How to win friends and influence people......

If Norman Vincent Peale is the godfather of positive thinking then Dale Carnegie was the 20^th century father of motivation. When Mr Carnegie wrote his ground breaking book in 1937 some of his gems no doubt fell on stony ground but a few seedlings managed to take root. The masses quietly succumbed to the persuasive and uplifting language eschewed in his books that aimed to help people  develop confidence and build a stoic character. Mr Carnegie believed that financial success is due 15% to professional knowledge and 85% to “the ability to express ideas, assume leadership and to arouse enthusiasm among people”………and how right he was.

The rise of the celebrity culture and a new breed of air heads in the 21^st century has sadly produced several pea brained motivators known as vloggers. Not all vloggers are bad and not all equal and  some even stimulate the old grey matter (I'll leave that discussion for another post). The dubious ones, however, invest in a  business model that consists of  85% self-aggrandisement activities and 15% of intellectual power. Forget integrity, we want followers!


 These are young people who are given a platform thanks to You Tube/Twitter/Instagram/Snapchat to while away the hours telling us what they had for breakfast/lunch/dinner, how they clean their teeth, wash behind their ears, the latest nail varnish trends, their trans-atlantic trips to buy even more cosmetics to clog up their fresh faces, fashion that you might not want to be seen dead in and other fripperies that will end up in charity shops or landfills.


We are treated to virtual tours of their mansion/penthouse, Halloween/Christmas/Easter décor and even their charming pets get a look-in..... puppies, guinea pigs and goldfish……and all paid for by their sheep (and cheap) followers from the “ hits” (think  cash registers!) they receive on their YT channel.

I won’t name  names but it all seems a bit mindless, senseless and even worthless. It appears that the more cerebrally challenged you are, the sooner you’ll stumble across a get –rich-quick scheme that can hijack the brain cells of the masses (aided by ruthless advertising companies).


It’s a shame that most of these brain cells belong to teenagers whose mushy cerebral cortex is ravenous for  meagre intellectual morsels.   The daily (You Tube) diatribe also showcases the fanciful idea of presenting vloggers as regular people  when in fact they are on the sharp side of business savvy. Wannabe business men and women who'll one day be paraded on global rich lists!

A certain well-known vlogger recently published a book about their online world and made a ton of readies from that little deal. Later it was revealed that the “author”(in cahoots with a publishing company) had hired a ghost writer to birth this “book” into life. On can only presume that the vlogger’s mental capacity was limited and the thought of sitting down to write for long periods would have proved a pain in the proverbial a*** (and no self-respecting vlogger would want to reveal that they had made a dent on their perfect, little tush from engaging in anything like “meaningful work”)!

The other malady on display on their channel is their health issues. Hypochondria has now been elevated to new level whereby it is acceptable to vlog about your ill health and turn your angst into a money spinner. There’d be many more of us who could afford private health care if we shared (and vlogged) about our unique inabilities and hang-ups! The truth is that some vloggers are suffering from the lingering symptoms of affluenza. In a nutshell, they’ve had too much too soon – fame, money and time to kill and....... people to kill it with!!!

Affluenza is a hedonistic affliction. The affluent are anxious. The affluent are weak minded. The affluent are (sometimes) ungrateful. The affluent are influential vloggers.   They may even raise  anxiety levels by creating bling-envy for the trinkets they pick up in designer stores. How healthy is coveting that Tiffany diamond bracelet dangling on a vlogger's wrist?
Its internet highway robbery with a Midas touch; spinning straw into gold and turning your “views” into ready cash.

Vloggers don’t so much care for their following as much as they care about themselves (and their bank accounts). They’ve found a nice little earner funded by yours truly – the fans. Yes, talking about themselves is their number one preoccupation and I’m quite sure Mr Carnegie (or anyone worth their salt) would not approve. To the sane minority, watching vlog updates is about as interesting as watching paint dry (they vlog about that too!).

Vloggers are the winners and you, if you spend precious hours on their channels, are the losers. Vlogging time is money but yours is wasted. So get a life, don’t subscribe, keep your brain cells intact and find a fruitful past time that’s not like like v(f)loggng a dead horse!

If your role model is a thief of your mind and time then you need to re-evaluate life. Take some time out to read/watch/experience someone/something inspirational. There's a new role model for teens; a young owman who raises self worth and actually uses her brain to further humanity though she faced a bullet for her trouble. I won’t name her but she’s worth looking up on a search engine.

Fill your mind with good stuff and a return to humble values (not blowing your own trumpet!) is still the way to win friends and influence people….....positively.