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What will be different about social media in a year from now? And what will be different about the next generation of creators who survive as platforms and trends come and go? To answer that, we must look back at what has changed the last five years and see if new needs have arose for users and viewers and platforms since then. In 2019, TikTok rose to prominence and introduced us to a new type of algorithm we had never seen before, the for you page. TikTok's algorithm almost completely abolished the need to follow your favorite creators. In fact, there were times where I would follow someone new and I would never see their content on my for your page ever again. Platforms like Instagram were a way for you to connect with old friends from school and work, see posts from that one YouTuber that you watched in 2015, and a way to maybe follow your favorite brands for special price drops. But even with the rise of TikTok, we saw Instagram throw out algorithms that made it so special, like chronological order, and began chasing the algorithm similar to a for you page with the aggressive pushing of things like reels. The way that I describe TikTok is a road trip, but for the first time on social media's road trip, you are no longer the driver. On YouTube, Instagram and other platforms, you were the driver. You had to decide on a destination when you got in the car, and while you could look out the window and enjoy the view, you had to keep your eye on the road and constantly decide where to turn next. But TikTok allowed the user to be in the passenger seat for the first time. You didn't know where you were going or how long the drive might be, but you got to just look out the window and enjoy the view. It was the rise of the algorithm over community. Anytime I open up TikTok, I have no idea what video I might see or what topics I might find because I don't have to search for anything that algorithm. But like all things, there is a good and a bad to an algorithm dependent app. What I have learned with TikTok is that you are only as good as your last video. You can have a thousand followers or a million followers, but followers don't matter anymore. In the age of the algorithm, your video only gets views if it can jump through the hoops of making it onto the for you page. The algorithm is a beautiful thing on TikTok, but it can love you one day and forget that you exist the next. And because of the volatile nature of the algorithm, I think we are seeing creator burnout and Creativity burnout at much quicker rates than ever before. Not only that, but with the rise of short form content, users are being shown an abundance of content every single day. But not with much substance. The shorter the video, the less substance it has. Short form feeds like reels for your page, shorts, Snapchat, Spotlight, they're kind of like the fast food of the Internet. It's safe, it's predictable, it's fun, it's tasty, it's cheap. Right? You don't have to dedicate three hours of your life. You can just look at a 30 second video, although that ends up becoming three hours of your life. But you don't intentionally do that. But it's quick to consume and it's easy and it's always number one, it's always readily available. Fast food places are open late at night. They're usually cheaper than going to a restaurant where you have to wait months to get a reservation. So short form content is the fast food of the Internet. But long form content, like books, TV shows, movies, podcasts, they are usually the ones that are like more fine dining. You don't go there all the time. They're not always readily available, right? They maybe come out once a week, or if it's like hbo, you have to wait a few years between seasons at times. But when you do watch it, it's more memorable and you're willing to dedicate more time to it. It's why a podcaster with 30,000 followers might have a cult like following that will show up and sell out every tour stop that they're doing. But a TikToker with 3 million followers might have zero people buy a ticket to go to their meet and greet. As we see more and more creators suffer from burnout due to the volatile algorithm and platforms like TikTok prioritize monetization like TikTok shops sponsored posts and live streams, we might see audiences feel a void forming when it comes to quality content. So that leads me to the podcast episode today, which is the Substack effect. The death of the algorithm. How might the pendulum of the Internet swing the opposite way of an algorithm? Heavy short form style of content that became popularized the last five years. What is substack and should you be on it? Because I don't think everyone should be on every platform. And what have I learned being in the creator program since June? I even flew out to New York City last week for a party with Substack. I met their team, the CEO. I met other trending creators on the platform and serendipitously I posted this on my Instagram story, but I got a notification an email from Substack today that I have made $10,000. So thank you guys for listening and reviewing Ahead of the Curve with Coco Moco. You guys have been reviewing it on Spotify. Thank you so much. If you're listening on Apple, if you have time to review it, that would mean a lot to me. We have 4.7 stars on there so if we could like bump that up to like 4.9 that would I that would be great. But no, I'm even just grateful if you guys are listening you don't have to review it. Thank you. So what is Substack and how is it different from all of the other apps? Right now all of the apps are obsessed with the algorithm and short form. Like we stated above, we have seen the death of the follower and the rise of the algorithm in the last couple years because of the popularization of TikTok. And this is a great thing by the way. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. I love TikTok and it has shown me amazing videos and creators that I would have never thought to search for. It has given me a career as well and I'm forever grateful that TikTok opened the door for me and thousands of others. But due to the volatility of the algorithm and the inability to monetize short form content, thus leading to TikTok heavily promoting TikTok shop Sponsored Posts TikTok Live I think we are seeing the glimmer in TikTok's eye fade right now. I think they can get it back and I love TikTok and I know people that work there and whenever people say yeah ban TikTok f TikTok I'm like, there's like 7,000 people that depend on Internet income from TikTok because they are full time employees of TikTok. And as someone who's worked in the marketing and media and tech industry since 2017, layoffs are scary even when they don't happen at your company. When huge companies die or lay people off, it is so terrifying for those people knowing that they're going into a job market. And also the interns with no experience are now competing for for jobs, entry level jobs with people that have eight years of experience. So I never want any platform that is an employer to ever fade away or have problems because it is the people working there that suffer. So I want to say that, but it does hurt me to say that I feel like, the glimmer of TikTok is fading right now. Not forever right now. And I think that platforms in general suffer from what I call a fixation loop. We no longer see our content on our for you page or the YouTube feed that is diverse and based in teaching an audience about something new. Instead, algorithms reward people who recap the same few topics over and over again on a fixation loop until it tires and they move on to the next thing. An example of the fixation loop would be on YouTube, the Mr. Beast stuff. I'm fascinated. I click on every article about Mr. Beast right now because I'm like, what went wrong? Like, this is crazy. But there are multiple videos. If you type in Mr. Beast on YouTube right now, there are multiple videos by multiple creators. And all of them always look the same too, with thumbnails that are all edited the same. It's usually like a photoshop photo of Mr. Beast looking stressed out. And then they like make his eyes a little extra red or something so it looks like he hasn't slept. Slept. And then they'll have like a graph behind his head where it's like an arrow going down and then like a money symbol and like a cop or something. And all of the titles are like, the downfall of Mr. Beast. None of them are revealing new information. They're just recapping either Dog Packs videos or Rosanna's videos. Two creators who have been vocal about Mr. Beast that worked closely with him. Or they are just reading news articles that are already published online and they're just like, recapping it, not adding any new info on TikTok. A previous example of a fixation loop was Blake Lively. When people were going in about Blake Lively and it was rehashing the same information over and over again. I saw the same interview clip of her asking that interview of her if she was pregnant, like, 20 times a day. And no one is giving any original thoughts anymore. Now there's a fixation loop about Chapel Roan canceling her festival appearance. And while I contribute to these conversations, I always tell myself, and I say this in the videos often or my podcast, that I will only say something new, that I will only say something and add to a trending topic if I have something new to say that hasn't been said before. And I said that in the first ever episode of Ahead of the Curb. It was about Michaela Nogueira, and it was her last gate. I remember I was at Disneyland for a work trip and I was like, staying in the hotel and it was like 2am I'd finished a day at the park and I wanted to get my first episode out is the thing was trending. And as I began to record my episode about Michaela Nogueira, I remember telling myself that I will only try and add information that hasn't been said before, or if I'm recapping it, that I need to give a perspective that hasn't been said before because if not, I'm just dogpiling. But we see that TikTok and YouTube, they reward the fixation loops. That being said, algorithms are great and magical, but when they begin rewarding fixation loops, it's great in the short term because creators are rewarded for low effort content and users are all on the same page because they're being shown videos about a topic that is top of mind. But in the long run, it punishes creators that are thinking outside of the box and putting out unique content that does not align with whatever the current fixation loop is, thus pressuring even the most creative creators to bend and start looking to what is going viral. And they have to fall into the fixation loop, especially if their income is dependent on the money they make from platforms. But then in the long run, viewers, users, they grow tired of these trends and these fixation loops and they become hungry for creators that are new blood, that are bringing something new to the table. And then they just disregard the creators that were contributing to the fixation loop as the last washed up generation. And then they move on to the new. Another good example of a fixation loop that happened on TikTok was the wedding makeup artist that crashed wedding. I never saw so many videos with opinions all repeating the same thing over and over like that. Even popular podcasts that I enjoy, like do we know them? They really do exist within a fixation loop. They often dive into and recap information that is already readily available about trending topics, and they'll give a surface level opinion that's already been said about the topic. But what I do enjoy is the nature of the podcast. Do we know them? Sometimes they do know the people, or they both have worked in the industry on the creator and media side. So they'll give that perspective sometimes. But oftentimes I think it is just a fixation loop. Not them, but so many other kind of trending news entertainment podcasts. And I don't blame creators or podcasters for the fixation loop. I blame algorithms for ignoring creativity and rewarding creativity. So now that we've identified a current problem with the rise of short form and algorithm and the death of the follower. Let's talk about how the pendulum might swing away. Everything goes back to the viewer. The viewer is the most important piece of the puzzle and their needs must always be met. And right now, viewers are growing bored. Viewers become more and more bored with rising fixation loops. And not only that, when it's not a fixation loop, they're being shown TikTok shop, they're being showed sponsored posts, they're being shown live streams. Right? Always for the platforms to make money. And I think that users in the next few years are going to start seeking out creators that have substance and uniqueness and don't fall into the fixation loop. And because users are going to become aware that they cannot rely on algorithms anymore, since most people are starting to become aware that once you follow someone on TikTok, you might never see them again, they're going to seek out ways to connect with their favorite creators on a deeper level. It's why we see so many creators right now going on tours and selling them out. Like I think Tara Yummy. It's because audiences want that connection because they no longer have a connection with the algorithm. There's now a mistrust in the algorithm. While tiktokers took over the last couple years and they rose to prominence, the ones that made the most money are not always the most followed Tiktokers. Maybe of course the top.001% but rather people that ran circles financially around Tiktokers are podcasters or tiktokers that started podcasts like Drew A follow Brittney Broski. The smartest thing you can do if you are getting any sort of spark of attention online is start a show or a podcast. Do something long form. Look at Bobbi. Although she started as a mommy tiktoker and then she started her podcast after she got a viral interview with Funny Marco. She signed to wme. She got an interview with Drake, followed by other huge artists. So if she had stayed a satire mommy Tick Tocker, she might not be as big now. We also see that with the Hulu show the Real Lives of Mormon Wives where they were big on Tick Tock on Mom Talk but because they got that show they are now going to have longevity in their careers that is not reliant on an algorithm. Alex Cooper from Call Her Daddy who I did a two part deep dive on in this podcast if you haven't listened to it yet. She signed a licensing deal with Spotify for $60 million in 2021 and now that her three years are coming to a close. She signed a 125 million dollar deal with Sirius XM this year for her Unwell network which includes podcasts by creators like Alex Earl and Madeline Argie. No one is signing a TikToker or Instagram reeler or YouTube shorter for $125 million to make more TikToks or shorts. The one person who we maybe saw get a similar payout for a YouTube deal was Mr. Beast with Amazon, but now they are both being sued by former contestants before the show even aired. Ouch. Podcasts are something that companies are more willing to invest in because they are easier to produce than a visual medium. I say this is someone who loves a visual medium. The reason I have my show Middle Row on YouTube and interview artists in a movie theater is because I wanted to do something unique. I didn't want to just have another pop culture podcast that covers the same few topics. I know I might not as get as big of a payday as say a Call her daddy, but that is okay. If I'm bringing something new and unique to the creator stratosphere. That is what matters to me and I believe that that is what matters to my audience. Podcasts and long form media is so valuable. That is where the money comes in. It is why TikTok struggled to monetize its first few years. You might watch a 30 second ad to watch a 10 minute YouTube video because the time trade off makes sense. But would you watch a 30 second ad every time you scrolled on a new 7 second TikTok? Absolutely not. I also think this is why TikTok began introducing longer and longer features. When I was watching the playlist for Brooke Schofield's viral who the F Did I Marry series a few months ago, TikTok had inserted ads in between her videos when I was scrolling on her profile. And it made sense because I was willing to watch the ads because the bulk of Brooke's content probably came to about 20 minutes. Short form is the spark, but long form is the longevity. So what is Substack and should you be on it? Substack is a platform that was originally created for careered writers. The guy who wrote Fight Club that I just made a video on last week, he's on Substack. It is like a Patreon but for authors and journalists. The book industry was so dependent on getting book deals in advances and the journalism industry was withering away as audiences got their news from Twitter blurbs and no longer wanted to pay subscription Fees to newspaper companies who were already struggling to adjust at the turn of the century. From the fall of paper copies to the Internet, journalists were being laid off or their success measured on how many clicks their articles got. Thus contributing to its own journalism fixation loop. Substack allowed authors and journalists to create their own community of their most loyal followers who were willing to pay for their direct writing versus paying the same price a month for a subscription that maybe covered multiple topics with multiple offers, but they're maybe not reading all of because they're not interested in also baseball and crosswords and, you know, travel. Maybe they just want the Internet and culture reports from a Taylor Lorenz Ow. Substack is trying to branch out from authors and journalists and get into the creator space. And I had a meeting with a company actually recently. I don't want to say the name of the company. Maybe one day I will. It's not a bad thing. But I was talking to them about Substack and they were like, yeah, we actually noticed a huge increase of people linking out their Substack profiles like huge creators this year. And we were like, what is Sub Stack? What's going on? So Substack is trying to branch out into the creator space specifically and not just writers and journalists. Hence why they started the creator program that I'm in and they also launched the video and podcast feature. So they are trying to get into that visual storytelling of creators versus only being for written media. And I'm still learning the inner workings of Substack myself. It's been three months, so that's why I wanted to do this kind of check in and let you guys know where I'm at and let me know in the comments or the review of the podcast on Apple or Spotify. If you would like me to interview some Sub Stack employees, maybe the CEO or even authors that have made a full time income from Substack and how they were able to do that. I think of Substack in two pillars. They have a short form AKA the spark and then they have a long form AKA the longevity. The Notes app of Substack is kind of like a Twitter feed. They organize it by pillars like politics or society and culture and there you can browse and look for topics or creators that interest you as a creator. It is easy and simple to write quick blurbs there. I will talk more about specific growth strategies that have helped me in the extended version of this episode once the free portion ends. So if you make it that far and you're interested to hear more. You can do that. And then there is the long form, the second pillar. This is where the money is here you can write longer blog posts or publish a video and podcasts. The longer posts are sent to your followers via email. They can be free or paid posts, but they will send it out to all of your followers. I try not to publish too many long posts because I don't want to send people too many emails, but I really do feel that your true followers love you and they always want more. When I think of my favorite creators and podcasters, I always selfishly wish they were able to upload long pieces of content daily. I broke my long form posts down into two categories. I do videos every week on Monday, which is the podcast. I relaunched my podcast Ahead of the Curve with Coco Moco, which you guys are listening to here. And you can still get the audio version on Apple and Spotify. That's the cool thing about Substack is they still send it out to Apple and Spotify, but the video version is only available on Substack. So if you're a visual person like myself and you are used to listening to this on Spotify or Apple, you can always download the Substack app or get it on your laptop. And you can watch me talk to you every Monday while you send emails, drive home from work, whatever it is. And then I do a written post every Friday where I publish a trend report and that is also for my paying members. This does not include a video, which is nice because I can be in my pajamas that day. And I write about three trending topics that I see rising in the cultural zeitgeist. When I work with clients or big companies, I'm always shocked at how often they ask me for trending topics each week versus advice for their actual social accounts. They were willing to pay big money for it. And that is where I got the idea for the Trend Report. People who wanted access to that knowledge but didn't have access to a one on one relationship with me, often due to my own time constraints, could still get the Trend report for $9 a month. And outside of those two weekly posts, I often post random one off articles. I published a San Diego travel guide for coconuts that got surprisingly more views than I thought. I also published a breakdown of my interview with Jade from Little Mix on my substack when I had her come on middle row. And that was a way for me to try and get SEO traffic to the interview for people who might be searching her name on Google and not YouTube and then to my surprise, shopping guides that I've posted, such as items I bought during Amazon prime as a creator, are some of my most clicked articles at the time and they drove traffic to my Amazon storefront. That is something when I started on Substack that they told me that some of the biggest creators are ones that just post like shopping guides. People love being told what to buy. Me too. I'm like when I go on Amazon I'm like can someone just send me links? But what I love about Substack is that it is not dependent on an algorithm. Once someone follows you on Substack, they're not only going to see you in their Substack feed, but they're literally going to get an email. When you want to send them an email about an important post. Imagine if you could send your important TikTok video to like send a link to every single one of your followers and they open it and engage. That is so valuable. Don't have to worry about being in the good graces of an algorithm, thus falling into a non creative fixation loop just to stay in the good graces outside of Substack. In the next year or more, I believe we will see the rise of a platform that reintroduces creators to their followers. It is something that both the creator and the follower is hungry for. The fast paced algorithm is great at first, but when it rewards short form content that is not monetizable, the platform is forced to rely on pushing out sponsored posts, shopping buttons and live streams where users are gifting. Creators and platforms take a cut as users grow tired of seeing surface level sponsored posts, the creators also spiral into an empty burnout. They are forced to chase trends and rehash the same Talking points as 100 creators before them that day, thus leading to a lack of creativity and a dependence on trends and algorithms that will one day spit you up and chew you out as audiences grow hungry for new blood. Whether it's going to be Substack or another platform, I think we are going to see a more direct relationship between viewer and creator and whatever platform can provide that will come out on top. Some of the biggest substackers that I've met have little to no social media presence elsewhere. They just found an interesting niche on Substack and began publishing. Because of the SEO nature of the website, your articles get pushed out to new audiences searching for specific topics online. And because Substack is writing based, people who might be shy when it comes to publishing videos of themselves thrive on Substack it kind of reminds me of Tumblr in that sometimes the most successful people are the ones who are mysterious or you never see their face or hear their voice. I do think Substack is trying to push towards a video feature with their creator fellowship which I'm a part of. So it is always good to lean into the new features of any platform since there will be people on the backside hand picking and pushing that content in the feed. But you can thrive on Substack without ever needing to show your face. That is the beauty of it. I think we are missing out on a huge class of amazing creators on big platforms like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok because they don't know how to work a camera or they're camera shy. The rise of a platform like Substack will introduce the world to a whole new generation of creators. Before I get into the paid portion of this podcast where I'm going to talk about specific tips on how I grew, I want to summarize my thoughts here. The last five years we saw the rise of the algorithm and the death of the follower. Followers no longer mattered on social media. No one watches TikTok on their following feedback and even platforms like YouTube became their own version of a fixation loop. When you have an algorithm dependent platform and not a community dependent platform, creators become fixated on trending thus perpetuates the fixation loop where Trends are covered 100 times in one week with no information that is new being added to the mix, thus leading to a creative burnout from creators and a boredom burnout from users. On top of this we saw the rise of shortform thanks to TikTok. While this was a beautiful thing and it lowered the barrier to entry for so many brilliant creators to break through, it also led to a significant monetization problem. TikTok could not place 30 second ads on a 10 second Renegade dance video, so they began pushing out TikTok Shop, TikTok Live and sponsored posts as a way to make income from an algorithm that was not currently sustainable. What was once new and game changing became repetitive and boring. Even YouTube, which was once a beacon for creativity, has become video essays recapping TikTok drama that happened a week ago. Could we see a move away from algorithm dependent platforms as users seek out a deeper connection with their favorite creators? I think this will only happen if users become aware of the fixation loop and become aware of their growing boredom. Platforms that make content easy and accessible will always exist, but creators who find a platform that allows them to connect directly with their audience. Monetize that connection and not be reliant on an algorithm will have longevity. You want a career, not a year. Now in the paid portion, I'm going to talk about more specific advice I have for growing and monetizing on Substack. If you're thinking about launching one, you can listen to the extended version of this episode by becoming a paid member for $9 a month at kogamoco.substack.com I got an email today that I made my first 10k on substack and I want to thank you guys so so much. If you're a paying member, investing in my sub stack is an investment in allowing me to be creative and not stuck in a trend cycle. The financial stability has given me so much confidence and I'm very grateful. So you can unlock the extended version on my sub stack. It'll be in the show notes. If you are thinking of starting one and you want to hear more logistical tips on why you should start one and how to grow, thank you guys. If not, if you made it this far, I'm just so grateful and I will see you in the next episode if you have 30 seconds and you can leave a review that will help me so much grow in the charts. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll see you on.