I'M THE VILLAIN

So TikTok is low-key the first big manifestation of AI taking over the world. Many of us (though now all, because Deondre' seems to have avoided the TikTok trap) have had those moments during the pandemic when we went down a TikTok wormhole and the next thing you know, it's 4 in the morning. 

We talk with our friend Andy Reinhold about why TikTok is so effective, and here is what he thinks: TikTok has nailed the discoverability problem that plagues a lot of new users on other types of platforms like Twitch or any platform where you need to actively seek out people to follow or subscribe to. As soon as you start creating, TikTok starts serving your content to other people automatically. This also also why it's so easy to be a consumer, as well as a creator: you don't have to spend time making decisions about what to watch and being paralyzed by the paradox of choice. 

TikTok has also been the proof of concept that people care about content more than quality. In fact, the shittier your TikTok greenscreen looks, the funnier it is, so people don't have to worry about their TikTok videos looking bad because that's kind of the point.

And then we also delve into the political elements of the fact that the company that owns TikTok, ByteDance, is a Chinese company, and how the threats to shut down TikTok in the US only bolstered TikTok's popularity. China has been pushing AI and machine learning by dumping loads of venture capital into it, and sees the role of government as a support system for their biggest companies, as opposed to the US where we look to the government to rein in big tech and big tech to rein in government. All these factors and more lead to a winning formula where TikTok has quickly grown to 690 million users, 90% of whom use the app every day, making it the fastest growing app in the world. 

Links:

TikTok stats: https://www.oberlo.com/blog/tiktok-statistics#:~:text=TikTok%20has%20689%20million%20monthly,App%20Store%20and%20Google%20Play.

BBC Article, "How TikTok Changed the World in 2020" https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20201216-how-tiktok-changed-the-world-in-2020

Why are relationships are a mid-level marketing scheme? Because the media only ever focuses on getting you into them (the will-she, won't-she flirtation period) and then conspicuously leaves out all mention of the WHOLE REST OF THE PACKAGE.

2 weeks ago, we got to talk to Sal, an apprentice training to be a plumber, and now we get to talk about what it's like being a woman in construction. We sit down with Taylor Mount, the co-host of the Honey and Heart podcast, who works in construction management and is one of only 4 women on her job site in Sacramento. Nationwide, only about 9% of construction workers are women, which also includes administrative roles and HR, so there's even fewer women actually working on the job sites.

Links:

Taylor's Podcast, Honey and Heart: https://www.honeyandheartpod.com/

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

In this episode, we sit down with Vanessa, a public school teacher who has been teaching 7th grade language arts throughout the pandemic in Jacksonville, Florida, and has been teaching in-person this whole school year.

She tells us about how the school is trying to shift its focus away from reading and writing towards STEM subjects, but talks about how you still need to be able to read to do those subjects. On the topic of reading levels, she says 'My grade should be at about 975, and most kids are between 500-700. That's a 4th grade reading level.' And then you have the ethical question of whether you should pass the students even if they're not doing well because when they fail, they have to repeat the grade. Then you have kids as old as 15 or 16 in class with 12-year olds and their chances of actually passing eventually diminish to almost nothing. So do you choose to pass them anyway so they can eventually get their diploma and have a chance of being employable? Or do you keep failing them?

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

Apprenticeships and trade schools have a marketing problem. Sal, the host of the Fresh Apprentice podcast and a plumbing apprentice, told us that when he was first starting his apprenticeship, he got some flak from his family: "You're going to school to plunge toilets and everything? That's so sad." But it turns out that apprenticeships and trade school are actually a pretty sweet gig! He's getting an almost free education: He only has to pay $300 for textbooks, and even those are pretty heavily subsidized. At some trade schools, such as the one close by Isabel's college, Williamson, are fully financed by the alumni of the school, so students get to go there for free. And 100% of the students who graduate from that school get jobs.

Sal works for the United Association, a union of plumbers, fitters, welders, and service techs that negotiates contracts with construction contracting companies that mainly work on big sky-rises. We asked him why the workers the apprentices shadow are willing to train mentees, because apparently they don't actually get paid any extra for it: the answer is two-fold. On the one hand, there is a strong sense of brotherhood in the trades and a belief that you have to pay it forward because that's what somebody did for you. On the other, the union pays out a pension and so the more young people you can recruit into the union, the stronger chance your pension will actually pay out because you need to keep a flow of people paying into it. 

At the end of the day, we need to promote more people (especially women!) going to trade schools because they are high-demand, well-paying jobs (according to ZipRecruiter, a master plumber in the Washington DC area can make between $40K-$100K a year, with a median salary of $62K, which is almost twice the median income of the average US citizen), and it's a great alternative for people who don't think they are a good fit for college.

ZipRecruiter profile on Master Plumber Salary: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Master-Plumber-Salary-in-Washington,DC

Median income of the average US citizen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#:~:text=The%20Bureau%20of%20Labor%20Statistics,a%20base%20year%20of%202019.

In this episode we talk about the process of becoming a father, and we do it with Richard Dedor, who is a gay dad from Iowa who adopted his daughter through a private adoption agency. He talks with us about what the adoption process was like, the pros and cons of public vs. private adoption, and the effects parenthood has had on his relationship with his husband. When adopting through the private route, you have to be interviewed by the agency about tough topics, like the ways you were parented, your conflict management style, your philosophy around discipline, and a lot more, topics a lot of hetero parents might not be prompted to think about when they are transitioning into parenthood. In other words, it gives a whole new meaning to "planned parenthood" when you have to be as intentional about it as adoptive parents do. 

Links: 

Richard's website: https://www.richarddedor.com/

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

This episode is more of a story than a conversation around a particular topic. But the main theme of the conversation we had with Susan Barnes, a healer, and personal growth facilitator, is how she dealt with the fear of going off the typical "success" track: She was an accountant in New York, making a lot of money, and then one day she quit and flew to Bali.

Links:

Susan's website, Like Water She Flows: https://www.likewatersheflows.com/

Susan's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/likewatersheflows/

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

The Texas blackouts last month were the perfect example of why the go-it-alone mentality can only be viable when things don't go wrong...like when a huge winter storm hits. Then you need help.

We have been talking to a number of people who have been diagnosed with various mental health issues in their adulthood. All of them have felt that their diagnosis changed their lives for the better, but this is the first time we have talked with a woman about how her diagnosis affects her life differently from men. We talk with Kriselle, who is the host of the Empowered in Color podcast, about why women tend to be underdiagnosed with disorders like ADHD (much like with physical diseases, mental disorders manifest themselves differently in men and women, which is why heart attacks, for example, are less commonly identified in women because the symptoms are different), what her experience going on medication has been like and the stigma associated with it, and the overall changes she has seen in her life since being diagnosed about a year ago.

Links: 

Empowered in Color, Kriselle's organization: https://www.empoweredincolor.co/

Empowered in Color podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empowered-in-color-podcast-helping-people-color-thrive/id1368846486

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.