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John Norris (00:30):
Well, hello again everybody. This is John Norris at Trading Perspectives. As always, we have our good friend Sam Clement. Sam, say hello.
Sam Clement (00:36):
John, How are you doing?
John Norris (00:37):
Sam, I’m doing fantastically and I hope you are.
Sam Clement (00:39):
I am.
John Norris (00:40):
Sam. I got to tell you though, sometimes I don’t feel all that fantastic when I’m sitting there playing around on social media and particularly when I’m playing on X or Instagram or what have you. And more particularly, I mean a few weeks ago I decided to finally, after much prodding by Meta and Instagram to join threats, which I guess is for all intents and purposes, it’s version of X, or Twitter or something like that. And what I’ve found is a ton of political data or a ton of political commentary and of course the algorithms embedded ensure that I get a never ending stream of this type of thing. And what I’m finding is from both sides of the aisle, the comments are kind of depressing because there’s a lot of ignorance out there in terms of just what’s happening in the US and a lot of, I would say, I don’t know, kind of loose usage of some of the data.
Sam Clement (01:36):
Yes, that’s kind of what I was going to point out is every time, and it’s not a one-side-of-the-aisle thing or another, every time I see something that just feels like it’s probably missing some info or picking and choosing which parts of a data point or whatever it is, anything you see related to politics, someone’s background, a crime, they committed… anything with a political motive…. If you go look at it and find the research, what have you, there’s almost always any of the extreme talking points have details intentionally missing from them. Every time.
John Norris (02:12):
It’s baffling to me. And the problem with it is there are a lot of people, I think people may be boomers or even my parents’ generation, those that are still alive and voting, maybe some of the older Gen X people that really aren’t quite as in tune with social media – not getting on X, not getting on threads or what have you – They’re not listening to all this, so they’re kind of immune from what’s happening on it. However, younger voters, people from 18 to maybe 30, I mean sort of maybe your generation, that have always used social media to get a predominance of their news, if you will. How is it that all this stuff will come across and it won’t impact someone’s decision making process when it comes to vote for the leaders of their country?
Sam Clement (03:00):
Well, it’s hard not to, and you mentioned the algorithms, and this is not putting the blame on the companies, I mean, their job is to get people to react and what have you, but people almost have to get more passionate about things and extreme almost about the things they feel and their opinions. And it’s not unique to young people. I guess it’s slightly unique to them in the sense that they predominantly use social media more often, but it has this stronghold on anybody who uses social media, whether it’s slightly older people on Facebook or younger people on X or Instagram or what have you. It really doesn’t matter which platform it is though. I mean when you get on it…
John Norris (03:47):
There is a dopamine sort of almost effect when people are out there liking what you put out there or even commenting.
Sam Clement (03:55):
Or if you read something you want to be true…
John Norris (03:55):
My gosh, it’s feel goods. People are noticing me. And so that’s lot of the reason why people do it. Hey, listen, I’ll be honest with you, I’m kind of guilty of it at times too. I’ll reply to someone, Hey, great, I got 300 likes. So when the people are putting stuff out there, you’re right, it’s almost on the extreme end, it’s never sort of, alright, this is what happens when you change tax policy. It’s never something completely boring. It’s some extreme out there just nonsense opinion that is going to galvanize 20% or whatnot, and you get this feedback from these people that already feel the same way you do.
Sam Clement (04:43):
Or the complete opposite.
John Norris (04:46):
And for me, it’s so frustrating because now, I mean for a long period of time, I would say the primary differences between our two big political parties were largely kind of marginal, some social issues, but I think we’re all kind of pulling in the same direction. I think the differences between the two parties now is greater than it was even four years ago, but let alone 20 years ago or even when I was growing.
Sam Clement (05:13):
Like, Clinton and Bush?
John Norris (05:14):
I mean they probably agreed on a lot more than they disagreed on, at least in private. However, now it’s just like, my gosh, when they’re screaming at each other in the hallways and probably really don’t view the world the exact same. So it is important to get out there and actually tell the truth and I don’t get it. It is kind of like, do you want to win by cheating? Some people would. Some people just, I’ve got to win by all costs. I want to win by cheating. I’m not saying people are intentionally cheating, but when you’re intentionally obfuscating the truth or not giving the full truth in order to make your point, well, you’re kind of cheating.
Sam Clement (05:49):
Yeah. Well, and I think the social media issue is actually worse for older people than it is for younger people because I think younger people have grown up around social media.
John Norris (06:01):
Used to it, maybe a little desensitized…
Sam Clement (06:04):
Desensitized, but also maybe a little bit better about, I feel like that’s the running joke because you tell your parents to fact check something they saw on Facebook and it’s not true. So you’ve grown up around this area of fake news or half-truths or what have you, and it seems like a younger person reaction in general is to go fact check something they see. Not always. If you want that to be true, you’re probably not fact checking it as much, but if you don’t want it to be true, you probably fact check it. Where I think people who did not grow up around that grew up around where if you see something that’s probably true….
John Norris (06:40):
Yeah, people were prone to tell the truth as opposed to the other way around.
Sam Clement (06:43):
Yes, that’s where you get people. It seems like an older generation has gotten more captivated by politics than they had in the past, and some of these issues have probably gotten more extreme on both sides. So there’s a reason to be more passionate, but not to the extent it feels like it’s gotten not just among young people who are supposed to be passionate about things, people who should be a little more relaxed by that point about the political arena.
John Norris (07:13):
Well, I would tell you this though, even within my lifetime and certainly within my parents, that if you wanted to have a public opinion, you wanted other people to know what you had to say, you had to go to some measures to do so. It took some work, it took a little bit of work and time. And for instance, if you wanted to truly have an opinion out there in public about something, a one way of doing it outside of screaming on the street corner (and everyone would discount you immediately with that) would be to write a letter to the editor, to the newspaper. And that’s what people did. They wrote letters to the editor and it was one of the more fun sections of the local rag is actually going through there. And some people were unhinged and the Birmingham News would put that in there, obviously to try to get people to buy it. But if you wanted to have an opinion, you had to sit down and write a letter. I mean, first of all, writing a letter, how many people your generation sit down and write letters.
Sam Clement (08:08):
Very few. And then that takes the time to still by the end of it, to be as passionate about it.
John Norris (08:13):
Still by the end of it. And then you would have to mail it, go to the post office, get a stamp, mail it, wait for a few days, and then someone in the editorial department would read it, and then if they wanted to print it, they would call you back. You had to put your address and contact information. They had to call you back on the landline.
Sam Clement (08:35):
So they had to know who you are, too.
John Norris (08:36):
They had to know who you are. You had to put your name, you didn’t have to put your street address most times, but at least what section of town where you lived. And they would call you back and say, Hey, are you okay with us running this, and that by that point, it’s probably been about a week since you wrote it,
(08:53):
at a minimum. And you would have to say yes or no. And it wasn’t just, Hey, I’m going to go out there and I’m fired up, man, I’m fired up and something Trump said or something Harris said really fired me up. So I’m going to go out there and I’m going to blast them on Threads or X or do something on Facebook, whatever social media platform you want to be on. And then you get to say it, it’s off your chest, it’s out in the ether. And by the way, your username’s probably not Sam Clement, Homewood, Alabama or John Norris, Mountain Brook, Alabama, it’s something else altogether where people can’t immediately tell who you are. So you get to have this strong opinion out there based on emotion, and then you get to vanish into the ether.
Sam Clement (09:36):
It’s conducive to extreme opinions and hot headedness and all the negative things.
John Norris (09:42):
And so for people my age, older Gen X, is probably not really as active on social media as younger people by and large understanding the way that it used to be when I was growing up and really not even all that long ago, the late nineties, although that is kind of a long time ago, where you had to have some effort to have an opinion. It’s so foreign to a lot of people that people would intentionally just say stuff that they may or may not mean just to bloviate out there on social media in order to get likes, shares and reposts. I mean to my father, who’s 88 years of age, who still writes letters to the editor to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Never gets printed, but God bless him, he loves doing it and loves getting it off his chest.
(10:34):
And just sometimes whenever they respond back, man, he loves it. But to my father, the concept of someone going out there, like some of the stuff I read this morning while getting ready, it would be so foreign to him that someone would just blow that stuff out there without having any sort of facts, without doing any sort of homework, based solely on an emotional opinion. And then having people from literally around the world see this and commenting on it. It’s mind boggling. And it’s far from the way he grew up as you can get.
Sam Clement (11:04):
And it’s so conducive to this idea that you have to have an opinion on everything which is so dangerous, and I would argue unhealthy because there’s no way you can have a valid opinion on everything.
John Norris (11:20):
Well, hold on a second there, Sam. (laughs)
Sam Clement (11:23):
A reasonable…
John Norris (11:25):
Present company excluded, by the way?
Sam Clement (11:27):
Yeah, except for you and I. We can have opinions on everything, but you get what I’m saying is there’s no way you’re knowledgeable enough about everything to have an opinion on everything.
John Norris (11:38):
Again, hold on a second. For the normal, for the
Sam Clement (11:41):
For the normal people. The people not here.
John Norris (11:42):
I know what you mean. I won’t interrupt this time.
Sam Clement (11:43):
But no, that’s not the case anymore. You have to have an opinion on everything.
John Norris (11:49):
Yes.
Sam Clement (11:49):
Or you can develop one in 30 seconds.
John Norris (11:52):
Very quickly,
Sam Clement (11:53):
10 seconds, reading one post. I mean, and all of a sudden you’re a passionate believer in something that: one may or may not be true, two may or may not have an impact on you.
John Norris (12:05):
And then the thing is with the way the algorithms that the social media websites use, they give you more of what you want.
Sam Clement (12:13):
Or what you react with.
John Norris (12:13):
And so it’s one of those deals that you find yourself eventually, as I have in a relatively short period of time, being funneled into a particular box to where all of a sudden you see an inordinate amount of stuff from the same sort of mindset, the same groups and what have you. And so, if that’s all you’re seeing, you’re probably going to believe that that’s it. Your’re mainstream man. Everyone feels this way. There can’t be another opinion, another
Sam Clement (12:50):
Everyone agrees.
John Norris (12:51):
Any other opinion has to be so aberrant because everyone that I’m socializing with on social media, we all feel the same way. You can take a look at the thousands of likes that I’ve gotten. So anyone that disagrees with me is just so far on the outside that they’re just not to be believed. I’ll tell you one thing that came across recently that was on Threads. It was an older woman was posting, who apparently posts quite a bit and she went out and she was wearing a political T-shirt espousing who she was voting for in November. And it was not just that, it was pretty, I’m going to call it sanctimonious, you can call it patronizing and call it what it want, but it was, I’m not going to say it in case anyone’s has seen it. And it’s very clear you’re wearing that to get a reaction out of someone. You’re wearing that to be, well no one wants to think of themselves as sanctimonious, I”ve already used that once, but they’re wearing it for a reason out in public. You’re doing it to get a reaction. And I don’t care if this old person wants to wear it. She’s like late seventies, but I don’t care if she wants to do it. However, she was complaining about how people were giving her mean looks because she was wearing this political T-shirt and I just wrote back, Hey, you wore the shirt to get a reaction. Why are you complaining?
(14:18):
And the vitriol that hit me, my goodness. Just called me all kinds of names. I mean, it was a pretty straightforward comment. And that was because, outside of this woman’s lane, somehow I snuck into their box, if you will. Algorithms got something wrong and put me in with their group for a short period of time. I made a comment that wasn’t the party line and it just flew people into a frenzy. And boy, I mean, attacked and all that stuff. I didn’t even necessarily say anything. I said, you wore the T-shirt for a reason. Why are you complaining about it? I didn’t say anything about, Hey, my candidate this, my candidate that. And so that’s why I think we become so extreme. I think social media has had a huge part of it because in social media you’re eventually associated with other people that feel the exact same way. And when that happens, groupthink comes in, and when groupthink comes in, it generally gets, I mean obviously one-sided, but it generally gets more extreme.
Sam Clement (15:20):
Well, and then think about this too, is that before social media, the problems that you had and the stress that you had was largely what was around you or your community, right? It was less about what was happening. And there’s good and bad sides to this. And yes, it’s worth knowing problems and human rights issues and death and destruction in other areas. And you know, you want to care about that stuff, but you also can’t control most of it. I mean that it’s got to be psychologically tough to understand the problems and issues going on all across the world. And again, there’s some good to knowing things like that, but psychologically, there’s storm clouds over you all the time. And that’s one of the more concerning things about it is human rights violations somewhere in the Middle East. What’s going on in China, or what’s going on in this country, these wars going on, and women and children being killed in a war in a third world country, what have you. That is terrible.
John Norris (16:30):
Yes, I would agree with you on that.
Sam Clement (16:32):
But isn’t there a point where you almost know too much?
John Norris (16:37):
Well, it is not just that. It’s for the social media aspect of it. Not only do you know the information, you want to have an opinion on it, and because you’ve had strong opinions and people have liked what you’ve had to say and whatnot, you have this opinion on this subject matter where you probably don’t know all the details and you can’t do a damn thing about it, pardon my language. And that’s got to be very frustrating to that person you were just talking about, just having to know all the information. So if you can’t do anything about it, the best way of going about getting your likes, clicks, shares, reposts, all of it, is to be as extreme as possible and develop these outrageously strong opinions on a subject matter that you really shouldn’t even be public with anyhow. And then you think about maybe some of these protests we’ve had about Gaza and what have you. I mean, most of these people aren’t armed with full information, and pardon me, excuse me if that offends anyone, but it was just like, you’re going to run the risk of getting expelled from school over this.
(17:41):
It’s craziness to me. But you have to have an opinion on everything.
Sam Clement (17:44):
Everything.
John Norris (17:45):
On everything, or else
Sam Clement (17:47):
And you’re either one side or the other.
John Norris (17:48):
Or else you are a failure to your social media group. Yeah, you can’t be in the middle. Because then you have, instead of 20% of the people hating you, you’ve got everyone hating you. And so when I take a look at social media and just kind of understanding increasingly the way that it works, it does frustrate me because I think that people will be going to the polls or clicking their ballots based not on an objective study of the data, of an objective study on the policy… It’s all based on: you’ve been blocked over here into this corner by social media based on algorithms of things that you have clicked on in the past. And so you are going to be force fed a whole bunch of data or posts or comments, what have you, from a particular mindset and view that’s only going to reinforce what you had already thought as opposed to taking the time to actually get out there and find out what the other side’s thinking.
Sam Clement (18:47):
Well, and so many people on these edges are single issue voters about an extreme case of a certain issue. That’s never even going to happen, largely. I mean, you’re concerned about x happening. Well, that’s not happening.
John Norris (19:05):
It happens so infrequently as to maybe shouldn’t be your only determining factor in your vote.
Sam Clement (19:12):
But that’s where a large chunk of voters have gotten and it’s inarguable to me that social media plays a big issue in that.
John Norris (19:19):
So what should or should social media do?
Sam Clement (19:24):
I mean people should…
John Norris (19:25):
Is there anything that it should do or should people just be smarter after all? You can make an argument that Meta is just simply or X, whatever, is just simply giving people what they want.
Sam Clement (19:37):
I have less of a concern with the social media companies themselves, I’m sure, and we’re painting with a broad brush here, but
John Norris (19:47):
I think so.
Sam Clement (19:47):
I’m less concerned with what the social media companies are doing and more concerned with people’s actions and their emotions. And I mean, people need to log off their computer and go touch some grass outside.
John Norris (20:01):
I agree with you on that. And also this is almost switching to the side, but I’ve told you in the past that my wife just simply just doesn’t understand it. I tend to read, I’m reading yet another book about North Korea right now. I’ve read, I don’t know how many books about China or just China-related stories, books about Russia. I haven’t gotten any books about Yemen. They’re preciously hard to find. They’re very few and far between. But I read this stuff so I can figure out what the other side’s thinking.
(20:31):
So you understand their mindset. If you don’t understand where they’re coming from, you’re never going to be able to come to a compromise or deal with them. So that’s what I feel is a wise thing to do. And so what baffles me when people in the state department or whatnot, apparently haven’t done their homework on their adversaries, even their allies, and they say these ridiculous statements out there. So it goes all the more so for people on social media. So I would sit there and say, regardless of your age, regardless of your political persuasion, get back some of the strong personalities on both sides. Get out of your algorithm box and find out what the other side is thinking. What you’ll find out is they’re not as crazy as you might think. They just have a slightly different worldview. And if people are open to having a frank dialogue without yelling and screaming at one another, perhaps there’s some room for compromise. But the way it is now, there’s almost no room for compromise. The only way I win is if you are completely defeated and out of the picture.
(21:28):
And that’s the message I’m getting from social media, and I’m not necessarily sure I like it all that much.
Sam Clement (21:33):
I agree completely.
John Norris (21:35):
Alright, well I wanted you to trade perspectives with me on that. After all you, you’re the younger generation, the social media group.
Sam Clement (21:42):
I’m not a big social media person.
John Norris (21:44):
Yeah, I knew that. I probably am more than you are. Alright guys, thank you all so much for listening. We always love to hear from you all. So if you have any comments or questions, please by all means, let us know. You can always reach us by dropping us a line at or you can leave us a review at the podcast outlet of your choice. Of course, if you’re interested in reading more or hearing more of what we got to say or how we think, you can go to oak worth.com, O-A-K-W-O-R-T H.com. Take a look underneath the Thought Leadership tab and find links to all kinds of exciting information, including links to previous Trading Perspectives podcasts, links to our newsletter/blog Common Cents, links to our quarterly analysis magazine, Macro & Market, and all the various sub-components there. And links from our financial advisory group, Mac Frasier, and his team. All kinds of good stuff out there. Alright, Sam, last chance to have anything good to say about this exciting topic.
Sam Clement (22:36):
That’s all I’ve got.
John Norris (22:37):
That’s all I’ve got today too. Y’all take care.