Make It Make Sense
Welcome to Bizarro World.
You remember Bizarro Superman, right?
Everything looked familiar, but nothing worked the way it was supposed to. Up is down, and down is up.
The other day, I was scrolling social media and saw Ray J get knocked out in an MMA fight. A few posts later, Mike Beasley was getting choked out. Somewhere in between, people were debating a celebrity sex tape like it was a matter of national importance.
And the crazy thing wasn’t any of that; it was how normal it all felt.
Twenty years ago, Ray J was a singer. Mike Beasley was one of the most talented basketball players on the planet. Sex tapes were career-ending scandals. Now all three somehow feel like they belong in the same news cycle.
Somewhere along the line, we got used to things that would’ve sounded completely ridiculous a decade ago.
I remember when people spent millions trying to keep private videos off the internet. Now people release teasers.
Then COVID happened, and I swear the timeline never recovered.
One day, everybody was locked in their house. The next thing you know, YouTubers are headlining boxing matches, podcasts are replacing television, and people are becoming celebrities without ever leaving their bedroom.
And maybe all of that makes perfect sense now.
Maybe that’s what keeps throwing me off. None of these things happened overnight. It was more like waking up one day and realizing that everybody had quietly agreed the weird stuff wasn’t weird anymore. Nobody announced it. Nobody voted on it. We just kept scrolling.
We Got Everything Faster and Somehow Enjoy It Less
I remember when albums came out on Tuesdays. Not because Tuesdays were magical. That’s just when albums came out.
If your favorite artist was dropping something, you knew about it weeks in advance. Radio stations talked about it. Magazines talked about it. Somebody always knew somebody who got an early copy and suddenly became a VIP.
By the time the album finally arrived, it felt like an event. Now albums drop at midnight, and by breakfast, somebody already posted, “mid.”
The same thing happened to television. I remember when season finales felt important. If you missed it, you spent the next day trying to avoid the one person who couldn’t wait to ruin it for everybody else.
Now entire seasons show up at once. People spend all weekend binge-watching ten hours of content, and by Wednesday, they’re asking what else is on.
The other night, I spent twenty minutes scrolling through streaming services trying to find something to watch.
We used to watch whatever was on HBO and somehow enjoyed it. Half the movies weren’t even good, but that didn’t matter. They were on.
Now I got Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max, Prime Video, Peacock, Paramount+, YouTube, and somehow finding something to watch feels harder than it did when I only had HBO.
Maybe that’s just me.
But I swear we spent years trying to get everything on demand, and now that we got it, I’m still standing in my living room asking:
“Y’all got anything good on?”
Why Does Every Conversation Turn Into Content?
People stopped having experiences and started immediately explaining them.
A relationship ends, and before the dust settles, there’s already a post about growth, healing, boundaries, and protecting your peace. Meanwhile, the other person is still trying to figure out what happened.
Somebody quits their job on Friday, and by Monday, they’re teaching a masterclass on courage. A friend goes on vacation for four days and comes back sounding like they discovered themselves. My niece reads her first book from start to finish, and suddenly it’s one of the ten books that changed her life.
The other day, I was watching an interview the other day, and before the person could even finish answering the question, people were already reacting to it. By the next morning, there were clips, reactions to the clips, reactions to the reactions, and somehow, people were already discussing what everybody should learn from the situation.
By the time most people are still trying to figure out what happened, somebody else is already selling the workbook.
Why Does Every App Feel Like a Casino?
The other day, I picked up my phone to check the weather. Somehow, I ended up watching a guy argue with a stranger, and ended up looking at houses I have absolutely no intention of buying.
I still don’t know if it was supposed to rain.
I recently got back into real estate and started looking at Zillow and Realtor.com. I wasn’t trying to buy anything. I wasn’t trying to schedule a call. I just wanted pricing, which should take about thirty seconds.
Instead, I felt like I was navigating an escape room.
Every click led to another click. Every answer led to another form. Every form led to another conversation. At some point, I forgot what I was looking for and started looking at waterfront homes I’ll never buy.
That’s the part that feels strange.
Nothing ever feels finished anymore.
You start with a question and somehow end up seventeen tabs away from the answer. You check a score and find yourself reading trade rumors. You look up one house and suddenly you’re mentally rearranging furniture in a property you can’t afford.
At some point, I forgot whether I was checking the weather, researching leads, or planning a life I don’t actually want.
Remember When Being Good Was Enough?
I don’t know exactly when this happened, but somewhere along the way being good at something stopped being enough.
You think the hard part is writing the book. Then you finish the book and realize the hard part is getting people to know the book exists.
You think the hard part is starting the business. Then you start the business and realize half the job is reminding people you’re still in business.
I’ve spent years around entrepreneurs, real estate agents, business owners, creators, and people trying to build something from scratch. One thing I’ve noticed is the person doing the best work isn’t always the person getting the most attention.
Sometimes the loudest person wins. Sometimes the person explaining the thing gets more attention than the person actually doing the thing. Sometimes, the person talking about real estate gets more business than the person selling real estate.
I remember when restaurants became popular because the food was good. Now half the battle is making sure the lighting is right before anybody takes the first bite.
The crazy part is I’m not even complaining because I’m participating. I wrote books and had to learn content. I launched businesses and had to learn branding. I started a podcast and ended up learning clips, thumbnails, titles, hooks, and algorithms.
Nobody told me that building something and talking about something were eventually going to become two different jobs.
But here we are.
Somewhere along the line, “How good are you?” got replaced by “How often do I see you?”
And everybody acts like that’s normal.
