earlier in 2020 when the world still had
a semblance of normalcy
jake paul announced the release of his
course that guaranteed to help
anyone become a successful influencer to
show you how much the world has changed
i noticed that in kurtis's video about
jake that he actually still had tour
dates up
just a matter of weeks before we went in
full pandemic
lockdown but after jake's announcement
plenty of youtubers
made videos about how this program is a
scam
and it's nothing new from jake
previously curtis's good friend drew
goodin
made a video as well as a follow-up
video about jake paul's team 1000
program
but this video essay isn't necessarily
about the micro topic of jake paul
scamming
his susceptible audience i felt that
this was an important topic to visit
because in current times many young
people want to become
influencers according to research from
the social entertainment network clap it
they found that one in 12 young people
would completely detach themselves from
their family
just to become famous and one in four
would quit their current job
to become famous in the uk a team of
researchers
studied over 1 000 16 year olds and more
than half
had no desire to go into professions
that didn't
involve being a celebrity with the
rampant amount of young people who want
to become
celebrities it's no wonder jake paul
keeps marketing these types of programs
but in curtis's video he said something
that was quite impactful
okay i've watched a few videos now and
i'm sure you're wondering did i learn
anything that i can't learn anywhere
else for free
no not at all i don't know if other
youtubers feel like this how i feel but
i feel like
a majority of my success on youtube
is all luck sure i i work pretty much
every day but
still i like there's a so much luck
involved and so many other things that i
have no control over and it just
worked out for me i'm not gonna start
some program to be like i can teach you
the ways
that i did it because you know what jake
to be honest you got lucky
and now you're trying to profit off of
that in some weird way and you did you
got 20
bones from me my guy but i'll never get
back
currently curtis connor has almost 2.5
million subscribers
and each video he's had in the last
month has topped over 1 million views
so is there a proven strategy to become
a famous youtuber like jake paul says
or is the primary component luck when it
comes to becoming a modern day celebrity
when our future generation has millions
if not billions of young people
hoping to become influencers it's time
to have a serious talk about the balance
between hard work
skill and good old-fashioned luck when i
was growing up this conversation really
only happened when discussing becoming a
famous musician
a professional athlete or a traditional
tv or movie star
today with social media and the
possibility of going viral
many more people are dedicating their
time to becoming the next influencer
in this video my goal is to argue that
although many influencers have succeeded
due to great qualities such as hard work
and perseverance curtis connor is
correct when he says that luck plays a
major role
this isn't just about the realm of
influencers either this is about every
life path we can choose
whether you have your eyes set on a
certain college major or a career path
it's of the utmost importance to
understand the role of luck
and at the end of this video i'm going
to explain how failing to recognize this
truth can destroy your mental and
emotional well-being
i first started thinking about the
subject when i read outliers by the
best-selling author malcolm gladwell
in outliers gladwell dispels the
conventional wisdom that every success
story
involves sheer skill and perseverance
gladwell
argues that stories of success are much
more nuanced and random
than any of us would like to believe for
example he starts the book by analyzing
how the birthday of a canadian hockey
player
is the biggest factor in whether or not
they'll go pro
gladwell explains how 40 of the top
players will be born between the months
of january and march
why you may ask because in youth hockey
kids are grouped by birth year
on average children born at the
beginning of the year
have almost an entire year's worth of
advantage
over any child born at the end of the
year these kids have an
extra year of practice to hone their
skills as well as a major psychological
advantage
another gift that these players receive
is known as the pygmalion effect
this is a psychological phenomenon where
high expectations
lead to improved performance in a given
area before we get started
we need to address the elephant in the
room and that's the fact that we hate
having this conversation as people we're
control freaks
we want to believe in meritocracy and
the idea that if we work hard
we can achieve what we want in fact one
of the core arguments of conservative
values
relies on the idea that you can just
quote unquote
pull yourself up by your bootstraps and
everything will be fine
as someone who personally worked
extremely hard to overcome my
decade-long drug addiction
that almost killed me i definitely know
the value of hard work and its relation
to outcomes
but if we don't address the randomness
and luck involved in success
it can destroy our motivation and
well-being when young people in the camp
of jake paul believe
that there's some sort of formula to
being famous they're going to be
blindsided by a world of factors
completely outside of their control but
for those who follow the philosophy of
curtis connor
you can learn to better manage your
expectations while also producing the
best work possible
in this video you'll learn how the
latter leads to a much
more fulfilling life the first thing
we're going to look at
is how hollywood is a series of good and
bad bets
and there is a lot of randomness at play
but if you're new to the rewired soul
be sure to subscribe and ring that
notification bell here we apply
critical thinking and skepticism to
various topics to improve our own
mental and emotional well-being and you
may have noticed this wonderful new
artwork and it comes from cadre milk go
follow her on instagram she's an amazing
artist and she's always
helping out the channel she just does it
because she's a genuinely
kind person so go show her some love
follow her at
cadre milk over on instagram i'll link
it down in the description
the first thing we need to understand is
that there is an abundance of scientific
and psychological research
when it comes to what makes something or
someone popular
think about it for a second when we look
at the multi-billion dollar industries
of
music movies and tv there's a lot of
money to be made and being able to
predict
what will and won't be a hit for decades
hollywood has been bringing in ideas
from the smartest minds in the realms of
social psychology
statistical analysis behavioral
economics and more
if someone could pin down the formula of
what would become popular
and what could turn a massive profit
they could conduct
much better risk analysis and invest
their time and money
in the right places unfortunately this
isn't the case at all
a dozen publishers passed on harry
potter before the series was picked
up and there's a similar story behind
george lucas's star wars franchise
although publishers record labels and
movie studios may kick themselves for
passing up an opportunity
that could have made them rich let's
look at the opposite side of the
spectrum
investing in a film seems like a bigger
gamble than buying a lottery ticket
in july of 2020 i saw the news that
netflix
was investing 200 million dollars in an
original spy movie starring chris evans
and ryan gosling
based on the star power of these actors
that might be a wise investment
but then again it might not be on
average it costs 100 million dollars
to make a movie but many movies with a
lot of star power
completely fail for all of the money
that disney has made off of its hits
you'd think that if anyone had the
formula for investing in the best movies
it would be disney in 2013 disney
invested
275 million dollars into the lone ranger
and they also invested 307 million
dollars into another movie called john
carter
disney made great bets on movies like
avatar and star wars the force awakens
which both made over 2 billion dollars a
piece
but the former two movies were massive
losses
the lone ranger lost roughly eight
million dollars and john carter
lost over 123 million dollars
so if arguably one of the most powerful
entertainment companies
in the world can't predict success it
strengthens curtis's argument that jake
paul is full of it
or just doesn't realize the amount of
luck involved in creative ventures
so right now i'm currently reading dr
drew's book titled the mirror effect how
celebrity narcissism is seducing america
it's interesting reading it
because he wrote this before the boom of
platforms like youtube and tick tock
he discussed how in the early 2000's
reality tv made people famous
just for being famous paris hilton
nicole richie and anna nicole smith
helped boost reality shows involving
celebrities
also brett michael's rock of love and
flava flav's show
flavor of love gave normal people the
opportunity to become pseudo-celebrities
one contestant on flavor of love new
york even
ended up getting her own show then there
are the kardashians
today we can look at everything they've
accomplished and the brands they've
created
but how they get famous in the first
place what separated them
from any other family a film crew might
follow
thankfully people like curtis connor
practice some humility
and realize they aren't too much
different than anyone else
he knows there are an endless amount of
comedy and commentary channels on
youtube
and he's extremely fortunate to be in
the position that he's in
while curtis puts in a ton of hard work
and creates quality content
he knows that there are many unknown
creators out there
who put in the work but we have no idea
who they are
now let's look at jake paul what makes
jake paul special
this may sound like i'm being facetious
but i really want us to put on our
critical thinking hats
and ask ourselves what makes him special
and what about his now
ex-wife tana mongeau what makes her so
special
if you'd like feel free to pause this
video
grab a pen and paper and write down what
you believe
makes these millionaire creators so
special
jake paul is a young blonde white kid
who started making goofy content on the
internet
and blew up tana mongeau is a young blonde
white girl
who started sharing exaggerated stories
on her channel
which led to her game and stardom but
when you think about it
that's not really a formula for success
that could be taught or sold
sure someone like tana mojo tells
sexually explicit stories
is over the top and loves to party but
is that really unique
we could probably safely argue that
there are hundreds
if not thousands of young attractive
girls on youtube
sharing their stories who we have no
clue about
so why did it work for tana and jake
paul
in one of my new favorite books titled
everything is obvious once you know the
answer
the sociologist duncan watts explains
our flawed thinking
when it comes to success watts explains
the irrational circular reasoning that
we all use
to explain why things get popular he
explains how we see something that
succeeded
and then work backwards without ever
really coming to a conclusion
while trying to sound like we're
assessing creators like tana or jake by
their attributes
we're actually doing the opposite since
people like tana
jake or the kardashians are already
famous our minds use flawed logic
to try to justify why this is the case
but when we put these situations up to a
microscope
we start to realize that pound for pound
aside from their current level of fame
and monetary status
nothing really separates them from
anyone else in fact
as you'll see in the next section what's
popular just gets more popular
and it has nothing to do with anything
us or anyone else can control
let's all start this section with a
quick thought experiment
if you were scrolling through youtube
and saw a video on a topic that you were
interested in
from a creator that you didn't know but
it only had a couple hundred views
would you click on it what if that exact
same topic was covered by a well-known
creator
and it had hundreds of thousands of
views which one would you check
based on the science i bet good money
that you're more likely to click on the
video with a bunch of views
and this is a well-known concept in
sociology known as the wisdom of the
crowds
making decisions increases our cognitive
load and there's a chance we could be
wrong
so we turn to others to see what we
should do imagine you just moved to a
new city and you're hungry
you're on a street with dozens of
options but you don't know which place
to eat at
due to the wisdom of the crowds there's
a good chance you choose the restaurant
that has a bunch of people inside
rather than the one that's empty without
even thinking about it your unconscious
is saying
that place must be empty because it's
not that good
and this other place must be good
because that's where everyone is
believe it or not this has been
duplicated in more studies than you can
count
in a groundbreaking study researchers
wanted to see if they could find music
that was objectively better than others
within the genre
so they crafted an interesting
experiment in one group they had
participants sit down at a computer with
unknown artists listed
and had the participants rank the songs
with the only information being the
unknown artist
and song titles no matter how many times
they did the experiment in this
condition
the results were pretty random one song
might be someone's least favorite
but it might be someone else's most
favorite in another condition the
researchers were consistently able
to predict which songs would be ranked
as the best
and all they did was give the
participants one more piece of
information
now based on what you know about the
wisdom of the crowds what additional
information do you think the
participants had
that made them consistently rank a song
as their favorite
was it maybe a picture of the band was
it some sort of music video
no it was actually just the number of
downloads
in this group not only did the
participants see the name of the band
and the song
but they also saw how many people were
downloading the song
in different variations of the study the
researchers would make one song have the
most downloads and consistently
people would rake it as the best song
then the researchers would swap the
numbers for the most
at least downloaded and it'd be the
exact opposite
while we love to believe that we have
great taste the reality is
that we typically just follow the crowd
and this leads to what's known as the
matthew effect
the matthew effect is a common term used
in sociology and it discusses
how what's popular just gets more
popular the matthew effect received its
name
from the parable matthew 25 29 which
says the following
for whoever has will be given more and
they will have an abundance
whoever does not have even what they
have will be taken from them
we see this play out every day in the
economy as the rich continue to get
richer
while the wealth gap continues to grow
so when it comes to influencers like
jake paul
we must consider that the famous just
get more famous
once you have the numbers more people
are going to click on your videos
because other people have clicked this
then increases the amount of people who
can share your content with someone else
fortunately there are grounded creators
like kurtis connor who understand this
and don't take all of the credit
something curtis experience
is something that many creators
experience which is a snowball of growth
once they hit certain milestones and
it's all thanks to the matthew effect
curtis started his youtube channel in
2014
and it took him five years to get to 1
million subscribers
after hitting 1 million subscribers in
may of 2019
he was able to double that to nearly 2.5
million
within just the next year and the same
thing happened to his partners in crime
danny gonzalez and drew goodin
after hitting a million subscribers in
2018 drew doubled it
in the next year meanwhile danny has
experienced the matthew effect
even more danny broke 1 million
subscribers in 2018
as well and now he's about to break 4
million subscribers
what i admire about creators like curtis
danny and drew
is that they're truly grateful for the
success and managed to stay humble but
even though
luck played a role should someone like
curtis take a bit more credit for his
success
that's exactly what we're going to
discuss in this last section
if you're like me learning about this
stuff can make you extremely cynical
this is actually an extremely relevant
topic right now as blm protests
continue to rage on and we hear more
about the struggles of people of color
aside from having no control over your
race you have no control over your
gender
and women have been mistreated since the
dawn of time as well
and even if you're fortunate enough to
be born with a slew of advantages
you might be held back due to something
like a slow metabolism that makes people
unfairly judge you for your weight
this means that some of us no matter how
much money we throw at jake paul
you'll never become an influencer but on
the other hand when we watch someone
like curtis
we can get inspired and become hopeful
when i first got sober
eight years ago i saw so many people in
a better position than i was in
in 2012 i destroyed my life and had
absolutely nothing
no money no friends no family and i
wasn't even allowed to see my own son
getting sober was going to be the
biggest challenge of my life
because i didn't have resources
meanwhile i saw other people getting
sober
who were handed everything their
families would buy them a car
pay for their apartment and get them a
job and then
these people would relapse i couldn't
believe that someone would squander the
opportunity they were given
and it actually made me appreciate my
struggle a little bit more
and one of my all-time favorite high
school movies can't hardly wait
when the main character preston is
having an awful night
and comes across an angel stripper she
drops some truth on him
in this scene she says there is such a
thing as fate
but it only takes you so far then it's
up to you
to make it happen and this is what we
can all
learn from someone like curtis connor
curtis sees his opportunity to become an
influencer
by putting in the hard work and honing
his skills
aside from being hilarious nobody can
match curtis's green screen skills
curtis spends a lot of time learning new
editing tricks
to make his video stand out and improve
his skills
without trying to improve curtis may not
have the success
he's currently experiencing many of us
experience the same luck as everyone
else
but we don't take action and that's what
separates the winners from the losers
although there's so much that we don't
have control over what we do have
control over
is the effort that we put in personally
i've seen
more people die from addiction or
relapse than i can count
and i'm extremely fortunate to be sober
today
but it's because i work on my mental
health daily
i meditate i'm in therapy i talk to my
support group
i write in my journal and i educate
myself about
living with my mental illnesses how many
of us
have the resources to go to therapy but
we don't take advantage of it
how many of us would rather spend our
time binge watching netflix
rather than improve a skill that makes
us happy and before we end this video
i'll leave you with this and i'll get a
little bit vulnerable
for most of the month of may i was
extremely depressed
although i've taken an antidepressant
and the pandemic is affecting all of us
that downward spiral made me even more
depressed about this very channel
i felt like i was putting in all this
work and going absolutely nowhere
but then i started reading all of these
books about why things get popular
and i learned about all of the
randomness this was crucial because my
old solution was to work harder which
led to burnout and more depression
rather than making me even more cynical
and depressed it was like a thousand
pounds
or lifted off of my shoulders and after
taking a few weeks off to self-reflect
i finally had some clarity i think too
many of us beat ourselves up
because we blame ourselves if we don't
succeed personally
i'm my harshest critic and i'm harder on
myself than
anyone i think that if i'm not getting
results
it's all my fault but the reality is i
don't have
nearly as much control as i think i do
the only thing i can control
is my own work ethic and that has to be
good enough
now these last couple months i've been
in a perpetual good mood
i've gone from being a workaholic to
someone who knows how to take breaks
i spend more time with my beautiful
girlfriend tristan and my son
while also working two jobs and creating
content for this channel
today i'm happier than ever with my
content because i take my time
and i'm focused on what i can control
regardless of how many views i do
or don't get on each video i can sit
back and be proud of myself for the work
i put in
and that's all any of us can hope for
all right so thank you once again for
making it all the way through this video
essay
and i want to chat for a second let me
tell you
why i felt compelled to make this video
it absolutely breaks my heart
thinking about how many people put in
all this effort and they work
hard and they don't get the results that
they're looking for and they blame
themselves
for it like i think this is such an
important topic
to discuss there are so many things
outside of our control especially when
it comes to something like
trying to become an influencer or
whatever it is but like i think about
people like filling out like college
essays and trying to get into a school
like maybe the person who read your
essay had a bad day
maybe you have the same name as their
ex-boyfriend or
girlfriend and it triggered him you know
what i mean so i don't want you to take
things so personally like none of us can
like
all we can do like i said many times is
put in as much
effort as we can and then just hope for
the best like i'm
the father of a son who's 11 years old
he's about to go to middle school
in high school and all that other stuff
and like i'm trying to teach him to
value the effort and the hard work that
he puts in
because we have little to no control
over the results and like i mentioned in
this video
right now we're talking about black
lives matter and hopefully we're talking
about
more forms of prejudice and everything
like that like there's you know misogyny
there's
issues that the lgbtq community has to
deal with there's so many biases
so i don't want you to think that your
hard work
was for nothing maybe it was just trying
to work with the wrong person or you're
taking the wrong path
right so in no way am i saying like oh
everything's random
don't even try no work hard do your best
hope for the best all right like
statistically the harder
the harder you work the more you try the
more you learn and try to hone your
skills
and the happier you are the better off
you're going to be and you're going to
have more opportunities
all right i can go on about this forever
but it's already been a long video so
i'm going to zip my lip but anyways if
you're struggling with this stuff
if you're beating yourself up if you're
down on yourself if you have poor
self-esteem whatever it is like trust me
i get it
and like i said like even though i don't
have control
over my you know diagnosed mental
illnesses like my anxiety or my
depression or anything like that
like i work on it daily all right
so if you would like personally i use
the online platform better help
for therapy if you would like to try it
it is always linked down in the
description
or in the pin comment and yes it is an
affiliate link so all that means
that you get affordable online therapy
and a little bit comes back supports the
channel
all the work that i do here so if you're
beating yourself up and you need
help letting go and realizing what you
can and can't control
give give therapy a try all right
anyways i'm gonna go now thank you so
much for watching if you like this video
make sure you give it a thumbs up if
you're new make sure you subscribe and
ring that notification bell
and if you're not yet go over to
instagram and follow caudrey milk i hope
you guys enjoyed that art that she did
i love it i love this new editing style
and all that so go follow her over on
instagram it'll be down in the
description
see you later
