“I want my video to look like, you know - a mix of Alex Hormozi, Ali Abdaal, and Iman Ghazhi.”
Transitioning from being a consumer of content to a creator is hard - because consuming something gives a sense of familiarity, without actually teaching you how making something works.
I have eaten a thousand croissants in my life.
I wouldn’t be able to make one.
But it’s easy to imagine that it’s easy.
Same with content. This is probably why movie critics make terrible directors. Consuming and judging content is a different skill-set from creating content. And, when faced with the fact that it’s harder to make something than consume it, newbie creators fall on the patterns they memorized.
This next observation is going to shock you: Social media, and content creation is heavily dominated by millennials and younger1.
Shocking.
The trouble start when X-er and Boomer creators decide to join in the fun. They rightfully recognize that they don’t know the process and have a thing or two to learn. They unrightfully assume that they should just do what everyone else is doing.
So, they jump in, head-first, into building their own personal version of this:
Obnoxious “like and subscribes”, reTenTiOn eDitIng, unnecessary memes…
The end result tends to be a derivative, not-at-all-compelling, alien-wearing-a-skin-suit version of popular creators.
They flail and fail because their intended adult audience is NOT into all the loun and noise “kid stuff”. And the kids - they can smell a rat.
So, these creators never find an audience.
There’s been a lot of talk about “authenticity” on YouTube in the pas year. In this case “be authentic” is good advice.
Unless you really are a cringy wanna-be memelord who uses Zoomer speak unironically in daily conversation. In that case - maybe don’t be yourself.
I don’t mean to say that Dr. John Campbell (3M+ subscribers) is the only way to do it.
You can embrace best-practices of the platform and do all the things like Mark Tilbury does.
The key here is - well, it’s a vibe.
The only way to be cool is not to try. Trying immediately makes you un-cool. I imagine it’s because we have a visceral, lizard-brain level of disgust for those who are trying to be liked.
So, if you’re a content creator of a certain age, just relax grandpa. Be yourself, love yourself, be authentic.
Or, if yo you can’t help that - you can always lean into it. Become the cringe-lord of the Internet, but you’re probably going to have to fight Boogie for the title, and that guy’s a heavyweight.