Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
This month we’re looking at smoke and mirrors and all the ways we allow ourselves to be deceived, making this weeks book Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator by Ryan Holiday. So let’s do this!
This book….well, look, if you already had trust issues with basically everything you see online and with “news” in general, this book is going to explain why.
Because it’s all lies. Like, ALL OF IT. People who say context matters, create the context!
So the book is broken into two parts.
Book One is Feeding the Monster, where in Holiday explains how blogs work. Now, some of them were pretty much always known to be tabloids of the Interwebs. Like the Enquirer or Weekly World News you’d see in check out lines at the store. But those spammy tabloid blogs, feed the rest of the internet.
Literally. Fake news is not just a Trump catch phrase. A lot of what you see online IS fake news. And that includes from websites that are traditionally seen as reliable, real journalism. Like the New York Times, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, CNN...all of them get their “tips” from blogs. And blogs get their tips from media manipulators like Holiday.
Like Holiday. I mean, he provided plenty of examples of what he did. But he is not the only one. For the low low cost of FREE, you too can become a media manipulator, and Holiday tells you how. And it can turn into a paycheck if you’re any good at it. Holiday calls it media manipulation, but it goes by a broader name, one you can even get a degree in at basically any university or community college: Marketing.
Holiday provides 9 easy steps that will let you Feed the Monster.
1. Bloggers are poor; help pay their bills. Look, bloggers get paid by posting. Constantly. So ANY tip, no matter how poor or incorrect, if it’s fire it will get clicks. And clicks are how bloggers get paid. So how do you get them a tip that will get them clicks?
2. Tell them what they want to hear. Your average blogger has their preferred audience. If they usually post anti-feminist screeds, give them what they want. If they’re all about the misogyny of the average American Male….give them what they want. They’re more likely to post your tip for clicks if you spin what you’re trying to sell to fit the bloggers target audience.
3. Give them what spreads, not what’s good. Virality online is it’s own branch of study. Your tip does not have to be good. It does not have to be accurate. It has to be click bate.
4. Help them trick their readers. See tip 3. Click bate gets the clicks. Clicks are how the blogger gets paid.
5. Sell them something they can sell. Scandal sells. No one reads about depressing news. They read about outrage. Rage sells. Happiness sells. Depression….well, really, Sarah McLachlan starts playing and you’re changing the channel. Because seeing the sad abused puppies shivering is depressing and you know you can’t actually save them all, so you change the channel to spare yourself the depression. But rage? Oh yeah. Rage sells.
6. Make it all about the headline. Face it, at some point in your life, you have shared something you read online JUST off the headline. Only to find out later the headline was wrong, and the lead was buried in the story. A well written headline guarantees a click.
7. Kill em with pageview kindness. If you want to help feed the monster, you have to FEED THE MONSTER….with reactions. Does no good to tip off a blogger if you yourself are not going to react to the story they post off your tip.
8. Use the technology against itself. Blogs don’t just post blind tips from media manipulators. They also post things other bloggers have already posted, commenting on it and linking back to the source. And most blogs clock in at around 800 words. If this review were a blog post, I would stop it right here. It’s not, but if you work within the limitations of blogging, you can post several linked stories, each good for their own click.
9. Just make stuff up (everyone else is doing it). That’s it. Make it up. That one is alarming. Because the entire book is anecdotal evidence of just what kind of fake bubble we all live in. SO MUCH OF WHAT YOU SEE AS NEWS IS MADE UP BY A BLOGGER!
So what happens next? Well, in book two, The Monster Attacks. And Holiday, throughout book one, lays a solid foundation for the idea that when the Internet went on line, and bloggers first began doing their thing, they caught a tiger by the tail. Now, if you have a house cat, you know that the tail is the wrong end to have a hold of. Because cats in general are quite bendy, and if you have the tail, they will turn around and rip bloody shreds into your arm. What do you think a tiger will do if you grab it by the tail?
Well that’s exactly what happened to Holiday. Bad press started appearing against some of his clients, and no one had contacted Holiday for comment. And since he was known to be the marketing department for his clients, he was like “WTF?!?!”
Book two explains all the ways the tail is now wagging the dog. But, having seen the error of his ways, Holiday ends the book with how to ethically seek attention online. Which is a bold strategy that, well, rarely seems to work. But, if you’re interested in not being part of the problem, here’s what Holiday recommends.
1. Start small. Look for something local and in your industry. Share some of what you’ve written before in your industry with the blogger to establish your bonafides.
2. Always appeal to self-interest. Look, not all stories are for all bloggers. Don’t approach a blogger for The Wall Street Journal with a scandal story about your local dog catcher. What benefit will your story provide to your target?
3. Feed the monster. Once the stories been written off your tip, share it far and wide. Ask all your friends to share it. Cause if it’s not shared, you’re dead in the water.
This book was an entertaining and wild ride through how the news is created. It’s very philosophical. If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there, does it make a sound? If no one reads your blog, did what you write about really happen?
I did enjoy this one and found the tips at the end useful enough I’ll keep it on my shelf for future marketing plans.
