Katie Hopkins on The Collapse of Mainstream Media

I feel like mainstream media, which I do agree is dying and being disrupted, and I think that's good. But I think that a lot of that power has just moved to social media, which has maybe now become kind of like the mainstream replacement. Because this thing you mentioned about algorithms, I said earlier, every week, as a test, I post something nice and positive. It gets no views. The more angry you are, the more views you get. And I do lay awake at night a couple of times a year thinking, you know, is the tail wagging the dog? Am I sharing what I want to share, or am I playing to knowing what can get engagement? And here's the thing. If you're an artist and no one looks at your work, are you an artist? So you need views. If you're a creator, which you are, and I am, do you feel that paradox?

So I've watched this kind of play out, and I've seen the shift with social media. So to your point, the journey went from mainstream media to social media, becoming the new face of news and the kind of reinvigorated Twitter X, the new, you know, the number one source of news globally, blah, blah, blah. But people still haven't necessarily woken up to the fact that social media has moved. So social media was about the number of followers you have. So you have 1.5 million followers on Twitter, 1.5 million on Instagram, whatever you have. And those followers would follow you and you'd be making you have a relationship with maybe 10% of them in a realistic manner. That's all changed. And people have seen it very specifically recently on Instagram. Now, it is not about followers. It is. You are not playing to a crowd that you've won. It is now the algorithm that feels.

Like a con to me.

Yes. So your content will no longer be seen necessarily by your followers or people who have chosen to subscribe. The algorithm will decide what it places in front of you. So it doesn't matter now if you've got one follower. If you create that moment, you've got every likely chance to be viral. So you could say it's egalitarian, or you could say it's a complete con, because the followership that you've built up is now virtually meaningless to you. It's meaningful to AI and the algorithm. So the power's gone back to tech, and that is a whole different landscape. And it's why, to your point, you're saying you post something positive that you just felt and literally could maybe get five, you may have millions of followers, you'll get Maybe five views. Ben Fogle did this about a week ago. He's always posting something. Ben Fogely. And for people who don't know Ben Fogle, think cozy Sunday morning Times newspaper, pretty wife, lots of pretty children, horses and lambs frolicking in the fields. That's Ben Fogle. And he put on Instagram, Is anyone out there? Because in one week from getting 6,000 say, likes on a post, he was getting two or three because the algorithm had kicked in and people couldn't understand what had happened. So it's this dawning realization by creators that what they've created has gone back to zero.

Yeah, yeah, I've experienced that. And so then I start to realize what gets me virality and engagement and reach. So I can, to a certain degree, play the system in my favor. But then you can lose who you are in the process, Right?

And then who are you? You're. You're. You're working. You're a B. Yeah. AI's B. So AI now controls you because AI is. Is showing its hand a little like a. Like a woman unbuttoning her top, imagining being a woman with cleavage.

You know, she'd take about an hour to get that bow off.

I know, I came wrapped.

You might as well chastatized yourself, if that's a word.

Hey, look, if it goes really badly, I could just hang myself in the nearest rafter, swing outside number 10. No. People would cheer and throw tomatoes, But. So you've become AI's bitch because she showed herself to you. Like, oh, look how you win me. Look how you can get more out of me. Look what. And now you're going to feed her, right? You're going to tickle her nipples. You're going to go, oh, I want what she's got. And isn't that a weird realization? And then you question, what am I doing? Why did I start doing this? What is this about? What am I doing with my life? Am I feeding an algorithm? Holy shit. When did that happen to me?

Yeah, yeah. Am I making the world a better place? Or am I just getting sucked into all the negativity?

Yeah. And if you don't get any views on something that you chose to post, does it matter? Why does it matter? Why does it matter to you that someone has to see it?

Well, if you're a creator, it matters.

Does it? And if you're an artist, does it matter? If you make something that's terrific in your mind, the best thing you've ever done, does it matter that people see it?

Yes. I Mean, I used to be an artist, so I can answer this with some level of credibility. I've got a third of my work still hung up in my fucking home 25 years later. Cause I couldn't sell it. And I can look at it and go, oh, you know, I did that.

Because I loved it.

No, I look at that and go, I was, I couldn't sell that. That's why I've still got it. There's an, you know, if you are something, you want the results in the thing, surely.

Yeah. And I, I'm, you know that. So, so now I do, you know.

I mean, if you're, you're, you're a comedian. Sorry to interrupt.

No, if you, if you do your.

Shows, you know, it doesn't, doesn't really matter if they laugh. So I'm just going to say what I want. If they don't laugh, it doesn't matter. They'll all turn up next. You've got to make them laugh, haven't you?

So that's exactly where I was going.

I'm sorry.

No, no, it's fine. We're the same.

Ruined it for you?

No, not at all. It's the same.

Too early?

No, I mean, I've had experiences like that and I have advice for women on that, but it's a separate matter. But exactly that. If I wasn't blushing. You're so cute.

I just embarrassed myself. I know.

That's so cute. I saw that. Yeah. All I have to do is hold.

A mirror up or just look at me like that.

Yeah. Then you're gone.

Yeah, yeah.

So if I was, if I've kind of said for a year or so, if I wasn't selling tickets for, for my standup, I couldn't, I mean, I can hardly bring myself to say, I do stand up, I do do stand up, but I just won't allow myself to acknowledge that for some reason. But if I couldn't sell a ticket, I wouldn't do it. So I'm agreeing with you because I feel like, well, if no one wants to come, then I don't want to do it. But a true stand up, a true someone who's sort of, I guess, more of a theoretical stand up. They go up to Edinburgh to do the fringe, they'd run many nights without a single seat sold because they're doing the fringe, because they do comedy. And that's what the graft of the grind of the comedy thing is about. There's this sort of purist group of people that I've interacted with and it's odd to me.

And then that's a good practicing ground. So then they can go and sell tickets.

That's the idea.

Yeah, exactly. So they're not just doing it, you know for sure.

And there were for the plot there is this sort of lubrication of the purest stand up. So the purest stand up that can't really sell many tickets. They lubricate each other because they go ah, but your comedy is so skilled and so crafted and so honed and you are so funny and here's an award. So they can't sell a ticket but they get the award. So there is something about this creation of content. Does it matter who sees it? If you're respected within your industry is that enough? But I think for someone like you and I we have to have eyeballs on otherwise what are we doing? Yeah because I guess we're kind of innately performing. Sam.