One of my favourite marketers/guru’s are moments away from taking their group and nuking it.
Why? No engagement.
It’s all bullshit though.
Engagement exists.
It’s just been microwaved into a soggy, dopamine starved husk by the brain rot hordes.
(You know the ones. The “Why isn’t this free?” crowd.)
The “TL;DR” legion. The “But what about my feelings?” death cult.
This dude?
He was giving away gold. Actual, no bullshit, “holy fuck this works” knowledge.
For free. And still…
Crickets. The equivalent of a graveyard.
The thing is. They’re also the problem.
There’s this ego trap though.
- He’s a genius. No, really. The man’s got receipts. His shit works. But…
- He’s also a fucking tyrant. Someone posts something dumb? (And oh, they will and do often.) Instead of guiding them, he atomises them. A verbal smackdown. A “How dare you?” wrapped in a “You moron.”
- Newbies? They don’t learn from that. They flee. They crawl back to their safe space echo chambers where everyone gets a participation trophy for breathing.
And look, I get it. You want to scream. You want to shake them by their slack jawed faces and yell, “THIS ISN’T PRIMARY SCHOOL. THE WORLD DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS.”
Although if you treat your tribe like idiots, they’ll either leave or become idiots.
- Ego is the enemy. (Yes, that book. Read it. Burn it into your skull.)
- Correction ≠ crucifixion. You can educate without eviscerating. (Wild concept, I know.)
- Newbies need scaffolding, not a guillotine. They’re babies. Soft, squishy, stupid babies. But babies grow. If you let them.
The hard pilll…
Changing platforms? Won’t help.
Charging for everything? Won’t help.
But in this instance the reactive, hair-trigger, “I AM THE LAW” bullshit and the inability to separate being right from being useful will slowly erode this group.
(I’m hoping he doesn’t close the group. It’s one of the rare ones I enjoy seeing pop up the feed when someone isn’t posting some dumb shit)
But there’s always a choice if you were found in this position.
- You can keep being the smartest asshole in the room. (You’ll eventually be alone.)
- Or you can learn to teach without turning every interaction into a fucking gladiator pit.
But they’ll need to pick fast.
Cause the clock’s ticking.
And the brain rot hordes?
They’re not waiting. They’re running around the internet with their umbilical chords out waiting to plug into the next great guru.
Stephen Walker
P.S. I’m not your next great guru. I’m a dude who writes email.