THE SIZZLE OF A STEAK THAT’S NOT IN THE KITCHEN

Apparently, there’s more money in selling an online course on how to do a thing, than there is to be made actually doing that thing.

Ah that explains it. That’s why that guy whose property empire is collapsing - is currently on instagram hawking his skills as a mentor and selling a pipe-dream. I’d been wondering. If it’s possible to make so much money, and clearly he has, why doesn’t he either keep doing it (instead of creating competition for himself), or perhaps more simply, put his feet up on his gold couch and watch the sun set over the yacht-sails of Dubai marina?

The generous explanation is the kindness of his heart, wanting to make the world a better place. But wait, when you factor in that a) his company’s about to be wound up, b) it doesn’t really fit with his character, and c) buying up lots of property so you can rent it out at extortionate prices is a terrible way to make the world better, you have to conclude that this is really about selling the sizzle of a steak that’s not in the kitchen.

There’s a lot of this on instagram. You can buy packages and courses that give you the secrets of gaining lots of organic followers. You can even buy followers - though they are of course, not real people. Every day there’s some fresh ad about how hashtags don’t work, or how there’s a trick to it at the end of this video. A pretty girl points to the ceiling where words appear over her head telling you that you’re doing it wrong. A guy walks through the park explaining that he got thousands of followers overnight by doing this one, simple trick.

It’s an odd kind of credit crunch really. I’m waiting for the expert course creators to start popping up and explaining how you can make millions by selling online courses. Actually, I think I might have seen that already, now that I think about it. What next? The course creation marketing expert who wants you to convince others how to make online courses?

But it is all a credit crunch, this kind of thing, because ultimately these people are trading in the credit of being able to do something very well and making it monetízable. And as they know, there just isn’t enough steak to go around, just like there aren’t enough houses for us all to be landlords, and the more followers everyone has, the less you stand out from the crowd.

It’s a pipe-dream designed to make those people richer, and honestly, I think that’s it. Magic beans and pyramid schemes, Dubai dreams and greasy memes. Well, they’re welcome to it. I think there are much nicer ways to make the world better.