 Alright, this is a review of Instagod's How to Decode the Secret Psychology of Social Media by Sunny Arvato. This is Sunny's second book. You can check out the other book review I did of his, Tyrants and Tellers, which will feature other links and more info about Sunny. Just check out all the links in the description. What is an Instagod? Someone who has successfully achieved fame through the use of social media? An influencer is just like an Instagod. In this current technology era, we are seeing the real world collide with the virtual world. I like the word Instagod that Sunny created. It's a better word to describe these technological influencers because there's a prideful element it poses, pride cometh before the fall. And Instagod can somewhat mean lack of faith where humans pursue the God status, the worshipping element, celebrities, fame and fortune, severe entitlement and ego, whether it be admiration, their seeking attention, validation, and with the positive and negatives that come with this, the insecurity and the narcissism are rampant. And entertainment is influence. And with the youth, you see a mania of social media stardom. Fame might just be around the corner. There are no gatekeepers. You just turn on the camera, click, record, post, and it can keep people hooked on this easy life. Even if they get a taste of that fame, that taste of that sweet strawberry, there's delusion, escapism, addictive elements, and they are obsessively monitoring their status on social media. Where these worlds collide, everyone's seeking that connection. If they have a lack of it in the real world, they'll go digital. A quick observation is there's heavy duty thirst. Thirsty needs need to be quenched. There's propaganda, mind control, new words like selfies, unregulated narcissism, all seeking beauty and happiness. What is that exactly? People are lonelier than ever. Females are addicted more to social media. And around 2005, the smartphone ruined everything. There's jealousy, have and have nots, illusions with filters, just illusions in general. Seeing that oasis that doesn't even exist, it's self-explanatory for real lifers. And for the uninitiated digital crowd, they're lost. They're not going out and experiencing the world. They're not cold approaching versus hiding behind tech. And just like influenced by C.L.D.N.I., social proof is powerful. Also on pickup bars, just in general, it's a shortcut. The social proof is very powerful, especially for females. There's clout, digital clout, digital money that's adding up. And this is an extreme gold rush right now. It's an insta boom. Heavy duty pride and that's why trolling works and it's so much fun to do it. Just don't go overboard. It's heavy duty on Twitch. There's fast trends just like fashion. There are no more aspiring actresses. They are social media influencers next up. Hypergomize quickly and for the shy and sensitive, they're walking on eggshells to prevent damage to their sense of ego. Sonny really improved his writing and it's about 700 pages. Well, I do think it is worth it to read. He does put himself out there to analyze social media. Here's the dictionary terms. Thirsty. It's really just guys seeing a very attractive female and being very sexually suggestive toward it. Too aggressive and wild. White Knights. The digital white knights are protecting females that they don't even know, sticking up for them like they are righteous goddess. Doing it for the gram. Just doing stuff for Instagram. The revered blue check mark. That is a status symbol and social proof on digital social media accounts. The shows are legit. Not just a fake impersonating account of the person. Bread crumbing. This is somewhat like dating where they keep hope alive. Give you little hints to keep you hooked. In which beta is waste time hoping versus actually taking action. Just giving enough. And we can give enough to a crowd. You're going to see little increments. FOMO. Fear of missing out. And as well as just doing it for the gram, there's a gram itself. To analyze that, I like it to compare to a gram of cocaine. Doing it for the gram or razor blade excitement. Instagrammability. This is how travelers take good pics, especially in the background. They will all flock to a certain destination such as Bali or Mykonos. The ghettosification of the West primarily has to do with rap music and the degenerate culture that some of the elements that it has. The Bilzerian effect, just like the Oprah effect or the Tim Ferriss effect. You can be viewed fast and popular instant. It's almost instant stardom to be associated with Dan Bilzerian. And this mimicry where it's just mimicking whatever you're seeing. It's a style of conformity. Cross promotion. This could be done by influencers talking to each other or sticking up for certain brands or hidden posts, hidden messages with the brands. And so what influencers or instagods are doing are using leverage to say, I will promote your brand or I will not promote your brand. Cryptic posts. A mystery or underlying meaning of hints. Digital clout. This is somewhat like popularity. Digital deception, digital reciprocation is tit for tat. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Someone likes sub for sub. A dummy account. These are accounts that are troll accounts. They can be a non passive accounts or spying accounts. Adobe games. These are Photoshop pictures. Follower following disparity. It is more important to be followed to maybe a follower or even a leader. Ghosting just disappearing. Sunny means by this is ghosting from the digital world where you can be considered weird if you don't have an Instagram or any social media accounts. We're actually out of you more a free person, a free man. Jealousy plotline. This is triggered jealousy. Or doing what you can to trigger jealousy in a dating prospect. There's knee shopping, trying to get more followers or just quitting and doing something else. Switch hitter. A plug is a self promotion when talking to someone. It can be awkward, but it's very natural to do. Snapchat dysmorphoria. That is image issues with all the filters going on. And some of these are my definitions, but as well as they are posted at the end of the book. Here are some of the pros and cons. I will start with the pros. There's nothing I read like it. This is a in-depth social media analyzation of the culture of these insid God influencers. It does expose much of social media secrets that many in the regular world or zombies or white knights they won't see. Some are in plain sight and common sense if they choose reality. The writing is much better in this book and it shows Sunny's progression and recognize social proof is power and how you can work around that where the social proof does not matter. Be an individual and go out. Not so much think, but go out for yourself. This book does cite Nicholas Carr, which I did do a review of and the book is called Shallows. Make sure you read that even before you read this book. It recognizes a young generation how they are screwed up with social media. There's manosphere tips and observations. It shows the younger generation how it's awkward for no social media accounts where it's fine to have none. It's not a real world. They have to be a big boy and not care. You can have experiences which are more important. Real relationships and not watching or letting life pass you by. He does somewhat avoid the dreadful influencer label, however they're being known as influencers now. There's a great ending to the book and Sunny does hem themself, especially in the meat head manosphere. Some of the comms are he repeats himself in the book. This is 700 pages. So he could have made this easily 600 pages to ease the pain. Maybe if he had a better editor or reorganized some of it. He does repeat himself with fake followers and images everything type of vibe. And Sunny had to do the work to do this. He had to go on all this social media research. So he's not really going out into the world, which will affect his reality. There's virtual and then there's reality. And I think he puts too much value on cryptic post or value or some of the darker elements of value where exclusivity is not necessarily valuable. The velvet ropes don't matter or even cryptic post. It is what it is. Dark is just as powerful and should be pursued. And the main con of this book is he did not mention the algorithm which will highly affect the tech companies, the media and how this world is perceived. And you can understand more about that in my capitalism surveillance review. And the virtual dating is interesting yet bland as well as lonely since more young people are lonely as ever. Likes and comments do take effort versus getting no response or sliding in someone's DMs and being ignored. There's even a blossom and golden age in the digital era. There's rough patch posts show me you care. There's younger guys do whatever they can to fear of losing the girl and seeing all these tactics. Sunny had to research all this almost pathetic attempts to keep it going on. Digital mate guarding, taking down pigs, deleting attractive people, even from posts to make your life more PC and presentable. Keeping distance and getting rid of the online persona, ghosting. There's digital flexing, flaunting sexual promiscuity. Follower count matters like you don't want to be a nobody in this digital era. No woman wants to trade down, especially when she's getting older and approaching the wall. There'd be cautious state of hypergamy. There's intel gathering, not wanting public knowledge with multiple girls. It's almost like having two phones. Their disengagement and response time. What is my response time supposed to be for a post? Or what am I supposed to like? My girlfriend's post she did. How long did it take for me to like it? That can affect the relationship. There's bigger choice as well as perceived dating choice in the world. Now I'm going to talk about psychology in the social media era. There's flirting, text back expectations and reciprocation. Some of us are pressing refresh button to get more to see what the next update is. We're feigning for that attempt at connection, even if it's just digital. There's anti-slut mechanisms by not posting pics of who you are sleeping with, which tend to leak out cryptically. There's monitoring of social media posts. What is the person thinking in subliminal hints? There's habits, playing mind games, social circle drama. And how this affects women and youth. The shelf life of females and their peak SMV. There's a wilting process. Why was I terminated fast? There's ghosting, dumped by messaging, not so much as like text messages. There's digital cheating. Everything is documented. It's documentable. The internet is forever. There's a security and celebrity dynamic. Why being too saved, you won't be a celebrity. So risk it all. There's plastic surgery and social image. There's breakup psychology. The mad at your dating post. As well as how people think, ethats never break news of a boyfriend because they will lose followers instantly. Lost hope and is a heartbreaker. And you'll see excuses such as, a family emergency is the biggest lie. And with this phenomenon, especially with teenage males, they're just going to move on to the next ethot, puff puff give. There's a high school mentality and popularity with social media. They never grow up. It's very interesting to see and humorous how everybody wants to be on that popular club. There's a follow and follow tactic. There's cloak accounts, troll accounts, always a spy on a romantic interest or to troll. There's cross pollination with, hey, follow my friend or hosting on Twitch to give other people viewers. And a vibe of never let the bees get the queen's honey. So only value honey you can actually get. There's post for post. Instagotuses rapping to cool famous songs is just confirming their conformity. As I explained before, their Snapchat dysmorphia and aspiring Instagotuses are showing pics of plastic surgery. They're telling the plastic, hey, make me look like this with the filter. There's a privacy shield to be free. Yet it makes a velvet rope to decrease the trolls. I'm private when I want to be private. Just give me money and attention. And here's some comments about culture. Think about how the tech is using the young where there's no supervision or there's bad parenting. Tech becomes apparent to the outside world. The nonstop virtue signaling is affecting people, the narcissism. Popularity becomes overvalued. There's cryptic posts, worshiping posts, instant gratification. People are skimming. They want to get to the point. They're too distracted and less conscious. There's a keeping up with the Jones or the Kardashians, herd mentality. And when this positive enforcement just feeds the ego, there's a celebrity versus a social media star influencer. It's a whole new dynamic where celebrities almost don't matter. These many celebrities are becoming the future. And it's great. It's long tail. It's too much watching reality TV people. And the friends may be more fake where you want that fame to rub off on others. So fame is rubbing off on fame. They're fake followers, fake it till you make it mentality. Haters are overblown. Validation all over the place and bragging posts. The Dan Bilzerian phenomenon or the effect. It's an attention economy, a microcelebrity culture and these wacky duck faces with the high angle selfies. It's hilarious. It's human nature. It's unnatural, facial expressions and fake ass filters. It is hilarious to see all the personalities develop. Some of them are fun. Some of them are very immature. Then there's narcissism versus real love. And recognize the makeup and cosmetic industry is going to be through the roof with really the Instagodists wanting to achieve that quick fame as well as stay young, butts, lips and curves. And I'm going to close this off with some of the reserving comments. For instance, travel, the Instagram ability. I went to travelcom in 2018. Bloggers get respect. However, Instagods and influencers, they don't. The pics and travel of these fast travel puneurs are more legit. They're helping people out. They don't have the it's about me element. There is nostalgia. And this industry is about almost male followers and how much money they have. And if they can't get that real connection in life, they're going to spend it somehow. They're going to white knight or express the thirst or in actuality, they should go out and do. And it's amazing to see how these ethos or trad thoughts are able to make money from insecure betas. It's insane. I do like how Sunny brought in the book contagious, which is a really good book. I've read it and it shows how the like functions and the gamification. Let's make it a game and how to connect everything. How it fuels a fire, a viral fire that could connect with anyone at any second. It's fast. It's a meme culture and brands are trying to move in into any type of market. Marketers ruin everything. It's funny seeing Instagram being bought out and there are more ads. When I was on Instagram earlier, there are a ton of ads now. I hardly ever use Instagram. I mostly just use books, YouTube and Twitch. There's shadow marketing, whatever's popular here. Look, it's all quick. There's nothing really genuine. And that's why YouTube and Twitch are mostly taken over. You'll see Instagram really be popular, but it's not going to take off as much. It's too fake. People want connection. Even when I comment on a female's posts, I hardly ever get a comment. Or maybe it's because I'm not popular. Or maybe it's because I don't have the social proof yet. Boohoo. You have to be the story. And the networking with influencers comical, where their time is worth more than my time. And that's not true. There's a driver seat who sets the tone and goes for the real. These likes, comments and follows create a dopamine burst in someone's head. And it's too bad many people won't read this book. And to go along with this book, I will be doing more about Twitch culture because I find that to be growing very fast. And it's what I'm into. However, it is very strict. I do like the culture they have with Amazon. I'm always on the lookout for the future. And it's become a phenomenon of the guy, the thirsty male ghost follower. And to close it off, this is a great second book for Sonny. There's great work. It's a good project and it shows growth within Sonny's style. There's a few mistakes I do look forward to his next book. Even if it's 700 pages or so, it's he's got a lot to say. Go check out Tyrants and Tellers review first and many other links that I didn't want to repeat in this video. I will have a tech playlist shortly since I live near Silicon Valley and grew up with tech. And remember, the long tail world is on the rise.