I recently read quite an interesting insight from a movie writer/producer (I don’t know who it was, he was hidden behind a screen name and avatar) that was as equally obvious as it was profound and eerily timely for anyone up in the marketing world to hear.
The comment he made was:
“Everybody’s famous but nobody’s talented.”
Ain’t that the troof.
It was not like this nearly as much before the rise of social media.
Back then — and especially pre-internet — you had to basically earn any fame.
Now?
You don’t need any talent, knowledge, experience.
I remember even Madonna saying this about her daughter once – that she just shows up on Instagram and gets millions of fans. But she didn’t work for that fame, didn’t earn it with any real accomplishments other than being born to someone who did. And didn’t sweat/bleed/face trials by fire for it… and that it was not a good thing at all.
This is rife in the online business world, too.
When you see someone come out of nowhere, say nothing but some empty platitude or political commentary, and then get all kinds of unusually high praise and adoration… just watch what happens. Most never last long, although social media has extended their half lives I suppose. And those who do last longer than their usefulness tend to self destruct for the reason Earl Nightingale talked about decades ago: they know they aren’t getting paid (in this case, paid not just in money but engagement, likes, whatever) in proportion to their service/knowledge/usefulness.
The results it they burn really bright, then fizzle out just as fast.
I lost count of how many marketing goo-roos this has happened with since the early 2000’s.
It’s practically a trope.
In some cases the boys & ghouls may even have talent. But because they are relying only on a social media platform and it’s constantly-changing algorithms controlled by God-knows-who… they lose everything once that platform is taken away (or the algorithm that favored them changes) and then they don’t know what to do with themselves. And it’s all because they never built anything other than an audience they didn’t have the wisdom to put on a list they could export and, thus, own, like email or direct mail.
I’ve also seen it happen in copywriting more times than I can remember.
For example:
It’s why you have copywriting coaches selling high priced coaching while admitting to guys like me (yes, I know where quite a few of these particular bodies are buried) they feel like imposters because they aren’t all that great at copywriting but everyone likes and believes them on Facebook. Same with all these supposed experts popping up selling whatever the flavor-of-the-month BSO is.
Lots of fame, no talent.
Both fame and talent can be good to have.
But both are all but useless without the other. This has been a plot point in stories for probably thousands of years: guy asks the devil to become talented at art or music or something. Devil gives him that talent. But guy dies penniless and alone anyway, realizing he should have wished for fame and talent not just talent alone…
Anyway, all of this is why the “influencer” bubble is just a Faustian deal.
It will pop or just continue hissing air through an ever-widening gaping puncture hole.
But when it’s over it will also be humbling and devastating to many.
Ans as for these little broccoli heads running around sliding into your DMs pitching you on how to help you make 6-figures when they are literally broke still living at home, spanking out cold DMs from a template they bought, and probably spanking something else too in their basement… while waiting for mom to finish making supper?
They’ll have to get real jobs soon enough.
This goes for a lot of these boys & ghouls with fame but no talent.
Something else:
Now that Creepy Joe is forcing the young’uns to register for selective service that is very likely a prelude to a draft for some new bull shyt war to make a bunch of bankers and wealthy elite richer and you poorer, hoping people are dumb enough to fall for whatever lie is trotted out again to rally everyone together.
Ever hear that phrase “There’s a silver lining in every cloud?”
In this case, due to drafting a lot of them to fight for Satan and his henchmen in Washington DC the number of broccoli heads for the next bull shyt war is guaranteed to cut down on the endless number of cold emails plaguing inboxes the world over.
At least we’ll get some inbox relief, I suppose.
That’s my opinion and forecast.
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Ben Settle
