Name: How social media fuels useless products
Uploaded: 2025-11-04T05:07:16.000Z
Duration: 15 min 20 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of manner

Every day, sophisticated marketing schemes flood our feeds with newly created must haves.

Handheld banana slicers, miniature keyboard vacuums, shower hair catchers.

They're cheap, they're novel, they look useful for about five seconds and then they end up tossed in the trash.

A growing slice of social media has turned into a 247 shopping channel where cheap products go viral, clutter piles up, and

the tactics used to hook us are getting harder to resist.

I'll share more about why I use them for all my websites later.

You know, I don't use social media too much these days, but

sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me.

And recently, oh boy, did I get a real treat.

My algorithm took a hard turn into some of the most absurd, useless and wasteful products I have ever seen.

Suddenly my feed was a parade of contraptions.

A designer cover for your trash bin, a wheel spun bread cutter, detachable wine glass stems, an egg yolk separator shaped like a bas basketball hoop, and

When I was a kid, it felt like they made something new every day.

This bed tent is the perfect way to get more privacy and make date night more cozy.

This soap dispenser sticks to your wall and holds enough shampoo, conditioner and soap to last a year.

This is a wearable sleeping bag and it's great for staying warm whilst doing your daily tasks.

These products are the spiritual successors to the as seen on TV era.

Those infomercial gadgets that promise to solve problems you didn't know you had.

Simply pour your favorite marinade into the flexible flavorizer, attach the needle, place into the flavor pro and presto.

Back then they were quirky, cheap and sold through 2am infomercials with a toll free number.

And despite the terrible production value and gimmicky sales techniques, they worked.

I couldn't believe how juicy these burgers came out.

I'm sorry, this is one of my favorite clips.

I can't believe how juicy these bugs came out.

On social media, that same formula works even better.

So called Internet entrepreneurs set up their phones, demo cheap products, cut their videos to trending audio, and

I gotta say, you know, I was a skeptic at first, but

then I got this and I just realized how valuable this could be for everyone from smoothie shop owners to rabbis looking to increase their productivity.

These short clips are made for the algorithm.

They're unique, visual, and pitched like magic solutions to frustrating problems in your life.

And the sellers hit every psychological trigger they can to get you to buy.

Novelty, scarcity, social proof, low cost, impulse buying, and

that oddly satisfying feeling that makes you want to watch again and again.

Short form, instinc gratification, one page checkouts, Apple Pay, Google pay bundles, fomo.

These are all the things that get people riling.

These tactics are engineered to bypass our rational decision making.

Okay, maybe people are a little bit stupid.

It turns out a swipeable video is far more powerful than a 30 minute infomercial.

It's bite sized, shareable, hypnotic to watch.

And since buying is easier than ever, this stuff is selling like hotcakes.

Speaking of hotcakes, grab this portable hotcake maker now for 50% off in the next week.

These ads, they come in hard, they come in fast, they're very convincing.

So far in the last two hours, I have purchased this car vacuum that has apparently NASA level suction, this balance board because my balance sucks, and

this electric bird feeder which takes glamour shots of the creatures in your backyard because they make it so easy.

It's just click, click, click, click, then it's yours.

I didn't need any of this when I woke up this morning.

This constant stream of micro infomercials is making it harder than ever to be intentional with our purchases.

And the views on these videos are insane.

Click through to their profile and what you'll see is that the same post has been uploaded over and over again.

They're fishing for another algorithmic hit.

For sellers, this is just a numbers game.

Most posts get tens of thousands of views.

And those kinds of numbers can translate into some serious money.

And how does the whole operation actually work?

So the Internet has a long history of people turning to get rich quick schemes to make a living, all from the comfort of their bedroom.

Except now it's getting easier and easier to do.

And as the systems and tools for Selling get easier.

More and more people are trying to strike gold with cheap disposable products on social media.

There are a couple different models that people are using to make money from these shitty products.

One of the lowest effort and easiest to get into is affiliate marketing.

With affiliate marketing, a seller shares a special link to a product and earns a small commission each time someone uses that link to make a purchase.

Because that link uniquely tracks which sale came from them, grabbing attention, views and clicks becomes the heart of their business.

They create content designed to drive traffic and sales, whether it's a YouTube video, a blog post, or a boosted Instagram reel a highlighting a product's supposed benefits.

I've been doing affiliate marketing for a couple years now, and without lifting a finger.

There's content that I'd made a few years ago that's still making me hundreds or thousands of dollars every month from a single piece of content.

Amazon runs the largest, most sophisticated affiliate program in the world with over 900,000 affiliates globally.

In the right niche, those small commissions can add up.

Categories like home and beauty can pay rates of up to 8 to 10% per sale.

Take the Instagram account the Sisters shoppers.

With over 750,000 followers, their page is filled with nearly 800 posts each sharing a product they find on Amazon that are, according to them, must haves like this nugget ice maker, this pizza storage container, and

You know, must haves because we've all felt the strain of lifting the milk out of the fridge, twisting the cap, pouring it on our cereal and putting it back in the fridge.

They post a new product almost every day.

Many of the videos rack up millions of views with thousands of people in the comments asking for the link.

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