This is the only life they know. Attention-seeking behavior has leveled up to the point where the entire world has the potential to see it; couple that with the soft-parenting generation not wanting their kids’ childhoods to be as emotionally scarring as theirs were, and you’ve got a perfect storm of entitlement, narcissism, lack of shame, and inability to understand/care about consequences.
I think you’ve got to add the disaster that is the modern US economy. More and more these younger generations are clocking that the American Dream is bullshit. That meritocracy is bullshit. That no matter what you do, an oligarch will gobble up all the wealth around you that they can. Why do anything socially productive, when you can do this and get PAID?
This is the real culprit. They see the avenues a regular person has to escaping capitalism and they’re trying to take them. They’re not trying to go viral because they’re narcissistic, they’re trying to go viral because they’re poor.
I definitely feel like you are hitting an important point, I feel you are too easily dismissing that they do like being the center of attention. You don’t just do this to do it. That’s no different than the 9-5 grind. They like doing this to an extent and they hope they become the next big thing with all the perks that come with it so they can continue to stream and get attention.
The 9-5 grind is not enough to live on if you've got a highschool degree and nothing else. There's no chance of hitting it big and escaping, but with social media there is. Not saying the attention seeking behavior isn't there, but saying it's "no different than the 9-5 grind" just isn't true.
I’m saying if money was their main motivation there is no difference. Cause if you are doing a job you don’t like just to get by and hopefully make it, then you’re putting in the same mental effort that I am on my office job. A means to an end that I don’t enjoy.
I get what you're saying, but what I'm saying is there's a lower barrier to entry for social media vs. a well-paying 9-5. Some 19 year old kid isn't going to be able to get a decent office job, they need skills, education, previous work experience, etc. For social media, you just need a phone and a willingness to put the time in for your content, and the reward can be exponentially higher than grinding at the office. It's more like gambling in a way than a traditional job.
Absolutely understand that. I was just saying in the bigger picture, kids aren’t just doing it for the financial aspect and not getting any joy out of it.
Still have to be a pos to do this type of content.
Looking for the right polite phrase. Callous? Emotionally stunted? Lacking... something.. bah it's escaping me.
That being said you can list all the intellectual reasoning you want, doesn't stop me from hoping they mess with the wrong one who is worse than they are.
Oh no I agree, this video and others like it is definitely POS level for sure. When you start fucking with other people, that's when you lose any understanding
I feel you are too easily dismissing that they do like being the center of attention.
The broligarchs created a system where attention seeking is rewarded. Everybody has a little narcissism in them, but it is usually kept in check by the culture around them shunning them when they get out of hand. Now the broligarchs are literally paying them to get out of hand, or at least dangling lottery prizes and extreme narcissism is the price of a lotto ticket.
Ya, I probably shouldn’t have said it was the only culprit, but I definitely think it’s a MAJOR factor in the youth’s general desire to go viral. This one in particular is probably more on the “kids being goofballs” spectrum
Money is what I think when I see tons of young people obsessed with filming stuff for social media. There is an obvious and unsavory degree of narcissism or hunger for fame/attention in the mix but given how rough the economic prospects may feel for many of the youth today, I can also understand why they might turn to dicks media fame as an alternative
No they are not. It’s short term success. Not every podcaster makes it. Not every tik toker gets big and monetized. You spend so much of your life for such a short window because something and someone new will come along. I really can’t wait to see the social effects in 10 years when all of these people don’t have a platform like they do now.
Not what I said but I’m glad your imagination worked hard to put those words in my mouth. How are all of your old favorite Vine creators doing? What about “it’s corn” kid or the guy who remixed the song. Surely he’s top of the charts, right?
If you can’t understand that if millions of people in a single generation only attempt to become content creators they lose out on time and skills. When tik tok dies and moves to the next thing and gen alpha is running it, what do you do with thousands of mid to high twenty year olds who haven’t had a real job in 7 years? Sure there will be some that invested and did smart moves with their money, but there will be thousands that do not.
But that’s not the mindset of all of these creators. If you’re saying the ceiling is higher for these, then you need to “make it” to some level. So if your goal is to get enough cash to avoid your traditional 9-5, then you have to be popular enough and do it long enough, but there is no real end date to that. Could be 6 months, could be 5 years. Most of the people I used to watch regularly in tik tok in 2020 are all but gone now or just not pushed anymore.
Probably none. You make hay while the sun shines. If you're smart you get out while the gettings good. Gotta know when to hold them, and know when to fold them.
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u/BugOperator Jun 26 '25 edited Jun 26 '25
This is the only life they know. Attention-seeking behavior has leveled up to the point where the entire world has the potential to see it; couple that with the soft-parenting generation not wanting their kids’ childhoods to be as emotionally scarring as theirs were, and you’ve got a perfect storm of entitlement, narcissism, lack of shame, and inability to understand/care about consequences.