George Mack Profile picture
Mar 29 15 tweets 5 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
What is ignored by the media -- but will be studied by historians?

Here's 7 more examples:
1. The Aging Population Crisis

70% of countries are below the required population replacement levels.

You need a 2.1 fertility rate to maintain a population:

• US = 1.64

• Germany = 1.53

• Japan = 1.34

• China = 1.28

• Korea (below) = 0.84 🤯
2. The Lost Lockdown Generation

• Reading ability in the USA is the lowest in 30 years

• Maths scores are the worst since tests began in 1969

• 50% rise in mental health emergency room visits for young people

This has been swept under the rug.
3. The BRICS overtook the G7 in GDP this week

BRICS = Brazil, Russia, India, China, SA (+ Bangladesh, Egypt and UAE)

G7 = Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK (+ EU)

"It's no longer developed & developing world. It's ascending & descending world" - @balajis
4. The Rise Of Obesity In America

You can only appreciate this epidemic by watching this video...
There's a lot of talk about the Wealth Gap between the rich and poor...

The "Diet Gap" is barely discussed.

• 29% of the world's population faces hunger and food shortages.

• 38% of the world's population is overweight or obese. (Set to rise to 51% in the next 12 years)
5. The Video Game Industry Is Bigger Than You Think

The gaming industry is bigger than all music, TV, and film combined.

It has outearned music and entertainment for the last 8 years!
6. Inflationary Industries vs Deflationary Industries

• Why are hospital services and college tuition fees getting more expensive?

• Why are TVs and software getting cheaper?
7. The Rise Of The Leveraged Creator

There's no such thing as "mainstream media" anymore

Instead, there is "legacy media" & "new media"

The only thing that gives the "mainstream media" power is the legacy language of "mainstream media"

This is the Emperor's New Clothes
• When it comes to new media, faces & personalities are outranking brands.

• Branding in marketing started in the 1500's.

• Meanwhile, human facial recognition dates millions of years - which is why there's such a power law to individual creators.
This trend has been replicated across cultures.

Lebron James has more followers than the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS and WNBA combined.
Prediction:

The biggest marketing competitors to Coca-Cola + McDonalds will be creator brands.

1. It's harder to build a Mr. Beast audience than is to create a burger

2. There's no moat - so whoever has the best advertising wins

3. They can acquire customers cheaper
This was a sequel to the original piece:

Hopefully, this was more of a Godfather 2 kinda sequel than most terrible sequels

PS. I write a newsletter called Clouds & Dirt.

Clouds = Big Ideas, Mental Models, Marketing
Dirt = Trends & Tactics

A recent study (It's 2023 - nobody asks for sources) suggested that not signing up is the biggest deathbed regret.

clouds-and-dirt.beehiiv.com/subscribe
Nuance alert:

The point isn't that no media organization hasn't ever covered these topics.

It's that historians will give these topics greater significance than the media is giving them.

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More from @george__mack

Mar 26
My favorite question in 2023:

What is ignored by the media -- but will be studied by historians?

Here's the 9 best examples: Image
1. The Silent Fentanyl Pandemic

• Overdose is the leading cause of death in under 45's (Replacing suicide)

• Covid killed 8,900 young people in 2020. Overdoses killed 49,000. (2/3rds Fentanyl)

• In 2022, police seized enough Fentanyl to kill every adult and child in America Image
2. The Rise Of Negative Media

Since 2010, the media massively increased headlines that use fear, anger, disgust, and sadness.

It's no surprise the media isn't covering this 😅 Image
Read 18 tweets
Mar 23
Boyfriend and Girlfriend track sleep data.

2 big lessons:

1. Individual differences

Shared bed with partner was positive for GF but the *most* negative factor for BF Image
2. Pareto - There's usually 1-2 big factors that help most people.

E.g. Bed before 11pm (set time) and no food 3h before were in top 3 for both - despite other individual differences Image
I love this image because it's a meta-representation of un-nuanced debates on the internet.

1. There are 1-2 general principles that hold true for most people.

2. The rest is subjective to that individual's personality, genetics, and goals.
Read 4 tweets
Mar 23
The dangers of audience capture:

• Nikocado wanted to blow up online.

• He started off creating music and vegan content.

• The views kicked in when he did binge eating challenges. He kept listening to his audience.

Madness. H/T @G_S_Bhogal Image
I love marketing.

But this is a prime example of marketing - or an A/B test gone wrong.

It reminds me of my favorite quote: "If you run enough A/B tests online, you'll end up with a porn site"
If you have a customer support team and get them to obsess over reducing the fraud rate - you may achieve this goal, but you end up treating every customer like a potential fraudster. (H/T Rabois)

So you pair this metric with a counterbalance - e.g. customer satisfaction
Read 4 tweets
Mar 22
Unpopular opinion: Apple Notes is the best.

I've seen nobody on the internet get creative with them.

3 note templates I use every day:
Apple Note 1 - The Video Game To-Do List

To-do lists = Anxiety inducing

Video game levels = Excitement inducing
Realization 1: The "laziest" people I know can spend 10 focused hours playing video games.

Realization 2: If I'm unmotivated to complete a project, I've designed a bad video game.

The Apple Note Video Game is a vaccine for procrastination.
Read 14 tweets
Jan 28
My favorite question to ask:

• What is ignored by the media -- but will be studied by historians?

E.g. In 1938 when Adolf Hitler won "Man of the Year" by Time Magazine

The media-historian gap is a great mental model.
The best thinkers I know are able to apply a historian's frame to the present day.
You could argue that all great investors and entrepreneurs exploit the media-historian gap.

Facebook was mocked by the media when it started -- but it's now seen as a genius business move by historians upon reflection.
Read 5 tweets
Dec 23, 2022
What opinion do you hold that is weird now but will be obvious in 20 years?

Mine: You could solve 70% of people's problems by having a fun video game dashboard of the following metrics.

H/T @balajis
It's fascinating that every functional company has a dashboard -- but humans and governments operate blind

Imagine running a marketing or product team without a dashboard... This is how individuals/governments operate.
Government dashboard:

Imagine instead of a 24-7 rolling COVID death count, you had:

Wealth - Savings per person + Bottom 10% wealth

Health - Life expectancy + Cancer + Obesity rate

Skill Gap - Highest in-demand skills, % filled, % skilled migration coming in
Read 4 tweets

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