In this short, first‑person monologue Steve Lichtman recounts attending a tiny metal‑core show on Long Island with his family. He describes how the audience abandoned the venue after the second band, leaving the third and final act to perform to an almost empty room. He draws a parallel between that “hit‑and‑run” audience behavior and the way many people engage in online networking: they drop a quick like or comment, reap a brief benefit, and then disappear without further support. Lichtman argues that sustainable communities—whether in music scenes or on social platforms—require participants to stay for the encore, actively amplify others’ work, and invest in long‑term relationships. He offers a simple daily practice: pick one person’s post, leave a genuine, uplifting comment, and share it, trusting that the reciprocity will strengthen the network. The talk ends with a call to reject fleeting, self‑serving interactions in favor of consistent, community‑building support.
Chapters
Hit and run networking. It's something we've all experienced or maybe we've even committed the atrocity of hit and run networking ourself. Right? So I've got a great story from the other weekend. By the time this post, it'll be two weekends ago, maybe three. We were at a show, took my wife, my daughter and her friend to a metal concert in the middle of Long island out in the East End. And it was a small venue. I didn't know, I'd never been to the venue before. It was a music studio with a quote unquote stage in the back. I had room for about. I mean, who knows what the fire marshal's rule is, but there was about 50 people there, give or take, including the bands that were there. It definitely wasn't big. I had no idea. When we bought the tickets, my wife found this and my daughter follows them on Instagram. It's a band called Major Moment. They're a kick ass metalcore band with an old school feel. If you like things like Linkin park, you would love a band like this. Sasha and her husband are fantastic musicians, super kind and nice people. She met my daughter before, after, and during the show, you know, just super great showmanship. And look, when you have a kid that likes rock and roll and plays rock and roll, you take them to every experience of rock and roll, good, bad or indifferent, you can. In this case, it was a learning experience for her to understand stuff. Right, so we get to this local gig, four bands opening. Two bands are crushing it. They're doing their thing. They have their own vibes and their own sounds. Cool. The crowd's hyped, especially the second band. The crowd was really hyped as hell for their friends all showing up. And then by the time the third band came on, it was like, boom. All those same people that were excited for the night were packing it up and. And they were ghosting right after the second band set. I would say after the second band played, over half the people left, if not more. So now you get the third band coming on to a half empty room. Killer lights, you know, they're doing their thing, that the woman was a great singer, the band was good, and she was doing it pregnant nonetheless. So she was really crushing it on all levels. And then Major Moment came on the final band and they had a whole thing. They brought in their own lights, they had killer sound. But the problem was there was really nobody left to feel it. And to me, that's just straight up what a ton of these Online and in person networking events look like these days, right? Folks slide into the comments for their own post, grab a few likes, maybe drop a quick emoji on somebody else's stuff, and then boom, they vanish. No real support, no real shares, no sticking around to amplify the next person. They're just there to do themselves and then bounce. And that's what we saw that night. We saw two bands that did themselves and bounced credit to the second band, at least the singer and I think it was the guitarist from the band had stayed. There was at least two or two people. I saw minimum from the second band that was there. I think the first band was sitting in the lounge the rest of the night. You know, hey, look, when you're a small, it's a small rock community, you should support each other. That's just me. But this works in any part of your life if you know, you want a community that actually lifts you up, the kind where referrals are gonna flow. Collaborations happen no different than these bands. You gotta be the one who stays for the encore. You have to cheer louder for others than you do for yourself. You need to repost other people's wins. You need to jump in their lives and help build the scene, not just building your own personal spotlight. It's easy for us all to build that personal spotlight. We all could talk about ourselves all day long, right? But it's when you talk great about other people and you help build the scene and you help build up other people's where you're really crushing it. And this one's good. Like I said, this was super short episode. Just talking about a concert we're at and how to me it felt so much like a bad network marketing event when I was there and I was probably the oldest dude in the room, I mean, you know, there was a couple other dad age people there, but yeah, I was definitely up there and you know, let's do a marketing riff for it or I guess a riff of the day. It'll be in a world full of drive thru connections, be the full concert experience. And what I mean by that is don't just breeze in and out. If you want to be somewhere, commit to being there, right? Take it, use it and pick one person in your feed who's showing up strong right now and share their post with the genuine this crushed it because type of comment, right? I mean if you could pick one person a day to do that for one thread that you see on your timeline, if you're listening here on LinkedIn, use a LinkedIn one. If you're listening for Instagram, pick an Instagram. On wherever you're from and wherever you're going, pick one person, write a nice comment for no other reason than uplifting them, and then share their post. Watch how it comes back around. Because it's social media. We all seem to forget the social part. And in the case of that night, watching those bands, they. Well, they kind of forgot the etiquette part, if you want my opinion. I probably wouldn't see those first two bands again or I would come late the next time knowing they don't even support the other people in the room. Why would I support them? That's how I feel. I don't know. Maybe that's petty. It's not 50 cent petty. Nobody could be that amazing. But I mean, hey, it is what it is. I believe in supporting other people, but it means that you have to support the people next also. So don't be the band that bails. The scene only rock and rolls when everybody's in it for the long haul. So rock on, guys. Thank you so much. I'm Steve Lichtman, and this was unfiltered and unshakable.
