Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey Human Podcast. This is episode 426, and my guest is Matthew Creighton. Matthew's episode is quite timely as he's a political strategist, digital age expert, and founder of Publicix, which builds campaigns at the local, state, and federal levels in both private and public sectors.
We discuss the weird and wild ride of American politics, the complications of social media and trying to connect to a populace who feel adrift and are as easily swayed by untruths as there are truths. Incredibly fascinating conversation. It went on for a while. I took up so much of his time, and he was so gracious about it because I know he is incredibly busy right now,
and it was really, really fascinating. We actually had this conversation pre both assassination attempts at this point, and so, we don't discuss that at all because it had not yet happened. My intent was to save this episode, to closer to the election time, and I was going to have Matthew come back on and talk a little bit about how what happened might be shaping things or even up to date as what's going on now just in general with the election.
And he's just so busy, so we didn't get a chance to reconnect. But I think this is a really interesting, great episode, and I I think you will learn a lot. I know I did. General stuff, Hey Human podcast is now on YouTube under official Susan Ruth. I'm on Patreon at susanruthism, where you can help support Hey Human, keep it ad free. TikTok, I am there, susanruthism, and check out heyhumanpodcast.com for links and to learn more about my
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That's v o t e dot o r g. If you are eligible to vote, Please do so. Please, please. It's really important. So do that. Be kind. Be well. Be loved. Here we go. Matthew Creighton, welcome to Hey Human. Thank you for having me. It's lovely to see you. Great to see you as well. Where are you hailing from? So I am sitting in New Jersey right now. From New Jersey as well. So Okay. The Garden State? North Jersey. Yep. Yeah. We're bred. Proud of it. Proud of New Jersey.
And I've been to Jersey on a lake boating around, and I thought, yeah, I get it. It was it was gorgeous. Well, yeah. For for those listening, who have not yet had the opportunity to visit New Jersey, we do have lakes, and and they are beautiful. We also have mountains and beautiful beaches. So I recommend
definitely visit. It's not all the turnpike. And that's something that I've always said about about Jersey in particular is that, unfortunately, if you fly into Jersey, you're flying into the Newark Airport, which is, like, right down the turnpike. You see all the, all the stuff going on at the port down there, which is is, you know, absolutely essential, but I think that's the
impression people get of our state. So we do have lakes, I promise, and and nature and, and and beautiful little downtowns and things like that. So worth a visit. So this is my, little pitch for Jersey tourism. Absolutely. And my audience can't see you, but the muscle shirt you're wearing is awesome. Just kidding. Exactly. I've got, got my hair slicked back. Yeah. The pump going. Yeah. That's the that's the look. It is. You don't you don't have a Jersey accent at all, to my to my ear at least.
Oh, that's funny. Yeah. I had a few years ago, an Uber driver in, Washington DC when I was down there for a couple of meetings and, and she was able to pick it out. So she was like, oh, you must be from New Jersey. I'm like, oh, I didn't think that's sick of an accent, but it does run run the spectrum. Actually, I should say there is no single Jersey accent in the southern half of the state. It's it's very much, sort of a Philadelphia sounding accent, you know, south of, I don't know, 1195.
North of that, you know, you get the the spectrum of of sort of New York or a lot of people sound like me. Central Jersey. I mean, now we're getting into, like, hot debate territory here about, like, whether or not Central Jersey exists, but it's, you know, more of a neutral type thing. But that Uber driver did she picked me picked me out. She was like, oh, you sound like you're from Jersey. I'm like, well That's probably
because the Uber driver was East Coast. I feel like you're I can tell people because I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, I can tell people Canadian or even if it's a slight Canadian accent or Oregon, it's a little different, you know, that it it's weird. I think if you're from the region, you pick up stuff a little bit more. Yeah. You definitely are attuned to, to it. I mean, accents are fascinating to me. I know I know we could I could go on for, like, hours, but
it is it is fascinating. Even within, like, certain communities or neighborhoods in in certain parts of Jersey, you get some very interesting, sort of linguistic things that that you hear from from people. So it's like, you know, like Hudson County, for example, which is very close to New York City. Like, if you're, like, old Hudson County, like, there are certain little verbal quirks that you hear, like adding an r on the end of, of, words that have an a at the end.
So, like, idea turns into idea or pizza or, like, it's it's very and you only hear that in very specific areas. So it's not like a total it's it's really interesting to to hear, whereas, like, if you go a mile, you know, a different direction, it's it's, it's more of a a standard sound. So it's kind of, like, cool cool to see the spectrum of things and how how language is, developed. Absolutely. And I I myself, when I go to I lived in the South for 13 years.
And when I go there, I find that it doesn't take very long before my lilt comes in. I mean, I wasn't born there or anything, but I'd start to adapt to what's around me. Oh, yeah. You definitely do hear that, quite a bit where where people start to to mirror the, the accent. So, in college, I had I had a roommate actually from South Jersey, and he had a very thick sort of Philadelphia kind of accent.
And, and and you start to hear yourself say like, you spend enough time and you start hearing yourself saying, like, things like home, you know, phone, like, the the o sound, which is very, like, Philly kind of, Philly kind of thing. So it's it's it's definitely an interesting interesting thing. I've I've seen that happen happen before. People come up here and their accents, you know, fade a little bit from the south. You know, I have a neighbor, she's from Alabama.
You could hear it a little bit, but it's not super thick. Right? Like, I think it's it's definitely, tamped down. But then, you know, you go home for a week, like you said, and you really start to hear it again. So What's so interesting about it is that on a on a brain level that it just shows how much human beings want to connect to another, that we will go into that sort of a mirroring and and try to match up our intonations and our vocal pitches and things like that. I just think
that's so fascinating. It just says how tribal we are. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's it's definitely a whole area of study that I I think I I would be interested actually in going back into, you know, if I had a lot of free time, I I think, you know, linguistics and and patterns of speech and things
like that would be very interesting. I mean, like peripherally, and, you know, I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about it, but peripherally, you know, we think a lot about how to communicate, in certain situations and how to connect with people. Linguistics is a very, very deep well, and I would certainly be interested in exploring it, you know, if I have some free time. So maybe that'll be my, my next act is, going in and studying some of that stuff. Yeah. I love it. Follow follow your
bliss, for sure. Well, let's talk about where so you we know where you grew up. I'm assuming you did grow up there. Tell me about what shaped you as a person as you were growing up and and started you down the funnel of what you do now? That's a really fascinating question. So it it was sort of a pretty standard, like, suburban New Jersey upbringing. Nothing exceptional.
I I would say, you know, went to went to public schools, had the benefit of living in a place that had a really great education system, a place that provides a lot of opportunities, even if you don't know it at the time, you know, when you're a little kid, student in high school, middle school. I will say that, I was not the best student in, in high school, middle school, you know. So I definitely had my my challenges with traditional school. Things that I was interested in, obviously,
I excelled at. Things that I wasn't particularly interested in, I struggled or kind of shrugged off or didn't pay too much attention to, didn't, you know, put a whole lot of effort in. So I had a lot of advantages, though, obviously, growing up where I did and having the sort of winning the lottery of just having been born again into a place on the globe, which in the grand scheme of things is really just like a little pinpoint on
a map, you know? So I just, you know, I went through school, never really had a sense of what I wanted to do necessarily. As I kind of went through high school, you go through phases, you know, thinking, oh, maybe I'll do this, do that. But, I thought at the end of high school, you know what? I'm gonna go to college. I'm gonna try to get into teaching, which was interesting. So, like, because I wasn't particularly as focused as I perhaps should have been in school, I thought, you know, why don't
I become a teacher? Because then people like me, you know, I can try to recreate things or or, teach in a way that's that's engaging to people like me. You don't really find all that much interest in certain topics or or relevance. So, ended up getting into, you know, a couple of colleges. Went to, a school in Jersey called Fairleigh Dickinson, which is, not very well known except for the fact that, we made a a really brief run at the NCAA,
basketball tournament. I think it was it was last year, and had a little bit of a Cinderella run. It didn't go very go on for very long, but there were some exciting games in there, and and that was cool. So that sort of, raised, you know, the profile of the school, which is which is always fun, because we're not a sports school. So I went there, studied history, political science, thought I was gonna be a teacher the whole time. And then 2,008
came around, economy collapsed. So I like to say it's sort of a very millennial story from from here, from this point till present. Economy collapsed. I ended up graduating in 2010 with my bachelor's, 2011 with a master's degree in education, did my student teaching, did all of that, but there still
weren't that many jobs, out there. So in in New Jersey, the public education budgets were gutted under under the governor at the time, you know, due to some of the financial hardships, and also there's some, like, political stuff that led to, you know, the cutting of education budgets. So, what ended up happening was, you know, I was applying for jobs. There were hundreds of other applicants in some cases. Many of them had
7 years of experience. Why would they hire some kid, especially with a master's degree because that makes you a little bit more expensive. So why would you hire some kid out of college that's more expensive, less experience than if you could hire someone who's got 7 years of or 5, 7 years of, classroom experience? So that kind of triggered the, what do I do, with with my life? So I always thought I liked, I was interested in politics. That was always something that was that was interesting
to me. During my graduate school years, I actually did a graduate assistantship at a public opinion polling institute called Public Mind Poll. I learned a lot of really cool things about, public opinion, how people think about specific issues, specific elected officials, politicians, policies. So, that was a lot of fun but didn't really do much with of anything with that
for for a couple years. So I naturally just took the first job that came my way, which happened to be doing some fundraising and alumni relations at the school that I was at and specifically geared toward young alums. As you can imagine, they hired me and then, one other person from a second case. There were 2 campuses in New Jersey. They wanted to have representation from both, so they hired 2 of us.
And our our charge was sort of to connect with young alums, you know, call through the phone book essentially, and ask for money. As you can imagine, you know, in in that economic climate, people were not thrilled to hear from me, and had a lot of creative ways of rebuffing my ask. So, you know, and certainly many of those those, responses are not appropriate to to repeat here or anywhere for that matter. And I understood
it. Right? Like, and I'd asked myself, well, if someone called me and, and and asked for money at this point, you know, there people have student loans, the job prospects were a little dicey at at the moment. So it was, you know, I I I got it. Like, I understood it. And but needless to say, the expectations were completely mismatched. So, you know, the we ended up getting laid off 10 months later, and I was like, uh-oh. We're right back in the
mix again. So I figured, you know, why don't I try to start my own thing? I've always liked the politics, so let let me try to work on a couple of campaigns. So I went out and found 2 campaigns. 1 was a local campaign. 1 was a campaign for congress. And, I I purposely looked for at least a a campaign that wouldn't have a very good chance of winning because the ones that do are pretty much spoken for in terms of who does what
on on those campaigns. The ones that have nothing to lose, are more likely to take a risk on someone that doesn't have any experience and maybe would be willing to experiment a little bit with the, you know, different methods of communication. So at the time, I was like, well, I'm young. You know, what would what are they gonna trust me to do? So I was like, I'll tell them I do social media. Like, I will do their social media, their digital. So I did the pitch. They're like, you're young.
You must know how to use Facebook. I'm like, yep. I definitely do. So then, you know, I had to teach myself all this. Are you friends with Tom from Myspace? Yes. Yep. Yep. Yep. That was that was, like, that was so funny because that was sort of, like, we were moving just beyond the Myspace era at that point and, but, like, know knowing Tom or who Tom was, being able to identify that, I think, was was very useful in in my, in my endeavors. And then, you know, in
in 2012 right. So, like, Facebook became a huge thing in the in the Obama, reelection campaign. So, like, social media started to kind of take root in some of the digital media stuff in the 2008 campaign. But 2012 really came into its own as a sort of a medium for communication, took, kind of center stage. So I had the opportunity to kind of get in and say, like, well, you know, we like, I grew
up with this stuff. Like, as I was graduating high school, that's when Facebook was starting to get rolled out to people who had, who had access to a university email address. So this is before Facebook was available to everyone. It was just you had to have a college email address. Now, prior to that, I think it was only like Ivy League Schools, you know, you could get in. So but then, you know, it was sort of like in that expansion era
of Facebook. So so yeah, that's that's sort of how I ended up where I am today is, you know, just kept doing it and and have been fortunate to to learn a lot, and to have, people in my life who have been, extraordinarily helpful mentors and and generous mentors with their time and and, knowledge and kept going. And now I have had the opportunity to do a lot of cool stuff in my career. Was that the founding of your company or did that come a little later? It was.
So in 2011, I I technically, incorporated, and I was like, alright, I'm gonna give this a shot. And and, 2012 were the first two races that I ended up doing. And we actually ended up winning one of them, which is what the local race, which is a little bit of a surprise. I didn't think we were going to. We ended up winning, and then that created a situation where I was able to network a bit and and meet different people and, you know, just kinda kept
kept going, meeting new people. I met my business partner in 2014 a few years later when we were working on a campaign together. And and, you know, we've been growing ever since. So it's been, a little bit of luck, a little bit of, you know, just determination and and, you know, not letting, you know, a couple close calls, I guess, knock knock us down in terms of, like, mistakes that you make along the way, but, learned a lot of lessons the hard way for sure. What's an example of a close
call? One of the one of the first things that we ever did or I ever did at that point was that was sort of just a solo act. We produced a television ad. Looking back, kind of an insane thing to do. So the idea was to air a single ad. So one 32nd spot. That's all the campaign could afford on a very obscure, local act access TV station that didn't even cover the area that we were running in.
But the candidate happened to know someone at the network, and they were gonna carry a debate between him and his opponent. So they were like, let's just run this one ad during the debate. It's gonna crack this whole thing open, and we're gonna we're gonna move numbers and and move people to vote. Like, well, they don't no one in New Jersey actually watches this this television station because it covers, like, sort of Westchester County, Rockland County in New York. Like, no one
around here watches it. So, we ended up, producing this ad and, spent our own money out of pocket with the production crew to to produce produce the ad, then the campaign just refused to pay. So this was like sort of a it's a wake up call, in in business. You always get paid up upfront, you know, for for stuff that you're out of pocket on. But, instead of, you know, telling, our our production partners that, they
would also be out the money. I went into my savings and paid them for their services because I just think it's wrong with stiff people. And it was my responsibility. I brought them in and, they had the understanding that they were gonna get paid. So I had to go into my savings and pretty much took it to 0, to pay them. From that moment on, it was like, okay. We're not gonna do that again. So we will have safeguards in place and, and things. So that was that
was a close call. You know, you just make other minor mistakes along along the way as well, and you just learn things about business. If you've never run one, you know, that's unfortunately the the hardest way to learn, but I think probably one of the better ways. So, I mean, you can tell someone all day in a classroom,
you know, how to run a business. But, you know, once you're in the room and you're responsible for for all of the operations and then everything, it it it takes on a totally different form. So, yeah. So that that was, you know, our my first big sort of shock and, didn't didn't kill us, which was good. And we were able to, we've been able to, you know, continue on from from there. So Unfortunately, it's not an uncommon story that people get taken advantage of and lose a
shit ton of money in the process. I think that's happened to pretty much everyone I know, including myself while trying to make your business fly. It it is. Yeah. I mean, I I really hate that behavior. Right? The the I mean, because you if you contract with someone and you have an understanding, like, I understand I understand that things happen along the way that may might make it so, you know, paying a vendor or paying a, a service provider
would be difficult. But I think you would need to have those, you know, transparent conversations up front. But you do see it too often, especially with, like, a lot of small businesses. You hear about horror stories where they just get abused by much larger businesses or, you know, someone will come back and try to go back to the well and say, you know what? Why don't you cut your cut your bill in half, and that's as good as you're gonna do, or sue me and you'll be in court
forever. Like, you see that too often. It's really it's it's sad. It's sad to see, but it does it does happen. And I think there's this this sort of misconception in in business that you have to be that kind of like, that sort of smart behavior. It's not unethical. It's just smart business. And and that couldn't be further from the truth. I think relationships are very important and you're not gonna maintain, any any sort of meaningful relationship by doing that sort of thing to another human
being. So anyway, that's, Also, word gets out. It it does. You run out of places to turn eventually. You know, you're just you just can't, you just can't do that sort of. I mean, you can, but it, you know, it all it all catches up. So in the short term, it might work out for you, but in the long term, I I just don't think. So it is, to your point, like, all too prevalent and very hard to watch, but, you know, we just do the best we
can. Yeah. For sure. And we have not yet mentioned your company, Publicix. Am I saying it right? You got it. Nailed it. First time. It was good. Excellent. Excellent. It's interesting how much everything I mean, actually, it's not just interesting. I think it's slightly devastating how much is done online in terms of politic because as much as the truth can be told, the lies can be told, and the lies
tend to be louder. And it's very hard to fight that, and there are powers that be that are spending god knows how much money to flood our social media with bullshit, basically. So how does one fight that? I'm really glad that you you said that. So there are a lot of issues. Right? So a lot of what is built into these platforms from an algorithmic perspective, it rewards what, you know, what I call, like, activating emotions. So, like, anger is an activating emotion.
So if you see something that makes you angry, you're much more likely to share it. Same thing with surprise. If you're surprised by something, you're much more likely to share it with with your friends. So those things spread. So, you know, the algorithms and each of the platforms are a little bit different depending upon, you know, which which which platform you're
talking about. But, like, likes, shares, all of those things, comments, for example, the more of those things that happen organically, the more it gets boosted up in the algorithm, then the more people that see it, then the more people that interact. So it's sort of like a a cycle that that, self perpetuates after, you know, the first interaction. So that so that's the unfortunate part is that, things that tend to make you just happy or content,
they don't they're not really activating emotions. Right? So you might be happy in seeing it, but you're never really likely to share it. But you are much more likely to sort of rage share. Right? Like, oh, this makes me feel angry, so I'm gonna smash the share button and and, and and share it to my friends, and it's gonna generate all sorts of comments.
Now the things that tend to make us angry, unfortunately, a lot of those things are disinformation, which which are crafted intentionally to tap into that very cycle, the the algorithm it games the algorithm, and and it's it's it's a scary thing because you you are, so much, information that that's false or or even misframing of information or, expectation setting is furnished to people who, and and by people I mean, like, we as a society, you know, the evolution of social media took place,
so quickly, and it's still evolving so quickly, that the sort of public education with how to engage with these platforms and how to evaluate the information that that you see on there didn't it wasn't able to keep up. Right? Like, there just isn't, there I mean, when I was growing up, when when I was in high school, for example, you know, Myspace is a big thing.
Though not as algorithmically driven as, like, a Facebook, but, you know, once we all got in Facebook, that was a big you know, once they introduced the news feed and the like buttons and different colors and things like that, to to promote sharing and engagement, you know, that that became very algorithmically algorithmically driven. We never had like a media literacy
class. You know, you did your history, social studies, you did your math, you did your, you know, language classes, English, literature, all of those things. You did type it, you know, you've learned how to type. I remember, you know, the learning to, you know, to type and and get off this sort of hunt and peck, you know, method. So that was the extent of it, though. That was the extent of the education that
we have. Nothing prepared us for how to evaluate information that we were presented with on the Internet and, how to, other than, like, a couple stern warnings about Wikipedia. Right? That that was like, oh, you can't source this paper from Wikipedia because, like, you just never know what's on there. That was it. That was it. That was the only thing that you ever heard.
And, you know, the the sort of social media was was able to, you know, catch momentum in a way that that, you know, the rest of the you we just didn't have context for how to evaluate some of this stuff. Now I think we're starting to realize, like, what what happens when you don't have the context for evaluating certain information. And and I think you're seeing an increased conversation about the potential harms that social media can do in in a number of ways.
It's not just politically, but but also from a mental health perspective. I mean, I don't think it was very well understood at all what what sort of impact you would be faced with. But, you know, even now, I see certain content that, you know, the algorithm wants me to see. I'm lucky in that. Like, I work in this space. Like, I have a little bit of context for how to evaluate certain things that that I'm seeing. But for someone who doesn't have that context, you're seeing some of
these things. And it's it's scary because it sets an expectation for life that is oftentimes completely unattainable, all in service of of selling you something, whatever it is, like a course or selling some sort of kind of, like, expertise or, like, mastermind or or whatever. Like, you see a lot of these business guru for example,
something actually I've been thinking a lot. I know this is kind of taking it down a little bit of a tangent, but something I've been thinking a lot about too is is, like, how young men in particular consume social media. So, like, I know young young women have a lot of challenges, as as they look through social media. That should be absolutely, like, 100% top of mind. But young men also are being presented with things that are are harmful in a in a slightly different way. So, like, I'll
give you a good example of this. So if you're a young man and, and this is actually, like, real content that I've seen, so hopefully I don't get, like, hate for, you know, what what I'm what I'm about to say. Maybe I will. I don't know. That'll drive some engagement for you. How's that? So we'll get the engagement up by, by driving some hate. But, I saw a clip, unironically, you know, I I don't even know who
it was. It was some, you know, person on on a podcast much much like I'm talking to you right now and and with the straight face said, you know, if you're 25 years old and you haven't purchased a Lamborghini yet I saw that guy. You that guy? Yeah. Unbelievable. Like, do you know how many Lamborghinis are sold in the US every year? I mean, it's just so I I thought, is this a joke? I couldn't tell if he was being ironic if, you know, if it was satire or what was happening.
I don't think it was. I, like, I don't think it No. I don't think it was. It's it's scary, though. Like, in the fact that we have to wonder if it was satire is is is kind of that's the point. Right? Yeah. Life is so insane at this point that you think it's the whole of of humanity is being written by The Onion. Oh, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. It's like one one big onion headline after another. But it's real. I think the writer's room is is actually may
maybe they're running the, running the show. Right? The onion writer's room. They've got the whole thing, like, feeding into a machine or something. Exactly. But you see stuff like that. Right? And and if you're if you're a young man who feels like, you know, he cannot get traction in life and or or perhaps, like, you are getting some traction, but it's not Lamborghini level traction. Again, like, how many Lamborghinis? A Honda Civic.
Yeah. God forbid. Right? Like, I mean, like, I I drove, like, a Ford Fusion, you know, that didn't have air conditioning for a couple years, you know, after college. You know what I mean? It's like, that's life. Right? And That is life. Yeah. You know, would would a Lamborghini that had air conditioning have been nice? Sure. If someone wanted to give it to me, but there's no way that, like, any any person
could afford it. But, I mean, for perspective, I mean, I think it's, like, something like a 100 or so are sold every year. And and the number that are sold to 25 year olds is probably vanishingly small, if not 0. It may be the influencers who are tend to be younger, but yeah. I mean, I totally
am right there with you. It creates a false narrative that then in turn creates a toxicity that's probably pretty hard to override in a society across the board in general that struggles with self worth and self loathing and all of that. Yeah. I mean, if someone tells you, like, you can have this thing if you just try hard enough and then you try hard and then you can't have that thing because it's it's actually insane, you're gonna start to develop a sense of
resentment. And that resentment doesn't oftentimes or you're not pointing it inward, then you start to point it outward. You start to ask yourself, well, I should be able to get ahead. I've been told that I should be able to get these things without much effort or extraordinary, sort of effort, to do so. It can't be me. What's wrong with society? Right. What's wrong with this system? It it, you know, and then you start
pointing fingers at at at other things. So then you hear about, programs and initiatives that are meant to level the playing field after, you know, the history full of inequities, in, in our society, right? Like it's, it's all a process toward developing a more level playing field. And and you start to see those things, and you start to go, well, that's not fair. All these people are getting help that I'm not. And I should be able to do these
things. So, like, I'm just I'm gonna get really mad, and I'm going to, you know, vote in a particular way or act out in a violent way in the worst cases, which is which is very scary. Like, the amount of of sort of politically driven, or socially driven sort of violent pronouncements and and ultimately behavior in some ways is Yeah. Doxing. I can't even imagine how much that has increased over the years, but it's gotta be by large percentages.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That and and and physical violence in the world where, you know, people are, you know, showing up to protests with with guns and firing on people. Violence against women because your woman is supposed to be a pure clean slate and she can't have, you know, what they call a body count.
You gotta wonder too, the mastermind behind it all, or or are we just undoing ourselves for the sake of the fact that our brains react to hate and violence now in the same way as the little cocaine pellet does for the mice in the maze? I mean, that's I like, some of this is just tapping into sort of, like, deep seated, evolutionary,
leftovers, you know, in our brain. Stuff that we, like, don't even necessarily need anymore, but but just exists because, you know, we had to defend ourselves against, you know, warfare. I mean, like, you know,
human beings are tribal by nature. Right? Like, you you group into into tribes and identify out groups and threats and, you know, going all the way back to when, you know, you used to have to run away from, you know, saber toothed tigers while you're trying to, like, hunt and and and gather berries, like, in in saber toothed tigers while you're trying to, like, hunt and and and gather berries, like, in in, you know, the, in the forest. So it's like I mean,
that's obviously like a Yeah. Little anachronistic there. But, but the the point being is, like, you know, there there are a lot of, sort of areas that evolutionarily, like, we sort of developed these mechanisms because it led to our
survival as a species. But, like, now, you know, we have an increasingly connected, for better for worse world, and there's some reasons why it's better because we're connected and and able to learn more and and, connect more with people in different parts of the world and, you know, get information out there. But there's there's also a downside to that too because we haven't totally shed those sort of bad sort of habits that that exist within us.
So it's, I mean, again, which is why anger is such an activating emotion because if anger doesn't activate you to do something, then there is no evolutionary purpose for being angry. Right? There's no reason to, to have that around anymore. So it's, it's sort of an interesting, interesting thing. Like, I mean, you know, if, again, I think, you know, you're sort of part of a hunter gatherer society and, you needed anxiety,
for example, or anger. Like, all of those things function to get you to move, to do something in the face of a a profound threat to your life or your tribe tribal or your group's life, whatever, you know, whatever sort of group, you were in. So it's definitely an interesting interesting thing how that translates to a world where we are very connected. We do have access to social media.
Any a lot of people have a platform now that they I mean, if you have a microphone like the one I'm sitting in front of and pair of headphones and a computer and a webcam, you can do you you have a platform essentially in a way that you wouldn't have had before. You used to have to go there used to be some some filter. Right? Like, if you think about, the news, right, and and the and the role that journalism played in in certain, circumstances. Like, you know, Cronkite, for example. Right?
Like, it was all filtered through that, and some random person wouldn't just go on Cronkite because they're just a random person who had some ID thing. It was usually, there were some vetting that went on, related to the information that was gonna be relayed in in whatever interview. So so that so now we we all have, you know, a phone if you have a phone, right, you can jump on TikTok and do something and go viral and all of
a sudden become fame. I mean, you see it with, like, viral, like, celebrity, you know, people who have just, like, a random moment on an interview somewhere in someone else's channel, and then all of a sudden they become Yeah. They get signed to agencies, and they go on talk shows. And Yeah. And it's
it's interesting. It's a Black Mirror episode. And I wonder I mean, certainly, there are powerful people that love to see the chaos because it's pretty easy to control people when they're being chaotic. But I'm wondering if the pendulum will swing back and we will get placated somehow. The only way I can see it now logically is if something were to destroy the Internet.
But again, to your point, it's hard because thanks to the Internet, we've been able to see injustices or bring down regimes that were horrific or just get the word out about important issues or fundraise for the Smiths whose house burned down. Whatever it is, obviously, it can be used for good As much as we are horrifying to each other at times, our sense of altruism and goodness also rises to the occasion. I'm not sure me, personally, Susan, I'm not sure why it feels like the negativity
is so much more popular. Like, people just love to be pissed. And I don't know if there's an antidote to that or if it's just that loud people who are angry or louder. Yeah. I I don't know. Some element of that, where where you do have, I would say the majority of people are not tuned in enough for for them to be that angry about whatever given thing. Like, so this is interesting because it does filter down to even, like, the
local level. So, like, we we have, you know, every town I feel like in America has, like, a dedicated Facebook group, you know, that, that people sort of or or, Nextiva. Store, which is insane. I stay out in the store. My god. It's so crazy. It's hard it's hard to watch with even the Facebook groups. Right? So we have one, in in town, and and there was a restaurant, you know, down on on the main drag, a little bit, a few miles from where
we are. And their landscaper just didn't show up, you know, for a week, and the grass was getting a little long in front. And the the someone decided to take to this Facebook group to absolutely, you know, lecture this this business owner on the fact that their grass was getting so long. It was, you know, an abomination, you know, to
the town. You would you would have thought that this person, the business owner, the restaurant owner, committed some sort of atrocity, But I've you know, you feel terrible, and it was it was probably 300 comments deep, most of them very negative. And, you know, eventually at the end, I guess, someone let him know that this was happening. And, you know, he got in there and he's like, I am so sorry. My landscaper, you know, just couldn't make it this week. I'm gonna go out and buy a lawnmower
and take care of it myself. We've just been really busy. And it's like, you know, you don't know what's going on in that person's life. Like, why are you what is it's not near your I promise you. There's no one live lives, like, across the street from this this restaurant. It's not even like you have to look at it. You drive by it. Like, just let it go. But there is, like, this instinct to say something negative. Even at that level, it's not I mean, we're not talking about issues
of national importance now. We're talking Right. Grass. Grass a little bit too long. And the fact that someone would be compelled or 300 people would be compelled to complain about it and not one of those people thought, you know what? I have a lawnmower. I'm just gonna go spend an hour and cut this grass because, you know, it's a nice thing to do that our proclivities don't lead in that direction is a real
freaking bummer to me. And I worry because as we get more and more humans on this planet who have not the skill set to fight that urge. I I mean, I understand that reptilian brains, I I get that, but we have evolved as a species mostly that you would think that we would not it
it's speaking to a bigger problem. I think that we're using this, as you said, as this outlet for a rage or discontent that we don't even know how to touch, and all we can do is aim it outward and attack because it's the easiest thing in the world to do. It it is. And and I think part of it too is it just simplifies everything. You know, there there's good and there's bad, and that's it. And, you know, there's a lot of gray area. Now I do do I think that there are things that are mostly good
and mostly bad? Absolutely. And and there are objectively, in my opinion, objectively things that are good and bad. Right? But but for most issues, there is a lot of nuance, a lot of imperfection in how one might deal with a particular issue, but that's not very satisfying. Right? Nuance is hard. Nuance takes work. And anger, and and creating sort of this black and white, you know, sort of binary of, you know, yes or no. I think that that just simplifies things very the the things
things that don't need to be simplified. And again, I think there are simple choices and simple contrast in certain circumstances, but most things in life, there is there is a vast gulf of of gray area nuance of understanding that needs to happen, you know, before before you jump in. So I do think there is there is some element of that. I'd be like, okay. How can we just, like, simplify this and, like, figure out how to manage this issue? It's like, okay. I'm gonna be angry at this.
And then that's it. That's simple. Easy. Yeah. Well, it seems like in politics that there is one one side who definitely understands the inclination to to inflame and that that can be an advantage. And then there's another side that doesn't seem to want to engage that under that obvious thing, and I'm curious to see what your thoughts are of how that would play out.
When you go high, if they're just always going low, what do you what do you do in that scenario, especially for somebody like you whose job it is to help elect someone? Sure. Absolutely. So I I think and you're gonna get a, a real sense of of where my political leanings are. It's a tricky thing to ask, right? Because I know I have a feeling we're both on the same page politically. But this question this is what frustrates me about this country. The question I'm asking isn't really it's not
about party. It's about it's just the convulsions that people have towards something and the the the way they operate in general. Like, we talked about in the beginning, the people who decide they're gonna pay for something or not pay for something. Now do you know what I mean? Like, it it's it's hard to ask a question like this because immediately someone's like, oh, that's a political thing. You just hate all blah. I don't hate all anybody, but I can see what's happening.
Absolutely. So this this is a conversation that I've, interestingly enough, have been having more in my personal life because you're able to have those
sort of nuanced conversations about about things. So I think that whether you agree or disagree with or or or I should say in the past tense, agreed or disagreed with how, for example, the Republican party was handling things, at least most of the time, you could have a pretty good sense that the people running for president in that party running for office, not all of them, but most, had, would would adhere to the norms and standards and, sort of democratic
guardrails that exist in this country, that enable us to have conversations, difficult political conversations, and allow us to change direction if the voters choose to change direction. Within with integrity. With integrity. Yes. With integrity. I mean, but, you know, relative in that way. Relatively. Yeah.
Politics has always been ugly. Right? Like, if you look back at the Nixon years, right, they were all up to dirty bricks and, you know, they had, you know, whole, sort of little little teams dedicated to doing nasty thing. And then, unfortunately, a lot of those people are still kicking around, Republican politics today. You know, the Roger Stones of the world. I mean, you know, he's got that big old Nixon tattoo on back tat, you know, shoulder blade
to shoulder blade. But, you know so, like, it's always been a
little bit like that. But at the end of the day, you know, you could always have some some degree of of confidence that the person in the White House, after their 8 years was up or if they lost after 4 years, that they would move on and the next person would come in and that they would, out of a love for this country and a hope that they would that the country succeeds genuinely may not agree with how the other side wants to get there, but at least a shared agreement that they
want to see this country succeed would help the next person transition into office. And I think what we've seen since 2016 is a complete shattering of that basic norm. So we're not having this conversation anymore about
from a a policy perspective. Right? And and I I think that if we cannot start so this is this is where where I I get to is, like, if we cannot start from a place where both sides agree that elections matter, the results of the election should be adhered to, that, fundamentally, that we should strive to have as many people, many, Americans as many American citizens as possible participate
in that political process. Not silence voices, not make it harder for those people to participate, but expand and do whatever we can to get the the most voices into the political process. Like, if we fundamentally cannot agree on that, then the one side the one side that doesn't believe that people should have a voice, that doesn't believe that we should adhere to elections, that that I I think we're having a completely different conversation now. We're not talking about
politics anymore. We are talking about the existential threat to the fundamental fabric of this country. And and I I think the way that we talk about democracy in general is maybe a little flawed. Right? Because I think there is a fair case to make that when when you say, well, we have to protect democracy. That there are a lot of people in this country, a lot of groups of people who have not been well served by our institutions historically. Right? Our institutions
are imperfect. Right? That there have been a lot of injustices in this country. So when you say we wanna protect democracy, just as sort of a blanket statement, they they feel as if you're protecting a system that fundamentally doesn't work for them and hasn't ever worked for them.
But really what it is, in my mind, what democracy is, is protecting our ability to continue to improve the system that we have, to continue to make the changes that we need to make, to continue to level the playing field, to continue to create an economy that works for for a greater number of people in this
country. Right? It's like the capacity. Democracy when we when I think that's what we have to talk about when we talk about democracy is protecting that capacity for people, every day, you know, working hardworking Americans to have their voice heard in that process. And if you get rid of elections and you get rid of the guardrails and you make it okay to fundamentally influence our political process by brute force and violence, you are taking away those voices. And then who wins in
that case? Right? Whose voices are heard in that system? It's not gonna be the hardworking Americans. It's not gonna be people who want to see more progress on, you know, affordability and housing. It's not gonna be people who, have benefited, from recent investments in cleaning up drinking water. It's not gonna be the people who rely on insulin and have had those those prices capped in this past administration, in the current
administration, the Biden administration. So, like, you're you're just not gonna have the capacity to fundamentally improve the system. Like and I think, it gets this this idea of, like, burning it down. Like, if we burn it down, well, that sort of cuts both ways. Right? Like, people that are likely to rebuild the system are gonna rebuild it in in an image that you do not like. Like, not you. I've been No. I know what you mean. The
Royalty. We the People. Right. And and so that's what I mean when I say, like, protecting democracy. It's protecting our capacity to continue to make progress while acknowledging that these institutions, they're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they do serve a purpose of making sure that one particular person's ambitions cannot override the entire
will of of the people. That is the position that we're in now, unfortunately, is is that we have a stark contrast between the two sides where you have one side that fundamentally does not believe in preserving that capacity. In fact, they believe in completely tearing it apart and ripping it up and walling it off and creating a system where only a few have an actual voice in the system.
And again, I'm not saying it's perfect right now, but it's way better than than what you would have in a system where again, you're eliminating people's right to vote in this country. No. That's not good. I know. I saw something on Facebook yesterday, a person in Tennessee that posted about ballot box that went in their neighborhood and, or maybe was it Tennessee? I think
it was Tennessee. But they were all up in arms about it and all I could think of is, why would you if you were a patriot truly, as people like to throw that word around, why would you not want to ensure that all citizens in our democracy make it easier for all citizens to vote? Why would you not want that? Now, I know why. It's because historically disenfranchised people tend to vote for a particular party over another, and therefore, that that they're not a voice that they
want to lift up. But I can't help but keep going back to that saying that until all of us are free, none of us are free. And I don't know why so many of us work toward our own demise, and I can't see the writing on the wall of what it means to destroy democracy. It's it's it's like what you said about the guy me talking about how if you don't have a Lamborghini by 25. Democracy takes work. Yeah. And most people don't even could don't
even know anything about civics. They don't know who their representatives are for all the way down to the city level, all the way up the tree. And they don't really care. They just like yelling about it. And don't know how some of these people are actively voting against their best interest no matter which side of the political spectrum you're on, you know. And that's how do you what do you do with that?
Yeah. I mean, it's it's really interesting. It's it kind of like brings those the images up of of, you know, some of these, sort of, like, Republican members of congress that would show up to the ribbon cuttings for, the big infrastructure projects that were funded by a law that they did not vote for.
They, like, voted against it. Right? And they show up for the ribbon cutting going, oh, look at this brand new bridge that we are building that's gonna, you know, connect, you know, 2 parts of the state or the city and is gonna create the, you know, x amount of of economic value and improve the quality of life. Or we're gonna be fixing the rails or or, again, you
know, lead pipes, all that stuff. Like, they'll show up to these things and continue to get voted in by the people in those communities while simultaneously the folks in those communities are very grateful for the the new bridge, the new roads, the the clean drinking water, the clean air, the new manufacturing jobs. I just saw a report. I I didn't I need to read it more thoroughly, so, I'm not gonna, you know, throw numbers around, but sort of America
is, like, left behind counties. Right? The forgotten counties in America have done better in the last 4 years. Jobs, economic improvement, wage growth in these communities has been better in the last 4 years than they have been in the past several decades. And there is there is very real progress.
If you look at the the real wage growth and I understand people are hurting, people are having a hard time with affordability, but the the reality is wage growth among working class and middle class Americans has been greater under this presidency than it had ever has before. The ability, and desire to unionize, in the last 4 years has been stronger than ever before. That means people have a voice in their workplace. They can get protection, basic protections, and negotiate with their employers.
And, you know, you have an administration that's very supportive of all of that. And yet, and yet, if you ask people about all of those things, right, the majority of Americans, they like clean drinking water. They like the fact that, drug companies cannot charge quite as much for insulin. They like the fact that we are trying to transition to, clean energy. For the most part, there's a little bit of, you know, polarization in there too. But, you know, there are jobs that
are associated with that as well. They like the fact that we are bringing manufacturing back to the United States, high-tech manufacturing that's going to provide jobs for people in in these in these sort of left behind counties and in other areas of the country as well. The problem is once you attach a partisan label to it, they don't want anything to do with it. They don't care. It doesn't matter who did it. It's it's it's sort of that weird cognitive dissonance.
And and again, it kinda goes back, I think, to some of the externalization of of of personal, you know, frustration with with circumstances, and people do have challenges. Right? And I and I think it would be tone deaf to say, like, well, look at all these things that are happening. You should be happy. That's not what anyone's saying. Right? It's saying, we are working together to make progress on
these things. And the thing that enabled that was because people showed up and voted in 2020, and they then they voted again in 2022. You know, we have a Democratic senate, and again, you're getting a a view of sort of political leanings, but we have a Democratic senate and a very closely divided house, Democratic president. Stuff is still getting done. It's still being done because of those votes. We're we're able to accomplish those things. Now imagine a world where you don't get a
vote. Right? Or where your vote you can vote, but then simply they just go, I don't like that vote, so we're gonna toss that one out and count another one. Or we're gonna find, I don't know, 12,000 votes in in Atlanta somewhere, in Georgia somewhere. Right? Like, how does that make any sense? It's Yeah.
So it's it's a tough problem, and and I think a lot of smart people are really trying to figure out what what the answer to to that is, because I think a lot of the conversations that we need to have do not lend themselves to mass media. So as a practitioner of of politics, right, like the these campaigns, they they take place on on a short timeline, like, comparatively speaking. Now I know this presidential cycle feels like it's longer
than others, because it is. It's it's gonna be the longest general election cycle I think we've ever had. But still, that's not a super long time. There were several years preceding that where it was just the work of governing. And the work of governing doesn't really get a whole lot of clicks. It doesn't really get, I mean, our media landscape is totally fractured. So, you know, local papers are not what they used to be. In fact, a lot of communities are what they call news deserts.
Right? They just don't have access to local news of any kind. Yeah. And some of the major newspapers have now been compromised, unfortunately. So You're gutted, sold off for parts. You know they have what used to be very robust, like state house bureaus in some of these places. They have maybe one one reporter. They borrow the AP's stuff which I mean it's better than nothing but you're not really you know, penetrating.
So then by the time you get to to a campaign, it's like you gotta figure out how to get the word out quickly and in a broad way. So it's like you have TV ads, you have direct mail, you do all the digital, you do videos, you do all these things. But, like, it I think it requires a much more nuanced conversation with people because the the inclination, you know, if you go up to someone who identifies as a Republican, you say, well, I'm a Democrat. The immediate the wall goes up immediately. You're
not with me. I don't know. You you believe stuff that I don't believe an enemy. Right? You were you were the wrong type of person. You were ruining this country, all all that stuff. And I I don't I don't think that's the case. And, again, we could go back to, I think, at some point, like,
to your point about pendulum swinging back. Like, I think we could get back to a place where we have a robust, hearty, two party system where we have legitimate debates about policy and how to implement that policy and how best to serve the country without having to worry about whether or not our entire ability again to have a voice in these conversations will will will disintegrate. Right? Wouldn't it be
great if we could just do that? But right now we have one party that's interested in the policy and the debate and I would argue, like, the Democratic Party covers a very broad spectrum of policy beliefs at this point, where there is robust debate going on within the Democratic Party itself. The Republicans, though, by and large, not every one of them. There's some like Liz Cheney. Again, I've never thought, like, if if you talk to young people, you know, like, Liz a Cheney. Right? But
you know what? She put country before before her political career and spoke out. Adam Kinzinger is another one. Right? Put his his, country before, his own political career. So you do see some ex Mitt Romney, for example, same thing, you know, spoke out and said, you know what? This is not good, but that is vanishingly small. There's a small number of people that are willing to do that. And so what we have is a party
apparatus. When I say the Republican party, I'm not talking about Republican voters because they are consuming the stuff that that is coming to them from from the leaders. But the leaders should know better. Right? The leaders should make that commitment. I think they do know better. That's the rub. Some do. Some, I don't think, actually. Like, now we're getting, like, a system where you'd actually have people getting into especially some of these house seats that do actually, I don't think know
better. That's terrifying. Yeah. Really scary stuff. So, like, you have the cynics, like, the I'm gonna keep my seat. I'm gonna, like, you know, lure charge to the right and and do the whole, you know, Trump worship thing, you know, for my political career, and it's all very calculated. And then you have some that are just simply like, I I think they believe it, genuinely. Or they see it as a vehicle for for getting done whatever, like, super unpopular the thing is they don't like their own
agenda too. Like, if you read through the project 2025 stuff, everyone's running away from that because they know it's super unpopular. But guess what? That's what they wanna do. That is what they wanna do. I don't know. It's it's it's a tough thing. I mean, because they know I mean, I think they do know that it's unpopular. Right? So that's why they're trying not to talk about that. They're trying to, you know Right. They were hoping that would stay under the radar.
And I think true to your point, it's not about Republicans. It's about people who are in that political power Right. Who I don't think are actually Republicans. I've I find it very I very hard to to tag those that name because it means something different to me, I suppose, over the years. I'm older. You know, what it means to me versus what it is is 2 totally different things. It really it really is. Like, I mean, I I, like, know a lot of people
who were Republicans. Right? Like, who true like, voters, like, truly believed in in the Republican party, believed in certain elements of of the platform when there still was, like, an actual platform that people could get behind. But since 2016, have taken a look at the party that they once felt like they belong to and just said, what? I don't know what this is anymore. Like, this is not a thing. I'm gonna
I'm gonna have to vote Democratic. Or some of them enthusiastically will say, like, I am gonna vote Democrat. And interestingly enough too, like, some Republicans that you talk to, former Republicans that you talk to, are more enthusiastic about voting this year than the avowed Democrats and sir, or independent voter. Like, you would expect the opposite to be true, but they like, some of those people are most vociferously, opposed to this,
sort of attempted dismantling of the system. The, you know, the American system, the American experiment. Like, they are the ones that are most offended by this, and I think maybe there's a sense betrayal there too. It's like I gave them you know, I've I've spent my life maybe even donating to this party, knocking doors for this party. I'm talking to my neighbors about various candidates who ran as Republicans at one point, and I feel betrayed by this because this is fundamentally un American,
what's going on right now. So, like, you do actually hear that, which is really interesting, and and they wouldn't recognize. I mean, a lot of these people don't recognize it as what you would what you would consider, you are or I would consider, like, a Republican party of like, John McCain or Sure. Remember that clip of him, at at the town hall? And, that woman was like, oh, Obama's not American. He was like, yes, ma'am. And he loves he loves this
country, and we just disagree on stuff. I totally misquoted it, but that's sort of No. I just watched that the other day. In fact, yeah, a woman said, oh, Obama is, not even born here, and he's not American, and he he's a terror you know, basically, she was saying the bigoted stuff. And McCain said, ma'am, that's not true. I you know, we don't agree on some policies and and it's politics, but he's a good person, and his family is a good family.
Yeah. I what happened to that? I feel like it's just all being run by bullies now. It's just that bully energy, don't like it at all. I mean, I I understand it. I know. It's hard it's hard to swallow those, isn't it? It's hard to wrap my head around even though I'm watching it play out in real time. And, I mean, I've had people who I've known for a very long time, who completely I mean, I hate to say drank the Kool Aid, but that's kinda what it is.
And the things that they had said to me, it's about my beliefs or my wanting to lift up people who are historically unheard or disenfranchised. And I think, wow, if we can disagree politically, that's okay. But now you're calling me names and saying all the it's so bizarre. And that was, of course, 4 years ago. It's fascinating. It's so fascinating. And I wonder, so you teach kids or, I guess, college kids. Yes. You're an instructor at the an adjunct Yeah.
For, several semester days. I took a couple semesters off things. Things are getting busy now. But I am curious what the young people think about it all. And if you're noticing whether or not they are starting to turn their back a little bit on social media and what it all means. So I can I can kind of answer
this from from 2 different perspectives? So, both both, you know, just anecdotal having having taught social media courses and and then also having, you know, done done polling and research in the area of like what young voters are paying attention to, what sort of things actually not just young voters, but young people in general are are paying attention to online. You know, how they feel about social media.
And, it's it's sort of interesting because you do see a little bit of, like, a love hate relationship with social media where it's like I'm like, there I think some have this intuitive sense of, like, this isn't great, but I also like it too. Like, I like some of it's it because it does trigger, like, an actual, like, chemical reaction in your brain when you're when when you're doing these. I mean, that's why it all works. Right? Otherwise, like, it
wouldn't it wouldn't work. That's why people, you know, get hooked on on different different things, you know. It's it's it's sort of this, sort of, neurological process that happens. So, so I think, like, in in some ways, it's it's a little bit of love hate. Like, if you really start digging into it, and and I think there's an initial, just anecdotally, hesitancy in that environment to really talk about how social media impacts you on a personal level. Right? Like, the
student on the personal. Like, you try to I tried to get into that because, like, what the what I was teaching was, like, social media strategy, and, like, in a business context really is is, you know, how do you use social media to communicate with customers, to brand, your business, all of those different things. But, you know, I made sure that I really wanted to cover a sort of the ethics of social media as as well and the ethics of of using it. And and just so, like, you know, they
had a context walking out of there. Like, here are all the tips and tricks to, like, get people's attention and to, sell products and to brand and to do do what you're gonna do successfully. It's all boobs. Yeah. That's right. That's right. But, like, also to have, like, an ethical perspective and to consider that before you go down certain paths, like, to not essentially prey on people's, like, insecurities or prey on people's, you know, fears or or whatever.
So I think there's, like, a little bit of a hesitancy to talk about it sometimes. Like and then when you start, like, digging or pushing on it, it's like, yeah. You know, I actually do feel a sense of anxiety when I consume certain types of content or social media, or I do feel a certain sense of inadequacy
when I consume social media. And sometimes I feel like I do know that what I'm seeing isn't necessarily real, but it's hard in that moment to, like, put put that aside, like to to center yourself in that thought versus what you're seeing on the screen. Like, I think it's interesting, you know, when when you talk to talk to students like that and really kind of dig and push, but you have to push. You have to dig to get there because it's not something that comes to top of
mind. Like, it's like, okay, take a minute and actually really reflect on how this is making making you feel and how you engage with with this content that you're engaging with. And once you start to, like, kinda scrape away at the layers, it's like they start to admit I mean, I think we all know. Like, I know that I probably spend more time on my phone than I should. Is that stopping me from spending time on my phone? I mean, not all the time.
Like, I really do try to take a step back because it's it it does get a little, you know, overwhelming sometimes, right, when you're just bombarded with stuff. But, I mean, it's it's interesting. So you see this actually in in different ways too. So, like, if you ask people about, like, their trust in different social media platforms in in managing their data or privacy or any other sort of, or their mental health, for example. There's a discrepancy between what they say, which is it's fairly
low trust. Like, they don't actually trust these platforms very much, but they still use them. Right? So it's not enough to to push people off. Like, the the the behavior does not the the view does not translate to behavior, when when it comes to social media. So that's a really interesting thing that you see in, like, a lot of public opinion research and polls that we've done. You see a huge discrepancy between between those two things. Like, will, you know, will do you still use it? It's like,
well, yeah. Like, I I don't trust it, but I use it. Like, I mean, I know that they're probably doing something with my data that, like, I wouldn't necessarily like. Like, if you lay out that's another interesting thing too is, like, you walk, the students through how how data is being used or how ads are being targeted. Like, before you get into a college class about that, you just you see the ads. Right? Like, unless you're, like, digging into it yourself,
that's all you're seeing. You're seeing the ads, and they're kind of creepily relevant for you know, it's like, oh, well. I've thought things and not said them out loud and then seen an ad for it because I know I know how it works. I know that whatever I that led me to have that thought has been tracked. And so it anticipates even before I that I'm gonna want to see that or that I've been thinking about it.
Terrifying. Yeah. So I mean, it's like they you know, so until you actually, like, dig into, like, how does this all work, it's you know, you just don't have a frame of reference for it. So then, you know, then they start thinking in that frame, and it's like, oh, no. That's I
don't love that. Like, I don't love the fact that my data is used this way or that there is, like, you know, for all intents and purposes, sort of like a facsimile of a person like me that they create in order to target these things and figure out who responds to what and all of that. And it's that's all part of the business, obviously. And, like, again, like, I'm a practitioner of of, you know,
communication. Social media is an important place to to communicate, and you have to play by the rules or in the in the environment that you're given. But, again, you don't see that that behavior or that view of some of the practices or or algorithmic sort of things, translate into actual behavior. So that's that's another really interesting thing too. You know, you see a lot of, you know, people consuming
influencer content as well. Like, that you know, those those people are becoming more important than, you know, your run-in the middle celebrities in some cases. Sometimes there's some overlap too. I think that at this point, influencers may in fact be more famous than celebrity. And also AI influencers that where people don't even know what they're looking at is an avatar. The prevalence of that is fascinating. So that was, that was, some polling. Actually,
we're gonna, release the results, shortly. So I I had the opportunity to present some of this at a conference in Washington DC a few weeks ago, but, we did we did some, survey work on on AI and and people's views of of different AI tools and and whether or not they would have greater or or less trust in a particular politician or platform if they use an AI tool to convey things or if or whether or not labeling,
things matters. And, so, I mean, the the big takeaway is, like, you know, people, hope, and trust things more when you when you are transparent about labeling something that's AI. So, like, instead of trying to pass off, like, a chatbot, for example, or, an AI avatar as, like, a real person, human being, and then you're found out, like, people are not gonna like that deception. So labeling, I think, does help build trust
in in that, in that space. Transparent was like, this is an AI chatbot or this is an AI avatar of whatever, you know, person, public figure. That being said, also, people don't have a lot of confidence in their own ability to identify AI generated content. Like, they know that it's it's very hard to spot some of this stuff because of the split second judgments that we're making, you know, when we're looking at it. And right now
yeah. Sure. There's some telltale things if you look really closely, you know, especially at, like, the generative video or or photos. Right? Like, you know, extra fingers on a hand or, like, I guess, hands are really hard for for AI to kind of craft in in that way. But Ironically, hands are very hard for artists to paint. I think that's very interesting. Oh, well, you know, maybe maybe it's just like us then. It's as people. Right? It's it's sort of adopted, a lot of our own,
you know, quirks. But I mean, I think, like, people just don't have faith, and I think rightly so, in their ability to identify these things because, like, why why would you? I mean, the voice related, AI generative AI is is pretty scary because there's nothing to look at. I mean, you can hear intonations that are a little bit different or or off. Like, if you really know someone and have heard their voice before,
you could probably tell. But if if you only hear their voice occasionally and then you hear some AI clone of of their voice, it's gonna be very hard to figure out exactly which which thing is which. It's an interesting space to be in now because I think that everything that we've been struggling with over the last, you know, decade or so with with social media is is going to accelerate
exponentially, potentially. I mean, and again, there's a scenario where things don't go wrong and, like, we do get proper safeguards in place for AI. And there's there is regulation that balances innovation with safety, which I think is very important. But, I I don't again, I couldn't predict whether or not that happens at at this point, but it but it is it is interesting to see how people are are viewing these things, especially younger people who, you know, they know it's coming. They
know it's here. They don't have, like, super strong opinions about one thing or the other. There is some some skepticism, I think, about about AI in general and and social media. It's just, like, how does that translate then into into behavior? And if it doesn't translate into behavior, then, you know, we kind of maintain the status quo, which is it's you know, these things are gonna continue to grow and and go where where the users and the attention are,
unfortunately or unfortunately. So that's kind of an interesting interesting thing, you know, that we're we're looking at. So, I mean, it's great future, but also kind of a scary future. I mean, who knows? Like, it's all the possible the possibilities are endless. They sure are. Do you have any books that you might recommend for the listeners to dig in a little bit on these topics? There's one I don't remember the author. I believe it's called Surveillance Capitalism. It's a pretty dense
I have that book. That's a good book. Very good book. I mean, that that kinda just gets into the whole like, what makes this economy, you know, this sort of attention economy tick. How might people find you? Sure. So, we're we're on LinkedIn primarily. So, LinkedIn, you could just type in, Publitic, so that's publitic s, and and you'll find us there. On Twitter as well, probably a little bit less active there, Facebook, Instagram. So we're on all the major,
platforms there. And then, additionally, we're we're starting to populate our, our sort of newsletter blog a little bit more called Influence IQ, which is influenceiq.publicics.com. We're we're gonna be posting that AI data shortly. We've done a a bunch of research in in the clean energy space as well. So, like, we post, you know, ideas, research,
strategy, all of those interesting things. Well, what I hope what are interesting to me, I'm not sure what you're talking to anyone else, but, like, I'm I'm a complete nerd about it. So, it's that that's that's what makes me tick anyway. So And that's exactly how I run Hey Human. These conversations I have may not be for everyone, but they certainly fascinate me, and I'm the one sitting here. So that's the way it's good. That's great. Matthew,
I've really, really enjoyed this conversation. It's fascinating. I there's so much to talk about, and I would happily eat up your entire day talking about it. You have an open door if you ever wanna come back and be on the show. I welcome that for sure. Thank you. I've really enjoyed the conversation and absolutely will take you back up on that. Yeah. And thank you for listening, everybody. Bye. This is great. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good one. Bye bye. Bye.
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