[00:00:00] 

Dakota: When people talk about like Twitter and social media being a bad thing, I'll defend it more because I see the good side of it. I think bad sides. Absolutely, there are.

[00:00:24] 

Cody: When we were talking about in the other room a little bit on Twitter, and the benefits of what you can do with modern social media, the switch between actually just talking about like stuff that you want to sell versus talking about popular topics is kind of a new shift, I'd say, in the way we think about media.

[00:00:43] 

Dakota: I think so. I think it's important too because, you know, when you're talking with your buddies or your parenting or anyone, you know, new trends happen, new things in media come out or whatever, you know, your industry is, you're gonna talk about those things, whether it's co-workers or anyone. So I think it's important to just get new, you know, good dialogue into what new trends are happening within your industry.

[00:01:08] 

Cody: Right. And when we're talking about developing for a, a platform like Twitter there are certain communities. That you can be a part of? I think you were, you had mentioned a few different types of communities. Like, can you gimme an example of one you're, you're a part of that you find a lot of value in, in participating in?

[00:01:25] 

Dakota: Yeah, definitely. As far as, like, me personally, a few years ago I made my Twitter into a baseball fan page. Didn't really know how it was gonna work. I was like, oh, let's see how Twitter works. I'll go at it for a little bit. Found some amazing people, like how you can meet. I've met 20. 30 plus people on Twitter alone that don't even live in the same state as me, have gone out every year now to Pittsburgh at least once a year to go meet with these people.

[00:01:55] 

So when people talk about like Twitter and social media being a bad thing, I'll defend it more because I see the good side of it. Are there bad sides? Absolutely they're are. But I think the very good can outweigh the bad. I think you just need to be responsible and how you do that. You just signed up on Twitter recently, Cody?

Cody: Yep. Yep. 

Dakota: How has that, how has that experience been like so far for you? 

[00:02:21] 

Cody: Yeah, so I signed up recently and mostly out of the wake of what happened with Elon Musk and he's gonna be doing a lot of great, good reforms to the platform, allowing it to have more freedom of speech. 

Dakota: I was just gonna say, do you like. Then you bought it. 

[00:02:34] 

Cody: Yeah, and that's the reason I joined is like, well, Elon Musk has bought it, now it's time to try this out.

Dakota: For sure. 

[00:02:40] 

Cody: And obviously he's not taking over for the next six months, but I've already seen a resurgence in the type of people who are on it, who really wanna be a part of the discussions that take place.

[00:02:49] 

And so I wanted to center mine- kinda like you did with baseball- I wanted to center mine on storytelling. And so I made a page purely about appreciating films. And so I kind of basically started building interacting with people purely on that plane and they really followed me right back. And mainly because we share similar passions about film and about storytelling.

Dakota: Right. 

[00:03:11] 

Cody: And so it was really a mutual thing to discuss these things. And there was very little, little ne negativity in the feed beyond, oh, I don't like this movie because, and someone else just saying, oh, no, no, you're crazy. It's fantastic. Like, aside that

Dakota: Ratioed 

[00:03:25] 

Cody: Yeah. And haven't been ratioed yet. But I think getting, if it really centers around the kind of discussions that both you choose to participate in...

Dakota: Absolutely. 

[00:03:36] 

Cody: And then the people that you choose to kind of deliberately engage with their content. So the more you're, you click on a certain type of content and the more content that Twitter is going to show you.

Dakota: Absolutely.

Cody: And, and is, that's right. Right. 

Dakota: Yeah. 

Cody: You're talking about, I think different themes or topics that they, 

[00:03:51] 

Dakota: Yeah. The more you talk about something and the more you interact with certain things on Twitter, it kind of sees that, and it'll ask you if you wanna see more about the topic, you can follow the topic and you can really dive deep into a community of whatever it is that you know you have interest in.

And that's why, that's what I love about it. 

[00:04:12] 

Cody: Yeah. And I, I don't think everybody understands that that's how a lot of these social platforms work. 

[00:04:17] 

Dakota: Mm-hmm. 

[00:04:18] 

Cody: Is that whatever you engage with, whatever you click on actually on Instagram too, it's like whatever you linger on, It, it sees that and it wants to give you more of whatever you've spent more time on to linger on.

[00:04:30] 

Dakota: Mm-hmm. 

[00:04:30] 

Cody: So somewhat of, of, if you're gonna constantly see more negative things, if you linger and engage more on negative posts, you Twitter will naturally show you that. 

[00:04:40] 

Dakota: Right. 

[00:04:40] 

Cody: So it's kind of a mirror of what you're choosing to invest in. And, and I think if you reverse that, it can be incredibly powerful for you and other people, and especially, you know, you're the one, if you choose to put out the kind of content that represents what you want, the discussions to be on the platform...

Dakota: Mm-hmm. 

Cody: You know, you're in control. 

Dakota: Right. 

Cody: So, and I think that's the other part is it's not purely about the other audiences and "Oh, Twitter's a terrible platform because all these toxic people," and it's like, well, Are you participating in that? 

[00:05:13] 

Dakota: I was just gonna say that. I was just gonna say, if you don't know, try it for a little bit. If, if your experience is bad, simply go off of it. But to hear people that have good experiences, you know, you hear people on, I'm on social media, I'm on Twitter all the time. Well ask them why. You know, it doesn't necessarily, I don't think, has to be like, oh man, we're in a digital age and people are just addicted to their phones.

There might be a genuinely positive, good reason why someone wants to be on there all the time. 

[00:05:43] 

Cody: Right. And yeah, I think if you also find yourself, you know, inundated with a lot of people who are not what you want to be in interacting with. Mm-hmm. You can obviously continue to moderate who you're interacting with.

And unfollow them, mute them, block them, whatever. 

Dakota: Yeah. 

Cody: But if you really wanted to reset the algorithm, just delete your account, build a new one. 

Dakota: Mm-hmm. 

[00:06:04] 

Cody: And completely start afresh. And make sure you really highly curate what you click on, what you linger on, and then who you follow..

Dakota: Right. 

Cody: And that really will make a big difference to your experience online.

Dakota: Completely.