Bridget hit a home run with this one.

I feel exactly the same way, and I'm in the same place.

My readership and regular viewers of the Brave New Normal podcast are mostly the Gen X/Millennial 40+ crowd—and I'm perfectly happy with that.

I've spoken to other writers and podcasters about this strange world we inhabit, and many have urged me to change my language, change the setting, change the subject matter. Make it younger, snappier, quicker. Make the thumbnails edgier, sensationalize the content, shorten the format, cut out the context, jump on the trends, create click bait titles (Trump Starts World War III and Then THIS HAPPENED).

CAPTURE GEN Z.

But I can't do that. I'm a 43 year old married man and father of two. I don't know the slang, I don't use TikTok—I barely even use the internet anymore other than buying cheap electronics on Amazon. I write what's in my heart. I host the conversations that interest me, and if nobody else is interested in what inspires me, that's fine.

If I were to adopt any of what makes the algorithms spin I'd be betraying myself and the people who have gravitated toward my writing over the years.

I don't want to be an influencer. I too drank out of the hose, rode BMX bikes and hung out at public pools on hot summer days. I don't even know what being an influencer means, and I think if I tried it I'd appear to my audience the same way influencers appear to me: cringey and transparent.

I didn't peak either. I was always the writer that had a fiercely loyal small readership and I wouldn't trade that for anything. The influencer-sphere is incredibly fickle. You have to stay on top of the trends or face instant irrelevance. I've been writing for 20+ years and never stopped because the world as I presented it through my lens spoke to like-minded individuals, and those people stayed with me even through periods where I didn't write anything at all or everything that I wrote was subpar.

I love those people and I would never betray them or their trust.

So yes, as Bridget said, leave me behind. I'm cool not maxxing anything or sitting across from one of these Gen Z influencer dweebs pretending to be on the level.