AI Song Hits #1, Camelot’s Heir Runs, Kids & Porn, Personal AI, Podcast Gap

An AI country track storms the sales charts why a synthetic voice has Nashville talking Camelot resurfaces in Manhattan politics as Jack Slosberg, the only grandson of jfk, jumps into Jerry Nadler's soon to be open house seat. A stark UK report shows kids encountering violent pornography on mainstream social apps and we're talking about really young kids and what that means for parents and platforms. Silicon Valley bets on personal AI as ur AI raises $10.3 million to build high fidelity digital twins and new USC research exposes podcasting's diversity gap. Who gets the mic and who doesn't? Who grabs the mic really, and who doesn't? All that and more today. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Welcome. Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm TJ Walker and we're going to start off as we always do, checking in on the market Vitals from Yesterday S&P 500 closed yesterday S at 6,846.61. That's an increase, a bump up of 0.21%. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 23,468.3. That's down a quarter point two five percent. Always keep in mind the long run. The long run over the last 25 years, S&P 500 has gone up on average 8.32% per year. The Nasdaq 100 has gone up on average 9.09% a year. So please, please be a long term thinker. That's really what we're trying to promote here on Filtered. Let's hop right in. A lot of big stories today. Thanks so much for joining us. Let's hop in with the first big story right now in the country music scene. AI country hits tops the charts for the first time ever, an artificial intelligence generated country song has hit number one on the US Charts, according to afp. The track Walk My Walk by the artist known as Breaking Rust now tops Billboard's digital country sales chart. The twist? There's no known singer by that name that anyone can figure out. Industry experts and multiple AI detection tools say the male voice on the song was likely created by generative AI, with probabilities ranging from 60 to 90%. Even the band's online images and videos appear to be AI Generated. The song credits list Aubrey Rivaldo Taylor as the writer, a name linked only to Deathbeats AI, a confirmed AI project. This follows a growing wave of AI musicians. Earlier this year, Zania Monet, an R and B virtual artist, signed a $3 million record deal try to figure that one out. And with platforms like Suno and Udio making AI songwriting accessible to anyone, the music industry may be facing its next big revolution. Okay, so what's the real message here? If you are a music executive, you work for a big major label, this is panic time. Because right out of the gate, you got to stop spending money on real musicians, real songwriters, real producers, real talent reps. And you got to focus your energy on getting AI Music up, because listeners like it, apparently. And if you say I'm too good for that, I'm a purist. Guess what? You're going to be fired like that. Let's dig a little deeper here. Now, I predicted this. A lot of people have predicted this. Nothing brilliant on my part, that we would get to the point where AI is so good that it would in fact create art in the form of music, movies, TV shows that people like. And once that happens, it does really raise the question, if you are a movie studio, if you are a recording, if you're a music label, why in the world would you continue to spend all the money grooming new talent, going out on talent searches, having your reps go to little honky tonks to discover the next great act, if you could simply sit in a room with a computer and create music that people love? I realize this isn't romantic. I realize this is devastating news to musicians, singers, producers, songwriters. But guess what? It's not just Uber drivers who are going to be put out of business by AI it looks like it's really dramatically hitting the creative industries. And it's not just 10 years or 20 years from now or five years from now or even six months from now. It's right now. Now, I should caution this has not been 100% certified. But all the experts looking at this song, analyzing it cannot come up with any plausible rationale how this was a real human being singing this top 100 song, this walk My Walk song. And I have not. I'm not a musical expert. I'm certainly not a country music expert. And I have not listened to this song because country music's not my thing. If you have listened to it, A, do you like it? B, did you know it was allegedly created by a computer? C, does that matter to you? Because we do live in an era where so much of all music is synthesized. When you hear organ music and piano music and guitar music, quite often it might be a real singer and a real writer of that song, but other parts of the music were synthesized and put in through computers. This is Obviously taking it to a much greater extreme. But, but this is a real problem for people in the creative field because we are getting to the point where, and it may already be here with this particular song, Walk the Walk where one person could be a 15 year old sitting in his parents basement with a laptop, can come up with an idea for a song, have either a chatgpt or something like that, write the song or the 15 year old edits it or gives it a general direction or a general vibe. The AI writes the song and then using some other AI program it pipes in the music as the singer has the chorus, puts in the guitar music. And we're not that far away from this one 15 year old with a laptop creating entire music videos with elaborate looking sets and costumes and makeup and sexy people running around and it's all AI generated. And then this 15 year old could presumably sell it directly to record labels or better yet put it out on Spotify and do direct distribution. YouTube, Spotify, all the normal places and make it so catchy that it just takes off and this person could make a ton of money. Is this a good thing for society? I'm not making that argument, but what I am trying to do is with you, figure out what's actually happening, how do we navigate that? But wait before you get complacent, if you're that smart 15 year old, you might be the ownership of a major record label where you simply fire all your staff, fire the CEO, fire everyone and then just instruct an artificial intelligence program with agentic capabilities and, and say come up with a fantastic new world class country music song or pop or rhythm and blues song, or rock song every hour, 24 hours a day and release that on all distribution outlets. Let's see what hits. And at that point even the CEO is out of business. At that point the 15 year old who's got a nice musical inclination or artistic aesthetic, they can't even get distribution because we are drown out with so much music that people actually like. And perhaps you can say well I know what's real and what isn't real. Do you? You know, as human beings we all like to delude ourselves. We all like to think well I can tell the cheap vodka from the expensive vodka and I can tell the cheap beer from the expensive beer. And yet double blind taste test shows some 98% of people really can't do that. My suspicion, and I don't have evidence for this yet, but my suspicion is the same could be true of artificial intelligence, created content and music May be more vulnerable than others because you can't see something that might look. With artificial intelligence, there's always that sense of, occasionally the image might have an extra finger or a tail growing out or something weird. But if it's just for the ear, it would, in theory be pretty easy for anyone with editing capabilities to say, all right, take out that weird clash. Let's do it again. One click of a mouse and it's done. So. So what's the real message for you and me if you are a music professional, if you are a singer, a creator, a writer, a producer, a director, an executive at a music label, I think is you got to figure out, how do you harness this and make even better music under your own vision? Let's say you're a singer and you're used to being hired by commercial producers to sing your music in commercials. Well, guess what? The commercial industry, as we talked about yesterday, is being decimated in places like Los Angeles. You may be better off spending your time coming up with a vision for a song and then using artificial intelligence to improve it. Get it better, create a whole score behind it, Put all the music, all the instrumentation in it, and releasing it yourself on your YouTube channel, your TikTok channel, other social media channels. I don't know what the best thing is. The one thing I can guarantee you is not going to work is sort of sitting back thinking, well, this is awful, but, you know, someone's got to do something. I will call my local member of congress or my local state legislature and let's make this illegal. I guarantee you the government's not going to come to your rescue. And I'm not making a partisan swipe at a particular administration in power. I'm just saying the power of government to stop advances of artificial intelligence is not good. It's not a strong, solid track record. The ability of governments to. To slow down artificial intelligence, making businesses more efficient and putting certain employees out of work, it's not a good track record. So my only suggestion to you is be panicked, but not hysterical. Don't run around saying, oh my God, my career is over. That's not helping anything. Figure out how to use this technology to boost your own productivity. Yeah, I've been worried about this for a long, long time. It's one reason why I went from giving in person workshops where it was linear one on one. I could be in one city at a time, working quite often with one or five or ten people at a time, to migrating my own business, to teaching people through online courses. So as in person trainings went down and went to zero during the COVID crisis. It didn't matter for me because millions of people took my online courses. So was I a genius for that? No. But I kind of got lucky and I wasn't afraid to start investing in online training way back in 1998 and lost money for 15 years. But now it's worked out nicely. If you are any kind of a creator, a professional in the creative industries, this has got to terrify you. The fact that a song could go number one on the country charts and it's just an AI creation, but it should not cause paralysis. Start doing something when everyone started talking about AI and clones a few years ago, I said I got to do something to get ahead of this. So as you will see in my commercial break in a few minutes, I have my own AI clone. If clones are going to take over the world, I I want it to be one. I've programmed that I own that I can monetize. So maybe you create your own musical singer. If you are a singer or musical songwriter, plug it in with your brain, your thoughts, your mentality, and use AI combined with your own expertise to apply jet fuel to your own productivity. Either that or become a subsistence farmer. I don't really know what else we can do, but together we're going to try to navigate these interesting times right here on Filtered with TJ Walker. More in a moment. Like what you heard. Don't let the algorithm bury us. Subscribe now at substack.com@tj walkersuccess want direct access to me live? Want to unlock bonus episodes, behind the scenes takes and full access to my premium courses? Then become a member today. Just go to tjwalker.com members and choose your preferred platform, YouTube, Patreon, whatever works for you. This isn't just another subscription. It's a full access pass to the tools, coaching and content that can transform your communication and career. Tjwalker.com members, I'll see you inside. Welcome back to Filtered. Jack Sloshberg jumps in Brand buzz and a big Manhattan seat John F. Kennedy's grandson, Jack Schlossberg is running for Congress in New York's 12th district district. The seat Jerry Nadler, the incumbent, will vacate at the end of his term. According to the Associated Press. Slasberg said the district deserves a representative who can harness the creativity, energy and drive of this district and translate that into political power in Washington. The New York Times warning down sketches the 32 year old as a media savvy provocateur who built a following by sparring online and leaning into absurdist humor. She did a major lengthy profile of him in today's New York Times. You may want to check it out. He says, quote, I'm not for everybody. He admits, pitching himself as a Democrat who can break through the noise and speak to younger voters. Nadler, who served 17 terms, suggested months ago that a younger lawmaker can maybe do better because Nadler getting up there pretty much close to 80. Slussberg's resume is mixed. He has a Yale degree, an emergency management EMT going out in ambulances, he's done shifts there. He has a law degree from Harvard, an MBA from Harvard, but he's never actually practiced law. And he has a talent for viral posts. He once described as serious and insane, just like me. Now comes the test. Can Camelot's air convert clicks into votes on the Upper East, Upper west side and midtown of Manhattan? Okay, so what's the real message here? JFK, JFK. What's the real message here? JFK's grandson, his only grandson, is running for Congress. And like it or not, when people say they've had enough of Bushes and Trumps and Clintons, there's still a magic associated with the Kennedy name. So he's going to get a lot of attention like he did the day he announced with front page stories and coverage in the New York Times. What is different about him is he's not just resting on his name. This guy is a fantastic communicator. He's funny, he knows social media. He already has millions of followers on some social media and he's not afraid to ruffle feathers. He's even attacked his uncle, RFK Jr. That's going to make him an interesting candidate. Does it make him a winner necessarily? Well, no. This is a very competitive, highly coveted seat. But it does mean he's going to get attention every day of the campaign. Let's dig a little deeper here. So this is an interesting district. Full disclosure, I've lived in this district more than 30 years ago. I worked for the member of Congress representing this district in Washington D.C. it was before Jerry Nadler took that seat. It was when Ted Weiss was the longtime incumbent. So it's, it is a seat that is filled with massively rich people, massively successful people, a lot of famous people, and a lot of very media savvy people. It is simply different than most congressional districts. There's going to be a lot of money in this campaign. So money, name ID alone isn't going to do it money alone isn't going to do it. There are going to be a lot of well funded candidates. Now, interestingly about Jack Schlossberg is that he's not afraid to poke fun of himself, say a lot of politically incorrect things, say things that some have deemed sexist, racist, crude. He's certainly not afraid to ruffle feathers. Not only has he attacked his own uncle, as other Kennedy clan have done, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He's also attacked family members who refuse to denounce Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. So he can be a very polarizing figure, which in traditional times you would say that doesn't make for a good political candidate. Well, we don't live in traditional times. There are some who see a parallel to this young 32 year old Kennedy family member and Donald Trump who rose to fame through being provocative in the media, always getting attention. And this guy got a lot of attention in the last few years because of his social media. And it wasn't just because he was a famous person or had a famous last name because a lot of people are famous. They put out videos and it gets, instead of three views, it gets 30 views. He's had millions of views because he's funny and he's not afraid to attack. Well, that's gold. That's liquid gold in the world of social media and politics. So that's why I think he has to be considered a very serious camp. There's no doubt he'll be able to raise a lot of money and there's no doubt he'll be able to get a lot of attention. And there's no doubt he's intelligent. I mean, you know, nepotism can get you a slot as a freshman at an Ivy League college just being rich. And if you don't believe me, just look at Jared Kushner, whose father bought his way into Harvard, but you don't get to graduate with a Harvard law degree and a Harvard MBA being a dummy. So I have no doubt that this guy's got some decent IQ and is intelligent and savvy. He also is someone who by some respects is seen as well disciplined, doesn't go out to nightclubs, he doesn't drink alcohol, he's not a big party guy. He seems to be someone who, even though he doesn't have a serious career now, he never became a practicing lawyer. He does seem to be passionate about certain issues, communicating, and he may be a sign of the times. Now, there have been many people who thought, oh, we just need this magic of the Kennedys. I remember when his mother, Carolyn Kennedy, was this close to being announced to filling the United States Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton when she became Secretary of State, what happened? Well, she gave an interview where she said about 20, 52 times in three minutes. I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. And it was a case where it was such a disastrous interview that it quickly became obvious to people she's not going to make it as a senator. And if she does get appointed, there's no way she'll be able to hold the seat for her party. So this is a disaster. We can't nominate it. So the governor at the time of New York quickly decided, let's pick someone else. And that's when Senator that's when then Congresswoman Kristen Gillibrand was selected to be the US Senator, not Jack's mom, who was Carolyn Kennedy. So just having a famous name doesn't mean you're good at communicating. It doesn't mean you're funny, it doesn't mean you're good with social media. But this guy does have those things, and that's why I think it's going to, he's going to merit and receive a lot of attention. What do you think? You can post your comments right here. I typically do try to share. If you, if you are watching this and listening to this live and you post comments, I do typically share some of those comments. So if you'd like to post a comment, please do so. My name is TJ Walker. This show is called Filtered. Every day, seven days a week, we look at the top business stories, technology stories, and culture stories and filter them through the lens of communication and personal development schools. My pledge to you is spend a little time with me each day. You'll learn more about important news going on in the world and you'll learn more about yourself and how you can be more successful in your own personal life as well as your professional life. All that and more in just a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the don't need a new degree. You don't need another expensive coach. You need the right communication habits and I'll teach them to you in just a few minutes a day. @mediatrainingworldwide.com I've created the most comprehensive library of online communication and personal development courses anywhere. You'll learn public speaking, media training, persuasion, executive presence, and more. These are the same methods I've taught to world leaders, but now they're affordable and accessible to everyone. You can start for free and upgrade anytime. Go now to mediatrainingworldwide.com. confidence isn't a personality trait. It's a skill. Skill and it's trainable. Welcome back to filtered issue 3. Social media, not adult sites, is teaching kids about sex. According to the United Kingdom's Children's Commissioner, Childhood in 2025 is colliding with quote on online world that is completely unfit for children. UN A new report finds 70% of kids have seen online porn with an average first exposure at 13 and many encountering it by 11. Some. Here's the disturbing part. Some as young as 6 years old. Crucially, most aren't searching for porn. 59% stumble on it by accident, largely via social platforms, not porn sites. Pornography is no longer something that children might seek out. Dame Rachel d' Souza writes. It is shown to them without even looking for it. She calls the findings a snapshot of what rock bottom looks like. The content is often violent or degrading. Widespread exposure to strangulation, choking, abusive name calling, even depictions of rape. Four in five respondents say porn reshapes expectations about sex. The commissioner's message is blunt. The status quo is a systemic failure. Policy, platforms and parents must act. Okay, what's the real message here? Parents and social media sites are doing a horrible job. If you're a parent and you fret and worry about, oh my goodness, my 12 year old walked down the block to the park and no one was there hovering over them, you're worried about the wrong thing. Crime in the real world has never been lower. But people sending messages, images of violent pornography to your 13 year old, 11 year old, even your 6 year old, that has never been stronger. And it's coming from your laptop, from your iPad and from your cell phone. Start protecting yourself, your kids from your screens, not from a walk to the park. Let's dig a little bit deeper here because this I can tell you firsthand as someone with a child, this stuff does creep out. Even if you don't personally visit sites like this, even if you try to put passwords on all of your computers and your iPads, it's still easy to have it pop up. And without seeming like a prude here, I'm not suggesting that adults shouldn't have access to porn. Not my cup of tea. But in a free society, that has to be legal at some level. Obviously there can be restrictions against child porn, violent depictions, but children, six year olds, no, we do not need to empower big multibillion, in some cases trillion dollar companies to make more money by pushing out ads and pushing out images that are pornographic. Let's Go over the facts again. First, exposure, according to this study from the United Kingdom is age 13, 27% children by the age of 11 have been exposed to pornography. And 70% of kids of all kids are reporting exposure to pornography. The main gateways are Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. I know for my own daughter that I've put on blocks on all of those websites for her phone and so, but in, you know, if she's sitting on a bus and another kid has YouTube, can I be there on the bus to protect her from that? No. So it permeates almost every aspect of culture and there's a public policy solution to this and there's also a personal solution. What we try to do here on Filtered is talk about both in a way that your typical news show, business show does not. Certainly from a public policy standpoint. We all need to get over our idea that any kind of regulation of big tech companies is somehow anti tech or socialist. No, we have rules for everything else in life. We don't say to a bar, hey, you can serve alcohol to a 10 year old, it's a free market. No, we say, you, you did this, you harmed a child, you lose your liquor license, you're out of business, you can go bankrupt and maybe go to jail. We regulate all sorts of industries that could cause harm to children. It's time to get over this fetish of technology where we think, well, technologists, they're special. No, they're not. They just want to make money off of your kids. And if it's sending your kids ads to porno sites or Uporn or any of that, they will gladly do it. So part of it is you're going to have to support political candidates who are in, who are more in favor of regulating the sort of filth that big tech companies routinely put out without age gating. There needs to be an age gate for this sort of thing. The next thing is at the personal level, maybe you can't, you and I can't control Congresses and parliaments and legislatures around the world or our own country. You can control yourself and you can at least have a bigger sphere of influence for your own children. I'm going to say this. It's going to make me unpopular. If you just give an iPad or a cell phone to a kid who's under 16, arguably even under 18, and you don't put all sorts of restrictions on it, you're a bad parent. You are. And, but T.J. my kid says they'll be ostracized if they don't have full access to every. Don't listen to them. If every. Sorry to sound like a real old timer baby boomer, but if every kid in your neighborhood gets to jump off a cliff, are you going to let your own child jump off a cliff? No. It's your job first and foremost to protect your own child. And if you are letting them have unbridled access to essentially snuff films, which you're doing, if you let your own iPad sit around, you put your iPad down on the table to go to the restroom or get a sandwich and it doesn't lock up, you are exposing your child to. To a lot more nastiness than if they were to walk to the park unattended and somebody flashes them. So I urge you, and it's hard to do, I have messed up from time to time, okay? But I urge you, check out what sort of security you have on any screen in your house if you have a child less than 18, certainly less than 16. Okay, we got a lot more stories to come and comments coming from you. Toopfe says, can a famous political name still open doors in modern politics or do social media skills now matter more? So, yes, it opens doors. It doesn't necessarily mean you win political races. I mean, every single election silence cycle, there are tons of famous people running for political office who fail miserably. A name alone gets you more attention the day you announce. A name alone will get you meetings with people. A name alone will often help you raise more money. But in politics, that's just not enough. Look no further than the 2016 Republican nomination for president. Nobody had more name ID than Jeb Bush. His brother had been president, his father had been president, he'd been governor. He was really famous and he had a lot of money. Didn't help him once primary season started because Donald Trump was better at social media and real media and CNN and all media. Now, the interesting thing is the question that's coming from our viewer is what's more important, the name or social media? I would argue the social media skills are more important. But if you can combine the two, having a famous name and being really good at social media, that might be an insurmountable asset. That might be something that is so powerful that it really can propel someone to victory. I'm not yet predicting that Slussberg wins this congressional seat, but I will predict he gets a lot of attention. And unless he flames out or does things that are incredibly stupid, we're going to be hearing a lot from this young man. I say young. He's 32. His grandfather was elected to Congress at 30 or 29, I believe, and his uncle Ted Kennedy was elected to the senate at age 30. In an era where all of our politicians seem to be 150, 32 does seem young, but it's certainly not too young to be a member of Congress. Okay, we got a lot more issues coming up today. Stay tuned, there's more fun to come. Imagine having a communication coach who never sleeps. Meet your new secret weapon, the TJ Walker AI clone. Go to TJWalker AI and start getting custom coaching 24 7. No scheduling, no hourly fees. I train presidents, prime ministers and Fortune 500 CEOs, but the same exact communication I've delivered to world leaders is not available to you online anytime@mediatrainingworldwide.com whether you're speaking on camera, pitching a client or handling a crisis, you need these tools. These aren't fluffy motivational videos. They're practical, battle tested techniques to help you speak clearly, competently and persuasively. Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and take your communication communication to the next level. Welcome back to filtered personal AI, not artificial general intelligence. Ur AI's 10.3 million dollar bet now this is, according to Business Wire, what I'm sharing with you, which means it's a press release by the company. So always good to verify things and not just take at face value everything in a press release. But it did strike me as is interesting and worthy of comment. UR AI has raised $10.3 million to build what it calls individual AIs, private high fidelity Digital twins trained on a person's memories, voice and decision patterns. The Palo Alto startup formerly known as Eternos Life is backed by Mayfield and Boldstart Ventures and plans a winter 2025 launch for creators, prosumers and professionals. UR AI says it isn't chasing one model for everyone. Each AI is containerized and self owned, designed to scale presence, creativity and mentorship while keeping personal data secure. CEO and co founder Robert Locasco put it this way, the industry is chasing the wrong goal. We're building intelligence that's as unique as a fingerprint. Boldstart's Ed Sims calls individual AIs the next frontier, and Mayfield's Navin Chada says the shift is toward deeply personal intelligence. A proprietary Human life model aims to encode stories, values and judgment so the system doesn't just echo past statements. It reasons the way you would and admits when it doesn't know. Okay, so what's the real message here. More and more money is being pushed into AI startups to create clones. Digital AI clones for individuals, for you, for me and your work colleagues. This is going to change the nature of work, the nature of memory and history. You don't have to do it, but if you don't start planning now, someone else might steal your own unique ideas and history. Let's dig a little deeper. So, full disclosure, this is a field I'm particularly interested in because I have my own AI clone. It may be a competitor of this company, the service I'm using, and that's okay. I'm not here to promote anyone's service provider. But I think that many people initially are afraid of digital clones and think that it somehow means they are robbing themselves of their own humanity. I view it as empowerment. So I have my own individual digital AI clone. You've seen my advertisements for it. It's tjwalker AI where everything I'm saying right now on this show is uploaded into the clone's brain by tomorrow morning. Every video I've ever made on social media is input into the brain, the database of my clone. Every online video I've made in my hundreds of online courses. It's all in there. So this is something I use myself sometimes because it helps me remember things I've said. I could say, hey tj, what did you think about the Academy Award winning speeches from 2011? And it can tell me exactly what I said. So it's a great enhancement because I don't remember stuff like that. It also allows me to help more people like you because my own students have access at no cost initially to use my clone. And it can give them feedback on their set, it can give them critiques of their speech, their sound bites, and I don't have to be there. And it can happen 24 hours a day. So I like it for that. The other way I've started using this is I ask my own clone to give me a daily 5 minute motivational speech to remind me of good habits that I want to practice on a regular basis. Some I already write down and look at in text, some I have emailed to me. But my clone will say, hey tj, remember, start each day with a glass of water. Drink one or two glasses of water before each meal. And to my podcasting audience, I just took a sip of water and tips like have a glass of water next to you all day long, so anytime you're thirsty, you just sip basic little tips like that. I, I have my own AI clone, sometimes in a video format, sometimes in an audio format, remind me of things that I've decided I want to do to program my life. Because without that, the big problem for most of us is we are programmed by other algorithms, by other big companies. Netflix. Hey, I love Netflix. But Netflix is constantly trying to program you to watch the next episode. They don't care if you don't get enough sleep and you wake up groggy the next day and are not as effective at work. They want more watch time that benefits them. And someone like Jeff Bezos is constantly sending you messages. Buy more stuff that makes him richer. He doesn't really care if you now have massive credit card debt and you can't pay your bills and you've destroyed your credit. He just wants to make sure your Amazon prime is up to date and you keep buying stuff. So that's why I have my own clone. Essentially, try to counter program my brain. My clone reminds me when I ask it to give me tips on how I should live my life. My clone reminds me, TJ. Don't buy stuff you don't need. TJ. If it's a big expense, why don't you wait 24 hours before hitting that buy button? Simple tip. So that's how I use it. If you have your own clone, let me know. And how you use it. If you're thinking maybe if it's really cheap and inexpensive, maybe I would let me know that. Now, we're not quite at the point where I can just have my clone show up and do a live show from stories in the news today. But who knows? It might get to that point now. I still want to do it. I don't really want to just sit back and sit on the sofa. Which reminds me, there's a great new book out by Columbia law professor Tim Wu, and he's got a phrase in it. So people are talking about the singularity. When AI gets so good, everything comes together and there's general artificial intelligence. He says we should really be more worried about the sofa larity. The sofa larity is when everything is so easy from robots, AI clones, you don't have an excuse to get off the sofa. And my fear is we may get to that point relatively soon. I don't want to be there. I want to get up off the sofa and come to you and do a show with you every day. Let's look at a couple more facts here. Again, here's yet another company that got more than $10 million to help people create. They call it digital twins. Some people call it digital clones. There's a lot of different words for this, but it's basically taking your ideas, your thought process, putting it in the cloud, putting it in a database, and then having it come out again, sometimes with your own voice. Which my clone does. It really does sound, I would say, 95% like mine. If you're interested in that. Again, you don't have to pay anything. If you want to check out my clone, it's at tjwalker AI We've got some other big stories coming up, especially about podcasting and the diversity of podcasters these days. More specifically, the lack of diversity in podcasting, believe it or not. More in a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the following Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise want to become a better speaker, leader or communicator? Start with the TJ Walker Success Library. It's five of my most practical books, covering everything from public speaking to media interviews and persuasive messaging, all for only $9.95. I've trained presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs, and now you can get the same wisdom in a fast, affordable format. Go to tjwalker.com books and download your copies instantly. Thanks for listening. If you like today's episode, you'll love my online courses@mediatrainingworldwide.com check them out now and level up your skills. We are back. Thanks so much for joining me today. We're having a lot of fun. It is Wednesday, November 12th. Looking at the calendar, our Christmas tree went up yesterday and my daughter especially getting excited about Christmas and Christmas presents. So I hope whatever celebrations you have at this time of the year, the end of the year, I hope they're great celebrations and a festive time for you. Eddie writes in a question about All Americans are enemies of the state. If you want to clarify that, I don't really know what you're talking about, but that's okay. Let's dive right into issue five today. Politics podcasting's diversity problem 64% of podcasters are male 77% of podcasters are white. A new USC Annenberg study. It's an inclusive initiative and it says the podcast boom isn't as democratic as advertised. According to the report, 64% of hosts on the Top 100 Spotify podcast in 2024 are mentioned 77% are white. Across a broader set of 592 popular shows, women are still outnumbered roughly 2 to 1. And underrepresented hosts remain far below their share of the US Population. The imbalance shows up in bookings, too. Men made up nearly 73% of identifiable guests, and almost two thirds of episodes featured no women guest at all. USC's researchers note one exception. True crime, where women slightly outnumber men as hosts, but business, tech, sports, and comedy are overwhelmingly male. The study argues discovery systems and funding patterns may be reinforcing who gets the micro and who gets amplified. As the authors put it, podcasting is replicating patterns from film and TV rather than breaking them. Okay, so what's the real message here? Podcasting is this new, innovative technology where supposedly there aren't all the gatekeepers that Hollywood has or broadcast TV news has. It should be more open to people of all races and genders, right? Well, guess what? That's. That's not how it works. The vast, vast majority of successful podcasters are men, and they're white. Why is it there's no simple answer? Okay, there is a simple answer. The simple answer is, women, start your own podcast. Anyone can do it. Nobody asked me to be a podcaster. I just decided to do it. So if you want to change this, that's the first thing you've got to actually take the mic, hit record, and start. There are more really successful male and white male podcasters in the world, in part because there are a lot more white male podcasters starting the game and failing at it miserably on a daily basis. So get in the game doesn't guarantee success, but you cannot win if you're not in the game. Okay, let's dig a little deeper. This is an issue I have thought a lot about for decades, because 35 years ago, 36 years ago, I had a syndicated political TV talk show, and I realized that does make me sound really old, and I'm not a spring chicken. But I remember having to beg and beg women to be on the show. As a panelist. It was a show kind of like the McLaughlin Group, if you remember that. It was the host, I was the host, and four other panelists who weighed in on news of the day specific to the state of Florida. It was a statewide show, and I strongly remember times when I would reach out to a woman who was, let's say, a bureau chief for a major newspaper in Florida, who had sometimes 15, sometimes 20 years experience asking her to weigh in on her opinions on the news of the day. And quite often it was, well, you know, I'm not sure if I'm right for this. If I have the credentials for this, you know, let me think about it. And then if I'm in a bind and I needed to guess in the next five minutes, I could call a 22 year old reporter who's been working for about two weeks, who was a man, and say, hey, you want to come on a political talk show and give your opinions? Sure. What time? Where? Yeah, that was the response from almost every man, especially white men, when I asked them to do that. Now you can ask the question, why is that? Certainly I want to go beyond the glib answer I gave earlier, which is just, you know, women get out there and do it. I think there are deeper societal issues, even evolutionary aspects, biological evolutionary aspects to this for starters. There is a culture in our country and the world where men are rewarded quite often by saying big, bold, provocative things. And if it offends some people, it's often laughed at. Whereas a woman or girl does that, it's sometimes seen as not ladylike and shocking and bad and they, they sometimes get social punishment for it. So that's part of the issue. Another part of the issue that I think is affecting this diversity element is that, and here's where there's some controversy, but you can look at the research and make your own conclusions. From an evolutionary biological standpoint, boys and men simply have a much greater tolerance for risk. If you doubt me, go to any emergency room and you will see probably nine out of the 10 people in there are boys are men because they did crazy stupid stuff. If you ever saw the show Jackass on mtv, it was a bunch of boys, for the most part, young men doing crazy stupid stunts. Women are not as stupid, if you want to look at it that way, to just jump off cliffs and jump off buildings and do things that cause massive physical damage to themselves because it's risky. They are less risk friendly than young boys and men are. Well, here's the thing. Going and starting a podcast is risky to your identity because if you do a podcast and nobody watches, it's embarrassing. If you do a podcast and you say really stupid things and people write nasty things about you, it can be embarrassing and hurt your psyche. So that is one element that I think is probably, and I don't have all the data from this study, they looked primarily at the top 100 spots and found that 64% were were men and 36% presumably were women. Host vast majority were white. There is another part of this, another element that I think deserves some attention and that is if a man goes and says something provocative in social media or even innocuous, he's much less likely to have trolls come on and talk about physical violence and physical sexual violence. And I get some detractors sometimes, but no one's ever come on a video of mine and said, tj, I disagree with your opinion on that politician so much, I'm going to come sexually violate you. Never happened. And I've had thousands of negative comments and even threats on social media. If you're a woman, apparently that's what you get all day long, even if you want to talk about cooking recipes in a podcast. So it is an unfair world. And women are simply subjected to nastiness and vile physical threats for simply giving an opinion. So I would certainly assume that that's a main reason or a contributing factor as to why a lot fewer women want to put their face out there and make judgment. Plus, there's the fact that women are judged by their appearance more than men. Now, I am no Hanson brother. I'm no eye candy. I'm the same age as George Clooney and Tom Cruise and a number of other celebrities like Brad Pitt, but I don't look like them. And yet, other than once a week, somebody saying, hey tj, you got beady eyes? Or where'd your hair go? I'm not subjected to vicious, brutal attacks on my looks. Hope I'm not giving anyone ideas, but women are. And it's nasty and it's vile. So I think that has to be a contributing reason. Let's look at some more of the data from this Annenberg study from the University of Southern California. Highly credible place again of the top 100 shows on Spotify, 64% male. Which, by the way, one of those shows is Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, which is one of my favorite shows. And they have a male and a female host. 33.2% are officially female. I guess there are some who are non binary when it comes to the race and ethnicity. 77.1% are white women host hit parody only in the true crime genre. Business and technology, something like this show. 92% are male. Host for sports and fitness, 81% male. Now that's a little surprising considering there are so many women who are fitness gurus. The Julian Michaels of the world back in the day, the Jane Fondas. So I am a little bit surprised that less than 19% of physical fitness and sports shows are led by women because there's a lot of parity when it comes to women in college Sports and even professional sports these days growing, I would suspect that would change. Comedy. 76.4% of all successful podcasts are by men. Education, now that's a field you often associate with women. Certainly in secondary education in the United States, primary and secondary education, it's almost all female, especially in the early grades. But Even education podcast, 60% male. The news world, almost 60% male dominated host arts and culture. Again, a field where a lot of women have done well in the journalism world, art, society, culture. 56.7% of hosts are male. So a. Do you even think of this as a problem? Some of you might not be. If you do think it's a problem, what's the solution? I think one solution is for organizations that care about having more equality in society. One thing you could do is simply fund training for women to become podcasters because it's difficult just learning the basic technology. I've had all sorts of technology problems today, and I've been doing this for years. So I think a lot more organizations that purport to care about creating fairness and equality in the world should put their money where their mouth is and give extensive training to women who perhaps have written a book or have created a song or have started a company successfully and would like to share their message. Train them on how to do it, give it a little extra bump to get going, have some funds allocated for funding new shows. Now, for any new show, whether you're a male or a female host, initially, when you start, you're not making any money. Tim Ferriss wasn't making any money when he started his podcast. Joe Rogan wasn't making any money when he started his podcast. Now, they both made, at this point, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars over time, but it didn't start out that way. So one area where you could possibly help a great deal is by providing initial sponsorship for the concept of a show, rather than saying give me the hard numbers. So those are some things I would advocate if you want to be serious about this imbalance, if you even think the imbalance is a problem, I think it's certainly less than ideal. But I do get back and I don't want to sound like just an obnoxious jerk brocaster. But I do think that part of the issue, part of the solution is more women and girls have to simply realize there is no gatekeeper to do a podcast the way there is at certain institutions, like TV networks, like movie networks, like the big Hollywood studios. There is no casting couch. There is. You could simply grab a microphone or grab your cell phone and just hit record and upload. Because yes, there are. There is discrimination in the world. There's no doubt about it. There are gatekeepers in the world. No doubt about it. That can't be the excuse for why you don't share your ideas on the world, your perspective on the world through your own podcast, regardless of of what gender you are or what race you are. All right, that concludes our portion of the show where we look at the top five issues. But every single day we also have a few grab bag issues. Things that they don't Warrant A full 1015 minute discourse or analysis, but things I did want to share with you. First issue Bari Weiss vs. CBS Standards the Independent Reports New CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss has privately complained that the network's standards and practices team wields too much power, according to multiple newsroom sources. This follows the S and P chief's resignation standard in practice chief resignation and CBS disbanding its race and culture unit amid broader Paramount layoffs, retaining only its head. One CBS reporter told the outlet the unit literally upholds journalistic standards. CBS has been asked for comment and not much coming from it. Okay, so what's the real message here? I don't want to be too quick to judge. There are many people who aren't centrist right of center, but also left of center and more progressive who were outraged at Barry Weiss, who has zero reporting experience and zero TV news experience, being given the keys to a journalistic gem like CBS News. And it appears her appointment was really done for political correctness reasons. It was done to appease right wing wokeism because her whole shtick in her career has been saying, oh, here's another example of those crazy left wingers and left wing wokeism. So it seems to be a theme. Does this fit that pattern? I don't know. I'm going to reserve some judgment. I have been a harsh critic of Barry Weiss. Whether this is yet another example of anything goes, if it's attacking, someone on the left will see. That certainly does seem to be what's happened on Twitter X and Facebook and a number of other major media and tech platforms. Okay, that concludes our grab banks. There's a couple of other issues, but I've got to switch quickly to you and your questions of the day. What I like to do every day here is end the show with a question directly from you on some aspect unrelated to the news about communication skills and personal development skills to help you become more successful. You can always post Your questions on any platform where you're either watching this show or hearing it. And my students do write in to me as well. So this question comes from Simon. Simon is a student in the Complete Storytelling course for Speaking, Speaking and Presenting. And his question is how does early preparation improve the quality and confidence of presentation? So I'm going to analyze that question from two perspectives. If by early you mean a week before the presentation as opposed to five minutes before the presentation, it helps dramatically. Because if you do have a speech and it's a big speech, an important speech, let's say it's a speech to your all your annual it's an annual convention of all your salespeople from around the world. You want to motivate them. If you just wait until five minutes or even the day of, your brain is still going to be processing it, it's going to come out awkward. It's going to come out like a rough draft. If you finish the speech a week early and you say it out loud, you record it on video, you watch it, you sleep on it, it starts to become internalized. You start to build a comfort level with the content. And so you are able to personalize it. You're able to bring in added elements to your stories, make them richer, and will come across more genuine. So if that's what you mean by earlier, yes, a week earlier is better than the day before or the night before. And don't kid yourself this, oh, I work better under pressure. I'm going to wait till the night before. No, that's an excuse for laziness. The great communicator, Ronald Reagan himself had a rule with his speechwriters before the State of the Union address. And it was he would work with them back and forth, have editorial meetings for months before the speech and for weeks. But then he had a rule. His speech had to be finished unless there was just dramatic breaking news. It had to be finished one week before he was to give the State of the Union address. Why did he do that? Because he would practice his speech out loud in the residency of the White House. He would say it out loud again and again, not to memorize it, but to build a comfort level with it. Now, the other way of interpreting your question is starting earlier, meaning at a younger age. Yes. Do not tell yourself, well, I don't need to be a good speaker until I'm a senior vice president, even though I'm a junior vice president or I'm a vice president, I'll wait till I'm up for that CEO job to get better at public speaking. No, it is never too soon to become a great communicator. I know in pre kindergarten when my daughter had to give show and tell for the first time, I took it very seriously. We rehearsed just once on a cell phone and an iPad. Rehearsed, recorded it, looked at it, and then I just reinforced the things she did well to make her feel good. And it helped her because she was like I am. I was not a natural born speaker. The only reason I got comfortable speaking to you like this on camera or in a microphone is simply because I've done it so many times. And I started at age 12. That's when I had my first opportunity where a teacher essentially bribed me. She said, I'll give you an A instead of a bad grade in handwriting if you give the welcoming speech at the elementary school graduation next week for parents, teachers and students. I said, well, okay. I stood up, I read a boring little speech, welcome parents, teachers and students to the Bruns Avenue elementary school graduation of 1975. And I sat down, nothing bad happened and I got a reward. And I learned ever since then, if you just stand up and speak, people give you things. So, Simon, if that's what you mean, the earlier the better. The best time to learn public speaking skills was last week, last month, year ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. The second best time to improve your public speaking skills is today. And you can say, well, tj, I don't have any big speeches planned today or the next month. Do what I do. Don't wait. Turn on your camera, on your cell phone or your iPad or your webcam and speak about something you're passionate about and share it with the world on social media. Even if it's not great, even if you get 0 likes, you will learn something and you'll get better. I want to thank you for making me better today. I appreciate your time, your feedback, your questions, whether you're joining me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch, Rumble, we're on a gazillion places. Special thanks to my friends on TikTok. I appreciate you spending time with us today as well because it's a learning experience. I make mistakes. We made a bunch of technical errors and had to restart this show today, believe it or not. And that's okay. I'm not trying to do a perfect show every day. I am trying to learn, get a little better on the technology side and also better at delivering value to you. If you did get any value out of this show today, please leave a comment, Please subscribe on any platform that you like, whether it's a podcasting platform or a social media video site. If you do subscribe to a podcast or if you're on a podcasting platform, make sure you subscribe. And please, please leave a review. It's very helpful as we're now just in our first two and a half months. This show's life. Thanks so much. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye. Bye.