Why is everyone living the same life?

Is it just me or does it feel like everyone is living the same life, dressing the same way, drinking the same smoothie, doing the same workout class, moving to the same city, listening to the same artists, wearing the same makeup brand, and then, oh, three months later, there's a new trend and then suddenly everyone is copying that too. What the fuck ever happened to taste? Or when things like personal style actually meant having a sense of style that was personal to you, instead of just copying something that your favorite celebrity wore? Well, the psychologist René Gerard has a theory for this, called the Mimetic Desire, that you don't want what you want because of who you are. You want what you want because people that you want to be also haven't. In some ways, this is intuitive. Like, why the hell would anyone else spend $5,000 on a purse just because it has a Prada logo on it? Or what the hell even is a Labouboo, right? But what's crazier is when you realize that this doesn't just infects what you buy, but who you are, the dreams you have, the goals you chase, the places you go, your insecurity has become a product. They have to convince you that there's something wrong with you so that they just so conveniently happen to sell the solution. Which begs the question, how much of your life was actually your idea? Or was it just some subconscious Mimetic Desire? Well, that is exactly the question we sent out to solve here today, the psychology of insecurity, how that can be used to manipulate you for profit and what you can do to recognize those patterns and stop it. So with that, welcome back to Nikki and I, I'm your host, Nikki Reardon. I'm so excited to be back with you all this week. Yes, I'm wearing the same shirt and outfit that I wore last week. Hey, I'm on vacation. Okay, I had to record things ahead of time. Don't judge me. Okay. And instead of judging, you could be subscribing to the channel. You can get more content like this every single week and get this, turn on the post notifications. Okay. And notoriously, maybe in the past few months, I have not been uploading every Monday and I've been more sporadic about it. So that wouldn't be a problem if you had post notifications on or you subscribed. Just saying. And don't forget, hey, so Paul, listen, Spotify, we're, please, we're on the road to 30K on Spotify. It's like, I need to do it apparently with the business people are telling me, okay, I'm sorry. I mean, they have like 16,000 followers there, so we have a Spotify account. Please. We'll sing there. Hey, rate of five starts. So inspiration for this video, I want to give a shout out to this creator whose video gagged me. Gagged me. This is entirely from his video and his idea. His name is Mikey Posada. I'm also going to link the video in the description. If you end up liking this one, 10 out of 10 recommend watching this. It was a banger video and he was the one who like literally told me about this entire concept of memetic desire, but it's something I kind of had in my notes for a long time to do a video about and like, it connected the synapses in my brain. So what is this memetic desire, right? This feeling in you that all people have, right? Like, remember when you were 12 and there could be a guy in your class that you weren't that interested in, but then you're like sitting at the lunch table and all your girls are like, oh my God, like, that Niki guy is so cute, Niki is so cute, oh my God, Niki, but what? And then suddenly you're like, wait, Niki is kind of hot, right? It's just like it is literally this of the part of the human brain and the human condition. Like humans are mammals, you know? We have this primitive desire to be a part of the panic, fitting in feels good to us and is rewarded in our society. Social conformity is a part of human psychology that they have done many experiments on. There are things like status quo bias where people will deem things as less desirable or less good just because they're different from the status quo. One of my favorite psychological research examples of this is like ashes conformity experiments where, you know, they showed people these like forward lines and there is one text test subject in the room. We'll say it's 10, 10 people. There's actually one person in the experiment, the nine others are plants. Like they're not, like they are actors and they have, you know, one line that's clearly longer than all the others and they ask and they go down the line and they say, you know, which one do you think is the longest and nine people all give the wrong answer on purpose because they're actors. That's what they're told to do. And then we get to the actual test subject and the test subject will often say the wrong answer. They will literally ignore what is happening in front of their eyeballs because they're desired to fit in and be a part of the status quo and perceived norm is so uncomfortable. Like it gives us such anxiety that like we will literally alter our reality to see it. And you know, going down a different pipeline of different things at a different time is like, this is also how I think things like, you know, like MAGA have maintained momentum for so long and why I feel like I'm a lot more empathetic to people that have fallen for that type of thing than a lot of people here at R because I mean, I grew up in Virginia. I mean, there were so many people like the NRA headquarters was like off of the highway, like in my area, you know what I mean, like it's crazy, it was crazy. So I understand how this almost like group think mentality can develop and how it literally will make you rethink what is in front of your own eyeballs. Like there's psychological evidence that has proven that to us. And what Mikey Posada talks about in his video that fucking gagged me is he said what happened is, you know, that used to be a pack or a village of what 200 people, whatever, right? And like maybe you're comparing yourself, some people in your community, yeah, yeah, yeah. But eventually somehow the pack got replaced with an algorithm, a computer system that is curated to you and specifically you to show you the things that you are interested in and desire most and engage with the most and watch the longest. And that has completely detached from reality, right? Like something that's so fascinating to me about, you know, the world that we live in is like you only see things in their most perfect, highest end form, right? Like if I were to Google, I don't know or go on TikTok and search like baked ZD recipe, it would be only videos from like a professional chef, people with a culinary background, people who have tested the recipe eight to 10 times and are people who are like food creators and do this for a living, right? There is no documentation of process of failure of the average person's experience with the thing. And only the highest viewed biggest experts, biggest people, which makes you feel perpetually distant from it and like so out of reach, right? And so you know, in order to sell you something new, they have to constantly move the goalpost to a new place and that's kind of where this whole memetic desire comes from, right? Because if like something was this clean girl beauty was really trending one year and then everyone did make up in that style forever all the time, how would they launch a new product, right? What they they have to physically move the beauty standard to make you, oh, actually what I these things that I have are not enough to look beautiful anymore, I have to buy this new thing. That girl looks more beautiful than me because she's doing this thing in this way that I don't have. So like I will mimic, right? Like that is where it comes from. There's so many examples of this that we see to like another part of memetic desire that is very fascinating in this like ecological theory of it is that it's not just about like wanting to be that person, it's it's really wanting to be a part of a specific group or social class that they are in, right? Like if you want something because that person or thing is a part of a group, you find desirable therefore traits of that become desirable and attractive to you, right? Like, there are a lot of attractive guys who play basketball, therefore guys who play basketball are hot, therefore you will see a medium ugly guy on the basketball team in your school and find him hot, right? Like, it's not actually because on paper you are necessarily find him the most like attractive thing in all attributes, it is this association with the group. And then it goes even a layer deeper, right? Because now because guy knows that girl thinks basketball players are hot, guy starts to buy clothes from Nike or wear certain athletes or really idolizes people like LeBron James, right? Because LeBron James also has this status that you desire, right? Like girls want him, so you want to be like him, right? That and it's just again in the cycle perpetuating that keeps keeps going. And that is how, you know, mimetic desire I think also starts to become why we develop these feelings of both insecurity and jealousy. There is another video that really got me by the other video that I saw I was at mindful news was her name. Also, we'll link this in this description, and she talks about what she calls social position in security. Her theory is that jealousy and insecurity come from this idea of a perceived social hierarchy. And what that hierarchy is can vary depending on what you value, right? One person might value beauty or attractiveness, another person success in the career, another person, artistic capability or having cool things, clothes, apartment, whatever. And we subconsciously place ourselves and other people on this ladder, this hierarchy. Some may be above you, some may be below you. And there is a real genuine belief that like the people who rank higher are more better or valuable in some way, right? Like this person that you find hot and beautiful is somehow a better person than you, where it feels like they are at a different level than you as a human being. And the ones below you are less valuable. So what happens when there's a scenario where let's say you are ranked lower than someone else in their given hierarchy? But then you start doing well in some way, thriving, have a glow up, etc. Their first feeling is it jealousy, it's insecurity. Because when you when they were here and you were here, but then you start to move up here, that makes them feel lower and worse. So now this resentment towards you is stemming from this own feeling of like somehow I went down. I am insecure because in the hierarchy ranking, I am now lower. And it makes them challenge their own feelings of identity and worthiness. And I think this is also why, you know, people from college that you know or friends that you have or whatever will like happily leave a comment on a celebrity's brand deal. Why? Like yeah, kind of generally needs your comment, right? But then when you start your height side hustle or some creative endeavor, they aren't that supportive. Why? Because they deem themselves here and they deem Kylie Jenner here. So seeing her do well doesn't challenge their perceived social hierarchy. It actually doesn't make them feel any worse about themself. You trying to go from here to like here, really bothers them, right? Because now that does challenge their reality of this perceived hierarchy. Like seeing you attempt to move up the ladder is bothersome in some way because it makes them feel insecure about not moving up their own ladder. And I think that is also why like the people who will fuck you up the most in the head or the people that you feel most in proximity to, you know, a former coworker that you used to work together. And now they started a business that's doing really well. People you went to college with or an old friend, whatever, right? Like when when you feel like, oh my God, at one point, we were at the same level at the same thing or whatever and now this person has done this and I have only done that. So I feel worse about myself because you are measuring in distance to this other person, right? That is the core of mnemonic desire. And people know this and use it as a marketing tactic to manipulate you, which is like what is so fascinating about it to me, right? I think beauty and fashion are really the biggest examples, right? When beauty standards masquerade themselves as health standards, they have to convince you something is wrong with you in order to sell you the solution. You're skinny, but you don't have a Plotty's body. You have a Plotty's body, but your butt isn't big enough. You have a big butt, but then you're too curvy. Like the goal post always has to move that is the point of the entire industry, right? If there was only one uniform beauty standard of or one uniform, this is the best gene, pair of genes, you would not have to constantly buy new genes every year. You would not constantly have to buy new makeup products every year, right? So the point of the marketing is to create this goal post that is eternally moving and you can never catch up to. And that is why I think one of the deepest things of insecurity, human beings feel is related to beauty and physical attractiveness because it is literally like you were being psychologically tormented for the profit of other people. Like that is really kind of the point of it, you know what I mean? And not only that, they go step further where they manufacture a sort of in-group identity that you have to buy things to be a part of, right? It's not just doing clobby's, it's being a pink polite girl with a specific Stanley cup and an aloe yoga mat and going to a certain type of workout class. And what is really terrifying to me about this is how this like psychological manipulation as a marketing tactic is like really infiltrating wellness and people's health in a way that is deeply terrifying like, you know, it's not just, did you sleep well? How did you score in your sleep tracking app that you have to pay monthly subscription for? And supplements and this monitor and CMOS and whatever the fuck like that one clip of the diary CEO of O guy that went like super viral where like optimization culture is just killing your joy for life, right? Where he talked about, he's like, I went to dinner and had two glasses of wine with a friend and then I went to bed and I checked my sleep tracking app this next morning and I was out of 54 and then because I was out of 54 this and it goes on about how this like somehow ruined his day. And it's like, no dude, you had a great night getting drinks and catching up with a friend like connecting with people you love is more important than what your fucking sleep tracker told app told you who cares, right? But like there is this like direct marketing attempt to make you look at your basic needs of life and convince you that there's something wrong with it so that they can sell you the solution. That is a very monetizable thing to be tied to something somebody feels that they need in order to live or survive or optimize properly. And again, that's just the entire part of those industries is manufacturing a new beauty standard, moving the beauty standard all the time. And I think that there are so many other different marketing examples of this, some in harmful ways, some in not, like one that got a lot of attention recently that I've known about for a long time. I've talked that it was like news to people, but really upset people was music labels running and creating fan pages and posting on TikTok like videos of the artists or whatever to sort of manufacture this memetic desire, right? Again, it's that same thing of like you don't find somebody, maybe you didn't find somebody hot in your class until five of your friends told you that they were hot, right? Like when you wake up one day and see like a bunch of videos from these random accounts that you've never seen like all at the same concert, it creates this film effect, right? You understand that there's some sort of like in group or identity or people know about the thing that you don't know about and like what is going on? What should I do, right? And people were very, very upset about this. My hot take is that I think it's fucking genius, like I think it's fucking genius. And also it is very interesting to me how like simultaneously people will be like labels don't do enough marketing for their artists. What are they doing? Like find this thing that's like working extremely well and they're like well, not that. You know what I mean? Like it's very interesting to me. And it's also very interesting especially as a brand new artist, right? Like you can't get on the front of Rolling Stone Magazine and stuff like that. And it's interesting that while you know this artist posts their own video and maybe only gets five thousand views. But when they post it from this fan page and they use that memetic desire, it gets five hundred thousand views because the quality of the art wasn't the problem. It's the way our society is set up. It's the way we we chase what is deemed desirable is only things are desirable by other people. And when you are starting from zero and if you don't have money or resources or connections, you got a manufacturer that a little bit. Again, people got upset about this but I don't know. I think it is very interesting and you can even go as far to say that you know any sort of review of anything is also this desire to feed into memetic desire, right? Of like, you know, people want to watch a review of something before they watch the movie, like a spoiler for your review. And someone says, oh my god, this acting performance was so incredible. And then you go into it that with a little bit of predisposed bias or at the very least you understand, oh, this, I respect to this guy's opinion. He told me this thing about it. Therefore, my perception of the thing should also be in line with that or else I'm wrong. Instead of like, oh, maybe in this person that reviewed the thing, have divergence in taste. There is no right or wrong answer. All already subjective. But again, it's very interesting that how this is a corp facet of the human mind that we continue to use in like fine ways to get people interested in things that they maybe would not have been interested in otherwise. So what is the solution when you as a person have felt this in some way, when you are something to question your own desires, right? Did I do this career path, right? But I feel like you're so many people, things like a year or two ago that were like being a girly intact or like why you need to learn coding and like maybe people spend two or three years studying that shit only to realize that they're not passionate about it, right? Like how do you break this cycle? I have two things. The first is a piece of advice that has changed my life. I feel like I've brought it up on this channel like six separate times is you have to make your goals in life, not focus on outputs and results and instead focus on inputs. It's not I want a Plotty's body like Gracie Abrams. It's I want to do Pilates five times a week. It's not I want to have a hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube. It's I want to post a YouTube video every week for a month, right? You are focusing a goal on a factor that is outside of your control, which leads for inevitable disappointment. Not only that, as established earlier, the goal post always fucking moves. So it doesn't matter. Right? Maybe you want this money to look this way and that doesn't matter in three months, right? So you are setting yourself up for like guaranteed disappointment. Whereas focusing on inputs is very measurable, rewarding progress, right? You are so excited when you do day three of five Pilates for the week because you're like, oh, you should have halfway done, right? It's so much more tangible. It's so much more actionable. It's fully in your control. It feels more rewarding and also you will get the result you desire, right? Like you will build real systems and habits of your life that you can stack onto things, right? And also, I think when you focus more on the inputs, you detach from this frame of reference to other things and other people, right? It's not about I want to look like this person. It's about like, I want to look better than I did last week, right? That is very measurable and that is very actionable. That will make you feel good about yourself, guaranteed, right? And then through these inputs, I think your own passion and taste starts to emerge, right? Maybe it's doing Pilates five times every week. And then maybe after doing that for a month, you realize that like, you're not sure you Pilates is your favorite workout. Maybe you actually like doing cardio more. But at that point, you're already in the habit of waking up early and working out at a certain time. So then to integrate these elements of your own desire, your own taste, your own passion becomes very easy because the systems are already established to implement them. And I'm also, you know, a big, I would also like caveat for the end of the video. Like, I do think when you're young and especially very early in your life, you don't know what the fuck you like. And it is very okay to mimic and copy things that you seem deem as cool or interesting because you are still establishing like who the fuck you are. I feel like every year that I was a teenager, every single year, my taste changed drastically. The music I was listening to the way I was dressing, the things I would like, whatever, right? Then I think in your early 20s, it slows down. Maybe it's only once every two years or three years, right? And like 25 to 30, it gets a little slower, right? Like your taste is established through experimentation. And I think it's kind of fun to try on a bunch of different personalities early in your life to sort of see what elements of them you all tend to incorporate. And I'm not trying to demonize that in any way. But my last solution is, I think something I've also brought up here is that, you know, I think the true happiness is not a ceiling. It's a floor. You know, like we view happiness as this thing. You have to look up at this next goal, the next promotion, the next thing when I move into a bigger house when I got to board this, right? It's like all like it feels like happiness is just out of reach all the time. And I actually think real happiness is like when you look down, you know, like do I have friends that I love? Do I feel supported? Do I have a job that is fulfilling? Do I have a strong networking community of people? Do I have family that I love? Do I have hobbies? Do I have, right? Like when one of those things are out of whack, that's when you're fucking depressed, okay? This stuff might be a little disappointing, but it's not a deep depression, right? Deep depression is when those elements of your life are out of order. And real happiness, I think, is measured to me unlike, are you content with your most boring day? It's not like, are you mimicking this thing or do you want this thing that somebody else has? It's like, is everything you already have sufficient enough? So with that, don't forget to subscribe to the channel, y'all please, please, please, I love you so much. I think next week that I'm posting, this is the VMAs. I think it'll be a VMAs episode, ahhh, exciting stuff. See you next week. Bye.