You're Too Old to Try to Maximize Your Shit

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

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Yeah, you read that right.

We are now in the era of maximizing our shit.

Our shit is having a moment.

Oh, please, don’t take it from me. This story from Self Magazine explains it. Because there is some truth to the story that we Americans aren’t getting enough fiber, now folks are eating so much fiber that they are, of course, damaging themselves in the process.

Say it isn’t so!

Say that (idiot) influencers aren’t causing more (idiot) people to harm themselves because they’re led by the nose to do genuinely (idiot) things?

Nah. Too true.

For those quick to jump onto the MAXIMIZE YOUR FIBER bandwagon, one of the latest trends to maximize your poop, you can potentially look forward to the following (from the Self story, above):

• Bloating, abdominal pain, and excess gas. Oh and this: In people who already have frequent loose stools, he adds, loading up on insoluble fiber may increase transit speed and make diarrhea worse.

• Unexplained symptoms like fatigue, brittle hair or nails, pale skin, or slower wound healing. Very high amounts of fiber—more than 70 grams per day—can bind to minerals such as iron, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. In other words, you poop out what your body needs to function.

• You have trouble finishing meals when you never used to.

WAIT WAIT WAIT.

That last one sounds like a major plus, right?

Wrong. Because if you load up on too much fiber, said fiber can prevent your body from absorbing the vitamins, minerals, protein and healthy fats your body must have to survive, much less thrive.

• Oh and one more. Too much fiber can interfere with your ability to absorb your medications.

The use of the words “increase transit speed” in the same sentence as diarrhea is a fine visual to begin anyone’s day. That’s putting your shit maximization on steroids, for sure.

Ah. So what you’re saying, then, is that by overdosing on fiber, which is the typical American overreaction to news that we aren’t getting enough, I can seriously screw up my body?

Um, Yes.

If you’re a fan of Annie Scott you probably enjoyed some of her articles which skewer our addiction to maximizing/optimizing just about any damned thing. If not, read her. She’s right.

All you have to do is wait a while for the next trend.

Probably something to do with using toe jam for toothpaste to “maximize the gritty properties for shine.”

Once research indicates that we have a problem, the social-media-as-god generation will come up with a way to MAXIMIZE whatever needs to be remedied, usually by suggesting profoundly stupid fixes.

Photo by Rehina Sultanova on Unsplash

Here’s another bit of idiocy.

Let’s obsess, have anxiety, and lose sleep over maximizing our sleep, right?

From the above link, here are what today’s brilliant influencers are giving us: non-researched-based suggestions which, of course, could result in serious harm.

Some sleepmaxxers have also turned to mouth taping to stop mouth breathing, which has been linked with snoring, thirst, dry mouth, bad breath and over time, gum disease and malocclusion, a condition in which the upper and lower teeth don’t align.

But experts have criticized the TikTok trend as dangerous, especially for those with obstructive sleep apnea, a complete or partial collapse of the airway. Mouth taping can also cause soft tissue damage. (author bolded)

Why bother going to your medical professional to find out what’s really wrong when you can completely screw yourself up by watching TikTok videos made by clueless people? Right?

Why stop there?

Over the past years we’ve seen people overexercise to the point of injury, overtrain to the point of death, all done with the kind of superior self-righteousness that infects such movements until, of course, the house of cards comes crashing down.

Try Googling “Fitness influencers cause of death” and read the stories. One that caught my eye is this one:

Hayley McNeff, a nationally-ranked bodybuilder and fitness influencer, died from acute intoxication caused by a combination of heroin, fentanyl, 4-ANPP, cocaine and norbuprenorphine.

In other words, this popular so-called “health and fitness influencer” was doped up worse than the guy nodding off on the street corner.

Sounds healthy right? Heroin, for starters?

This past summer I was listening to a podcast on “swole girl summer.”

The latest in a long line of trends from Twiggy to the Kardashians, all body shaming, all body-bullshit to make sure that young women can’t possibly ever have the right body.

The sad part is that for women who enter MY world, that of lifting weights, the shortcuts can be deadly.

While more than just bodybuilders can develop rhabdomyolysis, the point is that when people push way too hard, way too fast in order to achieve a look that takes decades to achieve, the condition can kill.

Influencers don’t tell you that.

Then there are influencers who are so convinced of their own hype that they think that they’re impervious to severe abuse of the body. This Russian influencer ate himself to death, consuming 10,000 calories a day of junk food.

Now why couldn’t Putin do that? But I digress.

About those rich influencers? Bah.

About half of all the world’s content creators, and that includes on Substack, make less than $15k a year. The work is 24/7, seven days a week.

There are 4.2 billion social media users around the world, according to linking tool company Linktree’s 2022 Creator Report. Out of those, 200 million are creators, or individuals who monetize their audiences. That means just 4.7% of social media users are making money from it.

Hell, I put out at least three to six articles a week on Substack and I make less than four bucks an hour for my efforts. I’m a prize winning journalist and a triple prize winning author. I’m a damned decent writer.

People largely don’t want what I sell.

So much for being an influencer, right?

So how do you get people’s eyeballs?

You lie.

You airbrush, bullshit, sell your soul for bad products, you get on TikTok and make extreme, exaggerated claims about all kinds of things you know nothing about.

Gets eyeballs, all right. Gets some folks killed or maimed, too.

You will forgive me for pointing out the obvious but these influencers aren’t just full of shit. They are full of drugs, dishonesty and a criminal lack of integrity, selling to gullible people fixes that aren’t real.

So young women decide they’re only going to eat raw fruit, then starve themselves to death for looks and the love they are incapable of giving their own bodies.

Krzyzak, who once weighed as little as 3.5 stone (22 kilograms), had consumed only raw fruit since the age of 19. Friends and family said she became increasingly obsessed with «clean eating» and body image, despite suffering severe health consequences including osteoporosis, nutrient deficiencies, and visible physical decline.

This is one of several stories about “influencers” who decided they wanted to eat a “clean diet.”

What, ladies? You don’t want your shit to stink?

To be brown?

Shit is brown (or even green) because it’s full of dead red blood cells and there’s a chemical process in your gut involving bile and bilirubin.

That’s not dirt. It’s science. That’s your body doing its work.

Suicide is another killer of influencers, who are simply not prepared when a fickle audience decides that they’re no longer the flavor of the month. This Spectator article delves into this topic.

People aren’t noticing, or taking seriously, the rash of early deaths of influencers all over the world. While in Ecuador this last month I was stunned by all the stories of disappeared influencers, murdered influencers, those that committed suicide, those who died from their “healthy habits.”

It seems that one of the most deadly jobs in the world is…being an influencer. Especially if you’re under 40.

Or the child of a predatory mom-fluencer who is making money off their own children.

Influencers sell fog and mirrors, the promise of money and fame and riches and people who love you and scream when you get out of the car. Be like me, they pant, buy my shit. We’re perfect.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Here’s MY shit: it’s all bullshit.

More than half of today’s GenZers want to be influencers.

They’re being sold a load of horrific goods, the idea that they, too, can advise the entire world on health, fitness and success when kindly, they don’t know shit.

How about loving your kids enough so that such dangerous pap doesn’t appeal to them? How about putting our own phones down and being in life with those we say we love?

This is that part of social media that I despise most. The implicit promise that “all you gotta do is…” that you and I can sidestep the very hard work, the time and the character-building effort to create a good life.

The intelligent choices, the stupid choices, the mistakes, the failures, the fuckups. And finally, the realization that fame and money and attention per se do not in any way, shape or form make us happy.

Do the work? That’s too hard a sell.

You can’t legislate stupidity when the leader of the free world eats shit, shits his diapers and blows stupid shit out of his mouth like “drink bleach.”

Kids aren’t the only folks buying into this monumental crap. Lots of adults do, too. Witness how many folks bought silver colloidal fixes for Covid, used way too much of it and are now auditioning for bit parts on the set of Aquaman.

Perhaps foolishly, I sell doing the work, integrity, honesty, authenticity, humor, joy and owning your shit.

No wonder I make four bucks an hour on Substack.

Not many people want that shit.

They want their shit maximized.

Fine.

Here’s a big bowl of artichokes for you, 9.6 grams of fiber per cooked cup. Have at it, Sparky.

Let’s play.

Photo by Ellen Berg on Unsplash

Thanks to all my readers, for your sense of humor, your intelligent comments, your willingness to skewer what’s stupid along with me. Please consider