I've got a theory drew and it it starts with music, but I think it kind of explains everything. Everything. Everything ever. OK, not everything, but most a lot of things. Bear with me. We. We haven't got a brilliant or bullshit yet. We just started. Just started. Just started It's the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck podcast with your host Mark Manson. I've actually, I've gone to a number of concerts recently.
One of them was a metal show. So I'm a big fan of a band called Lamb of God. Shout out to Randy, the lead singer. He's a fan of mine. I'm a fan of his. He was cool enough to invite me out to his show, got to hang out with him and everything. It was fun. You know, I was a big metal head when I was young and it was interesting going back I, I hadn't been to a metal show in probably at least 6-7 years and it was interesting going to a metal show again.
I'm in my 40s. Most of the audience was in their 40s, some in their 50's. The bands were all in their 40s and 50s. Everybody was middle-aged. Everybody looked like they you could probably catch them driving a minivan and taking their kids to soccer practice during the week. And it was really interesting because I had a similar experience. I went to an electronic show, maybe two or three weeks later, same thing. I, it's funny that one I went to
and I was a little bit insecure. I was like, it's going to be a bunch of kids on Molly and shit and like, I'm probably too old for this. Nope. Sure enough, like half the audience was probably at least my age and and they seem to be aging up. So here's the theory. I I think of it as the jazzification of everything. The. Jazzification of everything and hear me out here.
OK, so when we were young, jazz was lame, and I didn't really develop an appreciation for jazz music until I went to music school and I was forced to study it. And then once I started studying it, I realized like, oh, this is really intricate and cool and creative and there's all this cool stuff going on. What I also learned at music school is that jazz was cool as fuck in the 40s and 50s, thirties, 40s and. 50s OK, yeah, yeah. In fact, fun fact, the word cool comes from jazz.
Yeah, it's the invention of cool. There's actually a Miles Davis album called The Birth of Cool. Anyway, sidebar, Being a jazz fan as a young person in the 2000s, it was incredibly lonely and isolating. I would go to jazz shows. First of all, they're in tiny clubs that held like maybe 50-60 people. And it would be like me, two other music dorks, and then like
a bunch of 60 and 70 year olds. And it was just like, it was sad, especially because the musicians were some of the best musicians I'd ever seen in my life. And it, it, it was this weird thing where like, OK, it had its cultural moment. And then rock happened and television happened and pop happened and, and, and you know, the mainstream culture just passed it by and kind of left it
alone. But there was this very intense cult following this, this group of people that grew up with it and they never left it. And they just loved it forever. And at the metal show I was like, wow, metal is becoming like jazz. It's becoming the next jazz, right? And then I went to the electronic show and I was like, electronic feels like it's kind
of becoming the next jazz. And then I started thinking about every show I've been to and everything I've like, not just music wise, but like the video games that I'm into or the, you know, the movies and TV shows that I'm into, like every form of media and entertainment. There is a small group of super mega popular hits, right? You have like the Taylor Swift and the Mario and Fortnite and you know, the, the big Marvel movie or whatever, but everything else is like jazz.
Everything else is a small subculture of highly dedicated fans. Unlike in the 20th century where, you know, everything was a monoculture. There was everybody's watching the same 5 channels. So it was like, you know, in the 70s disco was in and then in the 80s disco's out. Now everybody's into rock and glam, you know, and then by the 90s glam is out and everybody's in the alternative and everybody would kind of just jump ship to the next thing over and over. We don't have a monoculture
anymore. So now everybody has their own little jazz that they're into almost exclusively from everybody else. And it's their little subculture. And and you age together, right? Like I was a metal fan when I was 20, I went and saw Lamb of God. Now I'm 40, I went and saw Lamb of God. If they're still playing when I'm 60, I'll probably go see Lamb of God, right? Like it's the we age through together, the artists age with the fans and and it's, it's a completely different dynamic.
It's like a balkanization of culture. Yeah, you, you saw this too. Like in the 2000s, when nerd culture kind of started to take over, too. And there was you, you talked about this with David Brooks a little bit, the atomization of culture that we have. And I think is that part of it, do you think? I think that's part of it and I think there is. So there's two dynamics that are really significant.
One is, is the atomization. So it's like everybody finds their own little subculture and they're like niche, niche, niche thing that they're like really into and they've got this little community online that they interact with. But the other thing that's changed is that you age through life with that culture. Again, it's it's not like you change, change out for the new fashion and the new music every five or six years. It's you're.
Stuck in it. Yeah, it's like, it's like the band you were into in 2010 you're still into in 2025 and you're going to be into them when in 2040. And like, like I'm noticing this with our audience too, right? Like it's, it's when I started out, my audience was around my age. They're in their 20s and early 30s now. My audience is in their 30s and 40s. Like we're aging up together. And the same way my interest change over time, their interest change over time. And we we just kind of grow
together. And when I think about my favorite music, my favorite art, my favorite video games, my favorite like. Movies or whatever. Yeah, film makers, it's similar, you know, it's like we age and develop together. I don't find myself jumping ship. I don't find myself being like, oh, well, I was really into Nintendo five years ago, but now I'm into Fortnite stuff. Right. Like it's, it's, it's like, no, you the thing I was into when I
was 15, I'm like still into now. And it just has evolved with me over time. That what what explains that? That is weird. I think it's. Is it the media landscape? I mean, that's obviously a big part of it. I think so. I think it's there's no monoculture. So I think there's two things simultaneously. 1 is, is that we tend to whatever we like when we're like say 18 to 25, we tend that just kind of like seems to cement itself in us for the rest of our lives. That's part of it.
The other part is the media landscape is personalized. So it's like everything is algorithmic. Everything is designed to like, if you like metal music, here's more metal music and if you like shooter games, here's another shooter game. And it, it's like people don't really because there's just an abundance of everything. Nobody ever. There's no scarcity driving you to go find a new thing. Yeah, yeah. Is that crazy? No, I, I think I've seen it too.
I've also seen it like if I look at people who are slightly older than me as well and I see them, you know, there's some of them who look like they're dressed up going to a metal concert all the time or they're dressed up like they're going to see, I don't know, in a Lil affair or something like whatever they were listening to back then. I don't know. So I, I think I've seen this as well. I haven't really put the put a name on it like you have here though. I think the the jazzification of
everything. The jazzification. Of such a terrible name. It is. It's terrible, but. We'll work on that. We'll work on that one. But I think it, it, there's a, as with everything, there's a cost and benefit to everything, right? So the benefit is, is that you get to grow and evolve and age with your favorite media and art and entertainment. The cost is that we lose that monoculture, right? Like we, we miss those cultural moments that it feels like everybody's a part of.
Like when you and I were kids, you know, Michael Jackson would do the Super Bowl and it was like everybody was paying attention. Everybody, everybody cared. Everybody was talking about it. Today, there's not really anything like that. Like the closest thing is maybe Taylor Swift the past couple years. But it's like, even though I know her numbers are higher than, you know, the numbers of other artists from 30-40 years ago, but the cultural impact doesn't feel the same.
Like it doesn't feel inescapable the way you know somebody like Michael Jackson or Michael Jordan was in in the 80s or 90s because you literally only had like 5 TV channels. You couldn't. Be completely oblivious to it like you could today there. There was nothing else to watch or do, so you had to watch and do the same things that everybody else was watching and doing, which had a side benefit of making it feel like we were all participating in the same
cultural moment. Cohesiveness to the culture all. The time. Yeah, I. Do agree that that's a there the, the, the benefit side of that though, is there are more people who feel at least somewhat included or, or seen, you know, in some ways like, oh, I can go find this, this scene of mine and and be in on that at the cost of a larger cultural cohesion. Yeah. Second thought, here's my fuck for the week. The new bunch of concerts recently, the fucking phones, dude.
It, it kills me. It kills me. Here's the thing I noticed, and this is what I want to talk about. I kind of understand because I do it a little bit, but I'm also just confused. It was very interesting going to a a bunch of different shows and like, like most concerts, you know, there's a couple openers and then there's like the, the kind of the sub headline act and then there's the big headline act act.
And it it was interesting watching the people around me, of course, fucking phones in the air all the time. So fucking annoying it. Was really interesting because in in the in the Super early opening acts that nobody had ever heard of them you didn't see any phones no phones. Everybody's actually watching the show and thinking about like, that part was kind of good, or like this song's OK.
You know? As the axe got a little bit more popular and people got more into it, the phone started coming out more. And then by the time you got to the main headlining act, people just had phones in the air the entire time. When I went to the Electronics Show, the headliner was like a a big name DJ and there was a guy next to me who at some point I actually thought he was live streaming the show because his phone was out for a good 30 or
40 minutes straight. And finally, like I kind of like craned my neck back and looked and it's like, no, he was recording just a video. Just a video. I'm like, dude, you're literally recording half the show. And to me there's like there's something paradoxical there of the more meaningful the moment, the more people remove themselves from the present moment by pulling out their phones. Yes, which kind of makes no
sense. But then it's like also very like every concert or event I go to, this is what happens. The more meaningful the moment, the more everybody just whips out their phone and turns into a little filmmaker and removes themselves from experiencing the moment. Explain this to me. Help me out. You're true. I don't, I, I, I don't, I, I don't use my phone in that way, but I do experience this in a
some different ways. Just very recently, I was standing on my back porch and I have this, there's like this beautiful little hay field across the street from my house and like a couple little mountains and stuff. And it's to the West. So I get really pretty sunsets, you know, And I kind of glanced down. I was like, oh, it's really pretty sunset tonight. Immediately grab my phone, walk out on my back porch, take a picture, look at it. It sucks because it's the the
picture. You know, and I. Just turn around and I walk inside and then and I got inside and I'm like, what the fuck am I? I'm going to go enjoy the sunset for real. And so I, you know, go back out and I enjoyed the sunset as it, as, as God intended it, as it were. And so I mean, I, that's a small little sliver of the same type of thing, but it is you, you, you look at that screen after, you know, whatever it is, like a concert or a sunset or whatever it is, and it's just never as good.
Do you put the phone right back in your pocket and just walk away or do you sit down and and enjoy? That's that's what I've trained myself to do is be like, ah, put the phone away and just enjoy this so. I thought about, so I, I actually thought really hard about this because I do occasionally pull out my phone. Like for instance, when the headline act comes out and they like start playing their big song or whatever and the crowd's going crazy. Like, yeah, I'll pull out my
phone for 1520 seconds. Be like, oh cool, let's capture this moment here. And I, I asked myself why like what is the impetus there? Like what, why what it what scratch am I what itch am I scratching? And the conclusion I came to is that because it feels like a special moment, I want to be able to remember it and relive it at some future point. And my sense is that it's really all I want to do is just capture enough that I remember how it feels to be here. And I can get that in 20 or 30
seconds. Because in the past 20 or 30 seconds, I'm now removing myself from experiencing the moment in the 1st place, right? So now I don't have a memory. If I like sit there and record for 30 minutes, like the guy next to me, I no longer have a memory of the moment because I spent the whole time recording. But then then I asked myself, I'm like, OK, let's think about this for a second.
Out of all the concerts, all the fucking sunsets, like how many times have I ever gone back through my phone and actually looked at this stuff and and sat there and been like, wow, remember that show? That was such a cool show. I never do that ever. Like maybe once every three years I'll go back and look at a handful of things, but it's it's very rare. So I don't know, it just seems like the effort reward is completely off here and well, do
you think? Do you think that people who are pulling their phones at concerts, like, do you think they're thinking that same thing? Like I want to remember this later, 'cause I I'm not sure that's what it is. I. So. I think it's I want to post this, I want to post this on social media so I can be a part of this jazzification of everything and show that I'm a part of it. Is that that's?
A huge part of it so I I it's funny because I spent like half of this show just sitting there and like watching people trying to figure out why they were doing this they. Weren't watching the concert in the moment, which is why you were just like I was ignoring. The concert so I could figure out why the fuck these people were recording the concert. There was a lot of Instagram going on for sure. There was a lot of that going on.
There was also one thing I noticed too, is that drunk people were doing it a lot more, which is interesting. Yeah, I noticed the drunk people like the selfie thing, The. Oh, my God, this is the best moment of my life. Like there drunk people. The phones were out constantly, constantly. There's a group of drunk girls in front of us. And it would like the amount of selfies. It it reached hilarious proportions. It was like, I don't think you guys got enough. I think.
I think you got to get another one. Let's go for #81 All right, Yeah. I think there is some sort of social signaling thing going on with social media. But then it's like, I think about the guy recording like 30 minutes. I couldn't help but think it was almost like that.
This is going to sound really condescending, but it it with some of the people, it felt like they were afraid to just fully enjoy it. Like it was a way for them to feel like they were enjoying it without having to expose themselves emotionally, without having to like lose themselves and and lose control and show like how excited or ecstatic they were. It was a way to but.
They don't have to acknowledge the the the temperamental nature of it. You don't have to acknowledge the fleeting nature that this isn't going to be here in a second. And so I need to somehow reconcile that they're. Definitely. Like I couldn't help when I was watching people, I couldn't help but feel like there was like some sort of weird avoidance thing going on, which again, strikes me as so strange.
Like you spend fucking hundreds of dollars, you get nice tickets to a show and then you just spend half of it looking through your phone. Well, we. Just had I mean, we had near I all on recently and he kind, you know, he brought up the term which other people use as well the the digital pacifier. So to me, this is, this is, this is the concerning thing, right? It's like it's never been easier than ever before to alleviate discomfort.
It's always in our pocket. And and that that alleviation of discomfort does not will reiterate it. It does not just happen in painful moments. It happens in joyous moments as well, which is, which is arguably an even bigger problem. Also the jazzification of everything is in its own way, a, an avoidance of discomfort,
right? Like it's there was and, and now maybe I'm just waxing nostalgic, but I, I do remember pre social media, pre mobile phone, there was when the culture shifted, when it's like the new trendy music changed. It kind of forced you of like, OK, well, this is the new thing. So you need to like start getting used to it and learning it and understanding it and at least decide if you like it or
not. And I think as long as we all live in our own little kind of cultural bubbles with the thing that we've loved for decades and we're going to love for the next few decades, and we don't ever have to like change our minds about it or try new things. We kind of lose that cultural discomfort that that like being nudged or or pushed into experiencing different things or, or different, different stuff that maybe isn't that we don't necessarily like the first
time. I. See. So you're saying we we age with that as just that this is our comfort lane here, that we're going to age along the this this subculture? Yeah. Like I, I don't feel like I remember when I was again in music school, right?
Like I had no interest in jazz and then I was forced to understand jazz from an artistic perspective and I started really appreciating it. I had very similar experience with the with hip hop at a certain point and I had a similar experience with electronic music at a certain point. These days, like I don't, not only do I not feel compelled to like go try to understand like a different sub genre of music, I just, I don't even get exposed
to other sub genres. Like I don't even know if there are other sub genres of music being invented anymore. Like I haven't heard anything new in at least 10 years. Like I, I can't remember the last time I heard something. I'm like, wow, that's different and. There's a good chance it's because you've been siloed off into this metal, EDM it. Jazz, this weird, this weird melting pot taste, but like, yeah, part of it is being
siloed. And then I think part of it is that because everybody's siloed, the the game for the artists, for the creatives is to milk the long term relationship and not innovate. And not do the new thing, not be the new person, right? Not invent the new sub genre. It's capture people when they're young and then just age out with them, Yeah. Over. Decades and decades. Yeah, I think you see that.
I mean, you've kind of always seen that, I guess with certain bands, maybe not whole entire genres or anything like that, but you've seen that, you know, there's always that tension between doing what's worked for me creatively versus. Trying. Something new and. And the kind of destruction, destructive nature of creativity. Yeah, there's always been that, right? Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, I don't know where we land this this. This was weird. This was weird. This was weird.
I like it well. We'll be back with another weird theory right after these messages. This episode is brought to you by Brain FM. All right, folks, let's talk about the F word. No, not that F word. Focus. You know when you're trying to work, but your brain starts to ponder about whether or not giraffes get dizzy when they drink. Well, yeah, that's kind of how my brain works, too. And look, I've tried everything to be more focused. I've had noise cancelling
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The world will thank you, and who knows, maybe you'll finally solve that giraffe mystery. All right, we're back. I'm excited for this. Brilliant or bullshit. This. This was one that I put on the docket. This is an old, old theory. Well, it's not that old, but probably 10 years old or something. Internet. Age. It's old, yeah. By Internet years it's quite old. Old blog called Ribbon Farm had a an article about a concept
called premium mediocre. And ever since I read about it, it's one of those ideas, it's just stuck in my head ever since. And there's probably, I probably never go more than six months without something happening in my life. I'm like, oh, this is totally premium mediocre. Yeah. So give us a brief synopsis of what it is. Yeah. So Venkatesh Rao, he, he wrote the I think that's how you say his name, right? Venkatesh Rao is it Rao? Yeah. I think that's how he says damn. Yeah.
He wrote this blog post in 2017 called premium mediocre. What Premium mediocre is it describes product, services and lifestyles that appear exclusive but offer only superficial luxury or quality. OK, so it has an irrelevant touch of premium that doesn't really improve the essential mediocrity of the experience or or product. Let me give you some examples. OK, Something that he he used
anyway. Cupcakes and frozen yogurt like OK. Truffle oil that's not made from real truffle, OK. That's a great example. That's a great example. He he also uses avocado toast that that's a special case, but it's still premium mediocre certain types of lettuce. I thought that was great. Like, you know, it's obviously iceberg lettuce is not premium mediocre, but like, what's the leafy green? I'm blanking completely on it. I have no idea. Oh. That what's that one kind of lettuce? Yeah.
You don't eat vegetables too? I don't cook my own food. Certain types of lettuce, yeah, K pop popularity in France, you know that the list goes on and on. You spot these things once you start, once you understand what premium mediocre is, you spot. Them the thing I always think of is the pumpkin spice latte pumpkin. Spice lattes because. It's it's like seasonal. It's exclusive. It's only available for a limited time and it's just a fucking commodity.
Like fast casual dining, like a lot of, you know, maybe Chipotle was like an early version of it, you know, But now I don't know if you ever go to Cava, like, oh, I love Cava. It's like this big chain restaurant that's supposed to be healthy Mediterranean. It's premium it. Goes on and on and on. So, but it's a fun concept. He plays with it for a little while, but I love how the the the philosophical depth that he goes with it is really
interesting because. Yeah. His. Explanation is, is actually really interesting, which is that, you know, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, access to things was scarce, right? And so the way you improve society and the way you sold things and made money is that you just got access to things. It's like, OK, we'll we'll go dig up the oil and we'll sell it to you or we'll go, you know, mine the ore and we'll sell it to you or we'll grow the lettuce and sell it to you.
At a certain point there, there became an abundance of stuff. And I think his argument is that as the first generation that grew up with an abundance of stuff, that the first generation, the millennials in particular, who were no longer impressed by the simple access to scarce things because there is no scarce thing, millennials demanded something else that
felt scarce and special. And So what companies started doing is they started essentially putting like luxurious packaging on boring commodities.
Mediocre products, right? So. It's instead of just being a coffee with a little bit of pumpkin spice in it, it's a exclusive seasonal pumpkin spice latte with an extra dollop of, you know, serve the way you want it. You know, because you deserve a special morning at Starbucks. Like all, it's got a little heart drawn names written on the cup like it is the most premium mediocre thing in the world. It feels it is completely designed to to feel like a special exclusive experience.
And it's just that it's a cup of mediocre coffee. And when you look around, you see this all over the place. You see it at sporting events, you see it at, you know, VIP access to certain concert venues. You see it, you know, being a a premium. Economy seat on a plane premium economy. That's a perfect example that is the most. Premium mediocre seat on an airplane. You can you see it in subscriptions?
The the things like magazines, you know, you can get the like the digital plus, which is essentially you're just paying more to have a piece of paper sent to your door. Like it's the same thing you would have paid for anyway. But like, you know, they, they just add a A+ at the end of it and send you a bunch of emails and you're supposedly like having a, a more premium experience.
It's, I think it's, I think it, it is both the cause and the effect of a lot of the jadedness of the 21st century. It is the effect in the sense that humans crave scarcity because our perception of value is based on scarcity, of course. And so when most things in the world are no longer scarce, marketers, business people, they have to create a perception of scarcity. The problem is, is that people
aren't dumb. And on some level, you know, that the pumpkin spice latte or the avocado toast or the digital Plus subscription to The New York Times, there's nothing premium about it. It's like the same fucking thing, just with a fancy name put on it. And you, there's a certain amount of cynicism that develops. And he talks about that as well, that there's just like a deep, the, the, the most defining quality of the millennial generation is their cynicism.
And, and it's like it, a lot of it is generated from this sense that everything is a little bit of a lie, like nothing is actually what it's was promised, right? We know it, but we're also playing along at the same time too. Yeah, he points that out as well. And it's funny there. I mean, there again, the list goes on and on the premium mediocre vacations, it was funny. I was just in Spain on vacation and there are whole sections of Madrid and Barcelona and Ibiza that it it.
You might as well just put on Google Maps, like circle it and put on like premium mediocre tourist area. It's like everything is designed to feel exclusive and special and cater just to you, and it's like people are just herded through like cattle and things. Premium mediocre things tend to be overpriced. I think that's another cause of the premium. Price on it?
Yeah, Yeah. Like, there's this, there's a disconnect between the promised value and the actual value, Right. And I don't know, I just, it's one of those things. I remember reading the article. I loved it. I was like, wow, that's so clever. And then as the years go on, I just keep seeing it more and more and more. I would argue we have premium mediocre politicians.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you again back, if you go back and watch debates of like, I don't know, Reagan and Bush or Clinton and Bush, you see very smart, educated, well rehearsed men who clearly studied and thought deeply about policy and can explain their policy positions and argue against each other's policy positions coherently.
If you look at our politicians today, it's just a fucking word salad of emotions and essentially just telling us that we're special and they're special and we're all going to be special together 'cause we're all premium mediocre together. Yeah. It just, it feels, it feels ever present. Yeah. I would argue most media like Netflix, most Netflix shows are
premium mediocre. They are the same story, regurgitated and new packaging that feels exclusive and special and unique, but it's really just cliffhangers and hooks and audience manipulation and that. Movie theaters, think about that. Modern movie theaters, Yeah, like they now they have these like fancy seats and which. Aren't really that fancy? They're not. That fancy, but you're paying, you're paying. Like $30.00 for it. Yeah, yeah, definitely premium
mediocre. We live in a premium mediocre world and it's yeah. And I'm a premium mediocre girl. In a put that on my. Tombster, Old OH. God, Venkatesh, though, he, he, he does connect this to like the larger kind of economic forces that are behind it. So he says premium mediocre is it's aspirational to some extent. The two, even though we know it's mediocre, even though we're still participating in it and playing the game, it's aspirational.
And we're trying to at least signal that, hey, we're trying like we might not be able to buy a house right now, but I can afford a nice pumpkin spice latte and an avocado toast. But he also kind of windows that down to a, a certain demographic, what he calls Maya Millennial. OK, He's got Maya Millennial, Molly Millennial, Max Millennial. They're kind of just three different segments. And Maya millennial is all about
the premium mediocre. She knows she's, she's indulging in it and it's OK because one day she's going to have the real, the real premium, right? Whereas like a Maya millennial, who he calls kind of like the artist wing of our, our generation and economic bloc, I guess, is kind of resigned to the fact that they're never going to be, you know, rich. So they're just going to, they're going to work at the, the coffee shop or art shop or whatever it is and, and do their
thing. Max Millennial, on the other hand, he went to Silicon Valley and he's trying to make it and he's making premium mediocre products is what he's doing. Backpacks, you know, or some piece of software that's supposed to, you know, whatever it is in some sort of premium mediocre packaging. I. Think I, and I think he talks about this too.
I think that the the key characteristic of a successful premium mediocre product or service is that it effectively kind of dupes you like it signals the people that you are aspiring. You know, I think we work as a great example, especially since what's happened in the last five years. We work as it's literally just deaths yeah, in in overpriced real estate, right, like it did.
There was like nothing rational about that business model and or new or new and and everything that was promised and packaged around it like like you're not just joining a Co working space, you're joining a community and we're like striving together and we're going to build a new world and blah blah blah.
It it, it's it's like the core of premium mediocre, but there was a hot minute, you know, probably three to five years where it was cool to be part of a Wework, you know, and it's it like signified of like, oh man, he he's got like a Wework desk. Like he's, he's working his ass off, he's grinding on weekends. You know, like it signals to people like you, you're on your way up. But it ultimately it's, it's a little bit of an empty lie. He's not trashing premium
mediocre necessarily. Obviously there's problems with it, but he he counts himself among the people who partake in premium mediocre. Of course, do I do all the time too. And you know, there's a difference between premium mediocre and middle class fancy that he talks about. And there's, you know, all of us have, you're going back to we have these arcs that we kind of get into, these lanes we get into. And I don't think he's really necessarily trashing it.
He's just pointing it out and observing it and that there's larger cultural forces around it. That's his point. Absolutely. And I, I think it's, it's like many things, it's, it's not the issue, It's the aware, the lack of awareness around it that's the issue. Like if you aren't aware of the game you're playing, yes, then it, the game is a problem. But if you're aware of the game, then it's and you like playing it, then play it. You know what?
I think is a problem is the focus on creating all these products or services that are premium media. OK, so go back to the Max Millennial, you know, wants to be an entrepreneur and so and, and thinks he wants to take over the world by making a, a whatever it is, a back back company or whatever it is. And I saw this, I think about this time. So this was 2017, I think when this first post on this, he's posted about a lot, but he started in 2017 posting about it.
And about that time I remember thinking, God, are we going to make anything useful? Like, like, you know, there's all these apps were coming out, all these like weird products that were solving a very like minor problem in our lives or something that that we're going after some minor convenience. And that was kind of a premium mediocre thing. You still see it today, though, too. You see it with can we stop with the fucking headsets like and the glasses? I was.
Just thinking about the vision Pro vision. Pro and the meta, whatever they call it. What's the meta of? The what do they call it? It starts with an O, Yeah. It starts with an O Jesus, whatever it's fucking called. But then they just came out the glasses too. You say you came out these like nerdy looking glasses like these are high tech cool. I'm like, nobody wants this shit. We want you to like solve some real fucking problems here.
And I think that's the biggest drawback from the premium mediocre is that it's sucking resources well. It's an easy business model, right, because you don't actually have to create it. It's easier to create the perception of value than to actually create something reliable. And I think we are at a place technologically where innovation in the physical world is, is just extremely difficult at this point and and extremely costly.
And whereas innovation and software is, comparatively speaking, relatively cheap and you can also package it in a way that feels like, you know, it's new and innovative and like, oh, here we'll put this bell and whistle on it. And you know, it's basically the same meditation app you've had 20 times, but this one feels different. And, and it's a premium, mediocre product and it probably makes a couple $1,000,000. So such is life. It is. I get that.
I don't know. I'm grumpy about it though. You grumpy? No. All right, we'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Element. Now, electrolytes aren't just for sweaty Jim Bros. Sure, a killer workout can drain your body of essential minerals, but guess what? So does pretending like you have your life together stress adulting all those two hours Zoom calls that you barely survived Yes, those also suck the electrolytes out of you.
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policy. What do you have to lose? So go try it out right now, get that free tasty drink packet and you'll thank me later. All right, we're back with our premium mediocre podcast. We are what? What's the what's our premium mediocre question of the day Drew this? Is a premium mediocre question for sure. Came in through YouTube as well. If everything we chase like money, a partner of fame has benefits and cost attached to it, why chase anything at all?
It's. It's kind of a bullshit question, but I think it's when we do need to answer, yeah. I mean, I get it. I mean, it, it, so this is something that I, I, I like to think of as the nihilist paradox, which is not caring about anything is still caring about something. OK, Not chasing anything is chasing something and you can't really escape that. And so my, my answer to this question is like, yes, there are costs and benefits to pursuing anything in life.
There's also costs and benefits than not pursuing anything in life. So no matter where you go, their costs and benefits, that's just life. You can't escape it. It is the fabric of our experienced existence. So you might as well pick something, right? Pick something that you think the benefits outweigh the costs. And, you know, it's fun to get all philosophical and try to, like, find a loophole here or there, but it, it doesn't really work.
Yeah. Yeah, the drum, the drum you beat onto is you're always going to have pain. Everything there's, there's, there's an associated suckage that comes with everything, everything. Sitting around at home. You've you've said this before, sitting around at home doing nothing, like you said, why tried anything? Well, that has cost to it. That's real cost. You're going to be in a lot of psychological pain from that and physical pain and your health is
going to deteriorate. Working out at the gym, though, and eating right, that sucks too. Sometimes being lazy sucks. Working hard sucks. Being healthy sucks, being unhealthy sucks. Like just choose the suck you want to have, there's better. Forms of suckage though, right? Choose. The choose the suck that you either think is worth it or you enjoy having because there is some suckage that you actually
do enjoy having. Like there's some one of the ways I used to frame this question back in the day was what kind of masochist are you? Right? Because there's like every everybody has something in their life that they kind of enjoy the the pain of it. They kind of enjoy the struggle. Yeah. And no matter what it is like, you have to figure out, figure it out and then try to lean into it 'cause that's where your advantage is going to be. Like, what's the thing that most
people can't bear? But you don't mind so much? Follow that right. Do you think to that this kind of modern form of nihilism that we do see in a lot of places, is that also like its own form? It, it is its own form of avoidance too, right? Like we've just talked about earlier, Absolutely. This is also a form of avoidance. Oh, nothing matters. So I don't have to try. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. It it's an excuse. It's a very philosophical excuse, you know, and it it
makes. You feel smart. It makes you feel very. Smart and IT. Makes you feel like nothing matters. Like you see see something that nobody else sees. But here's here's The thing is, is if, if, if nothing matters, so why do do anything? You could also say nothing matters, so why not do anything like if nothing matters, do everything, do everything like go, go accomplish all the things
that you want to accomplish. Like go take all the risks, try all the things, build the stuff, talk to the people like there's no reason not to either. So you have no excuse. An idea I'm playing with that I'd like to bring up at some point in the in the near future probably too. We've talked a lot about how a lot of times we over index on happiness, right? And so a lot of people will realize that they're like, OK, I'm trying too hard to be happy,
let's go for meaning instead. And then you can like over index on that too. And like I heard it recently put this way that, you know, a lot of people, what we end up doing is we look for the meaning and fulfilment during the week and then we look for happiness on the weekends. And it's just, there's, there's no balance to even be struck there because it's not the right formula or question even that we're asking. Are we over indexing on meeting in a lot of ways too? I I feel like we are.
I feel like is it? Possible to over index on meeting? Yeah, going back. To like the premium mediocre thing is meeting like a premium mediocre similar. To similar to happiness, it probably comes down to where you're finding it, right? Like happiness itself is great, but you can find it in a lot of really terrible ways. And so pursuing happiness for its own sake is is is not that's not the goal and it shouldn't be
the goal. And I think you could probably make the same argument about meaning, like if, like you can derive meaning in your life by, I don't know, compulsively posting photos and videos of yourself on Instagram, especially during concerts when you're standing next to fucking me, right? Like if that's where you're getting your meaning in your life, like that's not a really effective way of doing it. And it's, again, similar to happiness. Some ways of pursuing happiness
are more sustainable. They're more healthy, They have less social consequences. Same thing is true with meaning. There are ways to pursue meaning that are not sustainable. They're very short lived, they have negative externalities and and they, they, they put you on a treadmill. So I think if, if anything, what premium mediocre is pointing out is that marketers have found a way to give us little bite sized pieces of meaning in very superficial ways.
And that by itself can become its own kind of addiction, right? Like you, you feel like you need to be like part of the cool thing and try the new product then. Oh, this brand's hot right now. And so it's, it's like you get that's becomes another treadmill. So yeah, my answer to you is yes, I do think you can over index for meaning. But again, it's, it's, it's not like it's not a question of too much meaning or too little meaning or too much happiness,
too little. It's like, where are you choosing to get it? Where are you finding it? I would agree with that tune. In next week, be sure to to subscribe to the podcast. If you want to submit a question, you can e-mail us at podcast markmanson.net. Join the newsletter and go to markmanson.net/newsletter. Send it out every Monday. It's free, free advice every Monday. It's like could be life changing 5. Minutes at a time, too. Seriously. Take 5 minutes to read.
We have had, I think over 12,000 breakthroughs from the newsletter. So next one could be you. Check out our premium mediocre newsletter. This is just going to go all day. I'm just going to everything. I'm just going to put premium mediocre in front of everything. That's all folks. Thanks for tuning in. We will see you next week. The subtle Art I'm not giving a fuck podcast is produced by Drew Bernie. It's edited by Andrew Nishimura. Jessica Choi is our videographer and sound engineer.
Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.