The Digital Rennaissance

In Ancient Greece prominent philosophers were the figureheads of their own schools of thought. Thanks to the internet, influencers are becoming our modern philosophers, communicating around the clock with their audience. What that is causing is a massive societal shift in education, entertainment, and digital communities. Essentially, we are reverting to the Greek system of philosopher schools, and entering a new digital renaissance. 

Instead of the school of Aristotle or the school of Socrates we now have the school of Jordan Peterson or the school of Alex Hormozi. Figurehead philosophers are emerging and founding their own schools of thought on the internet. Just like in the Greek system, each of these new schools of thought are led by a figurehead, an influencer. You can probably think of 3 or 4 off the top of your head right now. How about the philosophical school of the Kardashians? Or the school of Swifties?

These figureheads wield enormous influence over their followers, just as Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates wielded enormous influence over their followers in Ancient Greece. The only difference is the speed of communication. The speed that a thought can be transferred from the leader to the followers. In the 21st century the dissemination of information is instant via the internet. 

In a recent study, nearly 30% of children ages 8 to 12 want to become YouTubers, and nearly half of teenagers aspire to become social media influencers. No one in any era of history has ever needed to explain to kids where the money and power is. They can sense it. They can feel it. They know. They couldn’t explain in detail how it works, but they recognize that the YouTube stars have the influence (and the money) in our society. You may dislike it, but becoming a media influencer is clearly the fastest track to money and power in our society. 

As a business teacher, many of my students want to be social media influencers, and it doesn’t bother me, because I recognize that being an “influencer” is not a new job. It’s at least as old as the philosophers of Athens. In fact, I want to help them succeed at this task, and I’ve been studying the digital renaissance to help them do so.

The first thing to understand about the digital renaissance is the repurposing of content. One idea can become 15 different pieces of content across different platforms. Either it starts short and gets stretched long or it starts long and gets chopped up into shorts. 

When it comes to written content, if I write a long blog post, the best 10 statements get used for Tweets. If I write a great Tweet, I may stretch it and expand on my statement, turning it into a long blog post. I also may take the blog post and use it as a script for a video. Or I may take a single tweet and use it as the script for a short. 

Once I have video content it gets repurposed across platforms. Instagram Reels are also Tik Toks, Tik Toks are also YouTube shorts, and YouTube shorts are also Facebook Stories. Any phone screen size video can be repurposed across all four of the major platforms. 

If I film a long video for YouTube, I can later cut out the best sections into shorts that get released across platforms. This is how podcasters manage to be everywhere all at once. The full interview is available on YouTube or Spotify, but snippets of the interview slide through your feed wherever you’re scrolling. 

If you want to be an influencer, your content has to be everywhere. Your short form content has to be sliding across people’s feed on every platform and your long form content has to be available on YouTube and Spotify. 

Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to manage all of that on your own. I know because I’ve tried. Here’s the Catch 22. You need a team. But you can’t afford a team until you’re making good money. But you can’t make good money until your content is everywhere all of the time. For that, you need a team. 

In my own content creation journey this is the brick wall I’ve come up against. I don’t have enough hours to create and repurpose content by myself. But I can’t afford to pay anyone to help me until my content is making money. 

All content creators realize this sooner or later. Many of them decide to go all in on one piece of content. This is the route I took when I was 25 with my first music video. Maybe you’re  going to rent a helicopter and sing your song while nearly falling out of it and that is going to break the internet. Unfortunately, the internet is crazy interesting, and your helicopter video is only going to get eighty thousand views. It’s interesting, but it’s not going to break anything. (People are doing crazy things to get attention these days) So now you’re broke and back to the drawing board. But you felt the rush of 80,000 views and you’re hooked. 

I have a few problems with “chasing the dragon” of attention. Firstly, none of us have any idea how the algorithm works or what it favors. You could spend five years waving your arms and trying to get its attention with absolutely no luck. 

Secondly, you could lose yourself in the process of trying to become what you think people want to see, and finally, you could become so hell bent on fame that you push your own limits to the point of bankruptcy or even risk your life. Every week I see a video of someone who could have died pulling the stunt that got them some views. It isn’t worth it. 

My advice: If you have a passion for creating content around writing or public speaking or fitness or makeup or whatever it is you’re passionate about, focus on doing it because you love it. The views may or may not materialize. Your follower count may or may not grow. But you will get to do the thing.

When you focus on money and attention you start to reek of desperation and make terrible decisions, like a gambling addict that just won’t leave the table. Don’t get addicted to attention. It isn’t a pretty place to be. It consumes the rest of your life and you forget about your other priorities. Your whole life starts to revolve around the next video. It’s unhealthy.

If you do it because you love it and because it’s a good creative outlet, then you can let the results of your effort go and accept the chips as they fall. You will also have time to manage your finances, health, and relationships so that you aren’t fully dependent on your videos for your self-esteem and survival. Keeping content creation as one of the 4 or 5 aspects of your life is a healthy place for it to be. Making anything the only thing in your life is not healthy. 

Now, that being said, if you’re going to do it, even on the side, you might as well do it well, and there are some metrics to know if what you’re doing is working or it isn't. The key metrics for YouTube are Click Through Rate and Retention.

Your video is going to get some “Impressions” (people seeing it on their feed). The number of people who see the video and click on it is the “Click Through Rate.” Meaning, if 10,000 people see it and only 100 people click, then your click through rate is 1/100 or 1% (which is terrible). 

The more people that click on it, the more impressions the algorithm will give it. This is how videos go viral. They start to accumulate an impressive click through rate, let’s say anything over 10-20%. That means 1 in 10 or even 1 in 5 people are clicking on the video. The algorithm picks up on this and starts showing it to more people. They click on it, and the cycle continues until suddenly you’re at school the next day and everyone’s talking about the video. 

The other important metric is “Retention.” How long did they watch the video? Does it get boring after 22 seconds? Does everyone leave right around there? In your YouTube Studio it will tell you where people are dropping off. Where you’re losing them. If you want to be good at what you do, try to keep things interesting for as long as possible. 

Mr. Beast is the master of this and if you want to hear great YouTube advice listen to Mr. Beast talk about retention and click through rate. For his videos, if his team can’t come up with an absolutely killer thumbnail, they don’t even shoot the video. Because if people don’t click, they don’t watch. If the title isn’t great, they don’t click. If the description is weak and doesn’t contain the right keywords and hashtags, it doesn’t go to the right places where people will see it.

The same thing goes for Tik Tok or Instagram. 

Great thumbnail + Great title + Great description + Great click through rate + Great retention = viral video. 

If you’re missing one of those key factors, it will not go as far. 

Of course the content matters. You need a good script, great lighting, top of the line video equipment, and great editing. All of that is important. But the final touches, the wrapping paper on the present, are equally important because if they don’t click, they don’t watch. 

There are of course other avenues to take advantage of the digital renaissance besides video content creation (that’s just the main one). You can be a writer and publish a blog or newsletter that is supported by your readers. In fact you can have a Patreon account that supports just about any art form. 

It’s interesting to note that while modern influencers trace their occupation back to the philosophers of Ancient Greece, the Patreon model traces its origins back to the Renaissance with prominent artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo being supported by wealthy patrons of the arts. 

Nothing has changed, it has only become more available to everyone and therefore more competitive. One of my favorite YouTube channels is a sailing channel called SV Delos. They have been sailing around the world for over a decade, filming their journey and sharing it with the world via YouTube. What supports their journey is their patrons. People that love their show support them financially via their Patreon account.

If there is something you create that people think is cool, whether it’s sailing videos or Viking shields, you can use the internet to find patrons that will support you so you can focus on creating. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to music, I have had to accept a sad reality. Music, as it was, is over. I toured up and down the West Coast for most of  2017 and 2018 with my first serious band and I realized one thing. People don’t leave their house anymore. They only go out if they already know the band from mainstream culture or from the band’s internet content. Most of our live shows had very few people at them. But my girlfriend (now my wife) would film it anyway, and I would put it on YouTube where people actually watched the show. More people saw our shows online than in person. 

Because of this, I was forced to accept that I was putting my energy into the wrong things. During the Pandemic I watched Post Malone’s live stream of his Nirvana set and I realized he was reaching millions more people than he would playing a live set at a venue.

I thought music videos were the way forward so I started traveling the world and filming music videos around the world. I never could have anticipated how fast our collective attention span shrunk. Music videos are dead, and short form content is king. 

Music as an art form, is now primarily soundbites for Tik Toks. Songwriters have lost. Content creators have won. The audience lives on Tik Tok and Instagram. So what works best is prioritizing short form content over the music. An influencer can grab a beat, rap 4 bars on it and turn it into a viral sensation in a day, while a dedicated musician can spend years honing their craft and compose a symphony to rival Bohemian Rhapsody only to watch it get 12 streams in its first month. 

Everything has become about content. Short form video content. It breaks my heart to say it, but the best way to be successful in music in 2024 is to prioritize short form content over the music. If you put most of your effort into the video content and less into the music you will gain a larger audience than if you focus on the music. 

Now I’m not going to do that, because I can’t. You should. But I won’t. Music is too sacred to me. I’ll never be able to treat it as anything other than pure cosmic magic that deserves unwavering dedication as a craft. As an artist, I will not compromise. But as my own business manager I know I need to find a way to get my music heard. 

You see, if you focus on the product, there’s no marketing. In the increasingly loud and distracting world inside our phones you’re going to have to have an amazing marketing campaign to get people to pause what they’re doing and check out your product. As an artist, I refuse to focus on anything besides the music. But once the album is finished, I can take off my artist hat and put on my business manager hat. Once I’m wearing my business manager hat, then I can start to plan a marketing campaign for the album release. 

I recognize that short form video content is the cheapest marketing campaign because you can make it yourself in your bedroom, but if that isn’t for you, there are other options. You can ignore social media altogether, get a second job, work really hard in the real world and pay for marketing. Research different campaigns, look at case studies, spend a few bucks here and there to see what actually works, and then put your extra money into marketing your product. 

Every artist wants their art to be seen or heard or experienced. If you think you’ve created something truly new and unique it could be worth it to give it a big financial push. The reality is that you’re competing against influencers that already have an enormous fan base. If you don’t find some way to make your creation visible it will get buried beneath theirs.

The average individuals that have garnered the most success in the Digital Renaissance have focused exclusively on one form of content across platforms. They are a fitness influencer, or a self improvement podcaster, or a makeup expert, or a history buff. They provide one specific service to the digital community. 

I remember when I owned Noodle Heaven, people in my town called me the Noodle Guy. I would walk into the bar and people I didn’t even know would say, “Hey, it’s the Noodle Guy.” Or someone would start a conversation with me and they’d say, “You’re the Noodle Guy, right?”

People like to simplify things, including other people, so that they’re easier to understand. They don’t want to deal with a complex character with a lot of different hobbies and interests and an entire backstory. They want a Noodle Guy. He’s a guy and he makes noodles. There is one single purpose for his existence and that is to make us noodles. 

Our online community functions in a similar way. It doesn’t want complex human beings. It wants characters, simple and easy to understand. She’s the Cupcake Girl. The Liver King. The Pull-up Guy. The Iceman. It rewards you for creating a one dimensional and easily digestible brand. 

Personally, I am no longer interested in creating a one dimensional and easily digestible brand. Over the years I’ve discovered too many contradictions in myself to stick with any one of them as the centerpiece of my identity. What I’d rather do is share my ideas and my songs as they come to me and slowly craft a complex tapestry that resonates with a patient and open minded audience.

Final Note: The phrase “Digital Renaissance” as far as I know, was coined by Dan Koe, a YouTuber and blogger who specializes in one-person businesses. I am a huge fan of everything he has written and I highly recommend checking out his thoughts. He understands the shifts occurring in our society better than anyone. As far as I know he was the first to explain the connection between modern influencers and Ancient Greek philosophers.