My Social Media Diet or Creating a Mind Sculpture

We Need a Social Media Diet  

Don’t flinch just yet.  Everyone needs to think about and plan what our minds and attention will consume.  So much content is available:  YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and more.

I read online that the last hour before going to bed and the first hour getting up should be without any electronic screen time.  Before going to bed, lay out your clothes and prepare for the next day.  Sounds like the habit of a winner, so let’s include that as part of the plan.

The guy also talks about spending his time creating content, rather than consuming it.  Not everybody is up for that, but with three blogs and a podcast and two YouTube channels, I have no excuses.

Goals of a Social Media Diet

So what would be the goal for a media diet?  For a food diet, there is a weight goal.  For a media diet, there should be goals, too.  Like hobbies, interests, entertainment, education.  Historical videos are fun.  Shouldn’t there also be production goals?  If you have them, that is.

We make a choice about what to eat, and how that will make us feel.  Shouldn’t we also do the same thing for our minds and mood?  Wouldn’t it be a good idea to step outside ourselves and take a meta look at what we want out of our life before deciding what to watch or read?

My Social Media Diet

I don’t know what is right for anyone else, but my social media diet will be one part production for four parts consumption.  It will be split into one fifth pure fun with animals and jokes and silliness.  Everyone needs that in their lives.  Another three fifths will be news and politics - from all sides.  I enjoy listening to Ben Shapiro and Jimmy Dore.  So what.  The last fifth will be hobbies: ham radio, knitting and making soap.

“Social Media Diet” 

Maybe “diet” is the wrong word.  Diets are notoriously ineffective in the long run.  “Media Plan” sounds too corporate.  “Media sculpting” means you are doing the creating.  “Media sculpture?”  There are some artists out there who already claimed that phrase.

I hesitate to use the term “information” since it is so long and cumbersome to say.  We need to make this snappy.  “Brain food” comes to mind, but its already been taken.  Or “Brain growth plan.”  Too long.  OK.  “Mind sculpture.”  Yes, that’s it!

By consciously deciding what I feed my visual senses, I have a “Mind Sculpture” plan.  I think about what I want the end result to be, and plan, roughly, how that will happen.

Let’s see how this goes.  Will keep you updated.

Tulsi Gabbard For President

Tulsi Gabbard for President

The recent "Tulsi works for Putin" schtick can be understood best as a fight between old media and new media.  A classic power fight between wheezing old talking heads, their younger clones, and new media power brokers will show where the new election lines are drawn.  Newsflash: Tulsi will win.

Hillary Clinton is running a '90s media smear campaign that really worked for her and her husband in the past - the way past.  Clinton whispers her vengeful stories to stooges on cable tv and foolish New York Time op ed writers.  Feeling safe, they repeat them without fearing real consequences.

Old Media and The Clinton Playbook

Why not?  It is the same playbook Clinton used in her failed 2016 election campaign:

1. court mass media, 
2. take voters for granted, 
3. rely on proxies to say nasty things for you, 
4. insult and dismiss half of the electorate. 

It didn't work last time, but as Clinton apparently never took responsibility for her role in her own defeat, she blindly uses the same approach again.

Court Mass Media

The '90s media landscape was exclusively mass media, so a strategy targeting those influencers was smart.  Prescient was Bill Clinton's focus on alternate paths to voter attention, like talk shows. It was how he got around the universal dismissal of him as a serious candidate by the "serious" political press after his sex scandals.  

But this approach is outdated.  There are thousands of information sources for voters now.  The personal relationship approach will not control political watchers because there are simply too many thinkers in the political space.  The rah-rah for the "weapons of mass destruction" leading to the Gulf War and Russiagate undermined credibility for mass media outlets anyway, and people look to other voices to trust.

Take Voters for Granted

Hillary Clinton neglected Michigan and other rust belt states during the 2016 Presidential election.  She dismissed HALF OF AMERICA as "deplorables."  Not very persuasive.  Clinton took the voters of the rust belt for granted because of their union affiliation, not learning the lesson that Reagan taught:  people make up their own minds.

In the frame of this Tulsi Gabbard dialogue, Clinton assumes that the support of the media "elites" will lead to the sheeplike support of Americans.

Rely on Proxies To Say Nasty Things For You

Bakari Sellers accused Tulsi Gabbard of treason on CNN.  This charge has been supported by Hillary Clinton by getting other people to repeat the accusation.

Tulsi Gabbard shows her understanding of modern media when she pins the "Russian asset" smear directly on Hillary Clinton.  Clinton is used to dodging the stench of a shit show by getting others to say her insults.  Part of that tactic was the pretense of cable t.v. hosts that she didn't really say it at all, but that somebody else did.  Now, Tulsi Gabbard's voice can appeal directly to voters, much like Bill Clinton did in playing the saxophone on late night television.

Insult and Dismiss Half of the Electorate

"Deplorables."  

Clinton also insults everyone in the military by implying that one of them would betray their country with treason.

In this message struggle with Tulsi Gabbard, Clinton is dismissing anyone under the age of 50.  Younger voters don't believe that the New York Times is always right.  They don't have t.v.'s or watch cable "news."

The Tulsi Gabbard Winning Strategy

Tulsi Gabbard takes a sniper shot approach to a crowded Presidential candidate field.  One by one, she takes out a frontrunner.  It worked for Trump, and it is working for her.  

Tusli Gabbard is an underestimated candidate.  She won't be the Democratic nominee, but she will beat out almost everybody else that is running.  Her best weapon are her deadly barbs that really stick.  Ask Kamala "I put people in prison for doing what I did" Harris.  Gabbard is better at this tactic than even Trump.  

Tulsi Gabbard knows how the current information ecosystem works. When she hits something, it reverberates.  All the Clinton machine can do is get their flying monkeys on cable television and op-ed pages to repeat what she tells them to say.  Too bad they are no longer influencers like in the '90s.  

Tulsi Gabbard will beat the Democratic Party machine because its relevance and power are sliding out from under them.  They are using a playbook of a bygone day.  What is supposed to be a kill shot will only show everybody their irrelevance.

The Democratic Party relies on big donors, reporter relationships and endorsements.  Stronger tools have been forged, and they are about to find out the hard way.

As I like to say to people I hate:  "I wish you the best of luck."