Background Character Energy BFG’s

As a 53-year old author of many blog posts, I’ve lived in many time periods. My kids recognize my life as the Pre-Influencer Era. In 2016, we decided to make a huge change in our family trajectory. My wife and I were tired of my job not paying, promoting, or insurancing me, so we nuked that job, and moved to Utah. I took a simple one semester course in Social Media Marketing, where I would learn the ways of advertising on Social Media. There I was, a 43 year old, married man with two kids, at a school that was inhabited by mostly 18-24 years, and many teachers that were younger than me. To say it was a little awkward (for them) was a bit of an understatement.

In one of those classes, content creation, my teacher talked about Kim Kardashian and called her an “influencer”, which was the first time I heard that. I was thourouly confused, because I just thought of her as the OJ lawyer’s daughter that “leaked” a sex tape and leveraged it to make a reality show. The teacher pointed out that she got paid between $660K and $2.2 million to make a single post on Instagram. I was stunned not only by the number, but the fact that she was being called an “influencer”. Who the heck was she influencing and how in the world was the worth $2.2 million?

It was then that I knew advertising had changed completely from when I studied it in college. Our big ambitions back then were to make a Super Bowl commercial on TV. The big news in advertising in those days was how much Super Bowl commercials cost, and who was going to do them. They were almost as important as the actual game back then.

Now the biggest advertising news is how much advertising is integrated with AI and which famous or internet famous are getting brand deals. It’s to the point where the GenZer’s are all about that brand deal. It’s all about getting attention, which leads to going virus, to then getting that Brand Deal.

Social Media leads to Guerrilla-style advertising tactics to gain attention. Guerilla style marketing has been around forever, but back in the 80’s and 90’s it was mostly harmless. Brands would pay graffiti artists to draw their logos on walls. Street performer would get a street full of people to grow a crowd around them, and later flash-mobs would appear out of nowhere to put on a performance, then fade back into the background. Red Bull would fill public trash bins full of empty cans outside of popular club, bars and college campuses, to make it appear like a lot of people were drinking their energy drinks.

Now, guerilla style tactics are being used by much more irresponsible people, because they are teenagers and young 20’er’s, whose brains haven’t fully formed. Therefore, they gain attention by being stupid and filming it, because Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and others taught them that the early stupid gets the worm. That has produced and era of dumbest guerilla tactics that have produced death, jail, and ostrasization from society.

Some of the stupidest guerilla tactics include the Tide Pod challenge, which had teens biting into or flat out eating Tide Pods, people licking toilet seats, and stepping outside of moving cars and attempting to do dances.

The worst thing about the whole social media attention economy is the creation of a Main Character Energy kids. People acting like they are the main character in a movie, not only by exuding a confidence that anything they do is important, but following it up by filming everything they do and posting it to a channel of people that care about how they get ready for work. Basically, kids that aren’t waiting for Netflix or Hulu to ask them to make a reality show about their lives.

It makes sense in a way. My era saw the Truman Show, and the new era watches reality shows and think their lives are just as interesting as the Secret Lives of Mormon wives (ironically named as they aren’t Mormons, and they aren’t a secret). Whenever my wife and I talk about our own families, we often joke that they should do a reality show about us. But then the joke ends a minute later and we rejoin reality. We know there is no way we could sustain any interest for even half an episode and just leave it to the professionals of the cast of “Secret Lives of Mormon Wives”.

Besides, the older I get, the less energy I have. I only have ever had background character energy. I’m Homer Simpson in the famous meme about him fading into hedge. I prefer the couch, TV, and fading off into a nighttime nap that leads to me going to bed. Main character energy is exactly that. You have to ‘main’tain energy in the spotlight. That is a never ending battle that has the because record of undefeated than humans have against death. No matter how dynamic, personable, or dangerous a person is they can never hold the spotlight forever. At most, someone can capture a really bright spotlight for a year. Some can maintain a consistently a slightly dim spotlight for a career. LeBron keeps trying to hold onto it, but those knees and consistent bricks have been kicking him out of the spotlight for quite a while now. He just hasn’t realized it.

Background character energy is much easier to maintain. We are the energy efficient lightbulbs that stay at 800 lumens that last 10,000 hours instead of burning out fast like the spotlight. Us background characters can go to work everyday (and occasionally nap), post a blog once a week, and blend into a family as an essential, but non-attention seeking part in the background. As we all know, not everyone can be the main character. Not every story is a Monodrama. Most movies have one or two main characters fighting for attention, while the background characters are happily walking the streets without a care or line to memorize.

Sadly, though Main Character don’t realize it, they are the background character way more and to way more people than they will ever realize. As a confident background character, I always know my place. The background.

Saving all my energy.

Before you fade into the background completely, take a peek at the Bitter Friday Giftures of the week…

I lived in the Pre-Influencer era…