Swan diving into the Cringe Loop

How WWE provides a path to mastering social media effectively

Increasingly, social media is the water we swim in. Yes, it’s horrible for mental health. Yes, we should all get outside and touch some grass. But short of the apocalypse, all signs point to social media claiming more and more of our attention and time. 

Actually I take that back. The apocalypse would be great for social media. I’d be scrolling up an absolute storm in that scenario.

Social media is here to stay, and so having healthy relationship with it is the ultimate sign of maturity. And then beyond that, using social media professionally is the most widely accessible and fastest path to attention and money in modern times.

And so while I’ve talked before about social media addiction, this newsletter is about figuring out a healthy way to actually use it.

Entering the cringe loop

What actually bothers me more than social media addiction is how lame it’s becoming. My cousin AJ called it a cringe loop. Here’s what I mean:

• I consume a lot of content on social media. More and more this content is from influencers as opposed to friends, because their content is more engaging and algorithm friendly. 

• These professionals are sensitive to anything that will improve their “reach.” Any tactic that reliably improves clicks and shares gets adopted. 

• Content evolves to fit these patterns, even if it feels extremely unnatural or looks lame as hell. 

A few examples:

Mr. Beast is Youtube’s #1 creator. He’s famous for locking himself in a room for 10 years to study Youtube’s algorithm so he could reliably churn out viral videos. One of those tactics is to give his thumbnails the brightness of a Nickelodeon commercial and feature a slightly surprised look on his face.

So now folks are copying this. Take the My First Million podcast, which is two rich dudes talking about rich dude stuff. I’m a fan of this podcast because I find it surprisingly earnest. But they also are business people who care about what works, so their thumbnails went from looking like this

to doing Mr. Beast expressions:

Or take Sahil Bloom on Twitter. Over the span of 3 years, he went from a rounding error of 0 to 1 million followers by working Twitter’s algorithm.

All of his tweets start with a one sentence hook. The highest performing ones get reused, and “I can’t stop thinking about…” is a clear winner.

I’m not saying this kind of benign hyperbole is bad. But it offends my millennial sensibilities around authenticity and makes me cringe.

And these tactics have become the norm as creators sell courses (like this one, this one, and this one) that give folks hooks, templates, and exact to do lists.

Swan diving into the cringe loop

My reaction for much of the last 5 years was to stop posting on social media. It wasn’t a game I wanted to play. But now I make money doing men’s work and social media promotion is a part of that game. And it’s not just me. Every person on Planet Earth stands to financially gain from having a large social media presence - especially if they work for themselves.

So my next move was doing social media by trying to “be myself.” This was mildly disastrous for my ego. It turns out my tweetable thoughts are boring as hell.

Then I started hearing stories about some of these guys and realized they’re all just playing into a persona. The people I found as getting the most out of social media while being the least burdened by it are the ones that treat it like a WWE wrestler. 

• They’ve developed a persona that’s based on who they are, but filtered for the algorithm. The purpose of this persona is to create a monetizable fanbase/audience.

• They scroll social media to react to that would connect emotionally for their audience. All other info washes over them like the matrix.

• They ruthlessly scan competition for moves and tactics that work. Then copy them into their own routine.  

This comes with risks. There’s a thin line between people seeing The Rock as being extremely competent playing villains and people seeing The Rock as an actual villain. It took Dwayne Johnson 6 movies for us to let him play anything else. Being shameless helps a lot here.

And shamelessness is where the money is at. Every person thinking about the future of their career has to face this choice: 

1. You can play by the normal rules, focus on competence and talent outside of social media, and avoid the cringe loop. This route takes persistent effort over a long period of time. 

2. You can leverage social media and lean into the cringe. This route takes persistent effort over a much shorter period of time.

A lot of folks opt out. I think the inability to be rewarded for being one’s self on public platforms is why a lot of discussion has moved to private groups on Discord, Slack, and Whatsapp. 

On the flipside, for those who can opt into a WWE-style persona and play the game, the rewards are huge. Making six or seven figures using nothing but an iPhone is the most powerful incarnation of the American Dream we’ve concocted yet. And as the money gets bigger, it’ll only get cringier.

Newsletter of the week

Beyond Self Improvement is a free weekly newsletter for those tired of optimizing and perfecting themselves and ready to heal, find wholeness, and accept themselves just as they are. It is a community for open and honest conversation for living life as it is rather than how it was supposed to be. I recommend it because too often, self-improvement is another ladder to climb, and Ryan's newsletter embraces a more enjoyable and loving path.