When life became Content | The Rick H. Show | Ep. 239

When did we stop experiencing life... and start recording it?

In this episode of The Rick H. Show, Rick Hierro takes an honest look at the world we've created through social media—a world where vacations become photo shoots, dinners become content, milestones become posts, and our value is often measured by views, likes, and followers.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking, "Did I enjoy this moment?" and started asking, "Did I get enough content?"

Rick reflects on the pressure to appear successful, the addiction to validation, and the quiet competition that exists behind every scroll. He shares how easy it is to compare your everyday life to someone else's highlight reel, and how social media can slowly convince us that looking happy is more important than actually being happy.

But this conversation isn't about deleting social media or criticizing the people who use it.

It's about asking a much bigger question:

Have we become so focused on documenting our lives that we've forgotten how to truly live them?

If you've ever found yourself reaching for your phone before appreciating the moment in front of you, comparing your journey to someone else's, or feeling pressure to keep up with an image that isn't even real... this episode is for you.

Because the greatest moments in life aren't always the ones that go viral.

Sometimes they're the ones that never make it to the internet.

🎙️ EP. 236 — "When Life Became Content"

A conversation about authenticity, comparison, validation, and remembering how to live a life that's worth experiencing—not just posting

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:54

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to the Rick A Show. I uh want to uh take some time to thank uh Ivan Manito for being on last week. Uh I had such a great time with him. Um on and off the pod. It was it was fun, you know. Ivan's one of the true um real ones in the game, and uh I just feel like he's one of these guys that deserves the flowers for the work that he's put in and just how good of a creator and a genius he is and a writer, and he just multifaceted guy, and I and I I I believe Ivan will have an amazing career in a beautiful future. Um and if he's successful one day, I'll be super happy for him. Um Ivan's just a good dude, like a really good, humble dude. And he's he's hilarious, he's one of the best out there. So thank you, Ivan, for being on the show. I truly do appreciate it, my brother. I always have a terrific time with you. Um, and that kind of got me like thinking um about the next episode. Uh I wrote something out for episode 239 that follows the sequence that we're going through, but I just had Ivan on the show, so I felt like I needed to discuss something that we kind of touched on that episode. So um, in that episode, Ivan and I discussed how certain people want you to succeed, but they don't want you to succeed better than them. Right? Um, specifically in the Dominican culture and other cultures as well, I'm pretty sure. Um when we met in 2020, I think. 2018, um, that was like a discussion that we had. There was uh we were doing a episode of the Rick A show. There were a ton of Dominican creators there. They were in the middle of filming La Factoria the first season, and we were discussing like some of those negative traits that our community has. Um and basically that's the main one. Like, we're not really a united front, we don't really support one another. Um, although there's certain people that may say, hey, if you see, if I see that you're Dominican, I'm gonna support you no matter what. They want you to do good, but they don't want you to do better than them, right? Um, and I've never approached anything with that mentality. Uh, I felt like the first five, six seasons of the of the Rick A show, I was getting to know so many terrific and talented people. And I wanted to get to know them, interview them, uh, develop a friendship with a friendship with a lot of these people. Um, and I just felt like they weren't getting the love and the and the shine that it they merited. So that's part of the reason why I created the the show. Well, why I pivoted from doing a sports podcast to interviewing creatives or interviewing people in general. Um Ivan was one of them, you know, C's Caesar Pra, C's P. He he designed the Nike Air Force One Delomeo. And I kind of wanted to put the message out there like, this is real, this is real love. This is real, like, um, this is how the community needs to be. And I wanted to set the example, you know, like me and my friends, we all Dominican, we're all from Washington, we all support each other. If one of my boys, you know, signs something or is doing great in his career, I feel like I'm gonna celebrate that. I'm gonna let him know the accomplishment. Um, and it's a win for all of us. I I don't care if, like I said it before, I don't live my life on somebody else's timeline. Right? I basically live um on my own wavelength, like on my own. I don't subscribe to this. Oh, by the time I'm this age, I gotta have this or I gotta have that. I don't subscribe to none of that. I take life as it is. Um so if my boys are doing great, that's great. I love it, I'm here for them. If they're doing terrible, I'm here for them. And I think that's just what our community needs to be. We need to be about each other, uplifting each other, and that's part of the message that we were trying to put out there as the Rick G Show. Now, when we started, it was fantastic. The reception that we received was amazing. Um, when the first person I interviewed, besides M Class, that's my that's my boy. We we grew up together on the block. It was uh DP, the mayor. Um, and Mike just came on off the strength of the people that knew me. Uh, he had called a couple people because Mike don't really do um podcast interviews like that. So he called a couple people from my block that he knew, and they were like, Yeah, Rick is cool. Like, he's not gonna, he's not out there to bait you into something, you know. And I met Mike, and still to this day, I could text that dude, and it's like we were hanging out yesterday. Genuine dude, humble, um, is all about the culture. He literally is out there uh putting it on for everybody and watch the heights. He's very proud of Dykeman, very proud of the Heights, very proud of Uptown. He represents the right way, and he doesn't gatekeep, right? Now, if people want to do that, gatekeep, be like, oh, okay, you could do good, but not better than me, that's fine. I get that, I understand that. Some people's journeys and struggles puts them in that box. I will never allow the struggle and the journey to put me in that box. Because I know who I am and I know the type of person I am. And if I meet you and I get a good vibe from you, and I'm like, yo, this he's real, he's a real one, then loyalty, bro. Loyalty. So yeah, like, even though me, Benny, and Craze, we sat down and we started writing names uh of people we wanted to interview and people we we thought were doing something fire and dope, you know. Dex, I've known for a while. Um, and he's Dex is a multi-talented person. Like, I felt like he's been to places and been in rooms, but I feel like the hood needs to get behind him and show him the love. Like, that's just how this game works, right? You know, there's strangers that support the Rick A show harder than people that I know, and that that I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. This might not be everybody's cup of tea. I'm okay with that. But we started writing down names. Dex was one of them, C's was one of them. C's is cool, BB Inc., one of the realest. Shout out to BB, love him. Um Rodell. Rodell is an amazing person, right? You could tell success is because of the dynamic of that family and how he was raised and the type of person he is, and he's funny all the time, but he just humble. Like the dude is really, really a humble guy. Like, honestly, I don't think fame and fortune will ever get to his head, and I think that's why he's gonna continue to be successful. Him and his entire family. His sister, Liz Bell, is probably one of the greatest minds that comes from our country. Like, she's very poetic, very thoughtful. Um everything she does, like as far as writing, is very insightful. Yeah, so we that's what we did. We started collaborating with creators. There were some that were very hesitant, and there were some that were opposed to us, but we just kept it moving. I never engaged in any um any bashing of people, unless they bashed us to our faces and continuously. Because I'm not that type of person, man. I really am not. So when I got into this, this this I don't want to say this game, I'm gonna say this art form, because I I think that this is an art form. Um I got into it with the mindset of I'ma just build and continue to network with people and get to know people, get to know the landscape, get to know what this space looks like. Um podcasting when I started, there was podcasts around um from uptown. There was, you know, Latinos Alada, I always give them their props. Um, and there was a couple others. I don't know what time the Dykeman podcast started out, but they're up there. There was a few others. And if I if if I don't remember right now, my apologies. I'm not trying to get at anybody, but there was a couple, you know, it was a very thin landscape at that time. Um, people thought that it was like something that was gonna fade away, uh, and that there was too many podcasts at that time. Imagine at that time, 2017, 2018, people were like, oh, this is saturated, it's full of pods, like this is not gonna last. Here we are nine years later. Um, so yeah, I got it, I got into it with the right mindset. Now, the journey brought this question to mind for me, right? When was the last time you experienced something amazing without reaching for your phone? Somewhere along the way, we stopped living moments and started producing them and catering them and curating them just for social media. I never in the beginning when I started taking this seriously and I was podcasting, um, I thought posting as much as possible was the best way, right? I didn't know the recipe. I'm gonna let you guys know the recipe now. I didn't know the recipe. I I posted as much as possible. I posted people that um have been on the show thinking they will repost me, help me out. That didn't happen. Um I interviewed a ton of people, some I really liked, some I didn't, some I built friendships with, some it was just a come and go thing. Um and this was at the beginning. So social media at that time, everybody was doing comedy, everybody was doing skits, or you were a musician or a singer or something, you were trying to get on some way, some form of fashion. You were artists or poetry, whatever you were doing at that time, lately. You go on social media and all they're doing is people selling you products. Um, like I said, a lot of influencers, um, which is uh that's not a bad term. Influencers selling you products or telling you how to live or influencing you to do something specifically, but people forgot how to live. Now, how do we get here? How do we get into this space where everybody's on social media looking things up and you know this and streaming kind of killed television broadcasting? It will not kill AM radio. Um, and it changed the fabric of our lives, right? Um, sometimes you'll hear breaking news on a social media site before you see it on the actual news. So, how did we get here? You know, people saw that there was money to be made in that space, doing skits, getting sponsored, pushing products. Um, so everybody figured, let me do it, let me get into it. Now, if you think podcasting is a saturated space, influencing is a super saturated space. Everybody wants to be famous online, everybody wants to make money online, everybody wants to make that a side hustle. And I'm not knocking it if you're doing it, right? All I'm saying is, right, there's a specific moment in time where there was a sweet spot for social media, right? I'ma say 2019, right before COVID, right? 2019, you would be on social media, you'd be entertained, you see somebody promoting some stuff, you see some clips, um, some comedy skits, photos. It was like a variety of of things on the feed. The feed was actually fun back then. 2019. Since then, COVID hit, everybody came super attached to their phones and social media, and I get it. A lot of people made money off doing lives because everybody was at home, nobody had nothing to do. And companies decided, well, advertisement, because that's everything, everything you see is about advertisement, right? Whenever you see back in the day a show and it didn't do good viewership numbers, that means they couldn't sell ads on that show. So they got rid of the show and tried to replace it with something else. Same goes for everything else: sports, radio, podcasting, comedy, everything is they're trying to sell you something somehow, somehow. Now, COVID happens, everybody comes super rely dependent almost on social media. You wake up, go through your routine, and then you check and doom scroll for a while, right? I'm in this space, I'm meeting a lot of the creators, and I'm here to tell you, right? There's a fake reality and there's a real reality. Some of the people you see online, and I know this is common knowledge, and I know that everyone knows this, but for those who don't, I have met most of the top creators, I would say in New York, Jersey, and Connecticut, some in Florida. Met like met them, know them in person, had conversations with them, worked with them. Some of those people live in a fake reality and have fans that live in that same fake reality with them. Right? Some of those people on social media what they portray on social media is who they are. Now, there's there's a bunch, right? So I'm not gonna name names of the ones that are full of shit. I'm not gonna do that. Um, but I will tell you the ones that are real, and that's the type of that's who they are. Like they might upplay that character or that person on social media, but when you meet them in person, that no, that's just that's that's their personality, right? Tommy FiK, love the man of death. He is who he is, very smart, the OG of comedy, um, brought uh opened the door for a lot of a lot of comedians in this game. Tommy's a real one, authentic, deserves all the flowers he gets. Um, and when you meet him in person, the same way. Tommy treats the janitor and the CEO the same way. Right? I'll start with Tommy. Rodell already said, guy, him, his mother, and his sisters, fantastic people, and his girlfriend too. Um Jonathan Fernandez from Love and Hip Hop. Jonathan's amazing. Jonathan's he's funny as hell. He's even funnier in person, right? Uh Cesar Perez is an amazing creative, like a visionary, right? Um, he did the Deno Meal, the Air Force Ones, he did the Air Max, but he's done so much more besides that. Like he's known for those two sneakers, but just look more into him. He's done so much. Um, he's just a creative genius. Ed uh is I I'm not gonna give you his last name, but um Ed is a guy that he works in the music business, has done a lot. Same in person. Now there's some people that you meet them and they're like, um, you know, in their mind, they think they're celebrities. So like they're like, oh, I'm afraid to, nah, I can't be out. What time do you need me to go there? Uh, is a car gonna be sent over? Um, am I being paid for that? Nah, I don't mind the asking if you're being paid. Am I being paid for this? Uh if you want me to do, like if they have a signature thing that they do, if you want me to do that, that's an additional whatever. Um, and they have a writer, right? In my mind, I'm like, yo, just because you got 50,000 followers don't mean you a celebrity, bro. So again, though he lives in a fake reality. Um I knew it was some it was a problem when people started posting like pictures of their food and shit on social media. Right? Like you, oh let me let me take a picture, let me and I'm like, I don't care about food or whatever, that's the validation trap. People want it to be validated. That person that thinks they're a celebrity. Because they're famous on Instagram. Um they constantly want to be validated. So I know Instagrammers that'll post something, and if it doesn't go viral immediately, they'll take that shit down. And then they follow specific trends and they study this shit. They study how this shit goes. And I'm like, yo, for me, is moments and authenticity, right? Think about the people that you like to follow and you find interesting. One, you but you're you think they're authentic and you connect with them some form or fashion. Whether it be, hey, this guy is from uptown, or hey, this guy's this or this guy's that, authenticity. Like, don't you don't have to play up or you exaggerate a little, but you can be yourself. Right. When I started in my mind, I was like, yeah, I'm trying to get followers, trying to get followers, trying to nah that's not what this is about. It really isn't. It really is about moments and authenticity, right? When you're experiencing a moment or a thought or an idea, and creativity hits you, and you feel it's at its peak, that's when you share with the world. Because that's what being an artist used to be, right? People played instruments, they practiced, they studied, they sang before the auto-tune, not knocking the auto-tune. Um, and they worked and worked and worked and worked and worked, and something happened where they got trapped in a moment, right? And that moment inspired or created something special that was shared with the world. Now, I'm gonna use music as an example, right? And I'm gonna use MM, but a lot of his stuff is personal, so what he's going through in life, he's sharing with you guys, and he connected, he connected with an audience, and he built that audience, and and that's what I think people should first work on, right? That's what this whole season of the Rick A show is about. I went through my years of doing podcasting, interviewing people, trying to get my followers up, uh, trying to make money off this game. And then I just figured something out a couple years ago when I was having a moment with some of those people that again they might seem one way online, but they're different in person, right? And I'm like, man, had I known this was the person you are online, I wouldn't even have a conversation with you. I I don't think you're interesting at all. I think you you just have an idea, you come up with great ideas, but really you're a piece of shit person. So I figured that out. Now I I've always had a passion for sports, and I wanted to do a sports podcast, and it was a great idea to pivot to that because creatively for this show, I felt like I was kind of in a tough spot, you know. I didn't I didn't know what direction I wanted to take it. I started doing a little bit of sports on this show. Um and then on New Year's, I came up with a joke and a gimmick talking about waking up at two in the morning and working out and doing all this stuff while you guys are sleeping, and people found that funny. Um some of my friends were like, yo, you never do a video when there's daylight outside. Um, and then I had the epiphany of like fanatics, sports fans, you know, when their teams do something incredible and they give you that moment, um, it's very difficult to let go of that adrenaline that's going through your body at that moment in time, right? Like it's it's it it's I'll give you an example. The Knicks winning the championship. I probably never watched so much, like I just been watching highlights constantly still since then, right? So that's a moment. That's that's what I'm talking about. So I created the 2 a.m. crew, I did a sports podcast. Um I I still had the need to work and create because it's a great outlet for me, but I didn't know what I wanted to do with this show yet. Um and then I figured it out. I'm like, I'm just gonna do a show about me. And I'll have episodes where it's me discussing things that ideas that come to my mind, like this one, When Did Life Become Content. Um and then I'll interview people that I know that I feel like have great stories, and are people that you should really like listen to and follow and and see the work behind the scenes of what they're doing. That's why I had Ivan on and La Factoria in three days, season two is gonna come out. That's gonna be amazing. So that's what uh I think this year, the opening of the year, that's why we relaunched and we redid the show. We were not gonna live in a fake reality, we were not gonna do valid uh validation traps. If the video has 10 views, a thousand views, ten thousand views, a million views, it is what it is, is a piece of work that I did that I put out there to share with you guys. Whether you guys enjoyed it or didn't, that's fine. That just gives me feedback, which is cool, and I I'm okay with it, right? So, being a creator for me is this show, I have the liberty to be myself, talk about the things that are going on in my life, um, introduce who I am, uh, which is what I've been doing this season, and discuss certain topics that come up in everyday life that people might relate to. And being a creator is creating those moments and sharing with the world. Now, it's been a long time since I've done advertisement and I tried to sell you guys to try things. Um, I recently did something for uh Mike DP, the mayor, because he has a Mori Sonando that's off the chain and it's a canned thing, it's a great idea, and it's all about the culture. And he sent it to me and I tried it and I gave my honest opinion. I gave him my honest opinion, and that's all I'm trying to do. I'm trying to be me 100% on this show on social media. And if you see me in real life and you ask me a question, and we can have a conversation. I've never also left people unread on DMs. I've never thought I was bigger than the program. Um and I always study my craft, and I appreciate the people that came before me. Um that's just what I've been doing for eight, nine years, almost ten. I've been being 100% me and getting to know these incredible people. Now I know some amazing individuals: Glorelli, Sasha Mercy, Rachel La Loca, uh Tommy, like I said, Nueva York, Nueva York is a real. I didn't even Nueva York was the biggest episode, the first big episode I ever did. And Nueva York, he's the type of guy give you the shred off the back, man. That whole crew, Tommy, DaVinci Blue, Ivan, that whole crew, they're amazing. And that's why you see all these other creatives collaborate with them and work with them because they're real, they're they just good, humble people who produce great work. Um, so nobody's big B, that whole crew. So that's what being a creator is for me. Now, the reason why I decided to do this episode was because I've been online, I've scroll, um, and I don't enjoy it as much as I used to, right? There's the I you go on social media to kind of distract yourself from the everyday life, but now every other post is trying to sell you some shit or marketing you something, or an ad that gets thrown in your face. So it's kind of like doll, right? Um, and you try to keep the people you follow to a minimum because you want you don't want your algorithm to get fucked up. Um so yeah, that's that's that's what this is now. Like life has become content and people are curating things. One of the greatest things that I've seen is um there's this podcast called The Brooklyn Stoop. Uh is these two guys, they go around different eating spots um and doing any spot that's had a food review from a food influencer. That's a that's crazy. Um they'll go there and they say, hey, this person got paid and you got played, or nah, this place is good for real, right? And they don't go into the spa like, hey, we're trying to do it. No, they go into the spa, they buy something, they come outside, they try it, and they give you their honest opinion. That's one of my favorite pages right now, because it's authentic. That and New York Turk is this cab driver who goes into these luxury restaurants um and does a review, does a review and posts it. And he knows about food, man. He gives you like ratings on things, he tells you how it tastes, if you should go there or not. Uh, and he also goes to struggling restaurants, which I really love. I love the fact that um he does that because he helps some of these struggling restaurants, and he he doesn't allow like he's been to celebrity spots, they're like, oh no, the food's on us. He's like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. He doesn't allow the restaurant to um pay because it kind of blurs the line of like what he's trying to do. So I appreciate that. And if they do like comp the meal or whatever, he'll come back and he'll throw whatever the bill was on the table in cash. Um I really like that dude. I really, really like that dude. And he's just a New York City cab driver. Um, and he's he's giving you great places to go check out, and it's not he's not telling you because he's being paid for it. It's just he's going there, he's studying, like he's going to Michelin restaurants and stuff like that. Um, that's another one of my favorite pages. Another one, uh, of my favorite pages that I like is uh uh my boy Real Fox Trot and Legendary. They do this glizzy stuff and they go to food reviews, and I know Fox. He's cool. Like I meant to do it in person as really as real as it gets. Um I like watching them. Uh, I like the content that they put out. I know none of the shit is curated or put together. Um, it's just dope, you know. I I I want to go on social media and I want to see interesting, real creative shit. I don't want to go on social media. We used to have a uh a segment on the Rick A show called Creators Anonymous, where we would highlight a creator and not even tell that person. We just show their work and be like, yo, this is fire, this is fire. This is a page you should definitely check out. If you're looking to have like something cool on your algorithm, check out this page. And and then they would DM us like, yo, that was dope that you guys did that, and blah blah blah. I don't it was it was just of the strength, of the love, like appreciating their work. Uh, I think I might do something a little similar. So, shout out to O, by the way. He came up with that concept and that idea. Um, yeah, I just it sucks now. Like everything is people pretend to be living a life that they really aren't, you know. Um, that's why I only follow like people that I know, like that I know in real life, you know, um, and have met and have had conversations with. And I and I appreciate they work, I appreciate the person that they are. Um so yeah, that's where it is, man. And honestly, the reason why I did this episode, right, is to bring this conversation up and make this a bigger conversation than what it needs to be, and that what it is right now is because it's just me. But also for people to think and and and push boundaries and actually use their creativity and combat some of the shit that's going on. Like AI is cool if you use it the right way, like if using AI to come up with an idea, like to give you some ideas or to come up with a design that you can't really do on your own because you can't draw or whatever, and and and you don't know like a good an artist or whatever, all right, cool, whatever. I use AI for just um thumbnails and and sometimes a promotional episode cover. But I really want to challenge creators to do their best and share real moments and be themselves, that's what this is really about, this episode. Don't curate your content, live it. And if you're someone that's not doing content and you're following people, if you feel like your phone is not giving you, like if you're scrolling and you feel like it's a bunch of ads, and people trying to trap you or get you or sell you something, they're trying to sell you a program, a class, a course, inspire you, motivational, or a product, or whatever it is, and you're not looking for that, then put the phone down and live your life. Go outside, enjoy yourself, live in those moments. Reason Jordan and Kobe were great is because they were able to focus and be present in the moment, and that's what I want to leave you guys with tonight. Be present, be in the moment, be yourselves. If you're not following, make sure you follow, subscribe, like, share. If you have a comment or message or an email, you can email me at thericshow.com. I'm getting some comments here. Hold on one second. I'm sorry. The email is therih show at gmail.com. Um my Instagram handle is at is uh it's rickh. Um the the show has its own Instagram handle. It's the rick h show, obviously. Again, like, share, subscribe, like, share, subscribe, uh, and comment. And most of all, engage. Let's have a conversation. If you agree, disagree, what's your opinion? Let me know. I want to hear it. Send me an email, send me a DM. Uh, I look forward to the next episode. Mondays at nine o'clock. Catch me, the Rick A show. Till then, everybody enjoy yourselves. Uh, enjoy your week. I gotta put an outro on this. I messed up, I messed up. Here we go.