Social Media is Dead. Interest Media is Here.

The way to build a business and a brand has never been easier. But you'll have to fight for it.

Social media died four years ago and for the last four years we’ve been in interest media. You no longer get the content on your feeds from the people you follow like your cousin or your best friend from middle school. You get content based on what you’ve recently been into. Interest media is the term that’s used for the current state of what it was known as social media. Where you get content that’s based on what you’re currently interested in.

This is the current state of the internet and very important because interest media allows platforms to keep users on the platform longer because you’re seeing things you’re actually into now, not people you used to follow. Your ability to change what you’re seeing in your feed is very, very, very real and all you have to do is use the search function in these platforms and search new topics and engage with that content. Or use the explore page and engage with it. Or control “not interested” in the content that you’re no longer interested in.

I do think people eventually will get tired of this and I predict that long-term platforms are going to have both an interest media feed and a social media feed, aka people that you want to follow.

I think a double-feed platform is inevitable.

Breaking Through Is Easier Than Ever Before

This new interest media era really opens up a lot more merit and a lot more democracy and a lot more meritocracy than the prior social media era. The prior social media era gave advantages to people like myself who moved quickly and amassed a lot of followers on new platforms that would go on to become important.

In this era it is much easier to break out and create a following because if you’re making content that resonates with the audience in whatever subject matter—whether it’s entertainment, whether it’s escapism, whether it’s information—the speed in which you can gain traction is substantially different than any other era of social media prior. What we started seeing in 2017 and 2018 in TikTok now has hit every single platform from LinkedIn to YouTube Shorts. It just creates an enormous opportunity.

Because of the ‘TikTok-ification’ of social media in the last three years, every social network no longer operates based on how many followers you have; it goes on the merit of the creative itself. I have 15 million followers on TikTok—but there’s somebody out there who is going to get motivated today, create a TikTok, make their first video tomorrow, and that video will get more views than the post I will share that same day.

Let me give you an example. You might have seen the piece of content where I met that young girl after a talk and she said, “One day I’m going to be somebody.” And I said, “You’re somebody now.” I started a new TikTok account called youaresomebodynow as the name of the handle. The first post on that account with zero followers was a slight edit on the video that did well for me, and that video with zero followers got 9.4 million organic views.

That same video I posted, slightly differently, three weeks earlier on my TikTok account that has 15 million followers, got 300,000 views.

That’s how the game is now. If that doesn’t motivate you to start posting,I have no idea what data will.

You Don’t Have to Be On Camera To Make Content

One of the great opportunities is to be more platform diverse. Too many people are just on one or two platforms, TikTok and Instagram, when Facebook and Twitter and Substack and Snapchat spotlight are all viable options.

If you do not like the way you look on video, you must get very serious about Substack. Substack is one of the most important new platforms of information. It is really a newsletter, email type. It’s written content. It’s become remarkable. In fact, I believe one person here is about to make more money being a writer on Substack that charges $3.99, $7.99, $9.99 a month to their subscribers, like paid for information, which is really rare in the last 15 years, than they do in their practice. I believe someone in 10 years is going to send me an email and say they were reading this and they have now eclipsed in revenue their subscription revenue for their written content, than actually the revenue they get from their practice.

If you are a good writer, please go do five hours of homework. And literally this is how you do it. You go into ChatGPT type, “GaryVee just talked about Substack. I’m a chiropractor. What do I need to know?” Enter.

Information is now useless. It is literally a commodity. It is not valuable yet people will pay for it if they connect with the person.

Substack is an incredible opportunity for a lot of you. It will be a lead gen to your business. You will do the jabbing, not the right hooks. You will show up and write things that people should do, tips and tricks, things that you’ve observed in being in this business for 20 years, classic mistakes that people make after they stop using your service.

The Battleground for Attention

Everybody here, me included, we’re all battling right now for the same thing. This is a full battleground now for attention. Attention has always been the asset, but what has changed is attention used to be available to a small group of companies that had a lot of money. The fact that the individual person now is about to build a billion-dollar corporation is incredible.

The only arbitrage you can rely on long term is the brand you build either for yourself if you are comfortable and interested in being out in front or putting those energies to building some sort of brand equity in a brand that you create. I believe more day by day it will matter. If you’re not doing either, the person sitting next to you is going to and they’re going to take more market share.

Making Different Kind Of Stuff: The Psycho Discipline

I think the biggest issue for most people and brands right now is they’re not making enough different kind of stuff and touching on enough different kind of subject matters, content styles, platforms, and this is hurting brands tremendously. Most brands and people want to be “on brand” or own a niche. No niche is ownable because of the volume of people, and being on brand is subjective and often narrow and eliminates the purpose of what most brands and businesses are trying to do, which is be relevant to as many different people as possible so their business actually goes up.

All you have to do is make organic social media content over and over and over again in as many different ways as possible across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube shorts, LinkedIn, different thumbnails, different hooks, complete insane psycho discipline. You need to become a psycho at that. Do you know that if you went outside right now and made a video of eating a banana and drinking a rum and coke and posted it that people that have a high propensity of interest in bananas and rum and coke might be the first people that see that content?

The world we’re in now allows you to close the gap very quickly. Your third TikTok, if you make the right piece of content, can fundamentally change the course of your career. It’s about the intoxicating nature of the merit of a single post now, not what you’ve done to get to that single post.

Brand Will Become More Important In The Age of AI

The last 10 years of technology shifts are going to seem slow compared to the next 10. We are living in an extremely interesting time where the competitive landscape is changing quite a bit because of the convergence of social blockchain and AI all at the same time.

Every piece of content you make today is being indexed to show up on the results when every single person in the world in four years goes to an AI bot. Every piece of content you make today is being indexed to show up on the results when every single person in the world in four years goes to an AI bot. Let me give you an example. AI getting really strong and voice devices are going to really confuse people. For example, the Alexa in your home. I think that when you come home you walk into your kitchen and you're like, "Alexa, my son is having a sleepover tonight. Three friends are coming over. One's lactose intolerant, one's gluten-free. Two of them love spicy food and one kid is Persian, and I'd love for him to feel at home. Can you please order dinner for all of us? We're going to eat at 7:30 tonight. Thanks.” When that then takes that and orders from four different places and delivers you a perfect meal in what I just said for real, you have to understand then in that scenario, Amazon has all the leverage because it's going to decide where that sale is going to go. That's called not having brand. “Alexa, can you send me a pizza tonight? I have 20 people over.” That's different than, “Alexa, send me Pizza Hut tonight. I've got 20 people.” We are going into a place where all that's been happening over the last forever, but accelerating the last 30, 40 years, is we choose convenience over everything. Even when we can't afford stuff, we'll pay for time. AI is going to make everything convenient. You're going to have AI agents shop for you in the background. You have no idea how big this is going to be. And so, if you're not a brand, the human is not going to choose you. You're going to choose it generically. You're going to talk and make decisions based on general principles. I need sneakers versus I need Reebok. I need pizza versus Pizza Hut. I need business advice versus I need business advice from GaryVee.

Brand is the only thing left in a world of technology at scale and that's what's going to happen.

People continue to look at AI as a job killer. I continue to see it as an accelerator for people that are on that grind and you are going to be able to do more and get into more.

The Year of Action.

My friends, preparation, the theme of this being ready for the moment is very very interesting and exciting mentally. But you have to put it into practice too.

You could be mentally prepared for running the New York Marathon, mentally prepared for running it, but if you do not train for it for the months leading up to it, only so much is going to happen. I need all of you to take 2026 and make it an action year, not a thinking year. I could think all I want about fixing my left QL, but it took the action to fix that.

You want to grow or fix your business or make yourself bulletproof or be prepared for the moment? Well, guess what? The moment’s coming. It’s called AI. But good news, you can take it and control it. You can tame the sword and weaponize it for you or you can have it slice your head off. That’s up to you. I picked the first one.