Three days ago, the Hubble Space Telescope took this nifty pic of some galaxy. NASA said it’s UGC 12295. But, I prefer, Ugh. It has a cave person sound to it which suits my purpose just fine. Literally, Ugh is a galaxy spinning far, far away. Probably a long time ago.
The galaxy of media commentary is a lot like this picture. At the center of the, a few folks who know everyone report on everything. Everyone follows them. You know the names.
Pretty much all of the next-tier commentary derives from the core. So, pretty much everyone you follow on X, LinkedIn, and Substack says pretty much the same things.
And it all gets stale.
With all the social media, you’d think I’d have more luck uncovering fresh voices. Nope. The leaders on Twitter went to LinkedIn. They had the biggest audiences so they drove big followings. So, they started Substacks.
Their largess makes its damn near impossible for new folks to win a following. Newbs have to comment on the mainstream ideas to be seen. Which means they following the core and saying mostly the same things to be followed. Or, they post for a while and give up.
I’ve spent the last few days trying to find unhinged ideas. Ideas from people close enough to news to hear it, smart enough to interpret it, and sufficiently disconnected from the core to write something radical.
GFL.
I poured over people on the periphery only to find that they’re connected to the core. And, they report the core stories a little later and with few new details and even fewer new thoughts.
That’s not a knock. These are hard working folks. On deadlines. To put out, “content.”
If only they could find credible, quotable people. 😊
Nearly two years ago, I found one of these people: Dmitri Brereton. He’s smart and independent. On Twitter, he goes by @dkbrereton.
Nearly 18 months ago, he wrote this super interesting piece that Google was dying. Because the Internet is filled with junk. The solution was +Reddit.
18 months ago.
Six months later Google launched their own +Reddit service. The Verge reported on it.
Fifteen months after Dmitri’s post, Google launched “Perspectives” which added (without telling you) +Reddit. By now, of course, it was big news and TechCrunch covered that big, newsy Google story.
You know who didn’t have this idea or write about it 18 months ago? The galaxy of media people.
There are a galaxy of stories and we get multiple versions of the same ones on repeat. In every news cycle.
All of which makes it hard for us to find new ideas.
This is not just a story about a lack of media stories. It’s a story about a lack of story variety in every market.
Group think in media. Group think in stock picking. Group think in your industry.
Oh, funny story about Ugh.
In 2015, there was a catastrophically violent supernova in Ugh. NASA is exploring the detritus to figure out the evolution of what doesn’t matter.
