6/5/23 - I Apologize (Patreon)

Dearest friends,

First and foremost, I want to apologize for being an asshole.

I haven't been posting this week because I'm visiting family in my homestead of Maryland. I didn't warn you about the impending silence, and for that I am an inconsiderate moron.

Tuesday I will be returning to Los Angeles and continuing my rapid ascension to fame and fortune, bringing all of you with me.

In addition, yesterday was my birthday. I want to thank all of you for your well wishes. Some people made less fanfare than I would have appreciated, but certainly no one in this group disappointed me.

I posted three separate story reposts from "friends" wishing me a happy birthday.

These "friends" did not exist.

Randall, Becca, and Robert are all fake Instagram accounts *I* created. Sleeper agents of sorts ready for me to repurpose and deploy at a moment's notice. 

Because I created these fake posts, people assumed I was popular. Not only that, but they also created their OWN posts about me in the hopes of grabbing my attention in the same way my other "friends" did, craving the same validation I gave them.

I'm thinking of covering this topic in a video upon my return to LA due to its overwhelming success. 

"Randall Cracker," in particular, is an alias I have used many times online. 

TikTok's algorithm has been deprioritizing me and my content has been falling far short of my usual numbers. Perhaps after my car breakdown saga they declared me "too good" and wanted to give some other content creators a chance. I will mercifully accept this trade, for the time being. When I begin posting again, however, I expect to see my numbers return to their former glory.

Instagram has never let me down but functions far differently from TikTok. One of my biggest curiosities is always: is algorithm performance proportional to the objective quality of the video itself. I.e, if one video gets 5 million views and another bombs at 300k, is that because the former video is truly 5x better quality wise?

My hypothesis is that the true answer is somewhere in the middle. I wouldn't go as far as to say algorithm performance is completely random, but it's not always a measure of objective quality. I tend to believe it is usually a measure of the video's accessibility, first and foremost, and that the perfect storm is a video that is high quality AND accessible to many different audiences. 

Every once and a while, though, a video will throw a wrench in this hypothesis. For instance, I recently made a video about my process for evicting people out of the property I rent, should that be necessary. I gave this particular tenant a sympathy card, as well as a gift card to Starbucks for $25. 

On TikTok, this video currently sits at 517.8K. It's not nothing, but compared to my track record, it is technically a "flop." Its Instagram doppleganger, however, has 3.3 million views. A wild success, especially for a video on Instagram. 

How do I reconcile the disparity? As I've mentioned before, TikTok tends to like you more when you do the exact same thing over and over again. As of late, I've been trying to show more sides of my life and personality online, so TikTok has likely deprioritized me in its algorithm because they no longer know what to expect and thus who to serve the videos to.

It could also be that I suddenly and rapidly became worse at creating content. Preposterous, I know, but a valid theory. 

Normally I wouldn't even entertain this as a possibility, but my birthday yesterday has caused me to become more reflective. 

How did I get here? Where are we headed? 

The answers will soon be revealed. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for joining me on the ride. 

-Dan

PS, for inner circle members, be on the look out for a message from me in the coming days to begin text counseling.