Jobs Collapse, Media Shift, And Leadership Chaos Explained Today

Ultimize. A new report from The New York Times says this is, quote, the worst spring for young college graduates since the depths of the pandemic. That's not a vibe. That's not a feeling. That's a warning shot. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, unemployment for recent grads is now 5.6% higher than the overall rate, and more than 40% of graduates are working jobs that don't even require a degree. You study for 4 years and now your degree is basically a very expensive coaster, and the people closest to hiring are not exactly optimistic. Ali Goossens, who works in employer engagement, said this to the Times: "We're thinking about hiring the way I think about going to the gym." Economist Adam Ozimek explained it like this: "If you need experience, you're being rejected for not having experience." to get experience. It's like being told you can't get into the pool because you're not already wet. And then there's real people living this. Erin Torres applied to nearly 200 jobs and said, she's not getting any. At that point, you're not getting, if you're not getting any job offers after 200, something is going wrong. At this point, that's not really job hunting, you're speed date rejecting. And yes, the market's tough. But now let me say something that might sting a little and also help you a lot. Nobody's coming to rescue your career. Sorry, young college graduates. Not your college, not the economy, not your potential. Because a lot of people are treating the job market like it's Uber Eats. I placed my order. Where's my salary? Doesn't work that way. You cannot sit on your phone, click apply 87 times, and expect a company to fall in love with you. It's not a strategy. That's wishful thinking with Wi-Fi. If your entire job search is clicking buttons, you're basically playing a slot machine and wondering why you keep losing. Here's how the real world actually works. Most good jobs are filled through people, not platforms. Not portals, but people. Someone inside a company says, hey, I know this person, they're solid. And suddenly you're not competing with thousands of applicants. You're having a real conversation because hiring isn't just about skills, it's about comfort. People are asking themselves, would I want to sit next to this person all day long or take a plane ride somewhere with this person, go to a weekend seminar with this person? And you cannot answer that with just a PDF attachment. Sorry, but here's where things get a little ridiculous. A lot of young people today are trying to build careers without ever talking to another human being. They say, I'm networking. No, you clicked connect. That's not networking, that's digital collecting. It's like having 500 business cards from people who wouldn't recognize you in an elevator. Real networking is messy. It's awkward. It's face-to-face. It's showing up somewhere and not knowing exactly what to say and saying it anyway. Opportunities don't live in your phone. They live in rooms, rooms full of people you haven't met yet, rooms you keep avoiding. And yes, sometimes those rooms are professional events. Sometimes it's just a random conversation at a bar. I've seen more careers start with, so what do you do? Than with, 'Please see attached resume.' Now let's talk about something that quietly sabotages people: ego. Some people think, 'I have a degree, I shouldn't have to do certain jobs.' Meanwhile, someone else is driving Uber, waiting tables, bartending, and meeting more people in a week than you've met in a year. You call that beneath you, they call it access. Because while you're sitting at home applying to jobs, They're building a network in real time. You're refreshing your inbox. They're expanding their opportunities. You don't need a perfect job right now. You need proximity. Proximity to people, proximity to conversations, proximity to opportunity. Sitting at home waiting for clarity, it's like waiting to get in shape by watching fitness videos. Motion creates opportunity. Stillness creates anxiety. And here's where things flip completely because you don't have to wait to be hired. There are millions of people, especially older professionals, who have money but no idea how to function online. They don't know how to make videos, grow an audience, use social media, build a personal brand. And sitting right next to them is a generation that grew up doing exactly that. It's like having a superpower. And using it to scroll. You could be creating content for businesses, managing accounts, helping people grow, making money, building relationships. Instead, a lot of people are asking, why won't anybody hire me? That's the wrong question. The better question is, who needs something I already know how to do? Because the fastest way into opportunity is to become useful, not impressive, not perfect, useful. The people who win right now are not the best applicants. They're the most useful and helpful people in the room. So yeah, the job market is tough. Yes, hiring is slower for new college grads. Yes, AI is a problem, especially if you're a computer software grad right out of college. Yes, this is frustrating, but frustration doesn't stop you. In inaction does. Thinking you can win without talking to people, without putting yourself out there, without creating value, that's like trying to win a marathon by reading about running. The world doesn't reward potential. It rewards people who show up, connect, and contribute. So get off the app, go where people are, talk to them, help them, be someone people remember. Because while everyone else is waiting to be chosen, you'll be too busy being known. Okay, sorry if that feels grumpy and unsympathetic to young college grads who can't find a job or can't seem to catch a break, but also keep this in mind: your job isn't— your goal is not really to have a job, it's to have a career where your skills are put in use, where you feel fulfilled, and you make money. And ideally you make enough money to support the lifestyle you want. Yes, it would be easy if some huge company just gave you a nice starting salary, all sorts of perks, benefits, and a training program for the next year to get you going. That used to exist. Sorry, it doesn't exist any longer. So to just go back in time of 40 years and say, 'I want that,' well, That makes no more sense than going back in 200 years and say, "Oh, I want to be a subsistence farmer." Okay, you can't pick and choose what period of history you're in. We're in this period right now. I also just want to stress, it's not that I'm anti being online. I'm online a lot. I make good connections online, but you've got to make meaningful connections. Simply looking at job opportunities and clicking and sending a resume and a generic form letter. It's not 100% worthless, but if you're spending more than 30 minutes out of what I hope is a 14-hour day job hunting, you're really wasting your time. You're far better off really researching companies, researching on LinkedIn to find out who those people are, then commenting on their post, asking them thoughtful questions. Sharing their content, building relationships with people in the industry you care about and the companies and the organizations you care about. And ideally you do it long before you graduate. Ideally you're starting that in high school, summers, evenings, weekends, freshman year, sophomore year, junior, senior. By that time you should already know a lot of people in your industry. It's never been easier to connect professionally with people in your industry. But you can't just do it the day after you graduate and say, hey, Jim Smithers, I see you are the CEO of XYZ company, I'm looking for a job. That's not going to get any response. Build relationships online, and most important, online. Get out there, talk to people, put your phone down once in a while. Oh, but TJ Walker, I'm a little bit shy. I'm an introvert. Guess what? Nobody cares. You can be wildly successful and be an introvert. Steve Jobs was reputedly pretty introverted. He wasn't always the life of the party, slapping everyone on the back. So no, that's not an excuse. Sorry to give you a little bit of tough love today, but I want you to have a great career. And sitting at home, just click, send, click, send, click, send, isn't going to get you there. Want to communicate like a pro? Go to mediatrainingworldwide.com. Millions have already transformed their speaking skills. Why not you? This show doesn't run on a lot of corporate sponsorships or big media backing. It runs on caffeine and your support. If you like what you're hearing and want to say thanks, you can buy me a coffee. Really, just go to buymeacoffee.com/tjwalker. It's quick, it's easy, and yes, it helps cover editing, hosting, and staying relatively ad-free for as long as possible. buymeacoffee.com/tjwalker. Your $3.95 makes a real difference. One. Let me start with something that sounds a little depressing, but it's actually fantastic news unless you're a reality TV producer in Los Angeles. According to The New York Times, the number of reality and unscripted TV shows has plummeted by a third since 2022. A third. That's not a dip. That's a cliff dive without a parachute. Networks are canceling shows left and right. MTV is ending Jersey Shore: Family Vacation. Catfish is done after nearly 300 episodes. HGTV, Food Network, TLC, they're all cutting back. And Mark Cronin, longtime producer and creator of Bravo's Below Deck, put it bluntly: everything's contracting and there are no new shows right now. That's industry language for we used to print money and now we're printing resumes. And here's why this is happening. It's not complicated, it's not mysterious. And frankly, it's not even sad. For all the changes in the modern economy, this might be the least depressing one, because let's be honest, most reality TV is mind-wasting garbage. It's people screaming, crying, dating badly, flipping houses they can't afford, cooking food they don't eat, and pretending it matters. Here's the problem for the industry: if you want mind-wasting garbage video today, Congratulations, you have an unlimited buffet. Open TikTok on your phone, open YouTube, open Instagram. There are thousands of hours of this content. There are millions of hours if you look in the right place. There are billions of hours every second if you just keep looking. And here's the best part: it's all made by people who work for free. Imagine running a business where your computers are producing more content than you. Faster than you, and their labor cost is zero. That's not competition, that's extinction. Even people inside the industry feel it. Chris Arundel, a longtime post-production supervisor who worked on shows like Ghost Hunters, said this to the Times: You get a bad feeling this isn't trending upward anymore. This is trending downward. That's not analysis. That's a guy looking at his career like it just got hit by a slow-moving truck. And here's the deeper shift. Executives say 3 things are driving this collapse. Cable is dying, streaming isn't replacing it fast enough, and YouTube is eating everybody's lunch. As Paul Telegy, former chairman of entertainment at NBC, put it, there are so many things converging to squeeze the money for all practitioners. Here's the translation. This business model is getting strangled from every direction. And while all of that is happening, YouTube creators are out there building audiences, ideally like I'm doing right now. Although this isn't reality TV, I do deal with reality. YouTubers are making content and in many cases making more money. Even traditional shows are fleeing. The Netflix series Somebody Feed Phil is moving to YouTube. New shows that used to land on HGTV Now they're going straight to digital platforms with brand sponsorships. It's like watching a restaurant shut down while the food trucks outside are thriving. So let's be clear what's happening. Reality TV didn't die, it got replaced. Because if you're a viewer, why would you wait a week for a polished, edited, watered-down reality show when you can see something raw, ridiculous, and immediate right now? Reality TV used to be junk food. Now it's competing with an all-you-can-eat junk food factory that never closes. And here's the brutal truth for creators. If you want to succeed today, you have to do one of two things. You either have to be better or cheaper, ideally both. And traditional reality TV is doing neither. It's expensive, it's slow, it's overproduced, and half the time It feels like content that was already outdated before it aired. Meanwhile, some guy in his bedroom with a phone is getting 10 million views talking about his lunch. Might not be fair, but it's real. And if you're a reality TV producer making mid-six figures in Los Angeles, I'm going to give you some career advice you probably don't want to hear. Pack your bags, because the old system is not coming back. Move somewhere cheaper, way cheaper, and start making your own content because the gatekeepers are gone. The audience is everywhere, and the only thing standing between you and success is whether you can create something people actually care about. And yes, that might mean your new studio is your living room, your production budget is your iPhone, and your audience feedback is instant and brutal. Welcome to the real reality show. And if that sounds scary, well, good, because every major change in media has looked like this. Unknown actors, no connections, no money, then suddenly one breakout hit and everything changes. You think Harrison Ford started as a Hollywood star? No, he was doing carpentry, building cabinets. He did it for years trying to survive. Now imagine if he had had an iPhone. He wouldn't be waiting for a casting call. He'd be building an audience, presumably. And that's the real shift here. You don't need permission anymore. You don't have to be hired. Hire yourself. You need attention. And attention doesn't go to the biggest budget. It goes to the most interesting thing on the screen. So yes, reality TV is shrinking. Yes, jobs are disappearing. Yes, an entire era is fading away. Good, because when bad content dies, better content has a chance to live. And if you're paying attention, this isn't the end of something, it's the beginning of something much bigger. A world where anyone, everyone can create something that people actually want to watch, no network required. I apologize if I seem cold-hearted today. I realize I sounded rough on college kids earlier. I'm sounding rough on producers who do reality shows in LA. Look, I'm very compassionate for anyone who's out of a job or can't pay the bills. Believe me, I've been there for much of my early career. But at some point, just wishing doesn't make it better. Hoping things come back— that things don't come back. Yeah, I understand there was a pandemic. Some industries shut down and then did come back, but this is not one of them. So my recommendation to you, if you have an absolute passion for making reality TV or stories based on real people, you're gonna have to figure out a way of doing it without some big studio giving you a big pot of money or a salary, because I think we're only going to see these trends continue. Again, down 30% in the last few years. And it's going to continue to go down. Not because people are watching video less. No, people are watching video, they're staring at their phones more than ever, and more people are coming online every day around the world. So there's only increased demand. The question is, how do you make money from it? And the idea that there's going to be this big middleman, which is essentially what a TV network is, that's going to do all the heavy lifting for you, find advertisers for you, give you a check so you can just do the fun creative stuff, that is wishful thinking. 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 5 of my most practical books covering everything from public speaking to meeting 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. Let me start with the least believable number in American politics. According to the latest American Research Group poll, Donald Trump is sitting at 34% job approval and 33% approval on the economy. Now, first you hear that and think, wow, that's low, really low. But then the real shocking number is this. It hits you. 34% of Americans still approve of this man. That's the mystery. That's the plot twist. That is the part where you stop reading the poll and start checking the water supply. Who are these people? What exactly are they approving of? The gas prices, the wars, the recession vibes, the attempt to treat Greenland like it's a distressed golf resort? Because the same poll says 63% disapprove of Trump overall, 64% disapprove of his handling of the economy, 62% think the country is in a recession. It's not technically in a recession, but people believe it is. And 70% think the economy will be worse a year from now. So just to be clear, the country is basically saying, we hate this, we think it's getting worse, we think it will keep getting worse. And then 1 out of 3 Americans is still standing there like a guy defending the band on the Titanic. No, no, keep playing. The iceberg is fake news. And let's get specific because the abstract version lets him off too easy. Trump promised economic strength. Well, how'd that work out? The national average for regular gas today is $3.97 a gallon. A month ago, it was $2.95 a gallon. That's a jump of over a dollar in one month. One month. That's not drill, baby, drill. That's cry, baby, cry. This is not energy dominance. This is getting mugged by a nozzle. And if you want the Biden comparison, the EIA says regular gas averaged about $3.30 a gallon in 2024. So Trump inherited a national average around the low 3s, and now we're basically at $4. He was supposed to bring prices down. Instead, he turned the gas pump into a subscription service. And why are prices up? Because oil is up. On March 24th, Brent crude was around $101.77 a barrel and WTI was around $90.34. Why? Because we're in the middle of a war. Back in just— actually, we're not going to go back. I'm going to— I want to continue this. We're in the middle of a war with Iran that this genius was supposedly elected to avoid. This is the same Donald Trump who campaigned like the human embodiment of no new wars. The same guy whose whole sales pitch was, hey, I'm the peace guy, I'm the America First guy. I'll end wars, not start them. He said he could end the war in the Ukraine in 24 hours. 24 hours. That wasn't a plan. That was an Uber Eats delivery estimate. We're now in late March of 2026. The Ukraine war is not over. Reuters reported that talks are on pause in part because of the war in Iran. Just to recap, he didn't end the old war in 24 hours, he helped create a new one. It's like a plumber showing up, failing to fix your sink, and then flooding the basement. And even inside his own administration, people are bailing out. Joe Kent, Trump's own National Counterterrorism Center director, resigned over the Iran war and said Iran posed, quote, No imminent threat to the United States. Think about how bad you have to be for your own counterterrorism chief to quit and basically say, this war is nonsense. That's not liberal criticism. That's your own guy standing up in a meeting and saying, sir, this PowerPoint is insane. Not that Trump would ever know how or want to use a PowerPoint. And if you're a conservative, how are you OK with this? You were promised strength. You got chaos. You were promised lower prices. You got $4 gas. You were promised no new wars. You got a war that helped shove oil over $100 a barrel. You were promised stability. You got a presidency that feels like a raccoon locked out of Costco overnight. And if you're a libertarian, some of my friends are, this should be your supervillain origin story. You wanted less government. Insanity. Instead, you got a president who, according to Reuters, wouldn't rule out using military or economic force to pursue control of Greenland and the Panama Canal. Greenland and the Panama Canal. That's not limited government, that's Grand Theft Auto foreign policy. This is not constitutional restraint. This is a guy looking at the map like he just won a prize at Dave Buster's. Greenland. A normal president wakes up and thinks, How do I lower inflation? Trump wakes up and thinks, what if America bought an ice cube? And it gets worse or worse, mostly worse. Reuters also reported in January that Trump's advisors were actively discussing options for acquiring Greenland, and the White House said the US military was always an option. Always an option? That's a real sentence. That's not a rejected South Park script. That's actual government language, folks. It's a huge, huge mystery to me why this man doesn't have a support level of zero, much less 34%. It does raise the question, what would he have to do to actually lose that 34%? He famously said back in the first campaign he could shoot somebody In the middle of Fifth Avenue, he wouldn't lose his base. It looks like that is where we're going, if we haven't reached there already, back in a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the following. Get the deeper takes I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now at substack.com/@tjwalkersuccess and stay in the loop. For years, people have asked how they could get one-on-one coaching from me inexpensively. Well, now you can. Anytime, anywhere with the TJ Walker AI clone. It's like having me in your pocket, ready to help you prep for a speech, polish a pitch, or calm your nerves before a big meeting. You talk to it, it responds like I would, based on my real-world coaching of thousands of leaders and communicators. Check it out at tjwalker.ai. It's not just smart, it's personal. More on this latest Trump polling showing he has 34%, which in my lifetime, I don't remember a president getting below that. Maybe Nixon, but that's extraordinarily low levels of public support. Again, let's look at why. Imagine being an ally and hearing that you're gonna just be taken over. You're Denmark, you're in NATO, you're supposedly our friend, and America is suddenly talking like a drunk billionaire at a yacht party. Nice island you got there. Shame if freedom happened to it. And this is why I keep coming back to that 34%. Not because 63% disapprove. That part makes sense to me. The shocking part is that 34% can look at all of this and still say, "Yep, that's my guy." This man has managed to turn every promise into performance art. He promised cheaper gas. Gas is nearly $4. He promised peace. We're in new wars seemingly all the time. He promised competence. His own people are resigning and saying the rationale makes no sense coming from the White House. He promised to end wars in a day. He can't end one and help start another. He promised to put America first. Now we're talking about annexing Greenland like he's a colonial realtor with impulse control issues. He's taken the Republican Party, the conservative movement, the anti-war movement, and even libertarian rhetoric thrown them all in a blender, hit puree, and poured the result directly into the gas tank. And let's talk about the economy beyond the gas. The same poll says only 10% of Americans think the economy is getting better, and only 10% think it will be better a year from now. 10% in polling terms. This is not confidence. That is a support group. And 78% rate the national economy is bad. Very bad or terrible. That's not a mixed review. That's not room for improvement. That is Yelp if Yelp covered presidencies. One star. War was bad. Gas was expensive. Would not annex Greenland again. And what makes Trump so uniquely exhausting is that every single day comes with some new absurdity. And because it's him, people stop noticing the insanity. If another president had floated taking Greenland, it would be the defining joke of his entire career. With Trump, it barely makes the top 10 for the month, or sometimes even the week. That's his superpower, I guess. He commits so many ridiculous acts that your brain develops scar tissue. The man creates scandal inflation. You can't even keep up. One week it's the economy, next week it's Iran, then Greenland, then the Panama Canal, then some statement that sounds like it was written by a sleep-deprived casino manager at 3 AM. And the tragedy is that behind all the absurdity, there are real consequences, real prices, real deaths, real instability, real allies wondering if America has finally lost its mind. That's why I don't buy the excuse that it's just his style. No, style is whether you wear a blue tie or a red tie. Style is whether you use a teleprompter. Starting wars you said you wouldn't start, sending gas prices soaring, threatening allies, blowing up your own economic message is not style. It's failure with branding. And that's why the 34% is so amazing. It means a third of the country can watch a man promise peace and deliver war, promise lower prices and deliver higher ones, promise seriousness and deliver Greenland and still say, yep, more of that. At this point, supporting Trump is like staying loyal to a restaurant where the chef keeps setting the kitchen on fire and serving you the menu as the entree. And you're still telling your friends, you got to try this new place, the owner is very entertaining. No, he's not a genius, he's not a mastermind, he's not playing 4-dimensional chess. He's a chaos machine with better lighting. And the only truly mysterious thing left in American politics is why most people do not disapprove. It's why 34% are still clapping. That's the truly bizarre thing. Going on in politics. Folks, thank you for spending time with me today. I'm here as a sane, sensible centrist. I like talking about business stories, personal development stories. I don't really like talking about politics, but unfortunately, when so many people are losing life, losing jobs, losing what's left in their pocketbook, it's hard to ignore things like this. So that's why I do want to urge you to do what I'm going to do this Saturday. I am Live with you today, March 24th, this Saturday is the next No King's Day event, which is a way of saying if you're an American, whether you're a Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, or Republican, it's time to stand up for freedom, for the democracy, for separation of powers, and say we don't want any kings in America. So check your local area. There are going to be rallies all over the country. I know I'll be going to the one in Palm Beach, one of the ones in Palm Beach County. I hope you will be there as well. Okay, Aldous writes in and says, life won't get better for us under Democrats or Republicans. Sooner or later, the people will rise up and collapse the system. So, Aldous, why do you say that? I, I don't buy into this idea. First of all, I don't buy into the idea that any one party is perfect, but the idea that both parties are equally bad, that's false equivalency. So I'm not buying that. Anyway, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm TJ Walker. See you tomorrow.