Tony Katz on Disrupting the Influencer Class

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1:11It's Tony Katz today. Some told that clawed is down and open a eyes down and grok is down, but I just made a thumbnail with it. If you want to know on all the live streams, I use grok now to make the thumbnails. Because I just do a quick right before we get going. Tony Katz, Tony Katz today, major outages of this. Let's find out. Let's find out. Let's go to clawed. Let's go to clawed and find out whether or not we have outages. And let's say let's do it like this. Hey, clawed. This is Tony. Are you having an outage right now? See, I try to talk very nicely to the AI. Now, according to clawed, I'm working fine on my end right now, responding normally. So the AI doesn't even know it's having an outage. Clawed said, of course, that there was only a momentary thing that it's still back online.

2:14Google has not confirmed a disservice disruption. Microsoft is showing a spike in reports. I want this to be somebody else's problem. And I want the people who complain about AI, but use AI for everything to stop complaining. They're going to be outages. They're going to be problems as there is with all tech. And maybe the answer is just a wee bit less tech. I'm not anti tech. You know, this goes into the whole data center conversation. We don't ever ask ourselves, where is it? Where is enough? Where have we like, you know, okay, we're utilizing the tech. The tech is everywhere. We utilize it for our work, this, that and the other. Maybe, maybe it's enough. Maybe we don't need to do any more. Maybe less is more. Gen Z, I think, is right in the less is more.

3:15Now they're not living up to their words on every level. If you're doing all your homework assignments with the AI, well, then I don't want to hear your problems. I don't want to hear you complain. But I also have the same Gen Z that is trying to push away from things and get to things that are tactile as we've discussed. What I want to see is, I mean, never mind just the AI and just saying, okay, there's a place for this, but it's not in everything. Just like technology, there's a place for this, but not in everything. I would like to see us move full away from the influencer class. A class that is doing us damage and isn't filled with smart people. The vast majority of influencers are schmucks who couldn't make it in porn and want to pretend they're not in porn. Now that's not true of every political influencer.

4:16They're just dealing with rage bait. But every influencer who's wearing the skirt and the low cut shirt and showing us how greater golf shot is, no one cares about your golf shot. You are material. You know that. You know it. I know it. We don't have to discuss it. Everybody, I know only fans and all that stuff you see on Facebook. That's what it is. It's not influence. It's free porn. That's all it's ever been. That's all it's ever going to be. Is that what you want? For the political influencers, it is where can I bring about the most rage and pretend that I am some kind of expert? I have never once thought of myself as an influencer. I've said this numerous times. I am a radio host. I do this. I talk about ideas. I share opinions. People do it what they will. I think that the difference is that I have some kind of guideline that I have to live

5:17by. You can argue that's the FCC. You can argue that it's traditional sponsors because I work in an analog style, which is stupid. I make money in an analog way far more than I do in a digital way. But because I have those standards, I think that we have a better product. You know where that can't be said true of the news. So I start with the influencer class is an exhausting group of pseudo intellectuals and pseudo porn stars. Anybody want to debate this? 833 got Tony 833 4688669 833 got Tony. That's the number. That's how you get to be a part of the show. Sino intellectuals, grifters, pseudo porn stars. I'm not saying that they can't.

6:19I just want to understood what they are. But if we say that, then we get ourselves into the place where who are we supposed to be trusting while you trust the what? The traditional routes, the mainstream media, trust the new, trust the news. Trust Jake Tapper. Are you out of your head? I'm going to trust anything MSNBC wants to throw at me or MS now. MS know. I don't know what they call themselves. No. The New York Times, Washington Post. Anybody going to apologize for Russia, Russia, Russia? Anybody going to apologize for all of the COVID insanity? So if we can agree on the influencer class, it doesn't necessarily mean we throw ourselves into traditional media. Part of what the influencer class does is that the influencer class believes that they

7:20are somehow special and the rules don't apply to them. Or maybe better said, if they just ignore the rest of the world, they can get away with that as long as the rest of the world is paying attention to them. This was the US open. They play tennis in New York. Don't you know? They were out there where an influencer quite literally brought a ring light to one of the matches. So she can make content for her whatever, I don't know, whatever her page site channel. Who knows? Then there was a group of women in a luxury suite recording a video. This is in the middle of a match with Naomi Osaka, who is not necessarily unknown.

8:24And they're posing for photos. They're doing the whole thing. They don't care that the match is going on. The match doesn't matter to them. My gosh, exactly how insane is fame. I am what's the... I don't know if I would be called local celebrity or minor celebrity. My father, Resta Saul, used to joke minor celebrity. Some people would say local celebrity, which means to say where I live, people know what I do. I'm telling you of all these influencers who were taking photos in a suite at the US open, which I don't know how they get the suite. Why would you have these people there? They're not known. There's known as I am, which is to say not known.

9:25But they all act like they're a star. They all... One of the things I've never figured out is this whole diva thing. If I thought being a diva would lead to cash, watch me work. I could... I could out diva anyone. Oh, such a good time with that. All these people act like divas. All these people act like they're the thing that matters. Nothing else matters. Not being involved in the moment matters. You are at the US open. It is world class tennis happening right in front of you. Nope, gotta take a picture. Gotta take the photo. Gotta have the little move, the stupid dance, like... Like it matters. That's why the influencer has to go. Because the influencer's influence is to show a generation that somehow these things matter.

10:26And to you, the 19-year-old, doing the dance on TikTok doesn't matter. Ladies, the dance on TikTok only matters to the guy who's going to watch that for as much time as is necessary. Was that too much, Landon? Was that too much? No, I think so. Okay, we understand what I'm saying there. Do we understand what... Like, I was trying to clean up the crudeness. But I think you might understand. That's it. Everything else is not even necessary. It's what happens when an algorithm tries to capture the mind. So everybody who's disrupting this tennis match, right, this is what doom's growing is. It's disrupting your tennis match. It's disrupting you from the thing that actually is right in front of you. From a group of people who believe

11:26that they can command and demand your attention. The only way to get rid of the influencers is to stop giving them the intention. It's a valueless proposition. Now, there are people creating content online that is valuable. I need to spend more time watching people know how to fix a car. That's something I could use and I could utilize. I need to spend more time watching the content of people who can understand what to plant in my backyard that those freaking rabbits won't eat. I am spraying stuff. I've got fencing. The only thing I haven't hired yet is armed guards. But the influencer class we've discussed it here is a valueless thing. Oh, I've seen the influencers in, like for example, a world I play in, which is cigars. And I do it by having a radio show called Eternet Smoke.

12:27We review cigars and we review bourbon. Most people you see doing cigar reviews are, hey, here are girls in various stages of undress or incredibly tight dresses holding a cigar. Cigar influencer. I'm smoking a cigar as we speak. It's not influence. It's porn. So let's just call it porn. On the political side is political porn. Some people do a really good job and they share recipes. There's a guy, there's a chef. I don't have any connection to him whatsoever. His name is a Bob Marano. Bald guy. Oh, it's fantastic. There's fantastic content that's out there. Yes, every day is feast day. It is Bob Marano. Oh, it's fantastic. He's fantastic. Not porn.

13:27Just good content. I'm not begrudging the content creator. Be successful. Be more successful than me. Go get him. I am saying as clear as day. This influencer stuff isn't influence. And the only thing it's influencing is the rest of us to be desensitized into really bad behaviors. How about we not do I want to ban them from the interwebs? No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't you, if this is what you want to do, you go do it. Do I think it's soulless? Yes, do I think you regret it? Absolutely. Are you entitled to do it? Knock yourself out. Go right ahead. Should we watch it? No. And we should tell the US open that every time you bring a bunch of influencers over, you're ruining what the thing is. We don't need the influencers. It's tennis. We know all about it. Let's hear from the people who know about tennis.

14:29Don't show me somebody who's got some weird kind of vocal fry affect. We're watching the US open. It is so awesome. Oh my god, they're hitting the ball. Oh, it's crazy. Nobody wants to see that guy. It's always a guy. It's always you would think it's the chick. It's always the guy. No, the guy may not know is a guy, but it's always the guy. It is our job to push them out of our lives. And on the political influencer side, absolutely. The people who are farming the outrage is opposed to engaging gone. Now, the funny thing is is that I will be accused of these things many times, because people disagree. We're not talking about disagreement. They're like, how do we go about the attack? Did you see it in comments and all sorts of things? Right?

15:30How do you measure and how do you judge these things? I gotta leave that to you. But I gotta also believe that everybody is normal, well, mostly normal. The guy with the vocal fry, totally not normal. The influencer that is valueless, which is there are great many, a number of them, it's like, it is like porn. It is pornography. I don't know how to define it, but you know it when you see it. Meanwhile, AI went down for a bit, and the world didn't stop, which means you can stop using AI for all the things and probably be fine. There's a lot to get to. Keep it here. This is Tony Katz today. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Almost Amos Podcast. You ever notice you and your spouse keep saying, we need to get away, but you never actually plan anything. That was us until we did something fun and spontaneous. We went to resortpass.com.

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