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hey everybody how's it going hope you're having a lovely day a lot of you have asked for me to comment on this honey PayPal scam over here this is a you got to watch the video it's 23 minutes but it's totally worth it it's gotten almost 8 million views in a few days and frankly that's not enough the tldr of it is that honey is a plugin for your browser that's supposed to find you the best deals on products by finding you coupon codes so that when you check out it'll automatically insert the best coupon code for you rather than you have an escour the internet to find the best deal that sounds like a great deal right wrong a this was not finding you the best deal surprise surprise and more importantly B it was actually ripping off all the creators that were actually Shilling it so there were a lot of creators that were getting paid to promote honey with sponsored videos and it was literally stealing their revenue the type of affiliate programs that I liked were affiliate programs where it doesn't matter what you buy if I say I like this soldering station you go to the website to buy it and you're like E I actually want to buy a Weller if you bought anything from that store I can wind up getting money which is cool for a number of reasons a I'm not biased towards the products that I'm going to recommend you and B it incentivizes me to actually recommend products rather than just tell people rtfm I created a very long blog post on my website back in 2015 detailing all of the equipment that I use and nobody ever read it even when I mentioned it in videos they would constantly comment and email me saying louw what's solding IR to use Louis what hot air do you use and I would lose my mind and say rtfm and once I learn what the affiliate program is then I realized I could convert this Anger from people not reading or paying attention to what I said into money every single time you ask me what I use I could send you an AFF affiliate link and even if you bought cat litter off of the website that I sent you to without a soldering station I would get a percentage of that cat litter once I learned about this instead of getting aggravated or ignoring those comments I actually went back through years of YouTube comments and answered every single question anybody had about equipment I would provide you with tips tricks here's how you should work on this thing so that there was some value added with me giving you that link and even if you didn't wind up buying what I recommended you could buy the exact opposite you could have bought cat litter I got a commission for it so it provided me with an incentive structure to actually provide you with help rather than me saying [ __ ] you you should have read the blog post that I Linked In the description of the video it was a win-win I got money you got information like it worked and for a lot of small content creators you may be at the point where you're making $10 a month in YouTube Revenue but you could make 300 or500 or even $1,000 a month in affiliate Revenue if you're a small content creator affiliate Revenue will make you way more than any of YouTube's ad sharing [ __ ] until honey came along what honey did is they did this manipulative [ __ ] where it would actually manipulate the [ __ ] browser cookie and some technical way that they go over in this video so that the person who was supposed to get the affiliate Revenue doesn't and it goes to honey so they would like if I tell you buy this hacko FX 951 here it's an awesome station even if they did not find you a [ __ ] coupon code they would still redo the browser cookie so that they got the affiliate Revenue rather than me even though I was the one that referred you to the store this is highly [ __ ] up and more importantly above all it demonstrates that 99% of the people on this platform that recommend you [ __ ] have have no [ __ ] clue what it is they're advertising to you not only are they often advertising [ __ ] that's bad to you in the case of better help and a number of other garbage sponsors they're advertising [ __ ] that's bad to them they are so clueless about what they are advertising that they are literally being spokespeople for a company that was ripping them off unknowingly and I think that this is incredibly important to understand here and I think that's the real takeaway is not okay whatever honey scam people I get it they deserve to get [ __ ] yes they do but the real take away here is that 99% of the people that are recommending you [ __ ] on YouTube are so out of touch that they're recommending products that not only screw you they're recommending products that actively screw them which is why you should be very very careful when somebody recommends something to you on this platform especially me when it comes to anybody this happened at a perfect time because I got an email in my inbox from somebody asking if they could use me as an example for their high school project they have to do something similar to what I had to do in Mr pelen kovic's English class back in 2005 which is contact somebody who does the job that I want to do someday and asked him a bunch of questions and this kid wanted to be an influencer and he had a bunch of questions on it that I hope are answered by what I'm about to read to be clear I'm very disappointed to be reading this because this was supposed to be part of a longer 2-hour video that's on an entirely unrelated subject I hate the idea of reusing something or reusing a piece of content but this story is very very relevant to this particular situation so I am going to use it for both this video and the 2-hour video that's likely going to be coming out sometime in the next one or two weeks once I finish going over everything so this is going to be a story and I think it is a very very much so applies to this situation the influence of economy in general that word and the question that I got asked by that student Mr Jack no not the guy from the 2002 System of a Down album that's what people in the neighborhood called my grandpa Mr Jack my grandpa's name was Jack Rossman he grew up in the South Bronx in the 1920s he died in the early 90s so I didn't have much time with him most of his lessons I learned from my dad people don't listen to you because you tell them to do things Nas respect or authority come from your position like you're the principal the boss the president Etc at 5 years old my dad told me I shouldn't listen to him because he was my dad he had to earn my respect even as a child the same way everybody else did you can imagine how foreign this sounded to other parents in a culture that encouraged spanking punishing and barking demands at their offspring as if they were pets rather than people his concept of talking to me at 6 years old like I was an equal came off as ignorance idealism at Best in dangerous parenting at its wor Jack was a professional machinist and an exceptional handsy man in his spare time in his 40s and during the crack epidemic he spent lots of time out of work my Grandma had fallen mentally ill during a time when there weren't many resources available for this he spent most of his time taken care of her animals plated my grandma's movs better than early [ __ ] like Milton seal or a trip to a mental institution Jack's H thewall New York City Apartment had over 10 cats and dogs and under 500 sare ft to keep himself same he walked through the street and checked out abandoned buildings that were deteriorating in the 1970s when landlords had abandoned their properties in large numbers these buildings were usually occupied by teenagers cut in class drinking 40s and smoking weed and high high and drunk at 11:00 a.m. on a Tuesday Morning these were society's throwaways their teachers and parents if they even had any adoption centers or legal Guardians had forfeited their responsibilities to guide them towards a productive life with no consequences combine parental neglect with a crack a in New York City in the South Bronx and you get fights in the street robberies in the subway and off the subway and thousands of kids joining gangs and destroying their lives my grandpa walked around parts of the South Bronx that sane people avoided in the 1970s he couldn't work on a normal schedule because of his mentally ill wife but he found purpose applying his Restless energy to the buildings neglected and abandoned by the slum Lords that had left the city he got to work trying to fix his corner of the world he brought his tools and started working on random buildings he saw the decline of his neighborhood every time he took a walk and he wanted to make things better it was very obvious that he was out of place this is a blue car man in his 50s walking through a gang rary in work clothes with a hat that looked like it belonged in a photo from the Great Depression dragging building materials left in an apartment's basement to work on that wasn't even his sometimes he talked with the kids in the building even though it was obvious they were up to no good I doubt they were expecting his input I think they were confused and surprised by him walking past them and into these buildings like he didn't have a care in the world my grandpa was described like Andy defrain in shag Redemption going through a yard of hardened criminals picking up rocks as if he had no idea he was in a Maximum Security Prison those kids probably wondered what the [ __ ] he was doing there more than anything else he wasn't looking to change their minds or get them to show up to school and pursue honor roll he succeeded in planting a seed in a patch of grass that's Society left behind and showing these kids that there might be something else they could do with their time people look down their nose at Mr Jack he was broke and he did not enjoy the family life of people whose spouses were mentally healthy the 1950s through 1970s weren't like 2024 you didn't have better help or Prozac or options you had bental institutions and nutal it was a shitty time to be mentally ill or shittier I should say it's never a fun time to be mentally ill more importantly Jack wasn't doing what he was supposed to do during the school day when he saw kids cut in class he should have been reporting them to treny officers getting them thrown in jail or taken back to school where a teacher would wrap their hands with a ruler because that'll fix them right my grandpa was already poor with a mentally ill wife and a small apartment with 10 animals now he's enabling the bad behavior of neighborhood hoodlums people thought he should be reporting them or at the very least pretending that he didn't see them like everyone else he sure as [ __ ] isn't supposed to be talking to them while entering abandoned buildings he has no business being in Not only was he committing the crime of speaking with neighborhood hoodlums watching as they drank their 4S and smoked their weed cutting class his work on the dilapidated buildings made them inhab Able by the teenagers and more amendable to what they were doing many of whom were gang members that meant more places to smoke weed and drink liquor away from the eyes of society they had places to avoid getting in trouble as they cut class to meet up one day he took a detour through an area that you're really not supposed to walk through if you look like him and crack era South Bronx a group of people began walking towards him in a way that let him know that he's [ __ ] my grandpa used to carry this metal stick on him the one you see in this other video I'll put a screenshot if I don't forget to deal with altercations like that since it's the closest thing that you get to a second amendment in New York City sometimes he won sometimes he lost one or two people maybe five people no he realized there was no chance here and he accepted the beat down a robbery that was coming to him before it started one kid yelled out wait that's Mr Jack he cool they talked amongst themselves and left him alone that's probably the only reason he got to keep the few teeth he had left at that point as time went on the blocks where he worked in these houses became slightly less dangerous for normal people to walk down he even had some of these kids helping him fix up the buildings he was teaching them how to use tools but more importantly somehow watching him do what he did got of them to want to do what he was doing still not the type of place you'd want to walk down after dark on a Friday night but less shitty than it was before his neighbors saw my grandpa as someone who was providing young gangsters Safe Harbor to cut School plan criminal activities while avoiding police insury officers but that was the service level narrative the reality these kids would be cutting School drinking liquor and beating the [ __ ] out of random passerbys in the street regardless of what my grandpa did and he wasn't stupid enough to believe that the South Bronx in the 70s would turn into Toad Hill and Staten Island if he had simply left them alone as time went on these kids who were discarded as the drugs of society would come by to help them work on the buildings they found it cool he taught them the tools of the trade put aside for a moment that these kids were cutting School in gangs drinking illegally and occupying somebody else's property my grandpa's subtle implication to these kids was deafening this is your place if you're going to hang out here you might as well make it better along with me in spite of their activity and circumstances he gotten to feel like these places were theirs he got teenage gang members to work for free fixing up buildings in their own neighborhood he didn't yell at them shame them punish them or threaten them the internet wouldn't be available to average consumers the internet wouldn't be available for average consumers for another 17 to 25 years or social media as we know it for another 30 yet here was my grandpa being an influencer my grandpa's neighbors would falsely implicate him in the actions of these gangs via guilt by association defaming him for providing them Safe Harbor talking to them and not reporting them his neighbors missed a point you can only be in one place at once and kids fixing up plumbing in dilapidated buildings are kids off the street he gains their ear by doing what my dad did with me and taught me to do as well above all let's be real nothing his gossiping [ __ ] neighbors were doing was changing their behavior anyway why would he take their approach he didn't demand respect by virtue of positional Authority he didn't point to his name tag and say I'm an adult you're a kid he met people where they were I believe that's why that gang didn't beat his ass halfway to death in the street that day my grandpa was convinced that a few kids avoided going deep down the rabbit hole into a life of Gang Related crime and that their escape started after asking him how to use his tools or if he needed any help my grandpa wasn't diluted New York City was still a crack epidemic mess in the 1970s and the 1980s I am not duded 99% of my work with right to repair and repair education will fall flat and result in nothing of consequence my grandpa won't be remembered for his life accomplishments and he knew that he wasn't famous he wasn't mentioned in the news and when he died he left my father with a sum of money that's less than the sale of Clinton the cat mouse pads for the month of November I doubt anyone outside of a five block radius of his home even knew who he was I have dless YouTube Fame but I'm not deluded with grander the same will likely be true for me he wasn't Batman for most there wasn't a happy ending most of those kids didn't become valedictorians or phds but that wasn't the point just because you can't fix it all doesn't mean you neglect tidying up your corner of the world when others have abdicated their responsibility to do so he didn't care if there was no immediate financial or social benefit to him because that wasn't the point he enjoyed the process of cleaning up his corner of the world my grandpa wasn't an influential speaker he's not Tony Robbins Gary vaynerchuk Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate i' guess those kids became open to listening to him because they weren't used to an adult talking to them or looking at them like they were human he worked to clean up his corner of the world when nobody else would and he got the least likely members of iety to follow along he died when I was very young one memory etched in my head was when an in-law of my dad was asking why he engaged in this behavior my mother's side of the family hated my dads and were always criticizing and throwing Jabs at him he was an easy target as somebody broke with a mentally ill wife my grandpa responded with the line This is my corner of the world my grandpa responded with the line This is my corner of the world there are many like it but this one is mine until the day he died he took pride and always cleaning up his corner of the world we have a [ __ ] up definition of what an influencer is in society this word is a dirty word and it shouldn't be it is a word that needs to be taken back by people who believe in this definition of influencer rather than this other garbage these people were not just Shilling products that harmed you they were Shilling products that harm them they don't have control over their own lives why should you possibly give them any control over yours being an influencer is not about Ben Shapiro misleading you into how expressvpn hides your data from Facebook and evil big Tech and allows you to take it all back when you're logging into Facebook as Andrew Smith Andrews Smith atgmailcom just because your it changed once in a while they still know who you are being an influencer is not about getting somebody to click on a link to download a video game that is known to be addictive and encourage gambling in children being an influencer is not doing shill interviews with the executives of3 trillion doll companies and then going 96 M an hour where kids walk down the street being an influencer is about going into a corner of society where nobody else is helping and not just helping but getting other people to follow along getting other people to say you know what I want to do what he's doing why am I sitting here doing nothing this man is coming to this building that's not even his and he's working on [ __ ] he's working on the wall he's putting a door back up he's fixing the window frame he's [ __ ] with the plumbing so that it doesn't leak in the kitchen all the time so we actually have water so I can wash my hands when I'm spill a part of my beard on myself or whatever H he's doing all that every day maybe I should do it too maybe I should ask how I can help he makes it look kind of cool and he treats me like I'm a human being that's being an influencer there was this guy that was on a St Mark's Place there was a store called Dr Brendan and uh my my one of my best friends Sunny he started a store called simple mac right across the street from Dr Brendan and he many people quit because they were promised to raises around the end of 2011 to 2012 and while he was posting to Facebook his escapades traveling all over the world and partying he actually W the offering some people pay cuts because he said his business wasn't making him any money needless to say many people decided to work elsewhere my good friend Andrew started his own company Sunny started his own company another one in Connecticut and grench I forget the name of the guy really Lauren he he he defected as well cool people but the point is I'm never going to forget this one conversation that I had with him he had asked me if I was open to uh shoted just closing for around $80,000 and we talked for about 20 or 30 minutes we had some tea at this place uh the it it was the hookah lounge it was hookah lounge right next door to 186 1 Avenue he said something after I refused all the offers at the end I'm never going to forget you're not going to change the world through computer repair stop trying what he didn't understand is that I'm not trying to change the world through computer repair I'm not trying to change the world I'm trying to clean up my small corner of it in 2012 in 2013 nobody was showing you how to do component level border pair and nobody was working to make it accessible was I the smartest person in the world no do I know how to make videos with good production quality no do I know how to speak into a camera well no that's 10 years later I try to anyway let me try and clean up my little corner of the world and make it look like fun not going to look at people and say you need to repair if you don't you're ruining the climate you're helping to create a less sustainable economy how dare you how dare you cuz that [ __ ] don't work I wanted to take something and make it look like fun I'm doing it I'm going to make it fun I'm going to show it to all of you maybe somebody else will want to pick up a soldering iron and try along with me maybe you'll share in my fun as well and while you're sharing in my fun maybe you'll be a little bit less of a miserable [ __ ] maybe instead of sit there and think about how you want to kill yourself because your life sucks and you live with your parents and you lost your job and you're mentally ill maybe for 30 minutes that day you'll feel a little bit better when you work on something and you get it to turn on again or even if you can't get it to turn on again if you take a chip off of something that turns on and you put it back and it's not worse off than it was when it started cuz trust me there are times in my life where that's a cause for a celebration that needs to be the definition of influencer that wins the weirdest part of that conversation was just how lost this person looked when asking me that question as if there's no possible reward that can come from cleaning up your own corner of the world I have an idea of what my grandpa must have felt like when that kid asked what can I do to help or picked up one of his tools after he said what he said and I know that because well I've done less than 1% of what he's done with his life I get stuff like this mail to me every now and then going over how a donation this guy got from a referral from me talking on his Channel about this and trying to promote a particular law he he has he got $200,000 of funding to try to get people that are making NASA robots to make wheelchairs for people that they can actually afford and fix themselves I know that had be one of the happiest days of my grandpa's life I know why he did it because when you do something for yourself you get that kick a DOP mean once but when you get other people to follow suit you get to relive that happiness over and over and over again I know how happy he felt that day cuz I feel that exact same feeling when I read stuff like this show up in my desk andwritten the day before Christmas when somebody says the word influencer they see it as an icky word because the word means this [ __ ] the definition of influencer right now is so broken that it refers to people who are so clueless that they are getting scammed by the very products and services that they are recommending to you the word influencer refers to people like Mr Jack and when he provide it to those teenagers bullshitter is the word that should apply to people that get paid to shill expressvpn and mislead you into believing that you're getting back a big tech for stealing your information when you are logging into Facebook with your real name and your email that's after your real name and you have your browser cookies set to allow every single thing in and then magically somehow yeah Facebook's totally going to stop you sucking up your information because your IP address changed for a day that's not an influencer that's a bullshitter and we need to change the way we use these words because words matter we need to restore the proper meaning of these words I was writing a page for my website today on a series of products that sandis made that they didn't take accountability or responsibility for they went downhill considerably after Western Digital purchased them one of these is a solid stay drive that would just randomly erase your data it would have chips that just came off of the board this thing is designed dare I say it worse than some of the old model MacBook motherboards and you had people that were recommending these things in ways that just made me sick I did not mean from my website to have this page that was designed as advertising to become a two paragraph rant on fake influencers in society but that's what it turned into if you take a look over here it says this sandis P terabyte extreme portable SSD costs this when you scroll down to this recommendation made by Cult of Mac you'll see I haven't tested this but I've used many sandis products over the decades the company built a reputation for quality products AKA they are using affiliate links where they get revenue for when you buy something to advertise to you and suggest to you a product that they've never [ __ ] used they had a lot of lawsuits come out against them because this product was a steaming pile of [ __ ] and there were other people that were continuing to promote this steing pile of [ __ ] over here this has never been updated and this article came out months after it was known that this product is a steaming pile of [ __ ] many vendors wanted to get rid of this product as fast as possible for obvious reasons as a result of this the price had tanked since the price had tanked it is very easy to get a lot of people to go wait I can get a four terabyte SSD for a few hundred dollars sign me up and they it was very easy to make affiliate Revenue doing this many of the people suggesting this product knew it was faulty didn't know it was faulty because they didn't bother to do a single Google search or didn't even try the product themselves that they were telling you to buy this is not the definition of influencer that I want to win Mr Jack was and always will be an influencer what these people did is low-level online marketing they are not the same that's it for today and as always I hope you learn something Merry Christmas I'll see you in the next one