 Welcome back to another beautiful day during mental health awareness month and this is nuts because I had a whole angle for a video planned out, but I just scrapped the entire script. Get rid of it because I'm Aber and I'm Alex completely open by eyes. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, I try to take different topics from the YouTube community and try to see what valuable lessons we can learn from them because what is the point of watching all of these YouTube videos if we're not acquiring some of that knowledge and applying it to our own lives, but we need to know what to look for. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So something I'm very, very passionate about is mental health. And in case you didn't get the memo, my books I wrote three of them are now bundled right now for mental health awareness month. That link is down in the description below if you want to check it out. One of them is about overcoming anxiety, depression and addiction. One of them is about anger management. One of them is about helping a loved one who is struggling with addiction. So yeah, this is a video about how Jojo Siwa and her whole dream tour, it kind of was the victim of cancel culture. And before I dive into that, trust me, Jojo Siwa or her management team or Nickelodeon or whoever is the puppet masters in this situation, they are not totally in the clear. Right. Like the clip floating around of Jojo Siwa like, Hey kids, get your parents American Express card. Like that is a little concerning. All right. But anyways, one of the biggest fears I have just for our society is just like groupthink, right. And this can become a very, very big problem, especially on YouTube, because a lot of you watch commentary channels like mine, like I never like I'm Alex, like a toesy, or you watch like more of like the drama channels and things like that. And like, it's something that I think about a lot, right, because groupthink can be a very, very big problem because of crowd psychology. What is crowd psychology. So this is something that was first introduced by a dude by the name of Gustav Le Bon. All right. And it was in a book called the crowd. And basically basically just to summarize it I've done a more in depth video on this in the past. But basically what this is is how an idea spreads right how an idea spreads. And basically the more people are talking about it, the more people are saying and parroting the same thing right just over and over and over and over and over again. It turns into this kind of groupthink. And everybody in the crowd they turn into this mob, and they lose their ability to be an independent thinker. And it is very, very dangerous, especially right now in the internet age. So to rewind a little bit, this story about Jojo Siwa and her dream tour actually kind of starts with James Charles. Right. Because Jojo Siwa's tour became an issue after the James Charles backlash. Those of you who don't know James Charles, he announced a tour. His VIP tickets are like 500 bucks and you get a meet and greet and some other things like that. But because of this, some people did some more research on these like YouTuber tours. And Jojo Siwa was apparently selling tickets for like $5,000, which is absolutely insane, right. Now, whatever story like this breaks myself and many other commentary channels, we make videos on it, right. The reason why commentary channels are so popular on YouTube is because it is probably the easiest way to game the algorithm and get exposure. Because basically, like I kind of call it like when I'm talking with other YouTubers and kind of explaining like, you know, the way I run my channel and the way some other successful channels work. Like with the way the YouTube algorithm works, like I kind of call it like catching the tailwind of a trending topic. All right. So when something is, you know, notable or it's attached to like a YouTuber's name or celebrity or movie or TV show or whatever, when you make a video on it, YouTube is more likely to recommend that to other people. I talked about this in another video about how YouTube affects your mental health, because with the way the algorithm works, it is trying to keep you in a bubble. It's trying to keep you in a loop. So if you watch one video about Jojo Siwa and her tour, you're going to get recommended other videos about Jojo Siwa and her tour, right. So the first video I saw on this topic was from Atozi. All right. So while everybody was talking about James Charles, Atozi was the first video I personally saw about Jojo Siwa's tour and charging like $5,000. So I watched his video on it. He's a great dude. Love his videos. Funny awesome dude. Hopefully he hits his million very soon. So I watched it. And then next thing you know, I never made a video on it. The next thing you know, I'm Alex made a video on it. So whenever I see this happen, I get concerned. I get worried because I'm like, okay, all right, do I want to watch these other videos? I love I'm Aber who's one of the best dudes. I love that dude. And I'm Alex is great too. But I'm like, do I want to watch this because I try to check in with myself and, you know, is my opinion going to be affected by watching more videos on this. And so I do watch them, right? I go into them, but I go into them knowing that my opinion might somewhat be, you know, not even my own if I just keep listening to people saying the same things. So when I see I never and I'm Alex make these videos, I'm like, are they providing any new information? Are they going to provide any new information? And this is something as a commentary creator. This is something that I check in with when I make a video because I asked myself two questions, right? One of them is, are there too many videos on this topic already? Okay. And the other question is, is, can I provide a different angle, a different outlook, right? A lot of you who have been following me for a while, you know, I try to look at these situations, see what we can use from them to apply them to our own lives and try to use that little spin on them. But there's some topics that I stay away from because I'm like, that topic might get me some views, but I don't think I can add any value to it. So when I saw I nabbers video pop up, I was like, okay, maybe this is an opportunity to provide some more context to the idea of group think crowd psychology and things like that. So my original video idea was going to be to watch a toesies video, I nabbers video and I'm Alex's video and do a compare and contrast. And I completely scrap that video. All right. Like, I even have my notebook right here with my notes. But when I watched I nabbers video and then I'm Alex's video, I'm like, oh my God, we need to talk about something completely different. So in I nabbers video, when he made it, he talked about through his own research on this topic was that Jojo Siwa actually wasn't charging $5,000 for tickets. What he found and he does a really good job going in depth on this was that this was, you know, it's not exactly the wrong information, but it's not the correct information either. Because the Jojo Siwa website is linking to reseller websites and people have been doing this for ages, right? The most common time is like around Christmas time when there's like a hot toy, and everybody buys it up and then resells it for a ton of money. There's a great episode of the office on that where Dwight Shrewt does that. So the original video I watched from Atozi, it didn't have that information. Now, no fault against Atozi. Like, you know, there is some accountability that comes into play. That's cool. But hey, man, all of us have a point in our time where we get stuff like that wrong, right? So then I went on to watch Alex's video and he touched on another great point. He touched on the point that some of these pictures were actually photoshopped and people were just retweeting them and Twitter was blowing up and they were doing this all willy nilly without doing their own independent research or questioning it. And this is why confirmation bias is such a problem. Well, two things. Confirmation bias and our short attention spans. So what is confirmation bias? Okay, this is something all of us have. Me, you, scientists have it even when they're doing research. This is one of the reasons that peer review studies are so damn important is because we have our own confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when we, we look, we look for things that will confirm the beliefs that we already have. Let's give the example of like the superstition that black cats are bad luck. Okay, so let's say you have that superstition, you think black cats are unlucky. So a black cat crosses your path and now you notice all of the bad things that happen to you that day. But if you were to do, you know, the scientific method and just really analyze this thing, compared to other days, did anything really change? Did more bad things happen to you that day than they would any other day by mere coincidence? Or did you have just happened to focus on all of the negative because your brain is trying to confirm your own superstition that black cats are unlucky? Personally, I don't think any cats are unlucky. They are amazing, adorable creatures. Now let's think about it in the context of YouTubers and where confirmation comes in. So if you think that a certain YouTuber is a bad person, right? Or let's say you think a YouTuber is a scammer or YouTubers in general make too much money or whatever it is, your brain will try to find anything that confirms that. So you will hyper focus on those things. And because of our own confirmation bias, in the age of the internet, we retweet, we share, we post these things everywhere, all over the place to show people and say, haha, see, I was right. My suspicion was right about this YouTuber. So that is one of the reasons why this Jojo Siwa situation blew up on Twitter because a lot of people had that bias already in their brain that these YouTubers are these money grubbing people and not to say that no YouTuber isn't. Okay, some are doing it for the money. Some, you know, are making more money than, you know, I don't know was even needed in a lifetime. But we have to be careful about these things. The reason why this topic is so important and why I'm touching on it right now is because next year in 2020 is the elections and we do not want a repeat of 2016. So those of you who did not get the memo, Russia tampered with the United States election because they know how we operate. All right. So the Russian government made a bunch of fake Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts and everything like that. And they started posting these fake news stories. Okay, so they knew, they knew that because of our confirmation bias, because of our short attention spans, we would read headlines and share it all over Facebook, all over Twitter without doing the proper research. Okay, so this is a big deal, not just in the context of YouTubers. So what do we do about it? What do we do about this? What is the solution? The first one is be an independent thinker. Okay, think for yourself. Don't let anybody tell you how to think. Sit down, analyze the situation and ask yourself, what are your thoughts on the subject? Check your confirmation biases. I can't stress this enough. When you're going into any situation, check your confirmation bias. Like, if you are even going into a movie, do you think it's going to be bad? See if you can walk into a situation with a clean slate. See if you can walk into an article or a YouTube video with a clean slate, completely erase what just happened with the last video you watched or the news that you heard. Hell, this is one of the reasons why they select jurors who aren't too familiar with the case. Lastly, check multiple sources. All right. Because like I said, I had a completely different angle on this video. But until I checked multiple sources, I would have got the information wrong. And it's kind of got me rethinking this whole crowd psychology thing and why we need more people to cover the same story. The last thing, and this is just something that I personally do and it's a suggestion to all of you, follow people who don't agree with you. Okay. Whether it's YouTubers who have a different view on things than you do, whether it is news organizations who have a different view than you do, I lean more towards the liberal side of things. But I follow, I follow Republican news sources or conservative news sources just so I can check my own confirmation bias. Because it is a problem with mainstream media where they have their own biases and they will neglect to put in certain information on purpose to play into their own bias. All right. So I like to get information from multiple sources and then sit down and try my best to be an independent thinker. All right. But anyways, anyways, this was a great video to make. I'm glad we got to talk about it during mental health awareness month. Let me know down in the comments below what are your thoughts on this subject about cancel culture, things getting spread around that aren't true, people not being independent thinkers, all those things. Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below. All right. But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos and a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And don't forget all three of my books are bundled together for the low, low price of $12.99 for the rest of the month. The link is down in the description below. And if you're a patron at the certain tier, you get all my books for free anyways. So you good, baby. All right. Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.