Social Media vs. Reality

therapy most days. Wow. And one more important thing to mention, we're married. We are. We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of life's most taboo topics, things most folks don't want to talk about. Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass is the term that we say every day. So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts. One, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Were about to take pillows off to a whole new level. Dead ass starts right now.

All right, story time, story Tom, I'm gonna take this back to nineteen nineties seven, but believe okay, we're going back in the time for roof for real today. That was the sound, remember that part of it. That was the sound when you were trying to get on Well, we're trying to get too, Well, it's the best. That was the sound. That was for a good time. That is where social media came from. That's where it's starting it. We're part of that. We were part of that. Isn't

that amazing? I think about all of the things that we've existed through. Yes, I remember Mom pissed because I used to unplug the phone jack and put it in the computer so I can get my A O. L. And she couldn't get no phone calls and she used to be pissed. Not one. But then let's fast forward to two thousand and three, I believe was when Facebook first started. You had to be in college, you had to have an e d U in order to be

on Facebook. And I remember it being a way to connect with people from high school and and elementary school because if they were in college, you could Google. They're not Google at this boot. You could Facebook their name and if it popped up, you could reconnect. That's what social media was supposed to be. Do you remember, like the person that told you about Facebook, like, the moment you found out about Facebook? Do I do? I remember?

I think I think it was you, Yeah, because I remember what I remember when I found out was my friend Shannon Jones were in broadcast journalist and She's like, did you guys have it for Facebook? And I was like, what's that? And then it became a whole discussion. And I think in that class, we all signed up for Facebook because we were so fascinated by it. We are the generation that sparked the social media era. Put some respect on our names, y'all dead ass? That's gonna take

me to karaoke? I got the perfect karaoke song to represent social media? Really, because are you ready? I'm ready? You want? You want? Your big boys? What are you laughing? Sip by myself talking to them. I just still don't know what he says. I still what the what's the other one? You may live in the dog, but I was born in it. These are all of these TikTok songs. I can't stand kill everything, kill essence? What else did they kill? They killed a lot of stuff? Bro um slide?

What's the other Drake song that Shiy was dancing to? I don't know? Kiki do you love me? So I got to take them off my playlist now facts you know what, I don't recover from that. Let's go take a break, y'all. We're gonna pay some bills and come back and we're gonna talk more about social media, all right, And before before you leave, you just remember you big boys talking to them. We'll be back after these messages. So we're back social media. I'm gonna take you back

to my SoundBite real quick. And the reason why I say I would not have been this forthcoming was because we just had no idea what social media was going to be. When it first started, it was literally just something that was cute to, like, oh we connect with someone. Oh I haven't seen such in such a long time, you know. And then it became just a thing that kind of spirals out of control in some good ways and then in some really really really bad ways. It

became a trend um. But the big reason why I want to talk about it is because I want people to recognize how would has become a business. And once you recognize that it's become a business, you approach it differently. Right,

You're less likely to be so nose in deep you know. So, I'll be honest, I never foresaw social media becoming what it is now in college, right, But in two thousand and sixteen, when I started to notice the trending in social media moving more towards mainstream media, that's when I changed my approach to social media and we started to become successful. Right. So, let's let's go. Let's look at some stats. Right first, Let's look at some facts and stuff.

Right now. I love that. Let's do that A good way to start. Just look at some facts where we get into these these things. When Pure Research Center began tracking social media adoption in two thousand and five, this is upon just five percent of American adults used at least one of these platforms. By two thousand eleven, this is six years later, that share had risen to half of all Americans, and today seventy of the of the

public uses some type of social media. According to that survey, approximately one in three divorces resulted from social media related disagreements. According to a study by the Loyola University Health System, Facebook with more than two billion users, is cited in one out of every five divorces in the United States. Growing research has shown that increased usage of social media

has had a negative effect on marriages and relationships. Higher levels of social media usage have led to more marital problems in fidelity, conflicts, jealousy, and eventually divorce. A study published and Computers in Human Behavior found a link between social media used and decreased marriage quality in every model analyzed. So if you think that your model doesn't work that

that way, it said every model. Oh. The study results predict that people who do not use social media are eleven percent happier in their marriages than people that regularly to use social media. A preoccupation with social media can lead to neglect of marital relationships. Okay, I mean I

can see some of that. I didn't think it was one in every five, but I can see how it would be a thing where if someone is just like overly obsessed with even just time on their phone and not taking the time to engage in real life, that can be a detriment to any kind of relationship parent, child, spouse, you know, sibling, all that. So let's talk about how

social media has changed. Right when social media first started, Let's talk about aol instant messenger my black planet, where you can get an instant messenger on yes have a no, no no. I had a BlackBerry messenger, I don't have a side, had a blackbrain messaging. But do you think about all of these things. They were created to shrink the world, make the world smaller by giving people access

instantly to people that they haven't seen. Right. So whereas before when you were calling people, you know, you couldn't get group messages and calling stuff like that, but social media allowed you the ability to actually see these people when they can post pictures, create videos. And as they created it and the platforms begin to grow, it became a business. Why is it important to say that it became a business is because of this very very key factor.

Once money is involved, the actual inception or conception of social media has to immediately change because it's no longer about connecting people, it's about selling to And once it becomes about selling to people, the authenticity goes out of the window. If people realize that, they will understand that the things that they see every day for hours on this computer, on this television, on this phone is not real. It's curated content in order to get you to buy something.

Because as sure as hell gets me to buy ship when I happen to mention a pair of I don't know shoes that I've been looking at. I've been searching recently over the knee boots. Had a conversation with my mom that I'm looking for some over the knee boots. What pops up in my feet when I'm scrolling last night feeding Dakota every over the knee boots? Most things? Yeah, there was that. You're they're listening and they're reading your mind.

Don't you feel like that they are? And it's important that you bring that up because the algorithm and then curating content allows them to create a world around your wants, not your needs, around your wants that is not real to the world we existent. For example, you get a chance to choose who you follow, So think about that. You're only following certain type of people, right, So every day you wake up your phone, you're looking at what these people have to say. They're a Indians, how they feel,

what they think about the world. What that does is curate your reality because every time you look at your phone, what you see is this. Now, there's a whole real world that exists, but you chose to follow these people, and then the algorithm tends to send you people who are similar to the people you choose, So then they create a larger world that is curated to what you want, not what you need, because what you need may often tend may often say I need to get off this phone.

They only curated to what you want because your desires is how you spend money. And think about how that also just affects your overall mood. Right, So if you are looking at social media and for example, they're creating content towards you wants, right, and you're like, man, today's Friday. That paycheck just just hit my account, and now I'm just gonna go off, right, Or you wake up on the morning and you look at your social media feed and it's just like like back in May of social injustice,

racial injustice. So you tend to now your whole mood can be thrown on from the moment you wake up and pick up your phone and scroll through Instagram, because there's so much unrest in the world that then now there's unrest in your house, there's unrest in your mind, and where do you ever go to escape from that? I feel like social media at one point was an escape for some people, or it still maybe depending on

who you follow. You have that couple that we said in a prior episode that's, you know, always on vacation, So that's an escape for you as you sit in your cubicle at work, or it becomes something that's just gonna be very, very daunting at times and you don't even know how or when to log off. So there's so like the psyche around the social media mind is becoming more and more complex as it becomes a thing where we cater to sales, we care to ads, we

care to emotions, there's so many different things to impact. Well. Well here, well let's we'll start with this, right, the algorithm. Remember when I said social media they show you what you want, not what you need. Here's a perfect example. If I create a post that has any word in it that says black, those posts statistically get one fifth of the views as all of my other posts. This is a fact, is the fact that I've done the research on my own social media, my own Instagram, I've

done my I've looked at my own analytics. Right. We had a children's book called The ellis Is and the Time Machine. Why do we have to say black lives matter? Right? Every time I post something with the book because it has black in it or black Lives Matter, the engagement is extremely low, which means the algorithm tends to push things that for example, they say that we need aside, let's push them the things that we want. Because here was the argument, right, my social media manager, the Norma,

shout out to her, I often do other ads. Those ads that don't have black or black Lives matters still get great engagement. So it's not so much about the ads, it's about what the ads say. And if you think about the fact that the algorithm and the people who control social media control what you see, they're creating your life. Every day you wake up and look at this phone. And I know this could be conflicting for us because

we built our whole platform through social media. But part of the reason why we've been able to grow through social media is because we've stayed transparent and we stay consistent to our message. Yeah, on Instagram, I mean on YouTube right now, we probably have a four followers. People always say why don't we have over a million followers?

You want to know why, because we don't choose to only show the type of content that people want or the trendy content or the trendy content like what people were doing pranks, like couples of pranks and doing all these things. We're like, that doesn't really speak to us, and it's not part of what we feel like. We want to do it faster easily. If we did pranks, we could have grow our page faster, but we chose

to do content that we feel people need. And for that reason, it doesn't grow as fast, but it's still

growing and we don't give a ship. But the truth of the matter is, there are a lot of people, a lot of companies who are invested and growing their business through social media, and that creates false realities for people in this world, for sure, and and and and what happens is people don't realize that it's happening because it's never really been broken down for them, and they feel like everything they see on their phone is the

whole entire world. So if I see it on my phone, that means everyone must see this and everyone must agree with this, so this must be the reality. When the truth of the matter is, it's not insane. That's crazy to me. It's really crazy to me, because, like you said, with us and our content. The way that we choose to evolve our content is really just showing not necessarily.

More So, when people say that they feel like they know so much about us, it's not necessarily that they know more about us, because we've as sected it before. Right all the time that we have in a day. You see a one minute clip, how much is it that you really know? But the good thing is that we try to not just show the highlight reel, which most social media tends to be for a lot of people.

We try to also show you guys the backside of things, which was why this podcast was so necessary because we felt that it was it was necessary for people to understand that with the ellis Is, you're going to get the highlights, but you're also going to get the low lights as well. And I think that's the reason why people were able to organically follow us and grow with us um, particularly on Instagram because I feel that's where we have the majority of our followers, but then also

on YouTube slowly we're growing there um. But we're always just true to our content. So that's how we can lay our heads down at night. And my my sound bite when I started off in the top of the show, saying that if I knew this is what social media would be, I don't know if I would be on board with it. I really wasn't on board in the beginning because it was just the idea of me having to just put stuff out there about my life and

my family and stuff. Um. And in the beginning, it was cool and it was cute when you have two or three thousand followers, and didn't expect not for our platform to grow organically into a platform of millions of poor hundreds of thousands of people that support support us. I didn't have that said. I didn't have that mindset at all. I was like, it's cute in the moment, But when it started to grow exponentially, then I was like, oh, shoot, I don't know. I don't know, how is this really

gonna go? Um. The shout out to y'all for always holding me down, which I'm always concerned, you know, just being mama bear, which you have to expect. It's like just even thinking about social media and the exposure our kids are eventually gonna have to it, Jackson going to

middle school. Um, thinking about the children who are Just yesterday I sent you an article about a twelve year old who committed suicide wasn't necessarily for social media reasons, but just the fact that these things are happening, and it's just super sad to see so um but the gift and the curse. It's it's sad to see, but it's the reality. It's the world. And I think we have to kind of like trying to show people how divisive social media it can be. For example, we know

we see this every election cycle. I've seen it exhausting when Obama was running for president. Right, people start to argue and debate on Facebook. It's it's like there, it starts on Facebook, then it goes to Twitter. Right, Because there are different places for social media content. Right, people go on Twitter to be witty, make jokes, right and drag people. Right. Facebook is where all the political stuff happens. Because Facebook is an unlimited caricature. You can just make

as big a message as you want. You can post what you want on this Facebook. Instagram is more of for aspirational lifestyle, but people just want to show themselves in shape, going on vacation. Here's a beautiful girl, here's a handsome guy. We just got engaged. That's what Instagram is and TikTok is where all the gen zers go to have fun and make dances. So there's different forms

of social media. But what I noticed during the election cycle this year in was it's dangerous when you create you're your following list, and then the algorithm and all the people who you follow creates this idea that your world is the real world. So for example, if you're a Trump supporter and you follow Trump supporters, the algorithm, algorithm is going to constantly send you things in support

of that ideology. If you are if you believe in Black Lives Matter and you follow that that that I forgot what it's called, but that hashtag, the algorithm or will show you everything that's in that lane, and then you begin to believe that that's how everybody views and

see the world because that's how you see it. That's extremely dangerous because you have two different types of people who've curated their reality based on what they follow, what they like, what they share, and that's all they get fed to their psyche seven and then when they finally meet up face to face, it's like, how could you believe that when when you've been fed all of these

ideas and ideology by a computer seven because it's scary. Yeah, we've all had that friend that will now speak you into persuasion because they have, for example, the vacs and

the un vacs. Yes, that's another great one, and it's just like these people will come now and whether you're vacs provacts or you're not, or whatever the case may be, then you have all of these arguments to support your cause social media, when a lot of people aren't consulting with the real people you should be consulting with, with our doctors and scientists and all that. And then you have people who believe that the doctors and the scientists

are all in cool with each other. And then you know, there's a whole, a whole you know, black hole that you can go down when it comes to social media based on that because people are getting this truth from there. They also take the one minute clips and they take the you know, two minute clips, and then they create a whole narrative story behind that one little clip and don't even care to do any additional research to listen to something at length, or to read an entire article

to get the context. It just becomes what that is in the moment it's that instant gratification is that you know, what are we seeing right there in this moment that as we take his law and this is what's scary. Right. When we were growing up, in order to be on tell a vision, there was a process, a process that you had to go through to be considered a valuable source. Right, So for example, you you have a master's in broadcast journalism.

Journalism at one point was something you said with pride, I am a journalist, which means I have a responsibility to deliver the facts and to be out there in the field to get the facts and speak to the credible sources. Absolutely, and and credibility was important back in the day because you want only people only got their information from certain places that were considered credible. Now with social media, you've given access to the masses to people

who are not no longer looking for credibility. They're looking for clickbait value or shock value, which means they'll do or say anything to get people to click on their website or to believe their story. And the truth of the matter is a good lie is better than the truth any day, and a lie travel faster than the truth. So even if someone lies and it spreads like wildfire. Once people know the truth, they don't have the same vigor to spread the truth. And someone's like, oh, that

wasn't really or whatever. So you just bash this person, clown, this person dragged them on Twitter, did all of these things based on a lie, and then when the truth comes out, you don't do the same thing and apologize. It's just well, let me look for another lot of followers so I can join the the the what is it called the echo chamber, you know of people the virtual lynch mob, you know what I'm saying, so I

can just attack someone else. Like social media has become a place where you really cannot trust the things that you see because technology has made it where you can create anything. It's like Hollywood exists every day. I've seen a video. I've seen the video where it was clearly Oprah and Gail talking, but the faces on the bodies was Snoop and fifties and it looked like Snoop and fifty cent. We're wearing Oprah and Gale wigs and having a conversation and it sounded like Snoop and And I

said to myself, whoever created this? Number one is a genius because that type of technology, But also what kind of makes you think, like, yo, how much of the stuff that we see can we actually believe? All can't believe it? I mean the good thing with social media though,

is that things blow over fairly quickly. Like you'll be hot in that moment for like a day to maybe three days, and then it'll blow over and everybody forgets about it because, like you said, they're looking for the next clip bank or the next thing that's going to

give you shock value. So when social media now relates to relationships, like the stats that you spoke about earlier, there's some dangers involved in social media and relationships, which I'm sure y'all can probably if you haven't been there at some point talking about somebody being in somebody's d M, somebody answering somebody, somebody liking somebody's picture, you know, husband or wife. It can create a riff. I know that. Um social media serves as a distraction from focusing on

the interactions that nurture relationships. So social media can you sometime be used to be compulsive? Um it, we can, you can be sorry, making it difficult to manage the time spending it In fact, according to a study sided by psych Central, American college students describe abstaining from social media the same way describe staining from drugs and alcohol of draws, They have cravings, they have anxiety, and they feel jitters if they don't have access to their social media. Wow,

that's insane. It has become a way of life though it had, Like if not when you meet people down one day to say, what was ther Instagram handle? In all business cards, own business cards. It's just people don't

create websites as much anymore. Just my that's like your whole resume, it's your whole cop card if you were a model, Like everything is there on that Instagram page, which I feel like now, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing when it comes to dating, because you have to not find this person on social media and then you scour their social media to see what is this person really like? What are they into? What do they post? You know, are they

posting a bunch of selfies because they're into themselves? Or you know, it's just crazy, how much how many layers there are there? Something crazy when people meet people if they don't have a social media handle. They look at them as if crazy. You don't have this person, don't have I G you mysterious. You only got four pitches up? Nah, something's wrong with this person. That's a sickness that cause.

Imagine if you met someone and you just like, wait a minute, you don't do coke, Oh, chick, don't do heroin. You don't do fitting on either, Like what do you do? Like that's how people treat Twitter, Twitter, Gram, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. If you don't have one of the three, something is wrong with you, you know. And I think that it's scary because as you have children, I watched our children, right, we limit the amount of time they get a chance to spend time. Like Jackson has a phone.

People keep saying all the time, I get Jacks, I G no, No, he don't need a whyn't you get a YouTube? He don't need one, he don't. You know what I'm saying. Cairo and Cast they don't need one. But I do pick up their iPads and I see what they follow. So I'll go to their YouTube page and they and I see Steph Curry, I see Kyrie Irving Bose. You know what I'm saying. But but in their minds. That's all it exists. And this is how

crazy it is. Right, I'll introduced them to another basketball player and they'll be like, oh, And when you see that, it makes you realize, like yo, Some people stop seeking information because they feel like everything they found on their timeline is the world. That's scary because what that does is that that creates this narrow minded, egocentric view of the entire world where everything revolves around my timeline. And if you believe everything revolves around your timeline, you're limiting

yourself to growing. That's why it's so divisive. That's why over the last couple of years, Republicans and Democrats, trumpers versus non trumpers, vacts versus non vacts have been getting violent because if in your mind what you see is your truth, your reality, it can only be this way because when I pick up my phone, everybody agrees with what I'm saying. So in your mind, you think you're correct because everyone in your timeline is agreeing with you.

Do like I do, right, kid? You not? I started to don't judge me. I started to follow Candice Owens during the election cycle. I don't follow her anymore because I wanted to see. I wanted a glimpse of what it was like to be on that side, right, and then this is a completely different world like the people on that side. And it wasn't just white Republicans, it wasn't just black Republicans. It was just people who agree with her ideology. They all have their own ego, change

of ideas and thoughts that they believe in. And in that world, it's that, that's it. That's it. Be the idea of something else possibly existing does not happen because if we look at our world, look, it's true. And I used to watch the comments and see, like I'm reading the comments, nine of the comments agree with Candice. I don't understand what I said. Well, have you gotten off of candice page and looked at other pages and

see nine of those people don't agree with her. And it's okay that people agree with her, it's okay that people don't. But you have to get a realistic view of the world by not putting yourself on a timeline. You know what I'm saying. Don't don't just create your world on the tomeline and say everything I get here is my world. You have to go out there and find out what other people are thinking of, so you can get a realistic idea of what the world exists.

Joke about like, um, what they call it is a water cooler talk like standing over the water cooler and having those conversations. I'm curious to know that even still really exists in workplaces, right because I can envision if you're like in a corporate structure and everyone sitting at their cubicle working and everything. The minute you have a break or you're in passing, it's like, let me grab my phone and start scrolling. You grab my phone and

starts scrolling. And that's what that was that used to be away. I want to say back in the day, you make you sound old, But when we used to be able to exchange ideas and have conversations and have debates. And that's why I think about loves to have folks over so he can just talk and debate and just have conversations. As you can tell on the show is debate and have conversations, because it's like a lost art.

Now all we're doing is just getting what we get from that narrow minded view that we get on social media. Social media literally fries your brain, fries your brain because the brain is a muscle and the less you use it, the more atrophies, and it's not gonna work, you know

what I'm saying. So if you really think about it, if you just condition your brain to exist and believe in one thing and just only see the world one way, the rest of your brain is no longer working to find other ways to think or do things, and cognitively, you start to lose interest, You start to lose the ability to think other ways. You know, it's no different than reading all your books from one author. Yes, that's only read books from this author. That's their perspective, that's

only their perspective. What you're doing when you're on social media NonStop is limiting your perspective. You're saying, I'm only going to view the world through these eyes. Let's give folks some guidelines for like maintaining a healthy Balancet's do it, like a healthy balance that you guys can have between social media and relationships. And I guess there can be romantic relationships just person to person into person. What was

it that personal communication into personal communications? Yes, that was a course back in the day. I wonder if that's now replaced with like social media courses and stuff, because the course is a thing now that I'm curious to see what those courses look like now on social media building, you know, a platform and things like that. But inter personal communication was very much a thing back in the day, you know, once upon a time when de Val and I were in school. UM. So it's evidenced by couples

who use social media to their advantage. It's possible to have healthy social media or healthy relationships and still be actively involved in social media. You and I think a fair example. UM. In fact, a two thousand thirteen study in Social psych Psychological and Personality Science UM found that people who share information about their relationships on Facebook, we're comfortable with their relationship. We talked about people not sharing

who they're significant other is. You know, that's the big thing. Emoji over the face, you know, pretending as if we're not with somebody, you know, the whole hand. You know, you see the hand in the picture and she's reaching back, but it's like this anonymous hand. We don't get the hand is. However, setting guidelines on how to effectively use social media can mean the difference between a healthy use of social media within a relationship and taking it into

a danger zone. For example, number one, do not use social media as a negative point of compar harrison for your relationship. So talked about that, if you feel compelled to make comparisons involving your relationship, compare where your relationship is today with what it was like a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago, last week, that matter.

Say that again, if you feel compelled to make comparisons about your relationship, compare where your relationship is today with what it was like a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago, two months ago for those in long term relationships or short term ones, because the result of the comparison prompts changes in behavior that can build your relationship. Again, comparing you to you have a perfect analogy. I have

a perfect analogy. Remember when I used to train track athletes' train track athletes, and the main thing I used to tell track athletes is stop looking at other people's times. You're not competing with their You're competing with yourself. So I had to had a young man who just started running track, and he was running a hund meters and this is his first year running track. He was a

sophomore in high school. All of his other contemporaries have been running tracks their whole life, right, So he was a sophomore and there were a couple of kids on the track team who could run the hundred in sub eleven, so they were ten nine guys. A couple of these kids were junior Olympic guys. They've been running since they were six and seven years old. This kid just was fast. He was a basketball player, naturally fast. So he was

running I think eleven seven. He's running eleven seven. So the whole track season and he's a sophomore, The whole track season went around and he went from running in eleven seven to an eleven two, and one of the fastest kids on the team went from running attend nine to attend seven. And he was pissed. Was He's like, damn, this kid still runs faster than me. And I said, wait a minute, you dropped your time by five tents. He dropped his by two tents. Was mean, you've gotten

better over time, Then he's gotten better. He's still faster than because he started before you. But you can't even see how much better you've gotten because you're not comparing yourself to when you started. You're comparing yourself to where he that's unfair to you, and he was sure fireway to just be depressed, bro, And I try to explain to him that that's the problem. It's the same thing in relationship. You look at your significant other and you're

constantly comparing where you two are compared to other people. Right, you just got together, you just uh, you just, for example, purchased a car for your your girlfriend. Homeboy bought a house for his wife, and you're like, Damn, I just got a car. But then he bought a house. They've been together fifteen years, y'all have been dating for six months. You brought her a car. You should you should be happy about that, but no, but a lot of people aren't.

I got a car, he's her a house. You know what I'm saying, Damn, I only got her car, but he was able to get her a house. Man, my life sucks. Stop comparing your life through social media to other people. I like that one constantly compared to where you were in the past. That's the real progress. That's that's the real process right there. All right, spend time nurturing your relationship, do the things that create closeness in

your relationship and do them regularly without distraction. That's something that we This means leaving the cell phone at home, turning it off, turning it down at the restaurant, out of sight, out of mind. The distraction factor is one of the biggest challenges in social media. According to a study of Scientific American the presence of a cell phone can be detrimental to interpersonal relationships. And that's that's that's

that's not just couples. My girlfriends and I, when we go out, cell phones in the middle of the table. That becomes a thing. Now, So when your cell phones in the middle of table, whoever has the urge, because you know, it's like crack, Now you gotta pick up your phone. Whoever has the urge to pick up their phone, they're paying the bill. That's that's the A lot of people do that. Now, implement that with your guys. See

if you see if they'll do it. If we can just do a dinner, which tends to be an hour and a half, two hours maybe depending if it's a good for end, it could be three hours. But can the phone be down and no one grab it until we can fully be engaged in the moment. That as a couple. We've done as a couple because I know I've been guilty of just this aimless scrolling that happens. And if I'll be like, yo' all one thing, I will say, I'm not shopping, You're always shocking shopping away.

I'm not a consumer of social media, like even even people hit me, but you don't like none of my post, you don't do you a ghost follower. I'm not a consumer, right, And I'm not a consumer for a reason, right. I never want to rely on social media to give me my view of the world. Right, I'm a content creator. So we used to have the base because Cadine will be like, you're on your phone all the time, and I'm like, well, I create editing, post content, and I'm like,

you're on your phone all the time. And she's just like, yeah, well you're on your phone. But she used to consume she'd be scrolling, and I'm like, there's a difference between creating content and scrolling. So what we decided to do was when we go on days, we put the phones down. When we get home and we're having our moments at home, I like, yo, get off your phone, and we are deliberate about making sure that we tell each other that

we need this time without the phone. You know, we're very deliberate about it, because whether you're a content creator or a scroller, that time you're spending on your phone and not spending with that person, it's time wasted. Absolutely

definitely time wasted. And I've said before we live in a world of instant gratification where people also expect to have access to seven and that is just not healthy either because that forbid you don't return a message to somebody in what they considered to be a timely manner, whish, whether it's like it's an immediate a couple hours. The other day, a woman saying that she was rude because

you don't respond to her. Yes, I did have a person that said to a friend of mine that I needed to have more manners when it came to her mind. You I barely know the person. I kind of know her through a friend, UM, but I need to have manners and reply to her d M because she messaged me and she know that I'd be on my phone all the time because I'll be posting stories. So girl, by okay, bye, come back in and buy again. Because

what we're not gonna do is that. First of all, you're not gonna tell me when I need to be replying to you. Second of all, my d ms get flooded this and if it doesn't say seen underneath the message, chances are I ain't see a little raggedy message raggedy and little message it because I haven't seen your raggedy little message this, than chances are I wasn't able to exercise those manners that my parents definitely gave well. So yeah, back to number three, go'll be getting hot here. Don't

do it again this season. I knew he was on one today when you came in with that red lip. Thank you, because you know I'm not. I haven't warned red Lip in a minute, though, because of the whole mass situations like I don't let it be all over, keep it on for you, b keep it on for you. Won't be a all right, do not maintain a separate social media life. Share your social media world with your partner. So I don't know how many people are willing to

do that. Um does it matter really though? Hold on about the time to have to share my social media world with with my What does that mean? That's I knew you were going to be I knew you were not. You can see nah see, I knew you were not gonna know what this is you No, not even the group chats. People have separate social media handles, so they have the one that they spoused may have, but then they have a secret handle with other things. I wouldn't

even know how circle goes. Now I'm gonna tell you how I found out about this, right, Okay, one of my my followers, he calling followers because y'all are like huge supporters of us. But he damned me and said, yo, bro, I have a question to ask you. Does Kadeen have

multiple Instagram handles? And I was just like no, And he was just like, as I see Codeine, I am, but I also see Cordean Ellis, So like, yeah, she had opened up a Codeine Ellis account, like years Facebook name for for her for her actual Facebook page, but that's not one that she uses. Why right, he says, because my wife has a separate Instagram handle that I didn't know about. And when I asked her about it,

she says, well, Codein has one too, girl. So I said, hold on, don't be bringing me into I said, so, I said, so what did she say Her reasoning was for having a separate Instagram handle. Well, she said there's certain things that she following her and her friends look up that she doesn't want him to know about. It's girl stuff that's her like separate friends life thing. They have d m s they do, So should they be following in pages like eggplant files and ships like that,

like the print anonymous pages and whatnot. So to imagine if he's looking over her shoulder and she's on her regular page and it's just all like Bible verses rings because he said that she wants to get engaged in rings and all this other stuff, and you know, then he's like, oh, she's you know, nice, and it's but then he goes to the other page and it's out for black Man and playing Friday, and you know what I'm saying, then he's going to probably create sweatpants Monday.

See what I'm saying. People have that I found out this guy to me, So now I got to check your pe because check and see if anybody had been to baby check and see. But I didn't ask him if he check Stulves. I feel like that's invading. But I've heard of people having ghost pages, right, or I've heard of people being on even just like dating apps and you know, but that's a whole another that's a

whole other topic for another day. But yeah, the social media has I didn't I wasn't sure what they meant by that, but sharing their world with it because I'm like, I know what you and your friends talk about in your group chats and stuff is you know that's yeah, listen, listen, I like it. I like, I like yours, can appreciate them to myself, walk into the podcast. What's up, buddy? You know I love your mom and you know that bro,

now he ran he ran away. It's jack. You get to a certain age, you'll be on the same thing. That's a fact. But those are just three guidelines right there that they've given us, at least in this But I think we can we just go back real quickly. Can we go back real quick? Because you said something about sharing group message and stuff like that, right, you know what I talk about with my friends. I just know a lot of people struggle with having a separate

social media life. Even though they are one way in you know, in person with their person, their social media is completely different. And people have asked me before, like how open am I with codeine? Having my d m S and having my this is this is just my truth, right. I like knowing that I can leave my phone somewhere and my wife may pick it up and whatever she sees, she already knows. I just like that. Everybody doesn't. There's

no surprise. Everybody doesn't. It doesn't know prescribe, doesn't subscribe, doesn't subscribe to that. Prescription is just for medication, but doesn't subscribe to that. But for me, it's easy knowing that regardless of whether one of my boys sent me a booty shot or a pause or some titties or some girls that he's looking at, my wife already knows what it is. Because that allows us to exist freely.

We talked about this in another podcast. Just because it it doesn't work for everyone else, and it works your relationship. You don't need everyone to understand because a lot of people feel like, note my, my spouse doesn't get access to all of that, And that's fine because if that works for you, that works for you. But this works for us. Memory about too. I got an email in or email like this is a while back though, um

and someone was. I think it was after I had either Kyro or Kaz and the person was pretty much, you know, pleading with me in this email to not go under the knife to have surgery on my body because she went through the pages I followed on my Instagram and notice that I followed a handful of plastic surgeons. What in the hell does that have to do with anything? Does that mean that I'm going to go under somebody's knife,

No shade to people who do. But since you mean you took you took time out of your day like you have a whole life, and you took time out of your day to clock who I follow and then observe the fact that I may follow six seven, eight nine plastic surgeons. And then that now gives you the audacity to email me to say, Kay, I love you the way you are, sist with that way on you. Please don't get no light bob. You don't need no bbl. Your asses find the way it is. I did not

ask you. I did not ask you, And I'm sure if you invested more time in yourself and in your life, you'd be farther along or whatever the hell you got going on, rather than clocking who I follow this red lip is we this is a different right now, I don't even know who did you think about that? And I'm like, that was so that was probably one of the most ridiculous things that I've ever seen. But this is why people have ghost pages to follow those pages

so that people don't know who they're following. Because I should use my ghost page. We're not my ghost page, but use a different page to follow what plastic serve is just because no, realistically, no, realistically, you don't because like we talked about before, people don't have to understand what you do in order for you to enjoy your life.

They can think what they think. So if you don't do it because I'm like I want to, don't shock your pictures of assides and be like, devout what exercises like I do to get my joint to be lifted like that full for full transparency. For full transparency could be looking at BBLS and saying, devout what exercises cannot do to get my butt to look like full transparented some extra hips? How do I work that without having to do any surgery? So we were we were working

on gluteus minimus glutyus maximum exercises a week. She can work on helping her hips appear to be wider because she wants to look a certain way. Now that's a whole different order of problems because we talked about body dysmorphia that women have because of all of the social media. I had a dude say to me, because of social media, Um, you seem to be so involved in your wife's looks. Um, you should learn to love her the way she is instead of pushing her to work out more. It seems

like all you talk about is working out. Okay. So I didn't get as upset as you because I didn't have on a red lipstick, but I did explain to him like, hey, I know that you're not used to seeing someone in power and encourage their wife the way I do, but this is what she wants. I just want her to know that I'm rooting for her every step of the way. And then he said, it doesn't seem that way. It looks like all you care about

is her working out. And once again I said, bro, you're not used to seeing a man be of of support to their wife like this, so when you see it, of course you're going to be thrown off. But you

also don't know a lot of men like me. So nor does he see me in the bathroom every morning, or on the scale, or just breaking myself apart as us women tend to do sometimes, especially after having four kids, and just looking for ways that I can improve myself, you know, and not using anyone's standard as a measure, but just my own standard of what I'm looking for for myself. But also he also doesn't know that because

he said that, I looked at his page. He's a dog lover and he's not in a relationship, doesn't have any kids. So from his perspective, it seems like everything his perspective is from being a dog lover and he and you're not a dog. So for me, what he doesn't realize is that dogs can't speak, so him training his dog is him doing things to make his dog do them. I have a wife, I don't have a pet. So when I'm incourage you, I'm not training you to

go to the gym. You're waking up and saying, Babe, I want to lose some weight, I want to get down here, I want to do this, and me saying let's do it together. But that also shows you how social media can create a reality for some people that is not real, because in this man's mind, I was just a drill sergeant waking you up at five in the morning with a pan and the spoon, saying, get your fat ass up, let's get on the treadmill. But

that wasn't happening. And the funny thing is all of these women were coming to my defense and saying, sir, you obviously are not married, don't have a wife. Most women suffer from postpartum depression because they don't have someone to support them through the process. They've also told him if you've been following them for a while, da Vo has told Cadine many of occasions that he loves her fluffy. I love when you have it doesn't matter to me.

But what it shows you is that people create their own ideas about what the world is through their social media profile and timeline. And not only is it toxic, but it's crazy. And not only do they create their own world, they create everybody else's world too. Like you feel like you have everybody else's world figured out based off what they post and clearly, according to me in my situation, what they follow. Yeah, I mean, And here's

the truth. Man, Sometimes you just follow people for entertainment. That's a fact. Like, but this is before social media. Codeine used to watch was It the Biggest Loser? No, um, the Biggest Transformation? Um me remember the show we used to watch in college where excuse me, the people looked in a certain way and Extreme. Ma used to watch Extreme Makeover and the home editions, and she used to watch the People edition where people were getting chin in

plants their jaw online is done. She's just always been fascinated by people making transformation. A big before and afric kind of person. It's like, this is not the same person. This should be like sorcery. Maybe that's like as a makeup artist to the thing I used to love was like before and after, just to see like how you're able to just really transform. That's like the little artist

in me. But you know, and if I wanted to go into the knife, I would like some what Like that's just what it is, is a different I'm just shot me doing the utmost with the least. Okay, that being said, I think it's a good point that we should take a break. Let me cool off, right as long as you as long as you promised to keep this energy and this red lipstick on later. This feistiness is what I like to see. I love it, all right, I promise you bad. We're gonna come back with some

listening letters after we take a quick break. All right, we're back. We have to listener letters. They don't seem super long today. What's going on now? You want first? You want to go first? Um, I can go first. Take getting a vow a twenty five year old woman who was born and raised seven day Adventists or in a seven day events household. That's similar. My parents, are you making okay? There's one half of me, and as you know, they're very much opinionated, to say the least.

I've been with my boyfriend for six years and my parents feel as if I'm acting like a wife to him, very similar situations. My parents would continuously lecture me about it, saying that I should get married or that I should just go to the courthouse and get it done. Although I do believe I act more like a wife or spouse to my boyfriend at times. My boyfriend and I are overall not ready for what marriage and tails. We

both still have a semester lefton nurse. In school, we do talk about marriage and would like to get married, but are both not in a financial position to get married. Sart so smart. I feel like, right now, that's a fact. Right now I'm one ring. How does the role of a girlfriend differ from the role of a wife? Would it be too late in the relationship to reverse back to doing only things? Don't reverse this? Don't this is a good question questions. It's a good question because remember trouble.

How does she ask me that question? Like, I wonder what Canadian did to become a wife? I gotta start doing that. She was like, man, I'm tired of this ship. Man, I'm about to become a wife. Let me find out what what did I do? Act like a wife the beginning. So, if you were raised in a Jamaican household, chances are you were raised to be of service to a partner or with that being an example of something that you saw. Regardless of what your parents were going through at the time,

they were very much taking care of each other. Right, Um, I feel like I was raising a household where I was seeing from my grandmother and my grandfather and all that. Um. The woman being of service to her hush and making sure he's taken care of. So I can understand where she feels like that that urge or a desire to take care of him like a wife would, because that's just what I did. I did the same thing with you.

You always felt taken care of, even if I was a girlfriend, and it wasn't because I was looking for a particular title or I was on the pursuit of being your wife or having a ring. It was just a genuine from day one, from day one, it's just how I was like being a nurturer. Wanting to take care of my partner um was just something that was of paramount importance to me. So I can understand why

that's something that she's probably been doing for him. I think you'll haven't figured out where you want to both finish nursing school, both be done, then finally get married

when you're a financial position to do that. Like this is these are talking to people who are thinking with their brains and not their hearts, and there's an understood something that doesn't need to be said here that you both care for each other, you being I understand the pressure the born and race seven day events are how

strict and confining. That can be. But but you know that's the issue though, because if they're living together, her parents have an issue with them living together, right, just like without being married, just like my parents did, and how you did, how you fell in two thousand and seven, you were like, I don't want to be a living girlfriend, right. So I get where her parents are coming from absolutely, and as a parent, I can understand where it's coming from.

This goes back to the episode W's Happened to Now? Kind of tune people out of your relationship and doing the things that you have to do for your relationship. Relationship does not have to make sense to anyone else but you two in order for it to work. So when it comes down to a role of a girlfriend versus a wife, I think that that can be relative to the situation, depending on what you feel or you see fit. You know, there's no rule, there's no rule.

There's no rule. There's no girlfriend's wife do that. There's no rule for that. And I see people sometimes social media be like, stopped acting like a wife when you really just a girlfriend. That's bullshit. It's it's bullshit, Like it really is bullshit when you are and of service to someone, You just do what they need and want because you have services. Whether you're in a relationship or not or married. Facts, you should just be putting your

best foot forward with this person. And then if marriage is a goal like it is for these two, then you work towards that in your time frame. That's here, and it's the same thing, the same thing for men. Like, there's no, I ain't doing this because I ain't your husband. Listen, we lived together. I'm paying the bills. That's how it was for me and Cadeine. I wasn't saying, well, we ain't married, so you got to splay. It's like, no,

this is what I want to do. So and this I'm showing you how our life can be working together once we get married. So here's an example of what it is. Her example is making my plate and making sure that I'm taking care of So some people be like, don't make his plate. You and his wife, don't pay her bills. You win her husband. That may work for you'all,

that didn't work for us. We've been we've been working this way, says what would it look like if you try to reverse back to being this role of a girlfriend. What is that even gonna look like for y'all. So now you're going to be acting against what you genuinely want to do for your boyfriend and the things that you want to do to possibly be a service to him, because you're fearing what either your parents or his parents of the world may think about you acting and not

according to your title. You know what I mean. That's completely ridiculous to me. I say, y'all, have I want to hug y'all, have your head on straight. It seems like y'all are you know, have your ducks in a row, you want to finish school, get yourself financially in a position to get married, because I'm sure at the same time to your parents are gonna want that wedding to matter to them, like just going to the court to do it. Maybe they want to be involved in it,

you know. Hopefully they're not pushing you to just go do something on a whim when you're not ready for it. So I think that's more the saying what they want to see because people that you know, you know parents, So so your dodter is living with some and so my mother how to how Joseph of Nursing Rivermanic care center telling everyone that my daughters on vacation with a man. Absolutely, it was like, it was like, why are you gonna tell anybody anything? She said this She ain't had no

red list on anything. I didn't. I was just like, how exactly must I explain to your grandmother that you will be living with a man in Michigan. Alright, Ma, come on now, I said, first of all, it's not your place to have to say that to grandma. I can call grandma. Let grandma know, and chances of our grandma is gonna be on my side because grandma know who she raised food. Grandma got seven kids, so you

know what it's like to get good. Dude. Listen, if I was putting it down when you have seven kids, you do put it down right there. Yeah, they actually had six kids. It will eight technically in two, but they was getting in. Actually, Grandma shout out to Grandma and she called me after I add Dakota and she's like, um, baby, I want to talk to you about something. And I don't know if your mother quite spoke to you as yet, but I am your grandmother and I love you and

I have to this. I think you should give your body a break now, no more kids, No more kids, no more kids. I am speaking from experience. I said, all right, Grandma, I got you, I got you. You know serious when they put the age experience and she's like, if you're thinking about one more, at least give you a body at arrest. And I'm I don't worry, grandma, We're good to go over here. I can't give the body arrest because I'm getting old. Stum, my eggs are

about to be scrambled. Okay, we missed her with covid robin for years. With your grandma, You've got to get down here soon. We love you, all right, Number two. Number two. I am twenty years old, a mother of four beautiful children, and I've been married for six years and with my husband for nine years. Nice. Life is precious and a blessing. But I am but a damn sure. You ain't easy. For a long time now, I've been trying to find my place, figure out me, find me,

get to know me. Does that seem strange? No, not at all. I feel like everybody says they know me, and I don't even know myself. Interesting. I always say now that I've lost myself and my kids and in my husband. I give to all of them and feel guilty if I take any time for myself. You talk about that all the time. I don't even know how to take time for myself or where I would even start. I often think about vacations, but even then, when I see myself vacation and I feel myself, I see myself

doing it with my husband. I mean, that's what you typically do with the life partner. But I mean if you have friends and stuff, you can do that as well. Trying to think where would he want to go, what would he want to do. I tend to go all out for him and my kids too, but when it comes to me, I don't, and no one else does either, see not that I tend to hold a lot in and I sometimes wish that my husband would just see right through my fake smiles and it and the act

of happiness. That's what you can't do that. I mean, if he thinks you're happy, then yeah, Instead I think he sees it, but he's just absolutely quiet about it. He's not emotionally there for me, and he tell you he doesn't know how. Most story short, I'm there for everybody. I take care of everybody. I do everything for my household down to uplifting, motivating any courage in them. I've been there before. I'm a shoulder to lean on, but

I don't get the same energy. I understand how you feel, except for my big sister, but she lives in Georgia and I live in Minnesota. I just need some advice. I need advice from another mother wife to another mother wife. How do you not forget you? Ps? I manifest sitting on that couch with you all one day and talking very real. Um, you can answer you and I'll give my two cents after. So what you're feeling, man, is not a mother wife thing like. That's a personality right,

because in our house it was flipped right. I was the one who was pouring into everybody, pouring into everything and not thinking about myself. I only was focused on Cadine and focused on the kids. There were times where I used to tell Codeine that I didn't feel like it was reciprocated. Here's the difference between you and I, man. The difference between you and I is that you're putting on the face and saying everything so kay and expecting

him to read your mind. You can't do that. I didn't put on a face and expect Codeine to read my mom. I would tell her exactly what I want and needed. And this is what happens. People tend to feel guilty about telling other people what they want and what they need because they feel like it's selfish. You are entitled to be selfish with your life because you will only have oneself. Right, You're married, so you choose

to be of service to them all the time. So if you're of service to them all the time, you're entitled to be selfish at times and say, hey, babe, this is what I need. You'll be shocked what that person will do if they know it needs to be done. For example, I told he what I need and what I wanted. Did it happen right away? No? But here's also the truth, right, people typically resort to their factory reset button. Right once they get comfortable, they retort back

to what just happens naturally. So if naturally right, So if naturally, if I've been taking the the brunt of everything on and supporting everyone, when people get comfortable, they just go back to that because that's what they normally do. Once you tell them that you need them to put a little bit more energy in one space. They'll do that while they're reminded of it, but it doesn't become second nature until they practice it over and over again.

They say it takes a thousand muscle movements to become muscle memory. So telling somebody something one time doesn't mean they're gonna master it after one time. You have a responsibility to consistently tell him what he needs to do in order to assist and cater to you. And he has a responsibility as your husband, to follow through with that consistently. And the only way it's gonna happen is if you open your mouth. Yeah, you have to talk

about it. Is instead of saying from one mom to another, of one wife to another, this is from one spouse and parent to another. Open your mouth and tell him what you need and what you want. Because I'm just

like the mouth said. I had to be deliberate now once he was letting me know about the things that he needed, because I was also seeing that he was very in tune with the things that I needed, or kind of foresaw that maybe some days I was burnt out, or some days I need a little bit more help, or some things I needed a little time to myself just because of life, Like, I know what it's like, and we both know what it's like because we get caught up in the mundane of just like going, going,

going every day. So I think it's very necessary for you to have the conversation with him and just say, babe, like, is it cool if we plan a trip together. I would love to try this. And that's also a great way to reconnect with your spouse. And then in terms of you trying to figure out who you are, it's super easy to just get lost in that because you don't even know what your life are anymore, your dislikes, you know, at this point, you're just doing whatever you

have to do to stay afloat. Um. I don't know about many people that take vacations alone or a couple of friends that do. But even if you're on vacation with your husband and you leave him to sleep in for the morning, then you go out and do something for yourself, like we do that all the time, for example. And I think I got what she was saying about going on vacation. She says, when she goes on vacation, the first thing she thinks about is what or what

he wants to do. Codeine plans all of our vacations, and in all of our vacation, she knows that there are certain things that I like and love to do. One of them mainly sleeping. So she knows that. So you know what Canine will do. She will plan during the times when I'm sleeping in she gonna go get her son because she knows that I don't like to bake out in the sun. She'll get up, it'll be seven o'clock, She's like, hey, baby, going out to get

her coffee. She'll go sit on the beach for her hour or two hours, and then I'll come down there and join her around nine ten o'clock. But it's important for you to express this because we talked about the Superman complex. It's unfair to your spouse if you walk around with his face like you got everything and inside you're hurting. It's unfair to yourself, But it's also unfair to your spouse because you never gave them an opportunity to help you. I was guilty of that too, and

the very beginning to have everything under control. I got it, I got it, I got it, and then be mad. What's the matter when you see me having all the trouble with the thing, and then you said you had it. How am I supposed to know? And that was more than equipped to assist you. Bro, like you gotta you gotta tag me and sometimes and you have to be tagged out. Yes, sometimes you gotta be tagged out. Yo. Maybe this is what it is. Codeine will come with the baby and be like, Bro, I'm going to take

a nap. I'm like, all right, you're gonna go get her nails done, her feet though, going for a couple of hours. That's It's perfectly absolute, not selfish. Don't feel guilty of perusing the oils of Target is a form of self care. It's just what it is. You need a target sponsorship, my guy target? How that at me? All right? If you want to be featured y'all as one of our listener letters, email us. You should have the email address memorized by now. But if you don't,

dead ass Advice at gmail dot com. That's d E A D A S S A d V I C E at gmail dot com. All right, moment of truth time. I want forgot what we were talking about today? Many things more. Truth is not simple. Social media is not real. Social media is not real and moment of truth, the media of social nous is not real. None of them are real. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook media which it is of social media, all of the media, not just one medium, all of them. Take it with a grain of salt.

Don't compare yourself to it. Don't let your life revolve around it. Don't get let that just be your world. That's that's that's that's actually a great one. Don't let your timeline become your world. Who new? Don't you dare close? Your rise a new fantastic point of view. They want to tell us no where to go or say we're only dodre really, oh now, get back away from the mic. When you when you take, when you hold the note,

you got to back away from it. Develop I like that song, but you know what would have been better if they were like, oh new, you want to talking to them? Yo? Follow us on social media, y'all. As we talked about social media, we don't want to. Don't you forget that's that part because we enjoy having you alone. If if we're a part of your world on social media, y'all, we appreciate you, we love you. We always say y'all

are not just followers to us. You support us, you support our content, you support our messages, and we love you for that. So please continue to follow us if it works for your world. Dead as the Podcast I Am and I Am Devout, and if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate, review, and rug with

bumba as You're on your way to the moon. Oh. Dead as dead Ass is a production of I Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by Dinorapinia and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at dead as the Podcasts and never miss a Thing