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Dominic McGregor20 February 2018

Controlling The World's Social Media, Building a 400 Million Person Network and Overcoming Addiction - Dominic McGregor - #005

1Frameworks
14Insights

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Myth Buster· 1

Myth Buster

Instagram makes you compare everyone's best with your worst

The pair discuss why social media damages wellbeing beyond simple screen addiction. You judge your own life through complete knowledge of your failings while seeing only everyone else's highlight reel. Chris adds that the mind is Teflon for good thoughts and Velcro for bad ones, an evolutionary bias toward the negative.

  • You compare the best of everyone else's life with the worst of yours
  • Instagram is a highlight reel, not real life
  • The mind is Teflon for good thoughts and Velcro for bad thoughts
  • Negativity bias is hardwired from cautious ancestors surviving

“you compare the best of everyone else's life with the worst of yours”

Chris Williamson
#mental-health#social-comparison#psychology

Hot Take· 4

Hot Take

People buy what a brand says about them, not quality or price

McGregor argues that a generation with ad-blockers is sick of being told what to do by brands, so meaningful, value-adding content beats interruption advertising. What people buy now depends more on what a brand signals about their identity than on quality or cost, and social profiles let others read your values instantly.

  • The generation runs ad-blockers and rejects being told what to do
  • Brands must form genuine connection and care about consumers
  • Purchases signal identity more than quality or price
  • A tagged club photo or YouTube history reveals who someone is

“what we purchase now actually depends much more on what the brand says about us rather than anything rather than quality”

Dominic McGregor
#branding#consumer-psychology#advertising
Hot Take

Influencers need a code of ethics for the expectations they set

McGregor argues influencers do more damage than a page posting cheese videos, because their sponsored lifestyle content is a surreptitious brand message that sets unrealistic expectations. Viewers don't see the paid production, only the condition, the holiday, the yacht, and then their own ordinary Valentine's dinner feels like a letdown.

  • Influencer content delivers brand messages surreptitiously
  • Audiences see the outcome, not the paid production behind it
  • Following influencers likely shifts your favourite brands and satisfaction
  • McGregor suggests influencers need a self-imposed code of ethics

“maybe there needs to be a code of ethics that influencers should be thinking about using when they're putting stuff online”

Chris Williamson
#influencers#ethics#social-comparison
Hot Take

People drink to mask being less extroverted than their friends think

Chris argues that the real reason people say they could never go out sober is a fear of being boring. Using alcohol to feel confident on a night out is the equivalent of taking a performance-enhancing drug to reach an adequate level at your sport, whether that's approaching someone or keeping up with more extroverted friends.

  • People fear being boring or judged without alcohol
  • Drinking masks not being as extroverted as friends assume
  • It functions like a performance-enhancing drug for social confidence
  • You can stay out later, have more fun, and remember it sober

“People use alcohol 100% on a night out to mask the fact that they're not as extroverted as their friends think that they are.”

Chris Williamson
#alcohol#social-anxiety#confidence
Hot Take

People are very selective about what they choose to feel guilty about

McGregor notes that someone criticising a Canada Goose jacket over one dead coyote will happily spend a hundred pounds on cocaine tied to gang wars and dead children in Colombia. People are selective about what they will be self-referential about, partly because that selectivity also plays well as self-branding on social media.

  • Moral outrage is applied selectively and inconsistently
  • A fur jacket draws criticism while cocaine's human cost is ignored
  • The selectivity is shaped by how it looks on social media
  • You post a coyote video but never a video of yourself using drugs

“they're being very selective about what they want to be self-referential about”

Dominic McGregor
#ethics#hypocrisy#self-branding

Explainer· 4

Explainer

Why Social Chain owns communities instead of renting influencers

McGregor explains what made Social Chain different from a normal marketing agency: they own the big social media pages and communities directly, so they control the network, understand the platform, and produce the creative all in one place. Their influence came from owning pages, not from personal faces.

  • Most agencies rent reach; Social Chain owns the communities outright
  • They control the network, understand the platform, and do the creative together
  • Pages span student problems, sport, love, food and fitness motivation
  • Owning the audience meant advertisers came to the pages, not a website

“what was different between us and any other marketing agency is we own big communities”

Dominic McGregor
#marketing#social-media#business-model
Explainer

The attention economy is engineered to keep you hooked

Chris raises Tristan Harris's work on how apps exploit cognitive biases to maximise time on site, with YouTube, Facebook and Netflix all competing for the same finite hours. McGregor accepts a responsibility as a publisher, especially toward younger, less self-assured users who are far more highly influenced by social feedback.

  • Apps like Candy Crush are designed around reward hits to keep people addicted
  • Platforms compete for the finite hours in a day
  • Younger users are less developed and more highly influenced
  • Publishers carry a responsibility to educate, not just engage

“all that is designed towards keeping people addicted”

Dominic McGregor
#attention-economy#tech-addiction#ethics
Explainer

The line into addiction: drinking to cure the drink

Chris cites Jordan Peterson's point that a substance problem becomes serious once you take the substance to deal with withdrawals from the substance itself. McGregor recognises this in his own weekday drinking, where a glass of wine to reward a hard day always became one or two bottles, and his body would anticipate the alcohol every Friday.

  • Addiction turns serious when you drink to cure the hangover
  • A single glass reliably became a full bottle or two
  • His body produced a natural Friday high anticipating the alcohol
  • The cycle became self-sustaining once inhibitions dropped

“the addiction isn't a problem, a serious problem, until you need to take the substance to deal with the withdrawals from the substance”

Chris Williamson
#addiction#alcohol#psychology
Explainer

Why you need something to run from, not just toward

Chris recounts a rat experiment: hungry rats pulled a certain force toward cheese, but when the smell of a cat was added behind them, they pulled even harder. The lesson is that in life you don't just run toward what you want, you also run away from what you fear. McGregor says fear of ever feeling like his lowest moment again is exactly why he runs so much.

  • Rats pulled harder toward food when a predator smell was added
  • Motivation combines running toward a goal and away from a fear
  • McGregor lives to never feel like his breaking-point moment again
  • Fear can be a legitimate, powerful driver of change

“in life you don't just need to run towards something that you want, you need to run away from something that you fear”

Chris Williamson
#motivation#psychology#behaviour-change

Story· 3

Story

From a Twitter joke about toilet paper to a 400-million-person network

Dominic McGregor recounts starting the Student Problems page after tweeting about his own life at university in Edinburgh, hitting 20,000 followers in two weeks. That page led to a job at Wallpark, dropping out of university, and eventually founding Social Chain, which now reaches a combined 400 million people across its Facebook communities.

  • Student Problems began as him tweeting mundane student life, like having no toilet paper
  • It hit 20,000 followers in two weeks and got him noticed by his future partner Steve
  • He dropped out of university and moved to Manchester to build social pages for Wallpark
  • They realised owning the audience beat driving traffic to a website
  • Social Chain became a company on 3 November 2014 and now reaches 400 million people

“The total combined reach across Facebook is 400 million people.”

Dominic McGregor
#entrepreneurship#social-media#origin-story#audience
Story

How early success, cash and free time fuelled a drinking problem

McGregor describes how being 21 with disposable income, spare time and no responsibility created a concoction that fuelled heavy partying. Celebrations of client wins masked cash-flow stress he couldn't reveal, and he began drinking and using drugs to escape rather than celebrate, eventually becoming reliant on that lifestyle.

  • Four elements combined: youth, disposable income, no responsibility, spare time
  • Public celebration masked private stress about cash flow and wages
  • Substances shifted from celebrating to escaping and masking feelings
  • He gradually felt himself becoming reliant on the lifestyle

“I'm doing it to mass car feel, I'm doing it to escape, I'm getting away from the stresses”

Dominic McGregor
#addiction#entrepreneurship#mental-health
Story

The self-perpetuating weekly drinking cycle

The pair map how a weekend of drinking consumes the whole week: a Friday mental checkout, a written-off Friday and Saturday, a Sunday spent recovering, then Tequila Sundays to taper the hangover, a rough Monday needing a reward wine, and finally winding back up for the next weekend. The routine, not the alcohol, is what signals a problem.

  • The mind checks out of work by Friday afternoon
  • Friday and Saturday are written off, Sunday is recovery
  • Tequila Sundays were invented to taper the hangover
  • The weekly repetition is what should prompt self-questioning

“the routine is if you do it every week, that's when it starts to become like questions”

Dominic McGregor
#alcohol#habits#lifestyle

Takeaway· 2

Takeaway

What 20 months sober actually changed

McGregor lists the compounding gains from sobriety: losing around 21 kilos, reclaiming huge amounts of time, and replacing the addiction with running, the outdoors and writing. Chris adds his own six-month experiment improved verbal dexterity, mental agility, sleep quality and emotional regulation, and let him confront deeper questions about his values.

  • McGregor lost roughly 21 kilos and took up running and marathons
  • Sobriety returned large amounts of usable time
  • One addiction was replaced with running, outdoors and writing
  • Chris gained verbal dexterity, mental agility, sleep and emotional control
  • Clear headspace let both confront their values

“You don't feel the benefits until like week six.”

Dominic McGregor
#sobriety#self-improvement#running#health
Takeaway

Leave the club at 2am: nothing good happens in the last hour

Chris offers concrete night-out advice: nothing good happens after two in the morning, when the final hour is people stumbling out, bar issues and scraps. Leave around 2:30 and you get the lion's share of the night with none of the next-day regret, you remember it, and driving makes it cheaper too.

  • The final hour of a club night is when things deteriorate
  • Leave around 2 to 2:30am to keep the best of the night
  • You avoid the regret and problems of the last hour
  • Driving lets you leave on your terms and costs less

“Nothing good ever happens after two in the morning.”

Chris Williamson
#nightlife#practical-advice#sobriety