Whisky barrel skateboards in LA and social media weirdness

Back from the wee trip to LA last week, it went pretty well and that weather!! Sun everyday all day, people smiling and happy. It might be the sun or it could be the amount of weed that gets smoked, maybe a mix of both. This time we decided to stay in the Venice Canals, great spot. I look at the houses and think "yeah, looks as if I'd maybe be able to afford that one" then you find out it's $4million. You're not in Lochgoilhead anymore toto.

I noticed a few funny things about the world in the past week - It's a weird world we're in, a cool weird world. It's a pretty good time to be alive. As an example - you can see people who you think are doing good stuff and speak to them through social media. This happened to me with Tait Fletcher, I first heard him on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast and liked his message. I reached out and he spoke back, a super sweet guy with a powerful beard. Now he has a beautiful whisky barrel longboard to cruise around Venice with. It's probably obvious but the internet can do shit like that. It wasn't that way 10 years ago and thats whats cool.

The same happened with the Dollar Beard Club when they saw my skateboards and longboards. I've watched their videos from the start and like them, you can't get their beard products here but when we were over they gave me some oil, shampoo and cream, my beards smooth. Super nice guys too.

The same thing happened with the Dollar Beard Club, they saw the boards and said "sick bro, let us know when you're in LA" Another chance meeting because the world is so small and people are accessible nowadays, it's cool and I kinda like it. 

The weirdest thing I found out about was the power of having a lot of genuine followers on social media, social currency I think is what the dicks who do all that SEO shit call it. So you have me who makes a skateboard then someone with a massive following posts a picture on instagram of themselves and the board, their followers see who is tagged in the pic - me - and then follow me and go through my pictures and like them, its kinda nice I suppose but likes are likes and I'm not out hunting for them, that'd be weird! Then the even weirder part is that because the person with a large following has taken a pic, it seems to make the item "legit" and the followers buy the item.

I'm not complaining, it's nice to have some sales of something that I've worked on and believe is one of the coolest things you can do with old whisky barrels but that doesn't make the world any less weird. We live in a strange time where likes, shares and comments actually stand for something, they have weight, it's the new cool meter. I got loads likes and followers to my instagram page after a few people posted that I turned the notifications off, you end up chained to the phone constantly seeing pop ups like "bigsexy69er" followed you, "youngfitfam" liked your picture and on and on. I think the best way to use social media is to have notifications turned off and check it like 3 times a day. Then you can live and do normal stuff.

On the plus side, social media, especially instagram has loads of talented people, loads of naked birds too but depending what you're into theres people in your world. You can search something like #woodworking and you will see thousands of skilled people offering tips, techniques and tool reviews etc. I like that side of it, you can get tips from a guy on the other side of the world that you might never think of doing and so on. It's a fuckin' crazy weird world but still the best time to be alive I think, maybe, depending on your race and who you are and maybe probably how healthy you 'social currency' is. 

Over and out >>>>>>>>>>>>>