AME: If You Can't Quit, Curate

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_01]: This is a production of The Very Dental Podcast Network.

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Alan Mead is a dentist with too much time on his hands and too much recording equipment

[00:00:15] [SPEAKER_01]: in his basement. Armed with an obsession to bring entertaining and informative content

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_01]: to the dental world in a way that's never been done before, I give you the Alan Mead

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: experience. Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Alan Mead experience. I'm your

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_00]: host, Dr. Alan Mead. I'm a dentist, a podcaster, and officially the announcer for the Mid-Michigan

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Brass Band. I had a Mid-Michigan Brass Band concert today. Scratch that. I didn't. Sean did. My

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_00]: son, the tuba player, is a proud member of the Mid-Michigan Brass Band. They were terrific

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: today. And because I was, I'm announcing for the marching band, the high school marching

[00:00:58] [SPEAKER_00]: band, the Mid-Michigan Brass Band that he's already participating in, asked me if I would

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: be their announcer because they needed one. So I'm going to tell you that if you're looking

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_00]: for gigs, just volunteer to announce. They seem to come out of the woodwork because now

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I am the announcer for the Mid-Michigan Brass Band, which is actually quite fun. They played

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of being able to be part of what Sean is doing in the band. And the best part is

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't actually have to play an instrument. Like I don't play, I didn't play a brass instrument.

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I played a saxophone when I was in marching band. So I wouldn't even be welcome. I'd have

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_00]: to pick up a different instrument to be able to play with them. But anyhow, it's very, it

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: was fun to announce. Really fun to be able to see the show from backstage, take some kind

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_00]: of cool pictures and videos of Sean on the stage with the band. It was great fun.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_00]: So, uh, that was cool. And I, I didn't know I'd have the opportunities to, to like kind

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_00]: of live a little vicariously through Sean being in band. So I'm glad, I'm glad that

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm able to, he's a junior, you know, he's only got another year of this stuff. So I

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_00]: got to soak it in cause I'm not going to have any more after that. There's keeps making

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_00]: me feel like I've got to pick up a saxophone again. I feel like there's a bit of, you know,

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I was, I was in music stuff all through high school and college. And I'm going to tell you,

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I was never a very good musician. I was, but in a lot of cases, and I'm sure a lot of you

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_00]: that have, that were played instruments in high school or college or whatever, you didn't

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_00]: have to necessarily be a good musician. In a lot of cases, you just kind of had to show

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_00]: up cause they, you know, there were exquisite musicians around. And then there were people

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_00]: like me that liked to be part of it and would try, but didn't have a lot of natural talent

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_00]: would show up and do some of the work kind of thing. Marching band, especially when you're

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_00]: a saxophone player, doesn't take a very good musician. It's more important that you can

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: wear a uniform, be out on the field kind of thing. But anyhow, it's a, I keep thinking,

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been thinking for like a year or more that I need to pick up a saxophone again.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And I have lots of excuses why I have not, but I probably should do it. I'll keep you posted

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_00]: on that. So what I wanted to talk about today, kind of interesting. I, there's no shortage

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_00]: of me in this podcast talking about social media. I remember back in the dental hacks days when

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Jason and I would talk about it a lot, Jason and I would kind of talk about how it was such

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_00]: a great place to do marketing. You could, you know, really a dental office could really

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_00]: do amazing things with marketing back when Facebook ads were new and all this. We talked

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: about it a lot. Uh, and I gotta tell you that I, I have to, I mean, there's probably still

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00]: some of that. I think a lot of people, Facebook ads are sort of a fad that came and went.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: But I, I participate in social media. The other thing is back in the dental, dental hacks day,

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Jason and I started arguably one of the biggest Facebook groups at the time. It was kind of before

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_00]: people knew what, what kind of potential Facebook groups had. Again, we started the podcast

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: before podcasts were such a big thing. And we started the Facebook group before they became

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: what they are now. There's a lot of great big dental Facebook groups out there with lots of

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_00]: crazy rules and different people and all that stuff. Uh, when we started the dental hacks nation,

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_00]: it was literally my intention was, okay, so I was an old town dental dental town guy. Like I was,

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I was early on in dental town and it was dental town in the beginning was definitely wild, wild west.

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_00]: You could pretty much say and do anything. And a lot of feelings got hurt, but a lot of people

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_00]: learned a lot of stuff. And frankly, a lot of careers were made on dental town at that point.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And there was not a lot of, um, how can I say there was just wasn't a lot of moderation at the time.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Now it's, it's all these places are heavily moderated because this is why we can't have nice

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_00]: things. Basically we get, you know, no one, they can't, people can't seem to behave themselves.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, and people can't seem to not get their feelings hurt on social media and on the internet. So we need

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_00]: lots of moderation apparently. But I remember back in the days when dental hacks nation was new and

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_00]: probably some of you guys do too. It was a blast. It was fun. I spent way too much time on the dental

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: hacks nation and shoot. It was my group for crying out loud. I was, you know, I was in there

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_00]: moderating lightly and starting conversations and we had just ton. I mean, the engagement was insane.

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_00]: The very dental Facebook group, which you should go join right now, go to Facebook, look up very

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: dental and you can use one of the passwords, one of five passwords. And I'm not, I am absolutely not

[00:05:18] [SPEAKER_00]: letting anyone in without the password anymore. I just don't trust you. You don't have the password.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_00]: That means you don't, you haven't listened to the podcast, which means I'm not letting you in. Sorry.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_00]: If you want, uh, if you want special dispensation for not knowing the password, you have to message me,

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_00]: message me and say, I don't know what the password is, but I really want it. Cause I want to know it's

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00]: a human being who knows something about the podcast. Anyhow, passwords, Timmerman, McQuethy,

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Hornbrook, Lipscomb, or Papa Randy. Any of those five will get you in. And I love seeing people come in.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_00]: We get a couple, three people in a week, something like that. It's not growing hugely fast. It's not nearly as

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_00]: big and engaged as the Dental Hacks Nation was, but it's safe, very safe place. No one's going to

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: give you a hard time there. And if they do, I'll kick them out. There's one moderator in that group

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and it is me. And, uh, yeah, I am, I rule with an iron fist, except I don't have to do anything

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00]: because everyone's nice and no one, no one's controversial. Not like the Dental Hacks Nation,

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: the Dental Hacks Nation. We were proud of ourselves because we would start absolute, uh, dumpster fires

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_00]: on a regular basis. And I would, I was the one who got to certify, uh, when a thread became a dumpster fire.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so proud of that. What a good job to have. In any case, things are different now. There's a part of me

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: that kind of wants to be, wants to have a Facebook group like that because it had such reach and it had,

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_00]: there were a lot of good conversations happening and there were a lot of funny conversations happening,

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_00]: but I don't know. I'm not sure that I have the stomach lining for it anymore. But what my point being,

[00:06:37] [SPEAKER_00]: social media has sort of changed over the period of time that I've been making a podcast.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And for the most part, it's been bad. It's been, I think it's so funny because it's easy to focus

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_00]: on the bad stuff. The bad stuff being misinformation. I guess that's bad. I don't even know. I'm not sure.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It depends on what you'd think of that stuff. All the political stuff is a complete dumpster fire.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And I, I, I want nothing to do with anything political. I kind of used to do that when I was

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: younger and dumber. I don't, I don't really, I'm uninterested in talking about politics anywhere,

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: much less online. So I'm not particularly interested there either. And I think social media,

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_00]: the other thing is, is that the whole influencer culture, the influencer culture thing for someone

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_00]: who's not in a great place, it's easy to feel bad about yourself because you're not doing what,

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, whatever someone's putting up on Instagram. Classic example is, you know,

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_00]: amazing dentistry that people are doing and I'm not doing that kind of dentistry. So I should feel

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: bad about myself kind of thing. And I would, I would argue, or I would, I would suggest that you

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_00]: don't have to feel that way because you don't know anything that went into that. For all, you know,

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00]: that was the, this person's entire day or, or this person was, you know, or they photoshopped or

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_00]: whatever. I mean, I've had, we've had no shortage of talk about the stuff that can go on with

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: influencers. So I, I, but that said, I still, I still can feel bad about that stuff. I still can

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_00]: get taken in by that stuff. So the question is, why don't I quit social media? Why don't I get off

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00]: social media? Because frankly, there's enough good stuff on there. Not the least of which is a lot of my

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_00]: friends are not in real life friends. I've talked about the fact that I probably need to have more in

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_00]: real life friends, but a lot of my friends are online. A lot of my friends are social media friends.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's how I keep in contact with them. You know, and it's really funny because Instagram,

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_00]: for whatever reason, I have a lot of friends and relatives and family on Instagram. And I,

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_00]: for whatever reason, I like their messenger a lot more. I'm not sure why, but I mean,

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I message with people on Facebook a ton also. So it's interesting because me being on social media

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and consuming social media in the traditional way is almost a side effect of me using the messaging.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_00]: In Instagram, you can't use the messenger separate from Instagram. And so you kind of have to be on

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: the app or on a web browser window to be able to use the messenger. So I do think in some ways,

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_00]: that's the way they kind of get me a little bit. I can be on Facebook messenger without looking at

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Facebook at all. And that's, I think that's actually a good thing. But in any case, there's

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_00]: definitely an argument to be made to not have social media. The people, when you run into people

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_00]: that go, geez, I don't, I don't have social media, I don't do any of that stuff. I think to myself,

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_00]: okay, first off, don't ever start. Cause, cause it's, cause it's hard to quit. Um, I say this like

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: it's cigarettes or something and God only knows, I know how to quit things that are bad for me.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Clearly I haven't quit social media because it wasn't wrecking my life in the same way that drugs

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and alcohol were. So like if it ever gets to a point where it really is wrecking my life and I can see

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: that clearly, I suspect I'll have to do that, but it hasn't gotten that bad because I still get,

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I get a lot out of it still. I love, there's a, I love being in contact with people. I actually

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_00]: learn quite a bit about dentistry and about other stuff, but so it's not all bad, but it's not great

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_00]: either. So what do you do? So if you can't quit, if you're like, well, if you can quit, if you're like,

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_00]: it's not that important to me, I'm just going to stop doing it. I would totally do that. Cause you get,

[00:10:13] [SPEAKER_00]: the time you get back is shocking. Like just go a day or two without looking at, I, what I found

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_00]: is that social media is interesting. When I am in a position where I can't really look at social

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_00]: media, I can't do social media. Uh, you, first off, there's more to look at when you come back,

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_00]: which is kind of awesome, right? You've got, uh, versus, you know, just doom scrolling because you

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_00]: have three seconds or you're sitting, you're waiting in line at the grocery store and you whip out

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: your phone and doom scrolling. Yeah. It's a good way to burn time, but it's also a good way to burn

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_00]: time, you know, when you don't want to burn time. So it's sort of, there's, there's good and bad

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_00]: there. I, it hasn't gotten bad enough for me that I want to quit, but if you haven't, if you don't do

[00:10:52] [SPEAKER_00]: it, I wouldn't start. Like, so if you don't do it, you should turn it off right now. Turn,

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_00]: turn off the podcast, never start and live your life the way you're living it now, because I'm jealous

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_00]: of you and you are a better person than I am. I'm just going to put that right there. Now, if you can't

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_00]: quit, there are still ways to make social media better for yourself. So I, my, I, the title of this

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_00]: one, if you can't quit curate, and I got to tell you first, a couple of things. First off, um, I just

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_00]: recently, I don't, I don't like a lot of things. Like I don't hit the heart button on posts very often, or at

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: least I didn't until recently. Um, what's interesting is, is the algorithm seems to me.

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. So if you go to your search page on your, like Instagram, I don't even talk about Facebook

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_00]: because I just don't use Facebook that much. So this is mostly Al's Instagram doom scrolling tips.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, if you go to search, you can see the, uh, you can see it'll put like a, uh, basically tiles of,

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_00]: of images or photos of the kind of stuff that you, you are, that the algorithm is looking for,

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_00]: for you, if you know what I'm saying. So if you go, you're going to, you're going to see,

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_00]: okay, so I opened my search and I have, okay, there's, there's a bunch of dental stuff. There's

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_00]: root canals and then, and then there's, there's border collies, several border collies, ferrets,

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_00]: dogs, and then like some bike stuff, some mountain bike stuff. I, and the big thing at dentures too.

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_00]: So like my, the algorithm is pointing me at dog pictures, which I get it. I'm, I'm a huge sucker

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_00]: for, for dog pictures and, and ferrets. Okay. So we have a pet store in town. We'll go there to

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_00]: pick up. They have these great for, for my dog. We get like these, I don't know what they're like.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_00]: They're like horns antlers of some kind of, I don't know if they're, they're not regular deer.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00]: They're like elk or something like that. And they are the best there. So they last forever. I mean,

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Gracie could chew through our house if she wanted to, but these things last the longest. She's a

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_00]: chewer. And so I get these and they're stupid expensive. It's like a, you know, a nine inch

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_00]: long piece of this antler. It's like 30 bucks or something stupid like that, but they are, she

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_00]: loves them. She loves them. And, and they last forever. So I'll, and I know they have them at

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_00]: this pet store. So I go to this pet store, they got a ferret there or a couple of ferrets there. And,

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_00]: and ever since college, I've always thought ferrets are cool. And then I went to dental school

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and my friend, someone, you know, too, probably he's been on the show before Dr. Darren O'Brien

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_00]: in dental school had two ferrets and they were the coolest fricking things. Now I'll say this,

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_00]: they stunk. They, they, uh, they have their musky smelling, they stink, but they're awesome.

[00:13:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And ferrets are, they're so cute and they're so funny and they seem so smart. And so I don't need

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_00]: any more animals as you've heard, but we have tons of animals, dogs, cats, goats. Uh, we have

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_00]: horses, miniature donkey. Uh, we got everything. We got all kinds of animals and, and ducks. We

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_00]: got all ducks, chickens. We got, and all of, you know, as soon as you have like one animal,

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_00]: you already can't leave without having someone take care of them. But then when you have a whole

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_00]: bunch of animals, it's, it's that much more. We have a snake too, for crying out loud, we got

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_00]: everything. We don't need a ferret, except I want a ferret, except we don't need a ferret. So I get my

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_00]: fix by going into the pet store. Okay. Or I get my fix by, there are a ton of ferret

[00:14:09] [SPEAKER_00]: channels, people, you know, basically people who post their ferret stuff on Instagram. So

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I get my fix that way. So it's interesting. So what I found is that if you like posts that

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_00]: are, that are, that catch your eye and that you're interested in, that you like things of,

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_00]: well, the algorithm pays more attention to the likes than just what you scroll through

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and spend time. I always used to think that it was like, well, if I'm just looking at this

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: for a long time, the algorithm picks up on it. Well, yeah, it probably does. But I'll say

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_00]: this, if you like something, give it a heart. The algorithm's like, Hey, he likes

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_00]: this of course, which would make perfect sense. I just never really thought of that. And I always,

[00:14:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I never really gave the like, you know, I didn't think that much about it. And I actually, there

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_00]: was someone who I was commenting on, on one of their posts. His name's Dr. Alan Bacon. He's a

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_00]: fitness guy. He's a dentist. I met him actually when I, when I went to the Dominican Republic to

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_00]: learn how to place implants, he was there. He's not a dentist anymore. He's just a fitness

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_00]: influencer. Now he's great. He's got, I'll put his, I'll put his channel up. He told me

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_00]: it really helps a lot more if you hit the like on the post. I mean, it's great if you comment

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_00]: or you message me, but it's even better if you hit the like. So clearly the like is the

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_00]: key to the algorithm. If you want to manipulate your algorithm, you got to like stuff on Instagram,

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_00]: which sounds so dumb. I can't, I'm a, I'm a grown ass man and I'm saying go like stuff

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_00]: on Instagram, but it's true. If you, particularly if you want to curate your, your algorithm,

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_00]: if you want to make more good stuff come up. So I'm going to tell you that right now,

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_00]: you got to like stuff. So what is the kind of stuff on Instagram that catches my eye,

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_00]: makes me laugh and makes me happy? It changes, but I have, I have a bunch that I'm going to

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_00]: share with you. Uh, they kind of fall into, uh, funny things like comedians or, or funny

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_00]: stuff. I do, I do like a lot of animal stuff. I'm not going to, I'm not going to post my animal

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_00]: stuff cause then, yeah, whatever. I mean, everyone, you can pick your own animal stuff, but, um,

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_00]: there's animal stuff. And then there's, there's, uh, I'm going to just give you all the, I literally

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_00]: have a whole, I got a whole page full of them here. There's like, there's like some dental

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_00]: stuff, funny stuff, um, music stuff. And then, uh, well, okay. So you remember back in the day

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_00]: before I even started the podcast, I was really pretty serious about baking, like obsessively

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_00]: serious about baking bread. Well, Instagram has some amazing bakers and frankly pastry chefs.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Since that are, uh, food porn, it's so great. A lot of good stuff. So I'm just going to give

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_00]: you a list and I will put, this list is in the show notes. So don't feel like you have

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_00]: to go find it. But what I'm going to tell you is I have curated my Instagram feed. So

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I get a lot of this and content adjacent to this. And it's a great, it's a really good,

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_00]: it's a good way to live your life. If you can't quit social media, you got to trim it down

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_00]: and curate. So at least it feeds you stuff that you want to see. And of course there's tons

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_00]: of ads and the ads are garbage, of course, but actually they kind of feed you ads. A

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_00]: lot of times that are pretty useful to you. I get a lot of dental ads and a lot of bike

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_00]: ads. And I have to tell you, I get kind of sucked into them. So the algorithm is not all

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_00]: pure evil. There might be a little bit of good there. Anyhow, here's my list. Here's my

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_00]: list of, of, uh, doom scrolling curation that I've done. So the first thing I have to

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_00]: admit, this is so funny last week I saw, okay. I, I follow Kenny G that Kenny G the

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_00]: soprano saxophone player, Kenny G who was like super popular in the eighties. The

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Kenny G is a, is a great saxophone player, but other jazz people cannot stop

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_00]: harshing on Kenny G because he's like, as good of a musician as he is, he's not like

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_00]: the serious jazz people don't take him seriously. I think he's not a serious

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_00]: musician. I don't know if he's serious or not. I think he's pretty great saxophone

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_00]: player, but what's funny is his social media is pretty great. He's pretty, he's

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_00]: sort of shockingly good. He's funny is what it is. Like you wouldn't think, you

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: wouldn't think Kenny G is like particularly funny. He does a lot of music

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_00]: stuff. He promotes a lot of his albums and he's got a book out and he's got, but he

[00:18:08] [SPEAKER_00]: also is kind of, he doesn't take himself too seriously. And frankly, there's

[00:18:12] [SPEAKER_00]: nothing better in the world than someone who has a lot of talent who doesn't

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: take themselves seriously. So I love his channel. There's one particular video

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_00]: that was just, let's see, it was a, it's called Careless Whispers, Jason Chen times

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Kenny G. And it's basically a guy singing, uh, Careless Whispers from Wham

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: about never going to drink again. And he's got literally Kenny G playing the

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_00]: soprano saxophone in his ear, tempting him to try and drink again. It's hysterical.

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_00]: It's so dumb. It's funny. And I, it caught my eye and actually it's what inspired me

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_00]: to do this list altogether. I'm like, you know, it's stuff like that, that

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_00]: actually makes social media worth looking at a little bit. So go check

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_00]: that out. Kenny G next one. Really funny, really funny guy person. I don't know

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_00]: who it is. It's, it's there. They do. They put up a lot of stuff. I don't know

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_00]: if it's a male or female, it's a dentist evidence-based endo memes. They have

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_00]: really funny endo memes. And it's as simple as that. Like, I basically like every

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_00]: single one that comes up. They, they understand how to make memes and it's an

[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_00]: endodontist and it's hysterical. And one of my favorite things is they'll put,

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_00]: they put up in their stories, they'll put up basically, it's called

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_00]: WTF Referral Wednesdays. WTF RW. It's a whole, it's a whole thing that this,

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_00]: this endodontist does. And it's basically putting up, putting up x-rays of teeth

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_00]: that are wildly unrestorable that they get sent to try and do a root canal on. So

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_00]: it's, it's a WTF Referral Wednesdays. It's hysterical. And frankly, every meme

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_00]: there, super funny. He's an endodontist. He just, I say it's a he, I don't know.

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_00]: It could be a she. Funny stuff. And they, this person has a lot of 21.2

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_00]: thousand followers. So they have a lot of followers. They're very funny. I think

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_00]: they're, I'd love to get them on the show, on the podcast, but so far I haven't

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_00]: gotten anywhere with this. I'll keep working on it. Next person. This is like a comedian.

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_00]: His name is Dave Hill. Someone that probably a lot of people would not find

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_00]: funny. He's a comedian and a guitar player. And he does kind of, it's, it's,

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and I don't know what it is about him that makes me so makes me laugh so hard,

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_00]: but he has tons of videos where anytime where he's doing a show and he sees any

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_00]: kind of a traffic cone, he always gets video of himself kicking the traffic cone

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_00]: over. Like he's a huge rebel and flipping the camera off. He's, he, he has really

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_00]: funny. He's just, he's really goofy. He's a comedian. I like him. Dave Hill is his

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_00]: name. I don't even know. I've been following him for years. I don't even

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_00]: know. I don't even know where I found him. A lot of this stuff just sort of came

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_00]: up and I started following these people. And so it, so in a way, like I said, I

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_00]: sort of curate my own, my own feed by just liking or, or following these people.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Next one's another comedian, Tony Baker. You've probably heard of him. He's an actor,

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_00]: standup comedian. He, what, what I first found him, he's very funny. He's hysterical.

[00:21:06] [SPEAKER_00]: He puts a lot of his personal life and soul into his Instagram account. He's, he's pretty

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_00]: serious about it. But one of the things that you've probably seen him for is he, he'll,

[00:21:15] [SPEAKER_00]: he'll have videos of animals that he, he narrates the videos as the animals and they're

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_00]: hysterical. They're so funny. It's the first thing I ever saw him doing. And he might even

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_00]: be, he might've even got famous on Instagram because it's, cause he's so funny. Uh, again,

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_00]: really like sort of a random, random thing that I, and I, I kind of like everything that

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_00]: he does. So he's, he's a highlight in my, you know, when he comes up any given day on

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Instagram. Next one, this one is crazy. I don't, I started to follow him probably a

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_00]: couple of years ago. This is, it's a, uh, an English guy, Lee Chapman, Lee Lo Chip.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And he, he, uh, he's a comedian. He says a middle-aged man pretending to be an elderly man

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_00]: called Peter. Okay. So his Peter skits. So Peter is him, except he's got some kind of filter on

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_00]: some kind of Instagram filter on that makes him look like a 70 plus year old man. And Peter is a,

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_00]: is the epitome of a dirty old man. And trust me, it is not safe for work. It's not safe around kids.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_00]: He's, he's really, he's kind of awful, but he's really funny. And the thing that I think is,

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I've always thought he was funny. I mean, dirty old man jokes. Yes. That's kind of in my wheelhouse,

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_00]: but more than that in the last year or so, what he does is he, he does all the food challenge videos.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Like if something's really hot, I'm looking at one called the napalm bear challenge,

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_00]: the gummy fireworm challenge. First off, he'll try anything and he does it as this, this 70 plus

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_00]: year old man, which is actually not him. It's the, him in the filter. Uh, he's so funny. I mean,

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_00]: like it is literally probably the only thing that I will laugh out loud at the office. I mean, like,

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_00]: like they'll, my team will come find me and I'm just in a puddle. I'm just laughing so hard. It's

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_00]: so dumb and it's so funny. It gets me every time. So again, check this guy out. Another comic,

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_00]: another comic. This is a newer find. I love this guy so much. Okay. His name is Dan Lamorte. He's,

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_00]: uh, a comedian and he, he has autism. He talks about autism. He talks in his comedy. A lot of it

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_00]: has to do with autism. Of course, he's very funny. You don't have to, you know, be an autism

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_00]: enthusiast, uh, to like him, but because I know so much about autism with Sean, uh, it really,

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_00]: it really hits me. He is really good. And just the other thing that's interesting about him is he used

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_00]: to be really heavy and he's, he's, he's lost a lot of weight. He's now an obsessive runner. Um,

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_00]: gal, he was doing some kind of ultra marathon like last month and got real sick. He all got,

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_00]: got injured from it. It looks like he's back on the road again, but, um, you know, it's one of

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_00]: these things where this is a guy where I followed him on Instagram enough and I like, I kind of care

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_00]: for him. I feel, I felt awful when he was sick and, you know, I was kind of pulling for him,

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_00]: you know? So I, I just, this is a guy that I really love. He's, you got to check this guy out.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Hmm. He's, uh, uncle Roger is the character that he plays. Uncle Roger is like a, basically he

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_00]: criticizes how other people cook, uh, Asian food and it is really funny. His characters,

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I, I know that he's been called racist and tried to be canceled and all this. He is,

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_00]: he's brilliant. He's very funny. And also I, I appreciate, you know, clearly my favorite food

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_00]: is horrible for you, but it's, it's Asian, Asian street food. And, and, uh, he, it's all he

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_00]: talks about. He's hysterical. He's so funny. Uh, if you haven't seen him before, he's just,

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_00]: he's very funny, uh, to me. Now we move into the music. Hopefully I'll, I'll give you a couple

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_00]: of people you've never heard of before. So I found this guy a couple of years ago. His name is Julian

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Pollack. He goes by, uh, I am J3PO. J3PO is his nickname, Julian Pollack. He's a keyboard

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_00]: keyboardist. He plays piano. He has all kinds of funky keyboards. He's got tons of stuff on Spotify.

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like almost everything he puts out on Instagram. I find myself just watching it over and

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_00]: over again. He's, he's really good. It's, he's like, he's across, he does a lot of electronic,

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_00]: really funky electronic music, but also a lot of jazz. So that kind of hits a lot of hits a lot

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_00]: of things for me. I love that stuff. I just, I really like him a lot. Uh, so his stuff is really

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_00]: good. There's a, another, okay. So I've got this obsession for electric piano. Uh, electric piano is

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_00]: definitely kind of like a seventies jazz thing. Uh, I got two of them, tropical fish, NYC and

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_00]: vintage vibe. It's actually a vintage vibe is a company. They, they make electric pianos were

[00:25:36] [SPEAKER_00]: like a big thing in the seventies and then they, they sort of fell off, but this company makes

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_00]: electric pianos and it's pretty cool. I like electric piano. I like jazz music and I like

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_00]: jazz music that uses the electric piano. Both these are really, really hit those for me. So tropical

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_00]: fish, NYC and vintage vibe. And then the last ones I'll give you, cause I don't want to go on.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_00]: This is, I've been going on too long about this. The food ones. Okay. So I used to be

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_00]: a crazy baker. I used to bake like before the podcast, I would bake, I would literally

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_00]: like carve time out of my schedule at the office to be home in time to do my bakes. I was,

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I had the full on sourdough. Uh, I had my own culture, everything. I was nuts about it, but

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_00]: it's terrible for a diabetic because when you bake all that bread, you can't really give

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_00]: it away fast enough. And then you're eating a bunch of bread. It's not a great thing for a

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_00]: diabetic, but I do love it. And so now I kind of get my fix by looking at,

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_00]: looking at people who do really cool things on Instagram with food. And of course there's

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_00]: no shortage of really good food things, but anyhow, this one is called food art chefs,

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_00]: which is sort of a generic, basically it's very artsy food stuff. I don't even know how

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_00]: to describe it. And you're going to see it's a wide variety. It's, it's almost a curated,

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_00]: a curated page cause they're pulling stuff from all you'll find really interesting sushi.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_00]: You'll find interesting baking. You'll find, I don't even know, but it's, it's a really

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_00]: interesting page. Like everything that comes up here, I find fascinating. So food art chefs is one.

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, this one is pastry chef AM, uh, Magri Alberto is his name. Uh, it is pastry chef pornography. It is so

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_00]: cool to watch him. And he puts long form videos up of him and it's step-by-step it's there's quick cuts,

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_00]: but it basically, he almost always starts from, from dough to these just amazing, beautiful pastries.

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_00]: It is, it is captivating. And it's, it's stress relief for me just to see the things that he does. It's so

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_00]: cool to, so that he's another one. There's another one, Cedric Grolet is his name. Uh, again, same kind of

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_00]: thing. Like he shows his videos are exquisite. His videography is exquisite. His setting, his kitchen, you would

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_00]: love to just live in his kitchen. Oh my gosh. It's so cool. And this guy's got 11 and a half million

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_00]: followers. This is clear. Clearly this guy knows what he's doing. Uh, I could watch his stuff all

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_00]: day long. Unbelievable. The stuff that he puts together, you know, from beginning to end. And

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_00]: then the end, you're like, Oh God, I wish I were there. I would eat that right now. It's so fun to

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_00]: look at. And the last one, maybe, maybe the greatest of all. And I know a lot of people already know this

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_00]: guy. Again, 16.3 million followers. His name is Amari Guishon. I think the chocolate guys was

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_00]: basically this guy makes all kinds of wild sculptures, all out of chocolate. And what's

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_00]: crazy about it in much the same way you'll see those, those videos of, is it real or is it cake?

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_00]: This is like, he makes the most amazing sculptures all out of chocolate. And the best part about it

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_00]: is the videos show how he makes it. And then he basically ends up spray painting the chocolate with

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_00]: chocolate. It is crazy. So I just, again, these are the, a lot of these are videos I watch over

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and over again in it. It's, I, I enjoy them. They make my life better when I'm watching these things.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you can have a good interaction with social media. You really can, it can actually happen.

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just that you really have to curate. If you're going to be on there, you really,

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_00]: you almost have to actively curate it. These are just literally, I just was at one point said,

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I should talk about all the stuff that I really love on Instagram because you know, there's enough

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_00]: stuff to hate on social media. These are some of the things that I love. And this is literally just

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_00]: recently the stuff I've loved. I've got, I've got a bunch, but I guess the last key that I want to

[00:29:15] [SPEAKER_00]: give you, I started doing this when I, I used to, both my sons now go to high school. So I dropped

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_00]: them off on Mondays and Fridays. One of my favorite parts of the whole routine, I get to drop them off

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and pick them up from school. And that was something that I didn't necessarily do. Um, when I was,

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_00]: before I changed my schedule to three clinical days a week. And so it used to be that I would drop my

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Jacob, my younger son off at the middle school. And I always would get there. Like we dropped Sean

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_00]: off at high school and then tear ass over to the middle school. And we get there and we'd have 10

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_00]: or 15 minutes before he had to go in. And so I would find videos on Instagram that I thought he would

[00:29:50] [SPEAKER_00]: like. And a lot of more dog videos or funny videos or whatever. And so I had a, you've got,

[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_00]: you can save it, you know, saved. You can save things on whether they're reels or posts or whatever

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_00]: in, in their own little categories. And I had a whole category. This is Jacob saved category.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So we would go and we'd just watch these videos and have, we just, it was great. You know, 10 minutes

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_00]: of, we just laugh our heads off in the car before school, he got into school, you know, on a good

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_00]: note and all that stuff. You can basically categorize the things you save and go back and look

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_00]: at them. So like bike stuff. Oh my gosh, I have tons of bike videos. And most of it is stuff

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_00]: that I would consider buying or deciding if I want to use or not, whatever. Maybe it's

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_00]: dangerous that way, but you can save any kind of category you want. So if you have, you know,

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_00]: great pastry chefs, like I was talking about that you want to be able to say, you can

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_00]: save it under pastries or whatever. It's just, it's handy. And frankly, like I say, it lets

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_00]: you sort the good stuff off, off of the bad stuff. So I'm going to tell you, save videos

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_00]: and curate, like the stuff that you like and let the algorithm know that this is something

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_00]: you want to see more of. And it will actually give it to you on some level. I mean, that's

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_00]: algorithms work the best when they give you what you want. You know, that's kind of how

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_00]: it works. I know that I'm coming off a little rosier about social media than I have been in

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_00]: the past, but I do think that there's, if you're on it, you might as well get the best value

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_00]: out of it. You can, that's my point. So I hope this has been helpful. Honestly, I had

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_00]: to think about it a little bit. It's been helpful for me to talk about it. And I really

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_00]: enjoyed talking about it. Every one of those things that I talked about, I will put a link

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_00]: in the show notes so you can check them out on Instagram. If you have any that you'd

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_00]: like to suggest, I would love it if you go to the Very Dental Facebook group and put yours

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_00]: out there. I'm going to put my list on a thread starting tomorrow morning. We can talk about

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_00]: it. Put your favorite Instagram follows so we can all share and get better things out

[00:31:34] [SPEAKER_00]: of social media. It's kind of the least we could do for each other because it's poison

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_00]: otherwise. So if you can't quit curate, I appreciate you guys listening to the show. I

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_00]: really, I actually really enjoyed recording this. This was really fun. And I will catch

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_00]: you next episode.