting the way we see ourselves?

  1:38

  Like, what is it like to constantly be exposed to videos and pictures of this idealized version of lives or bodies or people?

  All right, so.

  I think we all have a pretty good idea that social media is something big.

  It's something that really effects our culture, but I don't think we know how.

  1:58

  And I also think that there are levels of how it impacts our culture that we're not maybe not even aware of, but definitely not talking about.

  So the more I've delved into this world of social media and how this is affecting us, I thought that Connor was the best person to talk about this because he's just an expert in this.

  2:24

  He is.

  He's been doing social media for 10 years and he has about 4 million followers across platforms.

  His biggest I think is on YouTube.

  His channel is Connor Pugs if you want to check that out.

  I think he has a couple of channels.

  So Connor Pugs, his biggest one, has 2.6 million subscribers and he does about 1/4 billion in views per month on all those platforms.

  2:48

  So he has.

  Grown up with social media in a, in a major way and now he's turned that into helping others with it.

  He's ACEO and founder of Pugs Media, which is his company that helps small businesses like mine and other people build their personal brand and market on social media.

  3:08

  So, and also I just really like him.

  He's he's very smart, he's very thoughtful.

  He, he loves to talk about these topics in a very intellectual way.

  And he's a, we wander over being like nerds and video gamers.

  So he's wonderful and really, really knowledgeable in this area.

  3:28

  But I think it's.

  Also, it was fascinating to me to think about, you know what I'm, I'm seeing all of this from the perspective of an older millennial, someone who I, I grew up without the Internet for a large chunk of my childhood, right?

  We, we didn't even have phones.

  3:45

  We, well, you know, smartphones, Facebook was invented when I started college, right?

  So I have a different relationship to social media and Internet compared to someone like Connor who essentially was like a celebrity.

  4:00

  It was famous on YouTube as a kid, right?

  And so he had to develop in sense of self through things like comments or the his number of followers or what people say to the videos that he puts out in the world and and vice versa, right?

  4:19

  He's people like him were consuming content from other people.

  And that's what instead of me playing hopscotch in the park with my friends, that's how he was developing his sense of the world in himself.

  And more and more people are doing that right.

  4:36

  They're spending less time outside and less time in the real world and more time on social media interacting with each other there.

  So I really thought he was a perfect person to talk about how is social media affecting our sense of self, our mental health, our relationships and identity.

  5:00

  And we only got to the beginning of that conversation in this episode.

  So I think this is going to become a series where we're going to talk about this over several episodes because and this one, we talked about how it affected like our upbringing, but there are other topics about, you know, who are these creators who when you're a YouTube person or a streamer or someone who's famous on TikTok, like who are you?

  5:30

  You're influencing millions of people a day.

  But like, what is the psychology behind that, right?

  Like what is motivating them?

  What is it doing to the people who are watching?

  What is it doing to their audience?

  And there's also dating, right?

  How does it affect the way we see romantic relationships and intimacy?

  5:49

  So we have a lot to talk about, but this was an A really good foundation into woe.

  Social media is here.

  It's affecting the way we love, the way we relate, the way we feel.

  And the more information the better, right?

  6:04

  The more we understand it and understand the mechanisms behind it, the more we know whether we want to let that influence happen to leverage it or to stay away from it.

  So I will put Connors information in the show notes.

  6:21

  So if you're interested, if you have a a business or you're looking for help with social media, definitely check out Pugs Media.

  They've been great and they're super professional, super knowledgeable and really on it in very cool ways and they've really helped me a lot.

  So Pugs Media, you want to check out Connors YouTube channel, He goes by Connor Pugs, so you could check him out there too.

  6:43

  But I really hope you enjoy this conversation and please, if you have thoughts or questions, please put that in the comments either on Spotify or YouTube or however you're watching this because I'd love to address them and answer those questions in the later conversations that we have with Connor.

  7:02

  So hope you enjoy.

  Welcome back little helpers.

  Today I have a really interesting guest.

  Before I dive into it, you could probably hear that I have no voice.

  I just woke up this way.

  So sorry for sorry for sorry for you guys.

  I'm so glad for subtitles and captions.

  7:19

  So if you if you don't, you can't hear me just like let me know.

  But anyway, I'm really excited to welcome Connor Flannery on the podcast.

  We've been working together for what, a couple months or?

  Yeah, I think well recently with the, you know, the the shorter videos, we've been working together for a month and 1/2 or so, but we got in touch almost a year ago at this.

  7:41

  Almost a year ago, yeah.

  I think it's like 10 months.

  All right, Connor has been our YouTube social media branding genius, and he's really helped us revamp this podcast.

  So he's coming from behind the scenes to now in front of the camera.

  But Connor is a founder of Pugs Media, and I'll let you tell our audience who you are.

  8:05

  Yeah, I so, I mean, I, I love the game of social media.

  I think it's really interesting.

  I've personally done it for on my own channels for 10 years.

  I right now on my channels, across all of them, I get about 1/4 of a billion views per month, a lot of them being short form.

  I wish it was long form.

  8:21

  I as you know, you get paid a lot more if those are all long form.

  But anyways, I, I love the game of social media.

  I, I graduated college with a math degree and that's like how I look at the world of social.

  Also about two years ago, I started a company, it's called Pugs media, where kind of taking the knowledge of social and, you know, helping individuals, businesses, organizations kind of get their message out and do social media effectively and efficiently.

  8:44

  And yes, Sir, you know, working, you know, with Kibi almost 10 months ago.

  And I, I gave some good pointers along the way, but your growth in Instagram is 100% you and I will, I'm happy to be a long ride, but the credit goes to you for all the posting.

  And yeah, a year ago you had like 200 followers and now you have over 60,000.

  9:02

  So round of you broke. 70 You broke 70 today.

  Oh my God I lost so much it was like 62 sounds.

  Like small potatoes for you, but. 70,000 and niche, we can go more into this later, but in a niche audience that is very, very valuable, right?

  That is like 3-4 hundred thousand of a wider audience.

  9:19

  So there's not every follower is made equal, right?

  I'm learning all this stuff from you primarily.

  And I wanted to talk today.

  I mean, we, we talked about how social media is warping our personality.

  9:37

  And I'm saying this because I have I resisted doing social media.

  I was like the old millennial that's like, I'm just going to put my vacation photos on Instagram and that's it.

  And then found out that I had to do this and in and now this world is huge, you know, everyone doing Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and everything like that.

  9:58

  And it's a whole world.

  And it's a world that I think especially families and loved ones don't know how to wrap their heads around because they're seeing like kids growing up with it, right?

  Like, and, and shaping their self esteem, their personality, their, their ambition, their idea about college and business and everything in this new world that millennials and older are like, what the, is this?

  10:29

  So it's it, I'm interested in this like how it's shaping us as people, how it's shaping our relationships and society.

  But you did, did you grow up with the Internet?

  Did you like, were you a digital native?

  That yeah, that's a that's a good question.

  10:46

  So for a big part, Well, I, you know, I'm 24 now.

  So when I was really, really young, I mean, there was computers.

  The Internet did exist, but that was like I grew up in.

  I was born 2002.

  So from like 2002 to 2010, the Internet existed, but it wasn't like today where I mean, it's like Jenna Alpha.

  11:06

  It's like, yeah, logged into the Internet like age 3.

  I don't think that's good.

  So I didn't really have any, you know, access to the Internet or any kind of electronics to like 11 or 12.

  And I really sunk into the world of YouTube.

  I started, I began my obsession really early, just loving YouTube and I that's why I started over 10 years ago, right?

  11:26

  It's like I started when I was, I guess closer to 11 years now, started when I was 13.

  So I've been doing it for a little while, but I have also spent a lot of time in my teenage years like online.

  And I do think about, you know, the almost like the, the social implications and they're, it's, it is really, you know, remarkable to see what, you know, this higher level of, you know, being online is, is doing to so many people.

  11:57

  One, I think socialization generally is going down for many reasons, but it is easier to be online, watch videos, there's no risk, There's no social risk involved.

  The same thing with like, you know, kind of like the dating market getting really questionable and hard for a lot of young people.

  12:15

  If you look at the data.

  I think in part of that is due to, you know, dating apps taking a big portion of how people meet.

  And one of the reasons why it's a big portion is because there's no risk in swiping.

  There's a lot of risk in going up to someone social risk, even though dating apps it's it's challenging because they optimize for one vertical as opposed to multiple where you, you know, obviously for first time interaction with someone, you're looking at base level attractiveness as part of it.

  12:44

  But then there's also not only just like immediate attraction, I think that over time, like exposure over time, you build real attraction people.

  It's like why Co workers?

  There's such a high rate of Co workers because you're spending all the time with them, right?

  So that's not a thing.

  And then also you don't have any really additional information like if it's a friend of a friend, you least have that almost referral aspect where if they're friends of my friend, there's some level of caliber in theory that person has, right?

  13:11

  Or if it's a shared interest where it's like you go to the gym together, it's like, well, you know, we have this one shared interest.

  And then also shared interest tend to have other implications of shared similar traits as well.

  So there's no additional data, it's all converging to that.

  But going back to obviously social media and online, I think I, I, I'd love to hear your take on this.

  13:32

  I almost feel like comment section culture is getting worse and it's almost like bleeding into society a little bit.

  And what I mean by that is like it's always been a thing where it's like anonymous poster 28 comment something me.

  And now it's just like people first name, last name, saying insanely cruel things in the comment section.

  13:51

  You know, I saw this.

  I actually made a video.

  I, I have a second channel on YouTube as well, which I'll collaborate with on this because it's kind of blowing up and talking about the stuff.

  It's really fun.

  But you know, I saw this and this is just a, an example where I saw this post where it's like a wedding post like or a proposal and sky and a girl and the girl is a little bit overweight, but nothing crazy, right?

  14:13

  You're allowed to do that.

  And this is a private wonderful moment.

  The entire comment section is just filled with and all these comments are getting a lot of likes too.

  Would just really it's it's like you might catch yourself being like, huh, that was clever.

  But then you're like, that's super cruel.

  If it was a Family Guy joke, if this joke was made in Family Guy, it'd be funny.

  14:31

  Those aren't real people.

  Heck, this is a real person.

  And it's almost like the social encouragement through getting all the likes and feedback, just being absolutely cruel, absolutely ruthless to another person.

  It's it's almost as if the the grace that we give other people when we're constantly surrounded by them because you have a better understanding, right?

  14:53

  You, the grace you give yourself in a sense, because you and a lot of people don't give themselves enough grace, but at least you have that understanding of your life, the sequence of events that led you to who you are today from what you were determined at birth trait wise, kind of to be leaned towards.

  15:08

  And then your experiences, that combination of where you are now.

  It's like that is thrown out the window.

  Random person has this thing, I'm going to point it out and everyone left alike.

  So yeah, I'm I'm also curious your thoughts on like how you seen it right evolve over time and also even anecdotally, the impacts it's had on individuals you've spoken with people you know, but then also big picture at large too.

  15:30

  I'd love you'd love to hear what you're seeing on that.

  Oh my God, we're not going to have enough time to get it.

  Part 1.

  Oh my God, I have a feeling that's where this is going personally.

  Well, we think, I mean, I agree with you.

  Yes, things are awful.

  15:48

  However, the first time I was on the Internet, like I, you don't know what this is like.

  I remember a world where there was no Internet, like no phones that came with you, just like you're out in the world and no one knows you're there, right.

  16:06

  So the first time my dad signed me up, we're so excited.

  We got aol.com dial up.

  You can't use your phone.

  And we could go into a chat room, which looks essentially like ChatGPT, but it's just like a box and a little box.

  16:24

  And the first person I start talking to, my dad, was sitting there watching it.

  And he was like, no, something's weird about this.

  And then as soon as I said, yeah, I'm a nine year old girl, the guy started asking about things that were not appropriate, but he was asking about my pubic hair and all that stuff.

  16:46

  And my dad was like, this guy's sick, I'm going to get him.

  So that was my very first like.

  Welcome to the Internet.

  Welcome to the Internet.

  So no, just Fast forward to a few minutes ago where I get got like Adm that was just like, you are so unhelpful and you think you're great and you're a psychologist and you suck.

  17:06

  So yeah, I feel like it's interesting to think about what identity is in psychology.

  And there's all these different theories, but the the main theory is identity is basically how you are relating to other people.

  17:24

  It's like you and who you are in space relative to other people, right?

  So like our interactions with people shape our identity.

  I know we're not supposed to say that because our we're supposed to, you know, have self worth independent of everyone else.

  17:41

  But to be like, I'm a policeman or I'm a helpful person or I'm a bad person.

  That's all informed by data of like, oh, we've had interactions and now I help people professionally, right.

  So with I'm, I'm concerned about what happens when all these comments are so polarized, right?

  18:05

  Like the interactions we have with people are either, I mean, I find this in terms of like comments either really nice, like you're amazing, Oh my God, hearts, hearts, or you're so ugly.

  18:20

  I don't know why you're even talking about this in relationships, right?

  So it's like I, I, I wonder if people just have like these crazy personality problems that we see in like personality disorders where it's either that they're amazing or they're shit.

  18:39

  That's that's like my short concern about that is like the comments section is, is shaping how you see yourself, But how did you feel growing up with it?

  Yeah, I, I think that's, I think that's interesting.

  I think it's also very reasonable that a lot of who you are is determined by your environment, which is primarily other people, right?

  18:58

  I mean, we're wired to be very social.

  So there's, you know, some kind of viewer.

  Everyone has a different brain, you have a different wiring.

  So some of that is you're kind of a lot of the maybe things you might be predisposed to be more like this more like this might be in some part determined at birthright from your genetics.

  19:15

  But then the rest of it is OK, you have this almost like vehicle and then it like it like learns and evolves based on the information.

  I mean, when you're a child, the first couple years you're just looking around and you're kind of trying to find pattern recognition, right?

  19:30

  It's almost like you're a little bit like these language models which are linear algebra.

  And it's just like what is, I thought it was interesting.

  There was this, you know, back in like the, you know, Chachi BT launching in 20/20/2023.

  There's a lot of or 2022 and 23.

  19:46

  There's a public API in 2020, but like consumer, really the consumer model in 22 and 23, there was a lot of kind of this debate of like, oh, it's just a party trick because it's just really good at predicting.

  The next word is it's a really good at predicting.

  And I'm and I was thinking like what, what makes you think so strongly that we are not some part, if not very much, just a very sharp prediction.

  20:11

  We're just very good at predicting.

  And that's how a lot of logic and thought come together.

  Then you have to think of like, OK, what is the date?

  Like what is, what are you being trained on?

  Right, so you have this like base of your model is your brain when you're born from mix of your parents, their parents like for different like how your brain is wired and then you're trained on this data, right.

  20:30

  And obviously there's there's more to it.

  And while I look at it a little bit like that, I also, you know, really do love the works.

  Like Carl Jung spoke about that little bit over text and I like that a little bit more, you know, a little more to it than that, of course, But I think looking big pictures like that's at least maybe it's not all of it, right, but that's a big part of it.

  20:49

  Feel like a lot of you as your it's like the world reflects on you, right?

  You it's it's it's reflexive.

  You put something in, you get something out and that's a lot of you is the reflection of everyone else, right.

  Maybe if you're in extreme isolation, then it's like you could that's why they're sometimes quirks with that, because it's like a weird kind of reflecting on yourself and you get glitches and everything.

  21:10

  But specifically for the Internet, I would say when I was, you know, I, I, I definitely had a lot of, you know, in, in, in high school and in general, like I've, I've always been someone who has stayed very much to myself.

  21:26

  And I, I enjoyed spending, I enjoy spending a lot of time alone.

  And right now, like I'm working on like I have to go out and do things and see people because I know that it correlates with I've I've, I've kind of mapped out like my like the average mental well-being and my socialization.

  21:41

  And there's a pretty tight like correlation with some random bumps of events.

  But like pretty tight correlation of like if I'm at a good point of socializing versus a low point within my scale, which might be lower than someone else's, higher than someone else's, there's a correlation between me socializing more and feeling better.

  So I think the data shows that in general, but also case.

  21:59

  But you know, I've always, you know, I've always, you know, found it a little bit more more difficult than average to, you know, just go out and like socialize and meet people.

  And you know, I think the friends I have, I have them very deeply, but I don't have a ton of them, right.

  So going to the like the Internet was this wonderful.

  22:17

  Well, seductive, I should say.

  Wonderful has a purely great connotation, seductive, maybe two negative.

  But the Internet was this great place where I could watch, you know, I was watching people YouTube videos, parasocial, right.

  It was a one way relationship with a lot of people and a lot of my honestly, a lot of my identity and personality, especially high school and even early college was built off of these personas, if I'm being completely honest, because I will.

  22:44

  So can you give?

  An example of a what that looks like.

  Yeah, I think some specific examples, like some funny ones would be I would use some Internet terminology casually in conversation without thinking twice about it.

  And then my buddies would be like what?

  I'm like, Oh yeah.

  But I think, I think going, you know, going deeper, you know, I would, I would kind of look at, you know, the world view, the way people would speak, verbiage, thoughts, things like that.

  23:10

  A lot of that would be picked up through people.

  I'd watch online because I'd watch so much of it if I'm being, you know, super honest about it.

  And also like socially, it was a risk free alternative, but it was not a, it was not a perfect substitute.

  23:27

  It was like supplements instead of eating well, you can't live off supplements in garbage food, right?

  You still have to eat well with supplements if you wanna full optimization.

  So that was very it was, it turned out for me that being chronically online is like is like the slang turned out well because I was able to find friends eventually that really, you know, appreciated me for who I was and then also turned into this big career.

  23:54

  So for me, financially, it returned well and now I'm catching up on the other parts of life.

  But for most people, it just has those negative effects.

  But then speaking from, I think another interesting angle on comments, you know, I really started to have my channel pick up in my senior year of high school.

  24:13

  So I went from kind of a dead channel with like 10K Subs because I'd been posting so much. 10K is great, by the way.

  I posted like 1000 videos over six years.

  Like at that point I just collected Subs so and they were super random.

  24:30

  They were not engaged.

  Like I think my average views are lower than your channel.

  I'd, you know, 5X to sub.

  So that's what I mean by a dead channel.

  But I went from essentially a dead channel without posting to 100K Subs in a silver plaque within seven months or so in high school.

  And for the first couple years as like I really started to pick up on social, I was massively impacted by the comments section.

  24:56

  And I think a lot of people, a lot of creators don't really, they kind of speak about it, but they really don't.

  And I would really ask because it was I sometimes in my life, I find that I can come to a logical conclusion way before my emotional reality catches up with it.

  25:15

  So I almost immediately was able to be like, OK, well, let's actually look at this.

  One person out of 1000 has a strongly negative opinion.

  The other 90% are mildly +5% are very +4% are mildly negative proportionally, that is totally fine and that's reasonable.

  25:34

  In fact, I should have had, you know, if it was truly random sample like if there's anything like probably would have been high like would have been a higher negative percentage, but one negative comment would just blow up my mind.

  I actually I actually quit YouTube for a month or two with really no plans on coming back.

  25:51

  I just brought from the obsession of YouTube.

  I just had to come back.

  But at the end of it, even the 100K Subs making decent money, I had to step away.

  It was like too much.

  I was not.

  Comments would you get?

  Not even that bad.

  They would just be like it wasn't even like super like it.

  26:09

  I I can't remember exactly, but it wasn't like even that horrendous.

  It was like, you know, he was attacking me personally.

  It was like it like looking at them now I'm like, who cares?

  But it, I, I mean, I've always been someone who cares very significantly about the opinions of others in the sense, in the, in the sense of less so I need people to approve of what I'm doing, but I don't want people to be upset with what I'm doing.

  26:32

  I as a kid, you know, I, there's these kind of funny stories when I was in kindergarten, there was this one story of someone who I was kind of friends with but didn't even know that.

  Well, he, he fell out of the bus as he was falling on the stairs.

  Like he tripped, fell, he got up and he was totally fine.

  26:49

  But I started crying because I was like upset that someone else could have been hurt.

  Like it was very sweet, like kids story, but, and I don't do that anymore, obviously, but that is always been my kind of fun like foundation of like, I don't want anyone to be upset because of me.

  So I think I took that extra personally and as I continue to blow like get bigger and bigger and bigger, I had like a really massive month in August 2020 before college.

  27:13

  You know, some people would make criticism of my content, which is totally fair and it happens all the time on social.

  And I just took it so personally.

  And at this point now I got plenty of negative comments.

  I don't bat an eye zero truly 0, even if it's like like it, it genuinely at this point has zero impact on me.

  27:35

  And it's not because I logically came to some conclusion.

  I came to that immediately, right?

  It's almost through exposure.

  I think it's almost like your brain's exposure to this of, oh, this is you.

  You get better at understanding these mass quantities because you know, I, I think about this and when we were in a tribe of 100, maybe Dunbar's number 150 or something, when you're kind of like, you're kind of wired to understand 150 people, that's at least Robin Dunbar.

  28:04

  That was his theory.

  Because of all the combinations.

  It's actually massive because your brain is very powerful supercomputer.

  But 150 people, if you know combinatorics, there is you also make mental notes of the relationships between those people.

  So when you're in these kind of smaller tribes, if a handful, even if like 1 or 2% of the people really dislike you, that's a big threat because they could find a way to get you kicked out.

  28:25

  They could try to conspire against you.

  If you get kicked out the tribe, you're dying of starvation or an animal attack or something like that.

  And I think that human genome like evolves like 1% every thousand years or something very slow.

  So that number might also be false, but I know it's like very small rate.

  So you're still kind of, you're not wired to understand human.

  28:43

  I think this is a big part.

  You're not wired to understand human dynamics well in large numbers.

  So dealing with 100,000 people, it's not even a number.

  I can you can't even think of a numbers visualize them above like couple 100 or something gets very blurry.

  29:02

  So 100,000 people giving feedback.

  That small number is going to still hit those alarm bells.

  But for me, it's like over all this time and billions and billions and billions of views and hundreds of hundreds of thousands of comments.

  I'm at a point now where I'm like this, this is all meaningless to me, except if I get a really nice comment, I feel those all the negative ones.

  29:22

  I'm like interesting, OK, cool.

  Like zero thought where it used to just maybe quit for a moment because I was, I was very sensitive towards other people being hurt by my actions.

  In a sense.

  That's the thing that would always get me.

  Now it's zero because I realize it's not representative, but went on a tangent on that.

  29:38

  But I think that was a kind of unique angle for me.

  I wonder, but then that like it's interesting to think about how this effects our shame response, right?

  Shame is the emotion that we have that keeps us in that that small group, right?

  29:53

  Like if something is bad about us, we hide it, which is what shame is so that we stay in the small Cavemen, right?

  Do you feel like kind of getting so habituated to all of those negative comments?

  30:09

  Do you feel like it's affected yourself esteem or your feeling of shame or this or the OR how you interact outside?

  Like we're talking about this risk free world.

  What about in the world?

  Whether it our risk?

  Yeah.

  That's, that's a good question.

  I think, I think I have a personal experience with this.

  30:30

  This is different from the average someone who blows up online.

  I feel like they're probably less affected by the people being mad at them and more affected by the negative comments on them.

  I've always been, you know, relatively OK with being myself and I've always had a very different path and a different way of seeing things.

  30:50

  So the kind of the shaping of the negative comments of people saying, oh, what you're doing is stupid, your content sucks, you're look ugly, you're like all this honestly, even from day one had almost zero effect.

  I think that has a massive effect on a lot of people because a lot of them, a lot of yourself worth is determined by standards that are determined by everyone else, which is honestly, it's biologically reasonable because we're social creatures and to accumulate more resources and status require social approval, at least for a long time.

  31:23

  Now we can kind of get away with, you know, doing your own thing and Internet has a lot, a lot of that, right, But I've just never taken that to heart it or it just doesn't affect me emotionally and logically I got there like emotionally logically was 0 from 1 or 0 from day one.

  31:39

  The other one logically 0, but then emotional and then just through exposure went down.

  So I think I have a very different experience with that where I think a lot of other people take it understandably are kind of built to take it like that.

  And it's really impactful.

  31:55

  And my advice to most people posting on social is don't read your comment section and a kind of a nerd reason why it's not relevant because it's really good to get feedback on your content.

  We talk about this all the time, like look at your data, look at other people's data to iterate on that, your comment section, there's a certain subset of people that's very small in your audience that are going to go out of their way to comment.

  32:19

  So you're getting a very small sample of your audience of an audience isn't even your audience.

  When a video like it's just a people watching that will leave a detailed specific opinion that data is not relevant.

  It's not that it's irrelevant, but it's, it's too small to make changes on.

  32:36

  However, if you look at your retention curves, that is the accumulation of how much people actually enjoyed your video over time.

  You can get 100% of your audience's data within a retention curve.

  We also spoke about you can't just do data for short videos.

  You get random audiences.

  But if we're if we're comparing data here, comment sections are completely pointless.

  32:55

  The only time where maybe there is something there is if your entire comment section is lit up with the exact same piece of feedback and everyone's liking, then you might be able to look at the comments section and be like, why is like that's occasionally, but even then that's it's usually not.

  33:13

  Those are edge.

  Those are like edge cases.

  Those are outliers.

  It's typically not the it's it's rare cases.

  So my advice usually is don't look at the comments section because I had a hard time with it for probably different reasons why you or someone else would have a hard time with it.

  33:30

  But it is if I didn't look at those comments, I would have been a little bit more successful because I wouldn't have quit for two months, right?

  I would have had two more months of compounding.

  I nothing valuable from those comments.

  I only, you know, had issues with it.

  So sometimes people be like, Oh, I sent you Adm or Oh, I left a comment.

  33:46

  I'm like love that.

  I appreciate that comment section is for in my perspective, the comment section is for the viewers to converse with each other.

  It's not a way to converse with me.

  And I also think for the sake of like I, I also want to speak a little bit about parasocial relationships.

  34:02

  I think Parasocial is really interesting because my first, my channel, originally I'm going to go into a little bit of niche Internet history, but then bring it to Parasocial that I want you to jump in and give your kind of perspective from your take here.

  I, I, I, my first kind of set of videos was commentary videos on topics online.

  34:22

  And I eventually went to general topics online, which blew me up farther than the beginning.

  It was within this Minecraft community.

  Big Minecraft nerd.

  I love the game, I love the speed running.

  It's the NTH degree optimization for that stuff.

  Just tickle something.

  I'm like the math major.

  34:38

  Me and their Minecraft lover love that game for so long.

  Just loves that combination.

  World of predictability.

  And it's so awesome.

  There's so many combinations.

  It's beautiful beyond the point, but in that world in 20/20/21 and 22, especially in 2020 when people were locked down, they spent all the time watching online for the Minecraft Youtubers and people kind of in their space.

  35:02

  They had a extremely parasocial audience where this audience was an obsessed and not obsessed and like, oh, I'm obsessed with this celebrity because celebrities have a wall of you don't actually know them.

  You see little snippets of their work, they go on a little interview, they tweet something out.

  35:20

  Youtubers and social media and streamers, they show their entire lives and for some reason this Minecraft community had people that were their entire lives were built around these one sided friendships and relationships.

  I think, you know, a lot of it was teenagers that were very socially isolated, which I was in that bucket a while ago.

  35:39

  So I can feel for that and I can understand they were very involved.

  Like it was something where someone would listen to a song on Spotify and would show up and then it would like every and they'd have like theories of people.

  35:55

  And it was like, so it socially wasn't good.

  And there was a couple Youtubers that were tangential to that space that made there's one by this YouTube, Ludwig, who's also a streamer, very big now and he was fairly big.

  Then he made a video saying I'm not your friend, where it was like he was like, I make content, but I want you to be careful parasocial relationships, Like I'm not your friend.

  36:17

  I'm not your buddy.

  I make content like this is for your sake too.

  And I'm, I'm very interested in your take of like, you know, people who are only online and they kind of like really struggle with those like relationships and like, you know, in, in, in real life interaction.

  36:33

  So they develop these relationships with these craters online and they're one sided.

  And that's the the terminology thrown around.

  I don't know if it's technically correct, but it's the terminology is thrown around a lot.

  Is parasocial relationship this one sided because especially with people online and content, it's like you were always consuming things from them.

  36:50

  You have ever you've almost this seemingly complete view of their lives.

  You know clearly it's not right.

  It's curated, but it is presented as if like someone streaming all day.

  You see everything they're doing every day.

  Snapchat shows their lives.

  37:06

  They're tweeting out there like you almost build this false yet seemingly true like building of someone.

  So I'm, I'm, I'm curious what your take is on on that and feel free to ask any questions about that specifically to give anything, but I think that's enough to to.

  37:22

  Go yeah, I it's funny you mentioned like celebrities and having a wall.

  There's one time this, this is just this is kind of random, but I do want to talk about how you think it's different for these Youtubers.

  But I, I went to a Christmas party one time and I met Daniel Radcliffe and he was like, he was such a sweet, nice person.

  37:45

  We were chatting about like parenting and stuff.

  And he was, he was like, yeah, I'm really worried about my kids because I spent, I ruined my, my, my teenage years because I got famous.

  And then I would be obsessed with watching the comments section of IMDb.

  38:06

  And you said you would just obsessively read it and read all these terrible things about him.

  And I was like, and I was like, yeah, but come on.

  Like, they, they don't know you.

  They're they're talking about like Harry Potter, like, who cares?

  And he was.

  Like Harry Potter.

  So that's really cool I.

  Love Harry Potter.

  38:22

  Yeah, he was like.

  Nerd, But keep going he.

  Was like, no, but they said things like you are a bad actor, Daniel Radcliffe and I was like, oh, OK, never mind.

  So I don't actually think there's this wall that we maybe used to have a celebrities, but I think with these parasocial relationships, it's it's really interesting and you're making something click for me in the past, like working in Coolamind where I'm I'm helping mostly moms like of these 2030 year old people who are doing this thing that I just couldn't figure out for the longest time.

  39:02

  And now I'm like, oh, maybe this is it.

  They're doing this thing where they are texting their mom or any other family member in a really one sided way.

  And I've talked a lot about like I've always been interested in social, different social skills.

  39:22

  Like we have so many different skills that are so advanced and we need each one of them.

  And even empathy is broken down to several things.

  But one thing that I'm that I'm seeing is like totally going down the toilet is perspective taking or metacognition.

  39:41

  Which is like.

  So we usually think of empathy.

  Empathy is emotional empathy is what you just described when you were in kindergarten where you see a kid get hurt and you are hurt, right?

  That's emotional empathy.

  That's like that.

  39:57

  That is just like a biological mechanism of when you scare 1 bird, all of them fly.

  At the same time, right, because it's like transmitting if someone's in pain, Oh my gosh, we got to coordinate around this.

  But then we have developed that a cognition and perspective taking to be like, I'm in a separate person than you, right?

  40:22

  Like I can understand that you're in pain and I feel it, but I know it's not my pain and I know we're different people, but I'm seeing that ability go down the toilet and people doing weird things like they're just texting their moms everything, every thought like you're the worst mom.

  40:44

  You abuse me.

  I'm I'm this way because of you.

  Also, I had a nice sandwich today.

  What do you think?

  And I'm, and we're all puzzled, but I'm wondering if this culture of parasocial relationships, it's like, it's like taking, it's like ultra processed food, ultra processed interactions where you're taking the pieces that feel intimate, like you're looking in my bedroom and you're seeing me do stuff.

  41:09

  But I think what actually makes it like nutritious?

  It's a back and forth, right?

  The reason why you have that ability to be like, what am I feeling?

  What are you feeling is that if you're sad, I could come help you, not just watch you and be like always sad.

  41:25

  That's a cool that's entertaining for me and my feelings.

  It's like it's motivating me to do something to you.

  And all we have is to write a shitty comment or something like that, which is so far removed from you giving someone a hug, right?

  41:43

  So that I think that like there's like parasocial relationships, like dilute the thing that makes it nutritious to hang out with people.

  Yeah, I, I, I also because you know, I was, I was thinking about this and it might just be, you know, as, as online and Internet communication is becoming such a vast majority of a lot of how people just consume how you talk with people, right?

  42:08

  It's like you, you consume your inputs from like your surrounding as social media, online Internet interaction is like such a large percentage.

  I think one of the parts that makes it junk food versus nutritious is this kind of like flat.

  42:26

  It's, it's lacking a lot of information that you get when you sit down with someone.

  I, I, you know, I, I kind of going back to that first example of that, like wedding post, you know, I, I, I made a quick video on like, you know, where is empathy going because of social media.

  42:42

  So this actually topic, I've been thinking about it recently.

  You know, I, I had this comparison where I'm like, OK, take this where it's like the comments section and a lot of likes, which by the way, like sometimes they'll see on Twitter.

  It's like likes like does not equal endorsement.

  I'm like, well, it kind of does, you know what I mean?

  42:59

  It's like saving a post that for you to look at later.

  That means you're saving it.

  Maybe it's not AI proclaim, I believe this 100%, but it's like you're it's, it's a partial social endorsement.

  So you're seeing a lot of likes in the comments section on these very rude comments, meaning social, like repetitive social feedback is getting very positive, like being possible interaction.

  43:18

  And I'm just like, OK, we'll compare this to you're in a group, like let's say it's your first time going to this like club and there's like 12 people there.

  And those two people are there and they announced you're and they announced that they just got engaged.

  And then you make a comment like one of those comments, think about the social interact.

  43:34

  Like, first of all, I think people wouldn't because you have all that more feedback and you see someone, you're with them, you, you feel them, you get all those like more contextual clues.

  But even if you decide to make that comment immediately, that feedback would be negative.

  And I, I, I wonder if it's like, because the way, you know, socialization through screens, basically, you get so much of that through comment sections and those kind of interactions that it just becomes subconsciously how you communicate with people like on hide, right?

  44:05

  And where if it's like you're, would you, I mean, some people would still be in the case where they'd say that to their mom's face.

  But it's like maybe the intensity and volume of those types of comments and the skewing the average more towards those types of comments is coming from a lot of that interaction being, you know, disconnected and very one-dimensional where it's like you don't have all the other dimensions of, you know, expressions in person, other people around you.

  44:32

  So that's just the thought of what you said there, which is really interesting.

  I like the junk food now of you too.

  That's good.

  Louis CK had that really funny part, a really funny bit where he talks about like when you say something mean, if you were to say something mean to that person who just got engaged, you would what you would see is their sad face, right?

  44:54

  And then through emotional empathy, as we talked about, oh, you'd feel sad and you'd be like, oh, this doesn't feel good, right?

  But if you leave a comment, a comment and anger expression is naturally reinforcing.

  So if I just like if I feel angry and scream or say something mean, you get a dopamine hit and if you just say something mean on the comments section you get that dopamine head but you don't get the guilt right you.

  45:24

  Don't get the epic you, you just get that kind of release.

  You don't get the feel black.

  Interesting, that's a good point as well.

  I wanna, I wanted to ask you about something that we were talking about.

  But people who on the other end are influencers or are who like you make make their livelihood or personality or identity or public brand online.

  45:53

  Yeah.

  And they have to deal with it.

  And I'm hearing a little bit about the psychology about how you have to get there, which is like you have to be numb to the comments section.

  But tell me what else?

  Do you see become numb and that's where you'll really unlock it or just go look at it?

  It's probably.

  Become numb to the berating right?

  46:09

  Yeah, if you ignore it, you don't have to go through the years of becoming numb to it.

  It's a lot easier.

  That's a little piece of advice for anyone watching, but it's irrelevant data.

  If I'm concerned, let's say with the kids these days who are spending all this time online and they're having relationships and forming their own sense of the world and self through these creators, influencers.

  46:30

  Yeah.

  Is that good or is that bad?

  That's yes, and I think in our in our next episode, I want to go into the whole looks maxing and.

  Oh my God, yes please.

  Rise of clavicular because I think I'll have an interesting take where someone who likes having very intense interests and optimization, I can understand.

  46:55

  So I would have like, oh, but then what is the actual impact in the messaging?

  I think is extremely negative.

  So I'm someone who can understand it, but be like, whoa, no, no, no, but and we'll go into like dark triad correlate like correlations, but with I think that's a really meaty topic, but I want to almost start it.

  47:12

  So then people will be interested in the Part 2, which will be like 10 hours, which I'm excited for.

  Yeah.

  So we, we spoke about this a little bit and I'm, I'm always like very cautious to give takes when I don't really have anything beyond anecdotal evidence to back it up.

  47:28

  But I think that in cases like this, the anecdotal is strong enough and I have enough perspective in the space to at least say it with some authority.

  I did.

  There's there's something, there's something known as like a self selected group where I mean, you know this, but kind of to the audience, like a, a self selected group is a group of is it's, it's a grouping of people that choose to be in that group willingly.

  47:51

  So a politician, right.

  If you want to run for office, there's a certain archetype of person typically and certain traits typically.

  Well, it it's a group that you decide to go into.

  You're not forced to by gunpoint unless you're the son of some king back in the day and you have to be friends and ruler eventually.

  48:09

  But like generally it's like that.

  That's a group you select yourself to be into.

  Same with being an influencer Along the cases you are selecting yourself to, you're selecting to to post, right?

  You're choosing to do this.

  So you can find these really interesting psychological tendencies and personality trait tendencies in these groups because it's a subset of the population that chooses willingly to be in those groups.

  48:33

  So I have this and sometimes like, like, for example, there's this, I forgot who said it and I don't remember the line exactly, but it's along the lines of like, anyone who wants to be a politician probably shouldn't be, right?

  In the sense that people who'd be the best as a leader don't want to be a politician.

  48:50

  And how do you get around that problem?

  And when we're looking at influencers, right, there's this idea of, you know, and I'm, I got a math degree.

  I like psychology stuff 'cause I think it really applies to the world, business relationship, social media.

  49:05

  It's a lot of the numbers, but the numbers only inform you if you have a basis.

  And I think if someone like wants to get more into social media, they should learn about math and psychology.

  Those are two things I think obviously learn the actual social media stuff in the algorithms, but like in the the game of it and study other people.

  49:21

  But I think those are two really fun fields that play a lot of it in like play into it.

  But there's this idea of, you know, there is a sometimes characteristics tend to be correlated.

  So there's this idea of, you know, and this is I'm telling this the audience, I know you know, more than me about it.

  49:38

  But you know, the dark triad where it's like you have, you know, narcissism.

  I think that's more well known, even though there's subsets of it such as like we're talking about this.

  To be successful in business, you tend to have to have or there's a correlation with like slightly higher levels of narcissism because you need to believe like I'm going to be the outlier here.

  49:56

  I'm going to beat the statistics.

  Like I need to do that.

  Like a little bit is actually very helpful.

  Then there's like self-sufficiency narcissism where it's like I can do everything that's actually very hurtful for business.

  Like you'll actually, you can't offload it to other people.

  Then you'll never grow and you'll think, But like narcissism, which I think people understand a bit better.

  50:15

  Machiavellianism, which is I think described a little bit more as like as like sneaky going up the social ladder, like lack of empathy for other people.

  If it gains you like being very 2 faced and that, but a lot of like kind of social climbing and then obviously psychopathy and this kind of dark triad of these, they tend to be, they can be correlated traits and that's why they're called dark triads.

  50:36

  You have the the four, like the three in little triangle.

  From my experience, people in the social media world, especially ones that are posting, they tend to be, they tend to have like above population mean, like I, I would say like one or two Sigma above population mean dark triad traits.

  50:57

  And it's something where I mean some of it's pretty reasonable.

  You have to give an example.

  You have to give an example, I know, and then we could dive into it later, but.

  Yeah, we'll we'll go a lot more deeper cause.

  What's the worst?

  Fortunately, I have a little call I gotta jump into in a few.

  No avoid this so much.

  51:13

  So I'm excited for the and genuinely, next time we do this, which could literally be next weekend, 'cause I'm excited about this.

  I have so much to say.

  Obviously could be like two or three hours.

  If we take it on the weekend, we'll have a lot of clips, but honestly, let's take me, OK.

  I because I think it's more interesting to point the light at yourself.

  51:31

  I don't think I am super aggressively on this scale.

  I think I have a lot of kind of very intense forms of empathy that have kind of like helped me back in life.

  I also think it's funny when people are like, I'm an empath online, Then two days later news comes out that they're the worst person ever who did this terrible thing.

  51:50

  So anyone who says that self-proclaimed empathy is like, it's more through your actions.

  But I, I think there's certain bits of my wiring and kind of what I, I, I care a little bit.

  It's it, it just so happened that my very specialized interests, my super fix, like those interests let me down paths where, you know, I've made decent money and made decent connections.

  52:13

  I think it's if my specialized interests for other places, I wouldn't care as much.

  Still care a little bit, by the way.

  It's cool, but I would say like, I post my face 1000 times a day.

  I'm posting myself.

  People need to hear me talk.

  People need to hear me ramble on for 10 minutes straight on something.

  52:30

  You asked me.

  I very likely have above average levels of narcissism, right?

  That's probably likely.

  If you were very like below average, you would Well, if you're below average, that's that's not good.

  You have no self esteem.

  You would, you know, not post yourself at all.

  52:45

  You're like, why would I like, but I'm like, everyone needs to see me.

  I want attention.

  It's true.

  And like I can say, like I love the game of social media.

  I'm not the most on that scale.

  I, I believe I, I, I, I, I love being in a room of people that are, are smarter than me.

  53:01

  And I must think about this conversation.

  You know a lot more about this field than me, but I've taken up a big percentage of the conversation, right, So almost very introspective right here.

  And I I think it's interesting because I have selected myself in the social media world.

  Well, partially it's because I, I fell in love with it and it became so helpful for me, right, Because it was like it was my crutch when I couldn't talk to anyone or can do anything there.

  53:25

  There's also that other level, right?

  And I have had a lot of the, the friends I surround myself with for my true friends or like my friends, right?

  I like them to be completely unrelated to anything I do or anything in business, but even in my business friends, because I do have some business friends, a lot of acquaintances in that you're just going to in that space.

  53:45

  I used to have a be primarily social media people.

  I am going to refrain from specific stories in this podcast.

  Maybe in the next I'll go more in, but I was I was massively screwed over and in so many ways and by and I just through talking to a lot of social media people, I just saw such strong levels of these dark triad trades of anything to get ahead.

  54:09

  Think about in the world of social.

  A lot of these influencers are broke and they must climb the power ladder.

  I need to get in the stream.

  I need to collab with this person, this person their fault.

  You see this all the time.

  People complain about this.

  Oh, my follower counts going down or this person is not as relevant.

  I'm not going to talk to them anymore truly transactional.

  54:25

  The the narcissism part.

  I just talked about if you post your shovel all the time, like people need to, to look at me the Machiavellianism of like the very like strategically going up the ladder and the psychopathy of just, and that one I know is like it's these are all subclinical levels.

  These are just like higher than average.

  54:42

  So I will say there's a big difference between having and you'll go in and correct me a lot of these in the next pod, But like there's like clinical levels of like MPD versus just like higher levels of narcissism, right?

  I think it's probably generally subclinical.

  54:58

  Some I'm like, but I'm not, I can't give a diagnosis for any of them.

  You know, I would like to for some, but I, I, I've just seen, which then goes back to your question of if these are the people this, it's almost like the politicians who lead us shouldn't be leaders.

  Same thing as the influencers who influence us shouldn't influence us right?

  55:18

  Because of it being self selected group.

  OK, no, you have to jump.

  This is awesome.

  I want to talk more about this especially I'll leave.

  I'll leave this thought.

  I mean, the seeing yourself and rising up the ranks and numbers and not caring about, you know, who you hurt or all of this is actually baked into the world of social media, right?

  55:45

  Like there's literally numbers right?

  In regular world, narcissists will be like, are you better?

  Are you better?

  And they'll quantify in their head, but there's no numbers.

  So we go that's.

  Terrible.

  But there's actual this is actually shaping us to be more dark triad.

  56:04

  In fact, maybe it's not even bad.

  I'll just, I mean, it's probably bad, but just leave it like this is a warped world where you're just literally taking the pieces of relationship without the full person, right?

  56:20

  And that's might be what's warped about it is like, I know your number, your number is high, Your your value is high versus like, Oh, I just like him as a person and I, I feel this whole soul.

  No, you have a number.

  That is actually such a great point, I did not even think it's so quantifiable.

  56:39

  So it becomes so much easier.

  Yeah, and maybe it makes sense to be narcissistic, right?

  Like we are incentivized to put our faces on this.

  That's the thing that drove me away from it for a long time.

  I was like, I'm a psychologist.

  I don't like seeing my face.

  56:55

  I like being behind.

  Now I'm getting used to seeing my face, which sucks.

  But like I don't necessarily have the ego pride in it, but I'm like, I'm used to seeing my face every day, right?

  Because that's, that's the name of the game, right?

  57:11

  Hate the Are you hating the player or hating the game?

  Exactly that I mean the the quantified like this super quantifiable in objective terms point you made stellar that was that was really good.

  And on our next episode, we're going to go deep into looks, maxing deeper into this, deeper into some of my stories of like how this is true.

  57:32

  And then so potentially, hopefully some ideas for people if this is hard, how they can get around it and.

  Amazing.

  Thank you so much, as always.

  I'm actually very much looking forward to the next episode.

  We'll probably come in like a week because I'm excited and this is amazing.

  57:47

  Thank you.

  We'll talk soon.

  Until next time.

  Bye guys, bye.

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  58:06

  The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information purposes only and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk.

  This podcast and any and all content or services available on or through this podcast are provided for general, non commercial, informational purposes only and do not constitute the practice of any medical or any professional judgment, advice, diagnosis or treatment and should not be considered or used as a substitute for the independent professional judgment, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a duly licensed and qualified healthcare provider.

  58:43

  In case of a medical emergency, you should immediately call 911.

  The Host does not endorse, approve, recommend or certify any information, product, process, service or organization presented or mentioned in this podcast, and information from this podcast should not be referenced in any way to imply such approval or endorsement.

  59:03

  Thank you.