Confusing Attention With Relevance

Why Social Media Has Turned to Sh*t (Even Though Many of Us Still Use It for Good)

There was a time when social media actually meant something. People shared ideas. Businesses connected with customers.

Conversations, actual conversations happened.

Now?

It’s a digital carnival of noise where attention is mistaken for importance and relevance is buried under a pile of fake outrage, staged videos, and algorithm-chasing nonsense.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking “Is this valuable?” and started asking “Will this get clicks?”

And that’s when everything went sideways.

Attention Is Not the Same as Relevance

Let’s clear something up that social media desperately refuses to understand:

Getting attention doesn’t mean you matter. It just means you were loud enough, absurd enough, or annoying enough to interrupt someone’s scroll.

“Look at this!”

“Watch till the end!”

“Most people can’t answer this!”

“How many dots do you see?”

None of it is insightful. None of it is meaningful. It’s mental spam.

Attention is cheap. Relevance is earned.

But relevance takes effort, honesty, and God forbid, thought. So instead, people chase the fastest dopamine hit the algorithm will hand them.

Algorithm Farming: The New Side Hustle Nobody Admits

Let’s call it what it is: algorithm farming.

Posting content designed solely to trigger:

comments – arguments – outrage – emotional reactions

Not because the creator believes it. Not because it adds value. But because engagement equals visibility, and visibility might equal money.

“How many dots do you see?”

“If you believe this, unfollow me.”

“Only idiots disagree.”

It’s not conversation, it’s bait. And millions of people take it daily.

The worst part? The algorithm doesn’t reward truth, intelligence, or usefulness.

It rewards:

anger – stupidity – division – repetition

So guess what rises to the top? Fake Videos, Fake Reactions, Fake People

AI voices. Scripted “random” encounters. Influencers pretending they just discovered something groundbreaking that’s been common knowledge since 1998.

Everything feels staged because most of it is.

We’re watching people perform authenticity for engagement, while real experiences get buried because they’re not dramatic enough to trend.

Reality doesn’t scream. Clickbait does.

“If You Voted for ___, Unfollow Me”

This is where social media fully jumped the shark. Instead of discussion, we get ultimatums. Instead of nuance, we get tribal warfare.

It’s not courage. It’s not conviction. It’s insecurity disguised as a moral stance.

Shutting down conversation isn’t strength…. it’s fear of being challenged.

And ironically, the people screaming for tolerance are often the least tolerant of disagreement.

Why This Makes Social Media Miserable

Most of us didn’t sign up for this.

We joined to: promote our businesse – stay connected – share ideas – learn something new

Instead, we got force-fed outrage, nonsense, and fake urgency.

The problem isn’t that social media exists. It’s that it’s been optimized for engagement at the cost of sanity.

And your brain feels it. That constant low-level irritation? That feeling of being talked at instead of talked to?

That’s not you aging into irrelevance. That’s you recognizing bullshit.

The Quiet Truth

There are still people using social media the right way:

creators – small business owners – educators – thinkers

They’re just harder to hear over the noise. Social media didn’t turn to shit because people stopped caring. It turned to shit because attention became more valuable than integrity.

And until relevance matters more than reach, the loudest voices will keep winning, regardless of how empty they are.

If you’re exhausted by social media, congratulations. It means you still have standards. And in a world addicted to clicks, outrage, and fake importance, that alone makes you relevant.

Things I’m Supposed to Accept… But Don’t

We live in a world where inconvenience is enforced immediately, but accountability moves slowly… or sometimes not at all.

There are things everyone pretends make sense, and I’m not buying it anymore.

Ladies and gentlemen, I keep being told everything I’m about to mention is normal. That it’s just how business works. Just how people are. Just how the world is.

Today I’d like to submit a simple argument: normal is not the same thing as reasonable.

Let’s start small.

It is apparently normal to drive fourteen miles down the interstate with your turn signal on, passing exit after exit, never turning. At some point you stop wondering if it’s accidental. Eventually, everyone else just adjusts, drives around the confusion, and moves on.

That’s what acceptance looks like. Not agreement …. exhaustion.

Now let’s talk about business.

Every business depends on basic services like trash pickup. You sign a contract expecting a service, not a lifetime membership. Shop around, find a better rate, try to make a smart financial decision, and suddenly leaving becomes nearly impossible.

Cancellation windows, automatic renewals, clauses buried deep enough to require a legal team and a flashlight. Contracts so complex David Blaine couldn’t escape them.

A service confident in its value doesn’t need traps to keep customers.

And then there are issues that stop being frustrating and start being serious.

We are told justice is blind. We are told accountability applies equally. Yet time and again, ordinary people face immediate consequences while powerful people seem protected by delay, influence, or silence.

Justice loses credibility the moment people believe status changes outcomes.

We fine ordinary people instantly.

We bind businesses with contracts they can’t escape.

We tolerate daily dysfunction without question.

And when accountability approaches the powerful, suddenly patience becomes endless.

Maybe the issue isn’t confusion.

Maybe we understand perfectly, and we’ve simply been told long enough to stop objecting. I don’t accept that anymore.

And if questioning that makes me unreasonable, then maybe reasonable isn’t the standard we should be defending.

Being “Nice” Is the Most Expensive Mistake in Business

The biggest mistake you can make in business is being nice to employees.

Some people need discipline. Some people need to be fired. And pretending otherwise is how small businesses bleed out slowly.

Post-COVID didn’t just disrupt industries, it rewired work ethic. And small businesses are paying the price for government policies that rewarded not working while punishing those who kept showing up.

You can explain expectations until you’re blue in the face. You can train, retrain, document, demonstrate, and remind. And still…. people just won’t do what’s required. They’ll do the bare minimum and convince themselves that it’s “enough.”

Meanwhile, business owners are handcuffed.

• Food specials? Forget it — cooks “can’t handle” the extra.

• Drink specials? Forget it — servers don’t want to promote anything new.

• Responsibilities and accountability? Forget it — that’s suddenly “too much.”

We survived COVID. Despite shutdowns. Despite losing half our staff. Despite every attempt to pull the rug out from under us. We made it with what we had.

And now?

What we’re left with is an employee pool that’s lazy, disengaged, and painfully lackluster.

People love to say, “You can only go up from here.”

I disagree. When you’ve been stuck at the bottom long enough, sometimes the only way forward is to bail out and find a new starting point.

Between rising rent, food shortages, delivery delays, missed orders, and the added burden placed on owners because employees simply don’t care, it’s enough to make any sane person walk away.

But here I am. Circling the eddy. No paddle. Going down with the ship. Because that’s what captains do. Because we all know sanity isn’t my strong suit!

The ABC’s of Baseball… and Life

For years, my son played travel baseball.

And during a few of those seasons, our travels took us to Aberdeen, Maryland.

What started as another stop on the travel-ball map turned into something much bigger. Not only did we face some seriously competitive baseball, but we also met a lot of great people along the way. One person, in particular, left a lasting impression on me, Billy Ripken.

Yes, that Ripken. Brother of Cal. But Billy wasn’t there to talk about stats, trophies, or highlight reels. He talked about something far more important: how to approach the game.

Billy introduced the players to what he called the ABC’s of Baseball… a simple framework, but one packed with lessons that went way beyond the diamond.

The ABC’s of Baseball

A – Abner Doubleday. The beginning. The game wouldn’t exist without him (1839).

B – Bunting. (1st learn how to hit)

C – Compete. Compete with yourself. Compete with teammates. Compete against the other team.

D – Drills. Do them right.

E – Errors. Make fewer errors than the other team and most of the time, you’ll win.

F – First pitch strike. Be ahead in the count.

G – Get better every day. Compete. Improve.

H – Hit… then hit some more.

I – Instincts. Pay attention. Learn the game.

J – Jump to the next level. Compete and get better—opportunity follows.

K – K’s. Don’t strike out. Stop swinging and missing.

L – Little things. Handle the little things and the big things take care of themselves.

M – Mistakes. Don’t make the same mistake twice. Learn from it.

N – Numbers. Play the game and have fun—don’t obsess over stats.

O – Outs. Make the routine outs.

P – Perfect practice makes perfect. Practice like a moron, you’ll play like one.

Q – Quick first step.

R – Runs. Score them or drive them in.

S – Simple. Keep it simple.

T – Thanks. Be thankful. You’re not entitled. Thank your parents, coaches, teachers.

U – Underhand flip.

V – Versatility. Learn as many positions as possible.

W – Walks. Be ready to hit, but take the bad pitches.

X – X-Factor. Give 100% honest effort. Work hard. Be thankful.

Y – Yell. Be loud. Communicate. Help your teammates.

Z – Zzzzz’s. Don’t fall asleep. Pay attention. Know what’s going on every inning.

During those long drives between tournaments, I’d go over these ABC’s with my son. Over and over. At the time, I thought I was helping him become a better baseball player.

What I didn’t realize was that these “rules” were teaching him how to be a complete competitor, on and off the field.

Then baseball ended.

High school wrapped up. Uniforms were hung up. And suddenly, real life was standing on the mound.

Fastballs came in the form of responsibility. Curveballs showed up as setbacks. And there was no coach calling time-out anymore.

But here’s the thing…

Just because baseball ends doesn’t mean the ABC’s stop applying.

Take a second look at Billy Ripken’s ABC’s, but this time, step out of the batter’s box and into the workforce. Into school. Into adulthood. Into life.

Compete.

Get better every day.

Do the little things right.

Be versatile.

Communicate.

Be thankful.

Give honest effort.

Don’t make the same mistake twice.

That’s how you earn a promotion.

That’s how you level up in school.

That’s how you grow as a person.

I relate these ABC’s to my life every single day. And my hope in sharing this is simple: maybe you take something from it. Maybe you apply it yourself. Or maybe you pass it on to someone who needs it.

Because after all—

life and baseball really do go hand in hand.

The Restaurant You See vs. The Restaurant We Run

If you’ve never worked in a restaurant, I get it. From the outside, it looks simple.

You walk in. You order. You eat.

If something is unavailable, the conclusion is quick and confident: “Someone screwed up.”

But that assumption lives in the same fantasy land as thinking grocery stores magically refill themselves overnight and food appears because you wanted it.

Let me pull the curtain back a little. What Customers See

A menu.

A bar.

A kitchen.

A wait time.

If we sell out of something, especially wings, the reaction is often immediate and personal. Somehow, a business decision becomes a moral failure. Suddenly, we “suck.”

Restaurants are not vending machines. They are controlled chaos. Every single day involves:

Forecasting demand without a crystal ball. Ordering product days in advance. Managing limited cooler and freezer space. Balancing food waste vs. sell-outs. Staffing humans (not robots). Navigating deliveries that are late, short, or wrong. Following food safety laws that do not bend to feelings.

We don’t order infinite food because over-ordering doesn’t make customers happier, it puts restaurants out of business.

Let’s Talk Wings

Just Friday and Saturday this week we sold 840 pounds of wings.

That’s roughly 6700+ individual wings.

That’s not a “we forgot to order” problem. That’s a you all showed up hungry in unreasonable numbers situation.

Selling out isn’t failure. It’s demand outpacing expectation. And before anyone says, “Just make more”, that’s not how food, physics, or reality work.

Why “Just Make More” Isn’t a Thing.

Food takes time to prep. Deliveries don’t teleport. Staff doesn’t magically multiply. Kitchen space and equipment are limited. Health codes exist. Storage space is finite.

If restaurants stocked for maximum possible demand every single day, most would close within a month due to waste alone.

The Part No One Thinks About. When someone calls a restaurant and says “you suck,” they aren’t yelling at a corporation.

They’re yelling at: A server who had nothing to do with ordering. A cook who’s already working a double. A manager solving 20 problems at once. A team doing their best in a high-stress environment.

Restaurants are run by people. Real ones. Not punching bags for frustration.

A Little Perspective Goes a Long Way. You don’t need to work in a restaurant to enjoy one. But understanding the reality behind the scenes?

That makes you a better customer, and honestly, a better human.

If we sold out, it means you loved it. And if you loved it enough to be mad? We’ll take that as a compliment.

We’ll make more. You’ll be back. And next time, maybe lead with patience instead of insults.

The Great Car Insurance Shell Game

Let’s talk about car insurance.

Not the idea of it, because yes, we all agree it’s necessary.

I’m talking about the financial hostage situation we politely call “coverage.”

For 2025, here’s what I paid with State Farm:

March: $650.78 June: $624.39 September: $779.73 December: $637.52

Total for the year: $2,692.42

That’s not Monopoly money.

That’s real, grown-ass, worked-for-this cash.

And what do I get for that?

Two vehicles fully covered. One vehicle liability only. One 18-year-old driver (Yes, I know—insurance companies clutch their pearls when you say that out loud.)

Now before the keyboard warriors warm up, let’s address the obvious.

Yes, younger drivers cost more.

I get it. Risk tables. Statistics. Actuarial science. Fine.

But here’s where it gets spicy….

Let’s Do the Long-Game Math

I’ve been insured for 15+ years.

One claim.

Not one per year.

Not one per vehicle.

One.

Now take that annual premium and stretch it over 15 years.

That’s just over $40,000 in car insurance alone. And suddenly you start asking uncomfortable questions:

Where exactly is all that money going? At what point does “risk” turn into profit padding? Is my premium fixing roads… or upgrading someone’s third vacation home?

Because when you’re paying over $2,600 a year, that’s about $224 a month, every month, whether anything happens or not.

That’s not “just in case” money. That’s rent payment energy. That’s vacation money. That’s new tires, groceries, or fixing literally anything that breaks money.

Here’s the illusion they sell us:

“You’re paying for peace of mind.”

Cool…. But peace of mind shouldn’t feel like financial anxiety with a logo on it.

And what really grinds my gears (pun fully intended) is this:

The safer and more responsible you are, the less you actually use the service, yet the bill never seems to reflect that loyalty.

No refunds for good behavior. No loyalty discount that actually feels loyal.

Just a cheerful reminder that rates “may increase due to market conditions.”

Ah yes. The Market.

The same mysterious creature blamed for everything from gas prices to why your fries cost six dollars now.

So… Is It Fair? Is $2,692.42 fair for:

Three vehicles. One young driver. A long, clean driving history.

Maybe. But fair doesn’t mean reasonable. And reasonable doesn’t mean justifiable when the math stops mathing.

At some point, consumers deserve transparency. At some point, loyalty should count.

At some point, we should stop pretending this isn’t a system built to quietly extract maximum dollars while smiling at you through a khaki-colored commercial.

Car insurance is supposed to protect us.

Not slowly bleed us dry while congratulating us for being responsible.

And when you step back and look at decades of payments versus actual claims…

Yeah. It makes you wonder.

Now Zoom Way Out… State Farm alone services roughly 96 million policies across America.

If someone like me pays about $40,000 over 15 years, that puts the industry conversation into perspective.

That’s trillions of dollars moving through the system.

Trillions. 3.4 trillion to be exact!

So the real question becomes:

How many yachts are the American people funding and why do my rates keep going up?

Where Did Public Etiquette Go?

I was sitting in a doctor’s office the other day. Large waiting room. Nearly 30 empty seats. Three people total, including myself.

Two more people walked in. They saw me. They had to pass me to check in.

While waiting, a woman across the room dropped her papers. She was in a wheelchair, so I got up to help her, because that’s what decent humans do.

I turned around to return to my seat and… it was gone.

The two new arrivals had taken it.

Not because there was no other option.

Not because the room was full.

But because awareness and basic courtesy seem to be optional these days.

I didn’t say anything. I sat elsewhere. But I wanted to say, I wasn’t aware we were playing musical chairs!

But the woman I helped made eye contact with me, shook her head, and said everything without saying a word.

Public spaces used to come with unspoken rules…. awareness, patience, respect for others. Somewhere along the way, those rules were replaced with entitlement and tunnel vision.

Kindness shouldn’t cost you your seat.

And decency shouldn’t be this rare.

Intelligence, Common Sense, and the Lie of “Feels Like”

We can all agree on one universal truth:

There are very intelligent people in the world… and there are people who make you question how warning labels became necessary.

Now here’s the twist, high intelligence does not automatically come with good decision-making or even basic common sense. Some of the smartest people I’ve met couldn’t navigate a grocery store without permanent emotional damage.

There are ways to make yourself smarter…. reading, questioning, thinking critically, learning how things actually work. And then there are ways to slowly sabotage your own intelligence.

Which brings me to my annual winter rage-inducer: weather reports.

The Weather Channel. Weather apps.

Local forecasts delivered with the confidence of someone who has never been held accountable. Weather people are fascinating and should be studied. They are often wrong, always vague, and somehow completely immune to job insecurity. If I was wrong that often at my job, I’d be replaced by a cardboard cutout. (Wait, this can be re-visited later)

But the phrase that really sends me spiraling is this:

“It feels like 20 degrees.”

First of all, what does that even mean? If it feels like 20 degrees… then it’s cold. Congratulations. You’ve described cold.

But it is not 20 degrees. “Feels like” is not temperature. It’s a vibe, a cold one at that but not an actual temp!

Wind chill, humidity, cloud cover, these are real factors, yes. But they do not rewrite physics. Temperature is temperature. It’s measurable. It’s factual. It’s not based on how dramatic your face gets when you step outside.

Let’s take this nonsense back to science class for a second.

Water freezes at 32°F. Water boils at 212°F. Not feels like 32. Not resembles 212. So if it “feels like” 32 degrees and your water isn’t freezing… maybe, just maybe, it’s because it’s not actually 32 degrees.

Wild concept, I know.

Imagine telling a scientist:

“Well, the water feels like it should be boiling.” Cool story. Still not boiling.

So why don’t we just do this instead: If it’s 20 degrees, say it’s 20 degrees. If wind chill makes it miserable, explain why it’s miserable, don’t rename reality.

Because when water is boiling, the temperature is 212 degrees.

It doesn’t feel like it. It is.

And confusing perception with fact is a great way to stay confidently wrong.

When “Not a Good Fit” Really Means “I Didn’t Want to Work”

Owning a business means hearing the same story on repeat.

“Why’d you leave your last job?”

“It wasn’t a good fit.” “The environment was toxic.” “Management wasn’t great.”

Funny how everyone worked in a nightmare… yet somehow those businesses are still open.

Meanwhile, I look around at my own place and watch my dad, my sister, and myself doing jobs that, anywhere else would be the employee’s responsibility. Cleaning. Stocking. Fixing. Resetting. Closing gaps. Picking up slack.

Not here though. Here, we just do it all.

Why? Because we bought into that dangerous little saying: “If you want it done right, do it yourself.”

We didn’t start this way. We trained. And trained again. We wrote memos. We made checklists.

We re-trained, re-explained, re-reminded. And what do we get?

A few people standing around chatting.

Scrolling phones.

Waiting to be told.

Waiting for someone else to care.

I suppose if we actually held people accountable, if we made everyone do their job, our place wouldn’t be “a good fit” either. Maybe it would suddenly become “toxic” too.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth:

This problem exists because we allow it. Not because we’re bad people. Not because we don’t care. But because somewhere along the way, we confused being understanding with being responsible for everything.

So now the real question isn’t about them. It’s this: How long can we sustain the long hours, the constant coverage, doing other people’s jobs and trying to run the business?

How long before burnout becomes the business model?

Only time will tell.

And right now… I’m not convinced it has good news.

When Everybody’s Here But Nobody’s All In

Today, if employees show up for a shift, owners call it a win. But winning the attendance lottery isn’t the same as having a crew that actually works.

Restaurants are short-handed everywhere, and that used to mean one thing: more money for the people who showed up ready to hustle. Now? “Short-handed” too often equals “one-dimensional” employees.

Example: no dishwasher tonight. A line cook jumps in to wash dishes, great… except now they’re unavailable to run the line. The kitchen stops being a machine and becomes a series of improvisations. ONE DIMENSIONAL.

If everyone understood teamwork, really understood “get-shit-done” and helped each other, the kitchen would hum. But I’ve watched us try to teach teamwork for more than a decade. I’m past “train more.” We’ve trained. We’ve written memos. We’ve spoken one-on-one. We’ve followed up. Some of these folks have been here 11 years and came from corporate gigs where micromanaging was normal operation. This is not ignorance.

So what is it? Defiance? Laziness? A refusal to care? I don’t know. What I do know is this: I can control me. I can control expectations and consequences. I can’t control someone else’s choices … but I can decide whether those choices keep a job.

This business will survive. We’ll be short for a season, we’ll hire, and we’ll rebuild standards. But there has to be accountability. We need to implement a demerit system: three documented failures to perform essential tasks and you’re out. No drama, no opinion, just standards, enforced.

If you care about your job, show it. Restock the line. Put the next shift in a better position than you found it. Teamwork isn’t a warm, fuzzy idea, it’s the difference between a smooth service and chaos at 7 p.m.

We can keep doing the same thing and expect different results. I’m not that hopeful, or insane. I’m that done. Time for consequences.