NHT Blog

It’s Monday, which means it’s back to work for you and me.  That’s a pretty routine statement, right?  Except in my case, when I focus strictly on my weekly “Now Hear This Entertainment” podcast, I answer with, “Wait, that’s it?  ‘Back to work’?”

Yes, yes, I’m the same guy who just under three months ago wrote a blog under the headline, “You DO Have to Spend Money to Make Money.”  And for the record, I still stand by everything I said in that post, so, don’t email me or message me through social media trying to call this a contradiction.

Purely by coincidence my blog this week could almost be considered a Part 2 of sorts to what I wrote in last week’s post.  It was something I saw between putting that one online and now that made me realize there was more ground to cover on the subject.

I’m referring to what it says in your bio, although this week I’m specifically thinking Instagram and Twitter (a.k.a. X).

Nowadays everybody wants to be an influencer or a content creator or both.  In fact, a great number of people will put one or both of those on their social media accounts to identify themselves as being exactly that, regardless of what level they’re at and/or if it’s even true or not.

And that, my friends, is a very common and serious problem worth analyzing.

So many times we’ve heard the hypothetical situations posed to us.  “What ONE person, dead or alive, would you have dinner with if you could?”  Or people, of course, ask, “What would you do if you won the lottery?  How would you spend all that money?”

There’s a long list of these types of scenarios, none of which are anything realistic.

We’re all striving for engagement, right?  Follows, Likes, Comments, Shares.  We toss and turn at night trying to strategize how we can get more of each.  We’re all guilty of wondering, “How can I get something to go viral.”

We’re living in a short attention span society.  I get it and this shouldn’t be coming as news to any of you.  Consider why short form videos are so en vogue.  For that matter, post Reels on Instagram and then look at your analytics for the average watch time.  Eight seconds maybe?  There’s your proof that people just aren’t staying focused on much for very long.

In my online “Interview Tips Course,” one of the many (many) lessons that learners will hear about is to not cancel.  There are so many reasons to not cancel, I explain, and it really should only be done if you honestly and truly are borderline headed to the hospital (or already in the hospital).  Sure, a death in the family would qualify too, although even then, if it’s your mom’s aunt who is 97 years old and 1500 miles away and you haven’t had any contact with Aunt Mary in years and years, don’t play the

“It’s okay not to be okay.”  (Clare Cunningham on Episode 490 of “Now Hear This Entertainment.”)  “I’m giving you permission to take a vacation from your problems.”  (Richard Dreyfus in “What About Bob?”)  I’m telling you it’s alright to go a bit off the beaten path.  (Me in this week’s blog.)

I saw something recently that argued that “innocent until proven guilty” has been reversed in recent times to where people are starting to feel like, “guilty until proven innocent.”  The music industry version of that might be – as tough as this is – that when you start getting into the song review business you can easily get pulled into a posture of assuming the songs are going to be bad until someone convinces you otherwise.