How Trying Became Cool Again

wow yeah this is the most try hard intro of all time just started like everyone else in front of a microphone man okay yeah that that's better about a month ago an artist named DOI went viral for her talk show performance this set had her and two other girls with elaborate hair choreography rapping really well and the biggest tweet that came from this was making those Harriet Tubman music is the cheat code for getting respected in rap now this is an amazing tweet this is just an amazing combination of words this random assortment of words

specifically chosen to piss people off I got to give it to you that's this is a work of art but this is part of an attitude that has been around for a while now don't do too much this performance had nothing to do with politics Harriet Tubman slavery nothing she kind of just assumed that from the amount of effort that was being put in over time it has become uncool to just try like just to put in some effort don't do too much okay it's embarrassing just be nonchalant be cool be effortless this has made

everything boring everyone is too scared to try because that would be vulnerable I feel like only now are we seeing a shift back to people putting in effort and being rewarded for it but more on that later how did we even get here in the first place cuz it wasn't always like [Music] this Mozart Michelangelo the HW to girl every generation has their great but it feels like over time we're giving people more credit for being nonchalant than for doing things well like just imagine if the talk Tua podcast was created in the Byzantine Empire

we're holding her back it's crazy to see this contrast between the last 10 years and then the last like hundred to Thousand Years even just the 2000s the 2000s were the definition of not being afraid to do the most loud maximalist Unapologetic self-expression everything is in your face over the top colorful has personality bro even things that were corporate didn't feel so Hess or generic things were allowed to be weird or cringe the internet was the Wild West man you know before everything became content you could create whatever you wanted you could do whatever you

wanted it was a little too much you might have had to reel it in and we did cuz suddenly in the mid-2010s everything shifted and I don't know when exactly this was I remember the exact moment I noticed it and that was in 2016 when the life of Pablo album cover came out and I was like so this is where we're at now you didn't even try and that was the aesthetic the whole deal in the mid-20s was trying to look effortless which is an oxymoron in itself and you're an oxymoron if you tried it

everything was redesigned to look more simple AKA boring bro just straight up soulless it's the same monotonous no personality vibe in the last 10 years every movie started looking dim dark flat every movie has that Netflix look BR in relationships we became so detached everyone became so nonchalant dating now is a competition of who can care less the most it's also why you're in your eighth situationship in the last 12 months I'm not hating I'm just noticing every day another tweet goes viral about how we got to bring back real yearning where are the real

yearner at we got to bring back that level of year oh that that was mine okay that sentiment has been around for a while we miss actually feeling like we can put ourselves out there but the thing is nobody wants to be seen as a try hard and that's like the only insult that could also be a motivational quote it's like if I called you a keep going don't stop you got this at this don't stop right here bro don't at this don't stop look what he's doing he's not stopping bro what is he but

I think there's a difference between trying hard because you want to and trying hard to impress other people we had social media for a while but it's only recently where it feels like everyone feels like everyone is looking at them so everyone's standing up straight trying to be perfect all eyes are on you that's why every party looks like this now where everyone's afraid to move at all Instagram feels like LinkedIn curating the literal peaks of your life to share we're trying to understand this new landscape where anyone can be made fun of for doing

anything you can be minding your business in public you do something a little bit off and now yeah you check Twitter that video is on freaking 8 million people's timelines and you're getting cooked so the last thing you want is to be seen trying or failing at something everyone is walking on eggshells artist became nonchalant why try if you'll be mocked if it doesn't sell well in music we traded elaborate rollouts cool visuals for mysterious Vibes and Aura I've had enough Aura all right we you guys we get it we don't know what you're up

to post the dang songs it became more attractive in relationships to be nonchalant why try if you'll be hurt if you put yourself out there you need to ignore her bro if you ignore her and don't talk to her don't text her for a week you're going to be amazed at what happens next if you're just chill man it's like you have nothing to lose but we have robbed ourselves of the joy of expressing ourselves to the fullest extent even right now somebody could be like oh my gosh this guy's doing too much what is

he talking about he's he's R I don't care I'm not limiting my enjoyment of life just so other people won't think I'm enjoying life too much like come on y'all are not enjoying life enough for me I'm sorry the irony is the look of nonchalant takes so much effort that you might as well just try bro you already are and I think people are getting tired of this nonchalance and we're finally seeing a shift the pendulum is swinging back artists are finally putting themselves out there more and getting rewarded for it and just a couple

years ago DJ khed was saying Tyler the Creator makes mysterious music it's called albums that you actually hear the songs not no mysterious and you never hear it this is one of the funniest terms because it's a mystery to me how DJ khed is allowed to make music Tyler was offbeat he was weird it's not really the type of music that you hear at Barber Shop but that's fine can that not exist and now with chrom acopia we got to see a refreshing dope rollout in a time when people announce music and it doesn't come

out for months to years the album was announced there was real world building the colors the characters The Sounds were distinct this guy's actually putting in effort man this is what I'm talking about the bare minimum that's what I that's all I need and he sold 300K first week his biggest album yet more than any album DJ khed has ever sold like look at all the pop stars of the last year we finally got like a pop Renaissance these are all artists that have literally grinded for like 10 plus years and that's why I feel

so much more earned to see them win artists like chaperone taking pop back to being elaborate and I don't know doing the most in the best way this is what I'm talking about Brian I need y'all this is pop music y'all know where this came from why is everybody trying to act too cool for this you have to be out there you have to be interesting and I feel like we're getting back to that even with how minimalistic brat was and the whole brat summer movement Charlie XCX was putting in a ton of work bro

people got so tired of Drake not really feeling like he's trying at all to the point where they were rooting against him in the beef and Kendrick actually putting an effort into his lyrics into his love for the art form made it easier to want this guy to win and that effort took him all the way to the dang Super Bowl and winning five Grammys in one night people are valuing real things again barbin Heimer got all these people to come out and watch two movies on the same day just because these two directors put

in more effort than we're used to in recent big Blockbusters we went from a movie like Nacho Libre looking like this to every $200 million Blockbuster looking like this we got snowman get that c out of my face Barbie with the colorful sets Oppenheimer with the dang scale the epicness of the IMAX camera they both felt like they were made by real people not algorithms but one thing stands in the way of all this none of this is real work cook with AI this is like the end game of no effort this is like the

It doesn't really get farther than this like you really just study for 8 hours when I just got chat jbt to do it for me good use of your time Timmy all right I'll see you in there we're going to do a little surgery on this guy right we're getting rid of human voices faces thoughts just so we can save some time but the best things that have ever been produced on this Earth were by human beings that had to actually think dig deep down and come up with solutions to problems are we going to

just lose that part of ourselves to save some time probably I think we're shifting and I think it's going to shift even harder because people want the real bro I think we're going to fight not by trying to beat AI but by trying to be even more human that's how you cut through these days Everything feels so fake and corporate and low effort that even just caring about what you do feels different everyone wants to seem effortless but the thing is you have to try hard to get good enough at something to make it seem

effortless one of my favorite stories is Miles Davis improvising a film score in real time like watching the movie playing the trumpet in one night the whole score is done but that didn't happen because this guy was like bro let's just get this over with bro let me just get in there man took him thousands of hours of honing that craft to make that even possible for me to be telling you about it right now people just trying to skip 50 steps now and just get to the effortless part but let's be real you might

take an L For Trying you might waste your time you might look stupid and that's scaryy but if you actually put your all into it just cuz you wanted to you can stand on that there's more regret in hiding behind the shield of oh well I didn't even try so it's okay that it failed that inspires nobody that produces nothing cool except you get to help your ego that's it is that what we're doing all this for is that why we're here no the reality is we're all just scared all right it's fear that's what

it is you're scared we can't live life behind this fear bro we can't create art behind this fear we can't have real relationships behind this fear you can't even read a book these days in public without somebody telling you you're not a Vibe bro I wasn't trying to be a Vibe I was just trying to read the freaking I was just trying to read freaking postco we are starved for connection we're starved for authenticity that's what I'm going to try to do here that's what you should try to do in your everyday life and we

can actually try to have fun on this Earth instead of acting too cool to have fun okay I got to clean this up now [Music]