I read “Wall Street Influencers are Making $500,000, Topping Even Bankers” by Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou in Bloomberg today.
Move over Mr. Money Mustache MMM as he is old now, at 45! This new and even younger generation is coming on the financial scene with a vengeance just as MMM did 15 years ago with his wildly successful blog. But blogging is old technology and for the most part, it doesn’t work because you have to write many articles on the writers’ side or to read long articles on the reader’s side. MMM was very good with his long articles because his talents are beyond 90% of the world’s blogging population.
Now Tick Tock is Teaching Financial Literacy!
The new technologies making headlines with the younger generation are much quicker and shorter and can replicate topics much faster than blogging. Now these 20 something kids have been making Tick Tock video clips on financial literacy topics and the same thing is said about him that I have heard from many people over the years, he makes complex financial topics easy to understand. But the huge selling point now is to become financially independent at an even younger age than 30.
I don’t blame these young people! I think it’s great. MMM has done so much to help his generation and mine reduce spending on material crap that only brings us more misery and unhappiness because we are trying to keep up with the Jones (I am sorry to bring up that old cliché’) but its sadly still true.
I still love you MMM. In this current Bloomberg article, I didn’t read anything about contributing to the greater good after reaching financial independence, as MMM does relentlessly. It focuses on the new technologies used by this even younger generation who are either professional marketers or from the financial profession. So be careful! The article did talk about a lot of misinformation is out there that may not be in your best interest.
MMM is still the man to follow. He indirectly may have reminded my Boomer generation that we advocated for less reliance on material things to keep us happy back in the “dark ages” of the 1960s when all hell broke loss with what the country was going even 50 years ago (not much different than today). Everything changed then too, we were saying no to war, no to material things, no to drinking martinis and the “rich image look” to impress somebody. We were the first to advocate civil rights for people of color and women (LGBTQ civil rights came later).
An Old Man’s Parting Shot!
From this old man, be careful who you follow out there and beware of the overnight get-rich-quick schemes. Focus on getting financially literate. Being literate you will automatically discover that building and keeping your wealth takes time, and only then can you move on to spreading your values for the greater good. And that alone is what makes people happy.
Best of fortunes,
Steve