Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Crypto Investing Advice, Trump Crypto Platform, & #MomTok Campaign Payouts

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts Right About Now. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. It's our weekly business news here on September 20th, 2024. You know, third quarter's blowing by, folks.

Starting point is 00:00:36 Fourth quarter's around the corner. I can hear it now. Black Friday. I guess we gotta hit Halloween first. Halloween, Black Friday Then all the holiday sales. They're coming! I know what's always you can count on and that's Brianna Hall and of course, my good friend Chris Hansen What's good?

Starting point is 00:00:57 Sometimes I want to talk with a higher pitched voice I hear my deep voice I just kind of want to talk with Chris Hansen I don't know Nah, I gotta have this radio voice deep. How are you guys today? Great. Great. Happy to be here. Happy to be here. Energy's high. I got my vibe science t-shirt on. You got to be the spark baby. I need some spark today. We got to spark it up here on this show. If you hadn't listened to that on you got to be the spark baby i need some spark today we got to spark it up here

Starting point is 00:01:25 on this show if you hadn't listened to that you got to see chris and i talk about health and wellness we're unlocking all kinds of we had a great episode this morning yeah with our good friend dr joel luso so we talk about all kinds of things health and wellness biohacking dr joel didn't want us to call it that but well that's kind of what it is. High vibes all the time. Check that out. Everywhere you listen, just hit like subscribe next to that one. That way you have these two shows right next to each other. You can't get enough of Chris and I. Oh man, it's been a busy week. I felt like back in the vibe. We run a marketing agency here at Radical, believe it or not. You might forget that sometimes with all the podcasting, you know, the podcast network. And then I was on a real client shoot for the first

Starting point is 00:02:09 time in a while. I was like back in the saddle again. It's like, hey, shooting some commercials, air quotes. Today's commercials are social media videos and stuff. So that was fun. How's your week been, Brianna? I was kind of jealous. The shoot sounded so fun. My week has been interesting. Unfortunately, my little guy had pneumonia, walking pneumonia. So we were kind of down and out most of the week working from home, but you know, happy to be in studio today and happy that he's on the mend. Yep. With four kids of my own, I know that drill. It's just, it's a kid own i know that drill it's just it's a kid in the house it's just it's a kid in the house yeah you know and you want them to be okay so once you know

Starting point is 00:02:51 they're okay you're like okay is this just sickness okay all right then but still there's a kid in the house yep so it is what it is and the world shall go on. Chris, how's the week been? We're cruising, baby. Just dodging rainstorms down here. Oh, yeah. Trying to stay dry. Trying to stay dry.

Starting point is 00:03:14 It's great, though. Yeah, we're moving. We're moving. I know the late breaking news here as we recorded this, the interest rates finally dropped. Yep. Yep. Fed goes big. Interest rates come down half a percent. Half a percent. Ah, just in time to try to get Kamala elected. Weird timing. Weird timing here. You know, I look. If Trump was in office right now,

Starting point is 00:03:43 if this happened for him, I would say the same thing. So let's get that out of the way. It just happens to be her. So do with that what you will. They've been waiting forever. And I guess the data is finally bad enough that they've got to go there. You've got to go to the 50 basis points. I think that is going to spark some stuff.

Starting point is 00:04:03 I think some real estate will start moving. For sure. Yeah, I think it'll get real estate moving. And it says, this is from NBC News. They had an article called, Fed goes big with interest rate cut in a bid to head off an economic slowdown. So the Federal Reserve said Wednesday it was lowering its key interest rate by half a percent, an unusually aggressive move designed to cushion the economy from a further slowdown.

Starting point is 00:04:34 Real interesting. I mean, I think you guys buy groceries. I buy groceries. They're expensive everywhere. The economy is definitely in, you know, they're trying to say it's cooling, but I don't know. What do you guys think? I don't know. I filled up my gas tank today and I keep, everybody keeps telling me, you know, gas is down, gas is down. I'm like, that's a $87 tab right there. Like every time, like I got to have that premium shit. And it's like, uh, my gas is not going down, but supposedly everybody tells me gas is going down, but I don't know. Groceries definitely aren't.

Starting point is 00:05:07 No. Chris, how much does it cost to fill up your gas tank? I paid over $5 for premium. So you're talking like $120. Oh yeah. I mean, that's why it's funny. Like gas is down compared to what? Like three weeks ago by 15 cents.

Starting point is 00:05:22 Maybe, you know, like we were paying like $2, what? Two, $3 a gallon. Yeah. In the last administration, I get inflation happens, but. When I left California two and a half months ago, I was paying almost $6 a gallon for gas. So that's crazy. I'm happy to be in South Carolina. so that's crazy. I'm happy to be in South Carolina. So this article says the economy has continued to send mixed signals. The unemployment rate at 4.2 remains historically

Starting point is 00:05:53 low, but it has inched up in four of the last five months, a trend that has often preceded other recessions. So what's your guys' take? Are we in a recession? Some may call it a silent recession. Yeah, I don't know. It's past my pay grade to know definitively. I'll just say some things feel slower. The vibe feels, amongst other business owners, feels a little so-so. I could be convinced that we're pretty damn close, but what do you think, Chris? I think we've been in it. Like you said,

Starting point is 00:06:28 everyone I know that owns businesses is not having a great time right now. So, I mean, I think if you look at prospectively compared to three years ago, there was a completely different energy. Spending was going nuts and now it's very quiet. Yeah. It seems that way for sure.

Starting point is 00:06:46 I don't know if it's the election and some of the negativity and all that stuff. Like there's, there's a lot of factors that I feel like are like weighing into this, at least sentiment. I think sentiment is like the word here versus like the hardcore economic data. I'd have to look at, but like the sentiment sure feels like what you're saying, Chris,

Starting point is 00:07:04 just kind of yeah yeah that's my technical term and there's a lot going on right we've got like two three wars going on across the world i just feel like internationally there's a lot more chaos than there was three four years ago right so i think everybody's kind of budgeting a little bit. It feels like we're strapped a little bit more than is comfortable. I think in terms of business, every business owner that I know

Starting point is 00:07:33 and I'm in contact with is holding their cards just a little bit closer to the vest than I think they were in previous years. Yeah, for sure. Optimism seems few and far between. more scarce for scarce the word i was looking for and you can tell it in the sentiment like i see it most with younger people that are people wanting to do startups young entrepreneurs people wanting to create the energy isn't there right now yeah and i don't know if it's because the money's not flowing or like you said, there's just a general cloud of kind of melees right now. Yeah. Yeah. But don't get me wrong.

Starting point is 00:08:11 On the flip side, I did talk to a good friend of mine who's a mortgage guy this morning. And even he said that rate cut, he's getting more calls. People are moving. If you go watch the reruns of this show, I talked about if when you stall real estate the way it has been with inflation and interest rates, that gets a lot of money doing a lot of different things. From refinance, like stuff that has to do with real estate, but a lot of stuff that doesn't. And I think there's been a lot of pinup people not selling, not buying, not refining, not doing things that pushes money into the market and gets flow of activity. Oh, yeah. I think that should help. I think it will.

Starting point is 00:09:02 I'm kind of kicking myself because I closed escrow about 30 days ago at like 6.8%. so would it immediately what what would it be today i think it's like i don't want to get quoted here let me see if i can find the data is it more than a half of percentage point or would it be six yeah it's half a percentage point so it should be like 6.3 yeah i mean that's a that's not enough that you'd refi over there and if you went back down it went like 4.8 or something you dropped a couple points there. Then you get into it'd be worth it with closing costs and all that. But eh. I'm happy. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:09:31 Alright, you guys. So, Chris, you're our crypto guy here. So, next article is coming at us from Fox Business. Trump set to launch his own crypto platform. Former President Donald Trump is set to launch a cryptocurrency project called World Liberty Financial on Monday with his two oldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and

Starting point is 00:09:52 Eric Trump leading the initiative. Thoughts? I look at this like a celebrity cryptocurrency. Like a meme coin? Yeah. And there's hundreds of Trump related meme coins already. I mean, there's Kamala coins, there's a million things. It's almost, I look at this, maybe it's a marketing play. You know, you have a lot of celebrities release a coin. It's good for building community. I can see this too from a campaign standpoint, you're pulling in kind of the younger crypto savvy people, you're appealing to them. I'm interested in it. I find it interesting. It's non-transferable, you're appealing to them i'm interested in it find it interesting it's non-transferable but i need to look into more i'm i'm kind of like what's the what's the what backs up

Starting point is 00:10:31 its value so this is where my i know the dollar yeah believe it if you believe there's value then there's value you know i mean well the u.s government sort of backs it too i mean so there's there's some stuff there. I mean, we can, we can go down that rabbit hole. Anyone listening that's investigating crypto. This is not the type of crypto you buy into, by the way, you buy into Bitcoin,

Starting point is 00:10:55 Ethereum, this stuff that the massive banks. And does have a back. Right. When you have JP Morgan banks like this, holding close to billions of dollars in this cryptocurrency, that should be your signal that this isn't going anywhere, right? So I think at this point now, your guy Merrill Lynch is probably going to start suggesting, hey, we've got this ETF fund with some cryptocurrencies.

Starting point is 00:11:15 Maybe you put 10% in there. Sure. This is more of a novelty type thing, in my opinion, but we'll see where it goes. For those listeners out there like myself that aren't invested in crypto, what would your guys' kind of business insider view on crypto be for people who have not yet invested in it? I think the coins and the specific currency that Chris named, like the original Bitcoin and Ethereum,

Starting point is 00:11:44 those are so backed now by other entities much larger than anything anyone on this call or probably that we're talking about even if whatever percent we're in chris if i've done all right but like still people that back it that are worth thousands of times more than we are keep those those, I think, from going to nowhere or nothing. So I'd have it as part of your portfolio, but I would have it like, here's how I treat my investments. High risk. I could live with it if it went away forever. It's usually about probably more for me than most people, like 20 to 30%, high risk, but high reward. And then 50% in safe, but still aggressive. Because again, at my age, I mean, I consider myself still young. So, safe, but still aggressive, I think, depending on your age. And then that,

Starting point is 00:12:39 it's tried and true. It's going to slow grow, but it's going to grow. I always have some in play that is risky. That's just because that's just my persona. But I think most advanced to medium advanced have Bitcoin, have it in their portfolio somewhere now. Yeah. That's my opinion. Yeah. My two cents, make it easy download coinbase put it on dollar dollar cost averaging so just you can set it on coinbase to buy weekly to buy

Starting point is 00:13:14 monthly i put mine i purchase every week i think 100 every week of bitcoin and a few other ones and i've said it for years i think since like 2019 i've had to just doing that so it's not even like you need to worry about trading and i can tell you if you would have done that i need you to show me how to set that up yeah i'm like okay i don't even do that i need to do that i need to do right and of course when i started this i got it in 2017 it would be like 20 a week right i was dipping my toes in. I heard it in the news. I knew friends had made money on it. So I was like, okay. And like you said, it was a small amount of my income was going into it. As I've learned more, I've upped it a little bit. Still, my best profitability has

Starting point is 00:13:58 come from just dollar cost averaging, buying a little bit every week or every month and not even looking at it. Set it and forget it. Yeah. yeah 20 bucks a month if that's all you can do do it right and and do the big ones the bitcoin the ethereum it's i compare it to blue chip stock trade coca-cola the ford it's so ingrained now in our financial systems and being used internationally, that technology is not going to go anywhere. So Coinbase app, hook it up to your bank account, just set it up super simple. You can even get a credit card now from a lot of these companies who have a Visa crypto card, where I can literally, if I want, I can load it up with say $2,000 in Bitcoin and I can go anywhere Visa is accepted and swipe this credit card, like any other normal credit card, and it'll automatically deduct and convert just from my crypto account. So this is,

Starting point is 00:14:52 and I'll tell you, I was at a random, like a Chipotle this week. It wasn't a Chipotle, it was like a local one. But even at the register, it said, hey, we take crypto. Like this is something now normal businesses are regularly using. I mean, it's no more complicated than when you use Apple pay on your phone. It's just as simple. I think when people see that yet, the like you can pay with crypto. I haven't seen that yet. I haven't seen a lot of that,

Starting point is 00:15:13 but I will. And you can set that up on Shopify. I mean, literally Shopify. Now you can set up, if you have an e-com store, you can say, Oh,

Starting point is 00:15:21 I'll accept a Bitcoin or Ethereum. I'll give you the non-sophisticated answer too. We're going to download it live on the show. Yeah, live on the show. But I'll say this non-sophisticated, betting and gambling in the US now is like billions and billions of dollars. ESPN bet, all this stuff. And I used to think that I bet on college football or I bet on crypto. I almost equate them, the same amount of risk or whatever. Let's just say this. I would now take whatever you gamble on, football or college football, and put it on Bitcoin, and you will win a lot more than you ever were going to make gambling.

Starting point is 00:15:58 100%. And it's still a gamble. So I want you to sort of kind of think about them mentally the same a little bit. But I would say if those worlds were equal like five years ago, it's a lot better chance that you're going to win on Bitcoin and that side than gambling on NFL and college football. A hundred percent. This is not financial advice, but I truly believe that anything you put in crypto right now will be double what it's worth by next year this time. I could see that. We're going to have to come back and listen to this episode. And to anyone listening, we're entering the best time to get in.

Starting point is 00:16:32 We're entering the bull run cycle here in the next nine months. I've been waiting three years for this. So create time to get in. If you're seeing it on the news, it's already too late. For sure. When CNN's talking about Bitcoin reaches new highs, that's when I'm pulling profits because it's going to start coming down after that. Yep, definitely. Well, I have a quote here from Donald Trump. We're embracing the future with

Starting point is 00:17:00 crypto and leaving the slow and outdated big banks behind. So it'd be interesting to see what happens. I sent $5,000 to Europe last night. It was there in four minutes. You know how difficult that would be to do? Yeah. I spent five grand in crypto last night. I sent it. It was there in four minutes to Europe.

Starting point is 00:17:17 If I were to go to a bank, it would take five days, five business days, and probably cost me a hundred dollars in wire fees. When's your mail order bride coming? They said three weeks. Yeah, it should be cheap for her. Five minutes to send, three weeks to get here, baby. I hope she costs more than $5,000.

Starting point is 00:17:36 You're just renting her for a month. It's one of those Elon robot wives. Yes. All right. This is interesting. Robolux blurs lines between gaming and commerce with Shopify integration. I know you're a bomb of babies.

Starting point is 00:17:56 I don't know Robolux. You don't know how to say Roblox. Ryan, this is your Roblox. The minute she said that, I'm like, oh. It's not Roblox? You will. It's Roblox. You're about a year away.

Starting point is 00:18:09 Okay. Yeah. Roblox. Take it away then. Oh, yeah. The kids. Now, I will say this. There's a game.

Starting point is 00:18:16 Let me just tell you. I would imagine there's stock in whatever company it is. I was actually going to look it up before this. Didn't have time. It's a game called Brawl Stars. This is all the rage for the kids. They spend more money on that than anything it's on it's an app on the phone i want to find out who the developer is they have to be making money because this is kind of like fortnite like part two it's a totally different game than fortnite but it's same hype my kids

Starting point is 00:18:39 from 8 to 15 play this game religiously and so Roblox has actually kind of taken a little bit of a backseat. Eight-year-old Nash usually is in Roblox a fair amount when he's playing. He's more into Brawl Stars right now because it's on the mobile device, and they don't have to get on. But Roblox is huge. It's interesting with this integration with Shopify. I need to get on to kind of play around with it. They've had a couple of these metaverse things with the restaurants

Starting point is 00:19:06 and stuff, and I've gotten on them. I'm like, eh, this is hokey. But hopefully this is a good integration. If it is, if it's really well integrated, it's going to be interesting because you've got all these kids playing with Shopify linked to it. You've got all this money charged up. Like, 17 t-shirts show up on the

Starting point is 00:19:22 front porch. The parents are like, what is this? Mom's like, what the hell? Yeah. I think it's smart, the integration within the platforms. But I'll say I never would have believed the amount that the kids end up spending for all these just random things in the games. I just, someone smarter than me. Like, I guess that shouldn't have fooled me, but I did not think.

Starting point is 00:19:42 I guess coming up in the gaming world the way I did is like you saved up forever to get the title itself. So then the thought of spending more money like day one to get some outfit or something like just would have been maybe it would have worked then, too. Like you just trying to get to the game title, trying to get it for Christmas or your birthday. What title was that, Ryan? Nintendo 64? Duck Hunter? No, this is not even before that. He's way before.

Starting point is 00:20:13 Way original. Original Nintendo. Super Mario Brothers and Mike Tyson's Punch Out. I was beating Mike Tyson by night one. 0073735963. That's the code to get to Mike Tyson on Mike Tyson's Punch Out. I still know it. Go use it. Go

Starting point is 00:20:29 download it right now. That's how well. I'm telling you. Nobody knows that code. That's how you get straight to Mike. You don't have to beat Glass Joe or all those other bozos. You get straight to Mike Tyson. Little Mac.

Starting point is 00:20:45 It's like, he's running in the 2D. His arms are going like this because he's running. He's training for his boxing match. It was so good. That's the difference. Back then, you just had, like, cheat codes. Now it's, like, $4.99. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:01 They won't give you those codes. There's none. And they had the Nintendo magazine, like the black hat one that was like all the custom codes to get into certain parts of the game. It's like, yeah. I feel like it made kids smarter, though. Like now it's like, oh, you just have to pay to get it. Yeah. No, you just double click the side button.

Starting point is 00:21:18 You had to play it to get good at it. Yeah. You had to be resourceful. Well, yeah. You actually had to beat the game. Now you can just like pay to skip levels. I will say that you watched my 15-year-old Clayton. What was what I call the first one

Starting point is 00:21:29 that replaced Brawl Stars? Fortnite. Dude is like Gold Star level 18 elite. I don't know what that is. Somebody's going to DM me and be like, they're in hundreds, dude. What are you talking about? Dude goes in there and wins like every other match. And he's got some gaming

Starting point is 00:21:45 skills let's just say this he does what he can do with the controller i'm like man he got some hand eye coordination you know he's good at basketball too but it's like pretty amazing like hey i just video games are just not my forte you guys i grew up on a 200 acre farm off the grid where they turn our electricity off because it was on a gas powered generator so we had like no electricity during the day so yeah i feel like it's not my forte i mean they weren't my forte either yeah i definitely came up in the gaming very beginning of it with nintendo were you like in the arcade uh yeah yeah putt putt arcade on wade hampton here in greenville it was it's not around anymore but oh yeah skater die baby i destroyed that game paper boy oh yeah

Starting point is 00:22:35 nostalgic gaming here on right about now all right i want to kind of jump down here while we're talking about different platforms and let's talk about TikTok. So this is coming at us from NBC News. TikTok says it's not spreading Chinese propaganda. The U.S. says there's a real risk. What is the truth? So, you know, everybody knows TikTok is in a legal battle over a potential ban in Washington, D.C. So in the court documents, the U.S. Department of Justice and intelligence officials state that they have no direct evidence of China using TikTok for propaganda, but do highlight a significant risk that it could happen. What are your guys' thoughts on TikTok? I'm going to talk about it through the lens of TikToker in these platforms. I don't believe in censorship.

Starting point is 00:23:26 I believe we have free speech and you can do these things. I believe that first and foremost. I do think that like, can we not just put like some kind of thing on here to where like a regulation where these companies. filter or someone a neutral third party that has like sort of the oversight of these platforms that are just so big they need an independent wash over every now and then and because they're all technology it's all data it's all an algorithm so put a filter on it where China, whatever that could be China coming in gets stopped. And you have like a group of non-biased people that are just making sure the technology is safe. Yep. Is it that simple? Am I simplifying it? I know these are private businesses and I think that's where it gets hairy.

Starting point is 00:24:25 But I think we can all agree when some of these things get as big as they are with great opportunity comes great responsibility. So you've benefited making hundreds of trillions of dollars on the in the US. So just deal with a little bit of regulation, even if I'm a anti-government kind of guy or not anti-all government just most of it because they don't know how to run a business but i don't know it's just not that easy chris no it's a slippery slope i mean i've thought about this a lot because of the whole censorship with x or twitter back then right during like the 2020 times covid all that stuff so i'm like all right we've committees, but they've never been unbiased. They've always seemed very, very skewed, right? And then like you said, the private company thing. Now, do I think China could

Starting point is 00:25:16 weaponize this? Absolutely. It's a weapon for people's minds now. We don't need missiles and guns and bullets. And I'll reference, there was a TED Talk, I believe, from Jack Dorsey, the former Twitter CEO, where he's talking about really the algorithms, the danger of these black box algorithms that are being weaponized. And they are, right? They're harnessing our attention. And whether that's ill-motivated or not, if I'm a business guy, it's my app. My goal is I want you on the app as long as possible, whether it's for nefarious reasons or not, probably not. But I do wonder, and we've all seen this, right? You can see when the algorithm is starting to push certain stuff your way. That's where I think the whole problem lies is how do we know that these algorithms aren't being

Starting point is 00:26:01 subtly used to push certain things or certain beliefs. Now, to be fair, we can look at China all day, but I've seen our own government suppress us from information and freedom of speech. So it's like, I can understand all this, but this is a deeper, bigger problem that we have that you could even say applies to all of our social media platforms, not even specifically TikTok. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the algorithm is one of those things that it's kind of like a beast that's tricky to understand and how the algorithm can be different. Like if, you know, Ryan and I work together every single day, but if you open up our algorithms, they'll be completely different things on social media,

Starting point is 00:26:42 even though we might share some religious views, some general values, some political views. And it's really interesting to see like that completely different narratives could come through for different people. I don't know. I feel like back in the day when we had like the first beginnings of Twitter and Facebook and MySpace, it was really like you put something up and that's what everybody sees is that one thing. But now it's like, they only see what the algorithm thinks that they want to see. Well, yeah. And that's why you might be on Instagram and all of a sudden you're getting showed a video from June, right? Where it's like, I don't even follow this guy.

Starting point is 00:27:21 And this is three months old. And I think a perfect example is the election, right? Say there's a post and it's just some information about Trump from Fox. If I read the comments, I'm seeing a bunch of anti-Trump stuff. And I have to think this is being done on purpose because usually it's triggering people to create more engagement and divisiveness. That's where I kind of look at like, okay, how are these algorithms being programmed? You know, we're not like, like you said, we're not all seeing the same thing. So we used to say,

Starting point is 00:27:51 and I know Twitter would say this, it's like the, the city center, what's the word? You know what I'm saying? Like it was like a place to go for the news, right? To town square, town square where now it's like, there is no town square because it's all so customized by the algorithm that we're all like we don't even know what the majority of people's beliefs are because everything is so individualized oh i do think it's being weaponized yeah maybe i'll grab this a different solution let's just limit how many, how long we allow our kids to look at their devices.

Starting point is 00:28:27 Let's just, let's just all get off the phone a little bit more. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. And then maybe we don't, it doesn't have the info that might be, you know,

Starting point is 00:28:35 wishful thinking too, but I agree. It's practicality. Erase TikTok. The phone itself is pulling away from us in certain ways from, from our real lives. Like you said, if we all just took a step away from us in certain ways from our real lives. Like you said, if we all just took a step away from the phone. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:28:48 I think when you do that, you even go back to your phone and you look at things a little differently. Oh, yeah. I agree. Think about this. Obviously, a little different, but I'll use the analogy. At a certain point, you stop drinking because it's just too much and so getting on your phone and get on these channels it's like yeah it's a digital thing it's not physical but it is mentally the same thing as like drinking 15 tequila drinks to your head so it's unhealthy right

Starting point is 00:29:21 it's unhealthy mentally like tequila drinks are unhealthy physically and mentally, but physically at first. But it sort of gives you, you at least get the reflex of, okay, I need to throw up now. And just to be gross, but just call it what it is. This is like another kind of problem is that you don't know that you really, your brain is throwing up. But, and I think if we thought about that a little bit more and look, I'm guilty of it. I, some days I'm better than others. I think I'm a lot better than I was a few years ago. Cause I've been like, I'll go to the lake. I do things and I put my phone down. Like I'll look at it once every couple hours, but there's days where I don't,

Starting point is 00:29:57 it's just not healthy. And I say this owning a digital agency and running a podcast with media and I want people to consume it. But I do think there's a healthy point that we've passed. Yeah, I think so too. I don't, I don't think it's healthy to consume the level of like constant inundated, like videos and short form content and creator content ads and pushing everything. It's okay to consume it a little bit and some of it's really interesting but you can't do it all the time you have definitely have i mean what do you say chris everything in moderation even moderation that's right yeah an even better analogy might be like cigarettes like in nicotine which is now like when you go buy it like they have to tell you like this is

Starting point is 00:30:46 hard to quit you've seen those signs it's very hard to quit once you start like they said big bold letters where they saw it now it's always like social media should be the same because habit forming right it's habitual and tiktok is the worst culprit yeah and so it's like it's almost like i wouldn't be surprised if it got to the point where you get on the platform and it's like this can be habitual and bad for your brain. Like 10 years from now I wouldn't be surprised if we

Starting point is 00:31:14 learn that. It's probably in the terms of service already and some like some wording that doesn't make sense. We all find it on accident. Yeah. These are not easy problems to solve. But they find it on accident. Yeah. These are not easy problems to solve, but they're worthy of discussion. Yep.

Starting point is 00:31:29 I think so too. So it'd be interesting to see. It looks like a U.S. law demands that TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, cut ties with China by mid-January of next year or face a ban. So I guess we'll see what happens. Kicking the can down the road.

Starting point is 00:31:46 It's hard not to look at this. Like I see the threat here, like, and that's why I think there might should be something, but like, it's also hard not to look at this with it's just political and it's also being weaponized. Like the meta it's very meta because it's like,

Starting point is 00:32:02 they're wanting to cut this off, but it feels like the same propaganda all sort of the same thing it's crazy have you guys heard of mom talk mom talk yep i'm gonna bring it up all right so mom talk is like the latest tiktok trend basically it's a bunch of accounts a bunch of these mormon moms there is a new show on Disney Plus and Hulu called The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. All the ladies are watching it. So ask your girlfriends, ask your wives.

Starting point is 00:32:32 Basically, these Mormon moms are on MomTalk. It's called MomTalk. Do they all have the same husband? They are soft swingers. What does that mean? Like they trade once in a while? Soft swingers. What does that mean? Like they trade once in a while? Soft swingers. That's like half pregnant.

Starting point is 00:32:52 You are. The reason I'm bringing this up is because it's business related and it's related to business news. One of the moms on MomTalk had disclosed that she was offered a $20,000 brand deal for one Instagram post. So I thought it was interesting. If you haven't heard of it, you can look it up. You can do hashtag MomTalk on TikTok. What do they talk about? Is it just general MomTalk and they happen to be Mormon or is it Mormon MomTalk? No, it's not MomTalk. It's T-O-C-K. So like TikTok.

Starting point is 00:33:27 Like TikTok. It's them dancing. Got it. It's like dance videos. Oh, okay. Yeah. With the occasional husband swap. Or wonderful at the same time.

Starting point is 00:33:38 It's like a train wreck. I can't look away. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, man. Maybe they figured out the formula well it's just interesting how much marketing budget is being allocated to mom talk and it depends on your algorithm it's all over every one of my feeds well clearly the algorithm's targeting you because i never heard

Starting point is 00:33:59 of it you're sucked in the vortex of the mom talk mom Mom talk. I'm kind of okay with not being sucked into that one. Check out some mom talk later. I'm afraid because then it's all going to keep popping up. I thought you were actually going to tell me it was a new platform altogether. Like it wasn't TikTok. It's like mom talk. I wouldn't be surprised. If they started their own, you know.

Starting point is 00:34:17 Every one of these women, there's like five or six of them. They all said that they are the breadwinner in their household after dancing on TikTok for like a year. Are they hot? Yes. Okay. Now we get to it. All right.

Starting point is 00:34:31 Now we get it. And they just happen to be moms. Yeah. It could be something else. They're hot Mormon moms. They're hot Mormon moms. Now I see the appeal because they're hot. And who was the brand that offered them?

Starting point is 00:34:41 It was probably like a lingerie company like, yo, 20K, we'll give you one post. Yeah. I know what it was, but I don't know that it's appropriate to tell you what it was on the podcast. Is that a personal toy? That did the... Sponsorship? Yes. Note to self, check out MomTalk later.

Starting point is 00:35:05 See who's trying to sponsor them. Oh, me. Today's segment, MomTalk, brought to you by Trojan. Or I don't know what. Would you like to finish this off, Ryan? I will say this. I did see this one article about the iPhone 16, and I didn't watch it, and it's like the sales are slow. It's not surprising.

Starting point is 00:35:30 I want to get excited about this thing. I want to go buy it. But it's got a bunch of features that aren't even going to be released yet. It's like I can't get excited about a camera button. It's like, can you get me something else? Motorola needs to call me. We need to get the Droid 2 campaign going because this is the prime time to fucking crush Apple. Because they have no innovation going on.

Starting point is 00:35:50 It's time. And I'm an Apple guy. I'd hate it. My whole ecosystem would crumble. But this is the time to strike. If you want to get Apple now in the smartphone game, now is when you do it. Because innovation is stalling, slowing. I don't know why.

Starting point is 00:36:07 I wish it wasn't. But they aren't innovating with their hardware. Software is great, but we need some hardware innovation or something exciting. Yeah. And not some big goggles on your head that make you dizzy. Well, we talked about this last Friday as well. Like their new phone, it's just like one new button. Nothing crazy. It's meh. it's just like one new button. Nothing

Starting point is 00:36:25 crazy. It's mad. It's as mad as it gets. It's like, if you look up MEH in the dictionary, it's got Tim Cook right there right now. iPhone 16 picture. Yeah. It's like with a big AEI question mark. Hashtag, I don't know what is happening. But yeah, anyway, disappointing iPhone 16 sales thus far. Yeah, seen this coming a while and I'm sad because I need a new phone. I'm getting this random no SIM card message on my phone like every other day now. I have conspiracy theory.

Starting point is 00:37:01 I've had this phone longer. It's the 13 plus. And I'm a trade every year guy. But this is the longest I've kept a phone since I went. And I feel like they're hijacking my phone because I need to buy a new one. Because the software is still fine. You know, like it's fast enough. Camera's good enough for what I use it for.

Starting point is 00:37:23 Now they're corrupting my SIM from Silicon Valley. They want you on the eSIM because they don't even want people having SIM cards anymore. Oh, yeah. They're getting me. They're totally getting me because it's going to get to where it's almost annoying enough. It's going to get annoying enough that I'm going to go buy that stupid 16. I'm telling you, the fix is in. That battery's starting to get a little worse.

Starting point is 00:37:43 Like, come on. That's how they do it. It's like every two years, like right at the end of two years, end of three years, yep, they just crash your phone. I know. So I think that's all we got today, folks. Any final words, Chris or Brianna? This was an enlightening and really entertaining episode.

Starting point is 00:38:02 I hope you all enjoyed so much? Chris, you found words from me. I'm going to go check out MomTalk. Hey, they must be doing something because they get mentioned on our show. They're getting more promotion. MomTalk it is. MomTalk for the win.

Starting point is 00:38:16 We appreciate everyone, wherever, whenever, however you are. Go follow our sponsor, Branded Bills. Get that custom merch. We've always got it on. Look, I'm always rocking it. I got the Branded Bills hat, Branded Bills t-shirt. All the brands that we carry have all of our stuff.

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Starting point is 00:38:42 It's not cookie cutter logo shit. This is good stuff. Go give them some love on social media, too. They put out some good designs. It's not cookie cutter logo shit. This is good stuff. Go give them some love on social media too. They put out some great content. BrandonBills.com official merchandise sponsor of Right About Now. Go to RyanIsRight.com. All the highlight clips.

Starting point is 00:38:56 Full episode. And go check us out on YouTube. All our stats are blowing up. Especially with Brianna here. We'll see you next time on Right About Now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit RyanIsRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities.

Starting point is 00:39:17 Thanks for listening.

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