November 2021

In my last blog we figured out that popularity is everything that matters in this world to the sheeple, but now where does this lead us or them? Well very simple, they will try to become popular at any costs and they think by just imitating those who are popular, their celebrities, heroes whatever they will also become popular, but that is a delusion, they will never get there and here is why:

The whole system we live in is basically a scam, but the sheeple cannot figure that out, they are in denial. The system usually gives them a carrot on a stick it sets them a goal and claims they can achieve this goal, if they just try hard enough and be compliant enough. Then the sheeple come to me and try to explain me, that what I'm doing is wrong, because it does not make me popular and that I do need to do what other "popular" people do, this will make me popular and more successful. They think I'm mentally ill for being an individual and doing what I want, in their worldview everyone needs to do what popular people do, which in turn make you popular and this will make you happy, in their worldview there is nothing else that exists.

At first glance to them and to everyone else this concept seems logical, but in practise this usually does not work out. Let us assume a scenario on social media, the first type of people just get on and just do what they like and in return they hardly get any views, therefore do not become popular. Then the second type of people, are conformist and imitated the "popular" people, because they think this is what made them popular and in return also hardly get any views and also do not become popular. I mean statistically imitating popular behavior may give you slightly more views, but in no way will it make you as popular as the people you imitated, so let us investigate why that is.

The reason is very simple, people cannot see the forest for the trees, they are delusional, they are preoccupied with their belief system that popularity is all that matters, while in reality it has almost nothing to do with the real mechanics that are at work. So what are the real mechanics? Some time ago I read an article about a study about to determine what factors are relevant to get something trending on the internet aka making it popular and they could not figure out much other than, it was important that the first reactions were majority upvotes, once a positive trend was set, it was almost impossible to revert it, same went for a negative trend. So in other words it is mostly random, there is nothing to it, absolutely nothing, the sheeple are braindead, they cannot judge anything, they just follow the herd. Before some of you think I'm making up things or doing pseudoscience, let me suggest you read "Psychology of the Masses" by Gustave Le Bon, which basically comes to similar conclusions, that the masses are too stupid to understand anything even slightly complex. I use to call "The Masses" sheeple, in case someone did not figure that out yet.

So your social media celebrities usually are not what they are because of their talent and skill, but because of random, if you look at their faces, you look at the face of random. Of course it is not 100% random, but it is most likely the main factor. People might argue that many celebrities are very talented and I would say yes, but look at all those who are also celebrities and completely untalented. The sheeple always think, they are perfect to determine who has talent and skill, but in reality they are more or less random at determining that, which reflects in the celebrity world, it is mostly random.

However there are many other variables, which we will get to now, since if it were random, you would have a chance to become popular, but you don't actually have that chance right now. You have to consider that the random factor only comes into play, if everyone has equal opportunity, like an empty social media platform, where everyone gets equal views and only after that your mostly random factor will determine, if you make it or not, but you don't have equal opportunity right now on the internet.

You have to imagine the internet as the Wild West of America, when America was first discovered it was empty free land and everyone had equal opportunity, which is similar to the internet, which is a virtual new land, so everyone fast enough would have an opportunity to secure himself some of this new land on the internet. What is land on the internet? Many might use the analogy of land on the internet with domain names, but actually I would say land on the internet is viewers, subscribers, fans, followers however you want to call it, this determines the "size" of your land on the internet, or otherwise said, your reach. Right now almost all the land is seized, so it does not really matter anymore, what you do, because the market is saturated and in order to gain customers, someone else has to lose them and of course they will try everything to keep them.

The last point I think is the prime factor right now that prevents you from getting popular. To get popular you need followers and all followers are already following someone popular, so the only way you get them, is if their leader gives you promotion on their channel or whatever, but they will not do that, because you will not be popular enough, because popular people will only promote popular people, because otherwise they will just promote you and get nothing in return and eventually even lose followers promoting you.

Regarding that there is a little personal story, I only knew Youtubers with like a few thousand subscribers max and that is not relevant for promotion, then I found one who had a 5 figure subscriber count and I asked him to promote my game and he replied to me, he cannot do that, because he follows an algorithm, he can only play what is popular to gain subscribers and if he does not follow what is popular, he will lose subscribers. He would not even play the games on his channel he plays privately, because they were not popular enough. Some readers here might suggest that this goes against what I concluded, that you cannot get popular by imitating what is popular and I admit that it is possible to a certain extend, but you have to consider that this guy was probably grinding for many years following strict an algorithm, becoming a fake himself always pretending and I think he even said to me that this has become too stressful and he thinks about stopping it, so overall it was not worth it or very stable and he was not one of the big players, even though he tried really hard and followed a perfect algorithm.

Making it to the top would require almost more time and effort that is humanly achievable, so it is close to impossible, but on the other hand if a top player promotes you, you can become popular over night, but they will never do that or at least try to never do that, since sometimes accidental promotion happens.

So we end up with a chicken and egg problem, you will only become popular, if you are already popular. Celebrities are a closed society, they will not want you, if you are not already famous and if you are famous, they will want you, because they can gain from you. The sheeple always think their celebrities are such nice loving and kind people, but they actually aren't, they view their fans as lower than them and they do not associate with them, because they do not gain anything from it and most certainly they will not help them to become like them.

It is a power game and like in Orwells 1984 where he said somewhere "Nobody claims power in order to give it away again" and it is the same with popularity, because it equals to power. The sheeple live in their delusion that they can be popular if they just imitate popular celebrities, but actually the celebrities hate them for it and deep down the sheeple also hate the celebrities, they do not like the celebrities themselves, but they want what they have. You can see the hatred the sheeple have for celebrities when there is an opportunity to slander or humiliate them or bring them down otherwise, they will use it.

To most people all this writing here is probably pointless, because most people never try to become popular themselves, they are contempt with being popular through proxy aka being conformist, they imitate their celebrities and think they are on the winning team, even though nobody cares about them and even if they upload their imitation and nobody watches it on social media, they still think in their delusion they are more popular than someone being an individual and actually doing what he likes.

It is a master and slave relationship, the master is always the master and the slave is always the slave, the highest the slave can ever achieve is to imitate the master and be praised for it by the master, but actually becoming a master himself is heresy and anyone who tries that gets cancelled, by his master and especially his fellow slaves. You can see that mentality good at all those stupid casting shows, you are only allowed to cover songs from the masters, you can never compose your own music, or write your own songs, the highest you can achieve is the perfect imitation. Same in the game development world, the indie or especially the open source game developer can only make imitations of games the masters made, they cannot get any higher or make anything on their own and if they do so, like me it is heresy and they will get cancelled.

Maybe I need to correct myself on what I think is the prime factor that prevents you from becoming popular and the real prime point is the crab mentality, you know when people catch crabs, they put them in a bucket and when one crab tries to escape, the others will pull them back, this is like the world we live in, we get born into positions, some are masters, some are slaves, nobody knows why the masters are masters and why the slaves are slaves, it is seemingly determined at random, but when you dare and try to escape, the others will pull you back.

So in case you are a struggling artist or whatever trying to become popular or at least recognized and failing, you at least now know that it is not your fault, it is the default, no matter how good you are, you hardly can beat the crab/crap system through your own effort and in the end popularity does not matter, the masses are idiots and unable to tell good from bad, so their opinion and approval is ultimatively worthless.