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the flattening of attention metrics is something that seems to trip up even the most thoughtful of people 1 follow or view from the right person is worth 10,000 casual randos, maybe 100k. this is hardly ever reflected anywhere in practice it’s a kind of sliding scale but still
most intuitive way I’ve been able to frame this: https://t.co/J4LMVMQVGS
you may have to talk to 10,000 people before you find your McCartney (and I argue that it’s worth spending 10 years talking to 3 people a day until you do), but the mistake many people make is pandering to the 10k instead of focusing on finding McCartney
The cool thing is that people-searching is not… what’s the phrase… there’s a concept from conditional probability if you make it clear that you’re looking for McCartney, each person you talk to increases the odds you’ll find him, because they’ll help you on your search
and wonderfully, along the way on your search, if you ask people who/what *they* are looking for, you will find people that you can connect with other people! This is very gratifying to do. Every wonderful connection blesses the entire network
also the flattening of metrics and the lurid quality of metric-gamers means that many people are inclined to assume that any person looking to “grow an audience” etc *is* metric-gaming. when it might really just be a sort of side-effect of what they’re really trying to do
money is a useful analogy here 1: some people are obsessed with making money 2: some people (👀) are obsessed with rebuilding the Baghdad House of Wisdom, and might be selling ebooks to fund that expedition and some people can’t tell the difference between 1 & 2, maybe bc: https://t.co/08F2AKes54
a thing that took me a long time to understand – I’d say I’m only just finally beginning to understand it – is what it means when people project their insecurities onto you for example, if someone is badly insecure about money, they’re likely to process everything thru $ lens
I don’t mean to imply that making money for its own sake, or seeking followers for its own sake, is necessarily an intrinsically “bad” motivation… but it IS very tricky stuff, precisely because of the flattening. The market seduces metric-optimizers with devil’s bargains
greatly exaggerated to illustrate: A: I just want money/followers I don’t care about anything else Devil: cool, will you murder an innocent person for a million dollars / followers? - In practice the bargains are more subtle, and can be laundered through bureaucracy
anyway, let's rebuild the baghdad house of wisdom https://t.co/QCM7vrkuBW
threading for future reference – something here about overproductization stifling originality and imagination. the narrowing, fragilizing effect of specific outcome-focused blinders https://t.co/VG1k84IuxD
hehe; while I’m a marketing guy, I am not interested in people delegating decisions to me and I have no interest in automating anything for anybody’s speedy delight and convenience. no darling, up in this mf we’re going to do things the slow and gruelling way. 50 year long game https://t.co/NfKnfFmCpj
@visakanv this thread also seems like it goes here somewhere https://t.co/Upgv5X7Dre
quality over quantity https://t.co/XKmECUnhPx
"1.8 million subscribers (and no one cares)" https://t.co/VL70Bqa1Pe
@JoshuaLelon @visakanv just the other day one of my favs @its_adamneely posted about burnout associated with this and how YT creators ultimately don't have longjevity, and how his behavior is adapting as a result. You might find it interesting https://t.co/tMxlozoVR4
a movie that’s a huge flop can still be a great success if one particular kid really loves it https://t.co/keMsXuBWxV
a course with only two students that you travel 80km to teach every week can still be a great success if they happen to be particularly good students > "the only course in history where all its attendees received a Nobel Prize" https://t.co/o3BXl9Ffj9
sometimes you only need one person https://t.co/ghuXpZwt9R
sometimes you only need one person https://t.co/WZFvRqg8a7