Breaking the Monoculture, the Rise of “Premium Mediocre”, and Choosing Your Suck

Ever feel like culture’s splitting into countless micro-worlds where everyone’s just vibing to their own thing? In this episode, I introduce my theory on the "Jazzification of Everything." Drew and I dive into how our subcultures of music, entertainment, and even personal obsessions have evolved into these aging communities, totally detached from the cultural monocultures of the past. Whether it’s metal fans in their forties or electronic music lovers growing older with their favorite DJs, we explore how the media landscape and algorithms have encouraged us to stick to what we know—and why this shift could be both a gift and a curse. We also dig into why “premium mediocre” is taking over our consumer habits, and whether or not that’s actually a bad thing. We discuss how these tiny, exclusive-seeming trends might be fooling us, offering superficial luxuries instead of anything truly valuable. We cap it off with a big question about whether chasing after anything is worth it, or if we’re just dooming ourselves to disappointment. Give it a listen. Enjoy. CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 The Jazzification of Everything: A Cultural Theory 00:00:25 Metal Shows, Electronic Music, and Middle-Aged Audiences 00:01:43 When Jazz Was Cool: The Birth of Subcultures 00:03:40 The Death of Monoculture and Cultural Balkanization 00:10:00 The Phone Problem: Recording vs. Experiencing Concerts 00:17:24 Digital Pacifiers and Avoiding Discomfort 00:21:07 Premium Mediocre: The Concept Explained 00:26:19 Why Everything Feels Like a Lie: Millennial Cynicism 00:28:29 Premium Mediocre Politics, Media, and Modern Life 00:30:25 The Maya Millennial and Aspirational Consumption 00:31:29 WeWork and the Premium Mediocre Business Model 00:33:45 The Innovation Problem: Solving Fake Problems 00:35:56 Choosing Your Suck: Why Chase Anything at All? 00:37:29 The Masochist Question: What Pain Do You Enjoy? 00:39:13 Over-Indexing on Meaning: The New Trap ⇨ Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: ⁠⁠⁠⁨https://markmanson.net/breakthrough⁩⁠⁠⁠ ⇨ Get clarity on what actually matters. Try Purpose, Mark's AI mentor app that learns your patterns, challenges your blind spots, and helps you take action. Get started at ⁠⁠⁠⁨https://bit.ly/4w46FMH⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW MARK Mark's IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/markmanson⁠ Solved IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/solvedpodcast/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/markmanson⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmanson/⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@IAmMarkManson Theme Song: Icarus Lives by @Periphery , used with permission from Periphery.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mark Manson?

  I've got a theory, Drew. And it starts with music, but I think it kind of explains everything.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 0:06Mark Manson?

  Everything. Ever. Okay, not everything, but most, a lot of things. Bear with me.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  We haven't got to brilliant or bullshit yet.

• 0:15Mark Manson?

  We just started.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  We just started.

• 0:16Mark Manson?

  Just started.

• 0:17Speaker 02

  It's the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Podcast with your host, Mark Manson.

• 0:24Mark Manson?

  I've actually, I've gone to a number of concerts recently. One of them was a metal show, so I'm a big fan of a band called Lamb of God. Shout out to Randy, the lead singer. He's a fan of mine, I'm a fan of his. He was cool enough to invite me out to his show, got to hang out with him and everything. It was fun, you know, I was a big metalhead when I was young and it was interesting going back. I hadn't been to a metal show in probably at least six, seven years. And it was interesting going to a metal show again. I'm in my 40s, most of the audience was in their 40s. Some in their 50s. The bands were all in their 40s and 50s. Everybody was middle aged, everybody looked like they, you could probably catch them driving a minivan

• 1:07Mark Manson?

  and taking their kids to soccer practice during the week. And it was really interesting because I had a similar experience. I went to an electronic show, maybe two or three weeks later. Same thing. It's funny, that one I went to and I was a little bit insecure. I was like, ah, it's gonna be a bunch of kids on Molly and shit and like, I'm probably too old for this. No, sure enough, like, half the audience was probably at least my age and and they seemed to be aging up. So here's the theory. I think of it as the jazzification of everything.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  The jazzification?

• 1:44Mark Manson?

  The jazzification of everything, and hear me out here, okay? So when we were young, jazz was lame. And I didn't really develop an appreciation for jazz music until I went to music school and I was forced to study it. And then once I started studying it, I realized like, oh, this is really intricate and cool and creative and there's all this cool stuff going on. What I also learned at music school is that jazz was cool as fuck in the 40s and 50s, 30s, 40s and 50s.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 2:14Mark Manson?

  In fact, fun fact, the word cool comes from jazz. It's the invention of cool. There's actually a Miles Davis album called The Birth of Cool. Anyway, sidebar. Being a jazz fan as a young person in the 2000s, it was incredibly lonely and isolating. I would go to jazz shows. First of all, they're in tiny clubs that held like maybe 50, 60 people. And it would be like me, two other music dorks, and then like a bunch of 60 and 70 year olds. And it was just like, it was sad. Especially because the musicians were some of the best musicians I'd ever seen in my life. And it, it was this weird thing where like, okay,

• 2:54Mark Manson?

  it had its cultural moment and then rock happened and television happened and pop happened. And, and, and, you know, the mainstream culture just passed it by and kind of left it alone. But there was this very intense cult following. This, this group of people that grew up with it and they never left it and they just loved it forever. And at the metal show, I was like, wow, metal is becoming like jazz. It's becoming the next jazz, right? And then I went to the electronic show and I was like, electronic feels like it's kind of becoming the next jazz. And then I started thinking about every show I've been to and everything I've like, not just music wise,

• 3:38Mark Manson?

  but like the video games that I'm into or the, you know, the movies and TV shows that I'm into. Like every form of media and entertainment, there is a small group of super mega popular hits, right? You have like the Taylor Swift and the Mario and Fortnite. And, you know, the, the big Marvel movie or whatever. But everything else is like jazz. Everything else is a small subculture of highly dedicated fans. Unlike in the 20th century where, you know, everything was a monoculture. There was everybody's watching the same five channels.

• 4:22Mark Manson?

  So it was like, you know, in the seventies disco was in and then in the eighties disco's out. Now everybody's into rock and glam, you know? And then by the nineties glam is out and everybody's in the alternative. And everybody would kind of just jump ship to the next thing over and over. We don't have a monoculture anymore. So now everybody has their own little jazz that they're into.

• 4:44Mark Manson?

  Almost exclusively from everybody else and it's their little subculture and and you age together, right? Like I was a metal fan when I was 20. I went and saw Lamb of God. Now I'm 40, I went and saw Lamb of God. If they're still playing when I'm 60, I'll probably go see Lamb of God, right? Like it's the we age through together, the artists age with the fans and uh and it's it's a completely different dynamic. It's like a balkanization of culture.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. You you saw this too, like in the 2000s when nerd culture kind of started to take over too. And there was you you talked about this with David Brooks a little bit, the atomization of culture that we have. And I think is that part of it, do you think?

• 5:26Mark Manson?

  I think that's part of it. And I think there so there's two dynamics that are really significant. One is is the atomization. So it's like everybody finds their own little subculture and they're like niche, niche, niche thing that they're like really into. And they've got this little community online that they interact with. But the other thing that's changed is that you age through life with that culture. Again, it's it's not like you change change out for the new fashion and the new music every five or six years.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  It's You're stuck in it.

• 5:55Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's like it's like the band you were into in 2010, you're still into in 2025 and you're going to be into them when in 2040 and like, like, I'm noticing this with our audience too, right? Like it's it's when I started out, my audience was around my age. They're in their 20s and early 30s. Now my audience is in their 30s and 40s. Like we're aging up together. And the same way my interests change over time, their interests change over time. And we we just kind of grow together. And when I think about my favorite music, my favorite art, my favorite video games, my favorite like

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Movies or whatever, yeah.

• 6:30Mark Manson?

  Filmmakers. It's similar. You know, it's like we age and develop together. I don't find myself jumping ship. I don't find myself being like, oh, well, I was really into Nintendo five years ago, but now I'm into Fortnite stuff, right? Like it's, it's like, no, the thing I was into when I was 15, I'm like still into now. And it just has evolved with me over time.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  What explains that? That is weird.

• 6:59Mark Manson?

  I think it's.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Is it the media landscape? I mean, that's obviously a big part of it.

• 7:02Mark Manson?

  I think so. I think it's, there's no monoculture. So I think there's two things simultaneously. One is, is that we tend to, whatever we like when we're like, say, 18 to 25, we tend, that just kind of like seems to cement itself in us for the rest of our lives. That's part of it. The other part is, um, the media landscape is personalized. So it's like, everything is algorithmic. Everything is designed to like, if you like metal music, here's more metal music. And, uh, if you like shooter games, here's another shooter game. And it like, people don't really, because there's just an abundance of everything, nobody ever, there's no scarcity driving you to go find a new thing. If that makes sense.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:43Mark Manson?

  Is that crazy?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  No, I, I think I've seen it too. I've also seen it, like, if I look at people who are slightly older than me.

• 7:49Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  As well. And I see them, you know, there's some of them who look like they're dressed up going to a metal concert all the time.

• 7:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Or they're dressed up like they're going to see, I don't know, you know, Lilith Fair or something, whatever they were listening to back then. I don't know. So I, I think I've seen this as well. I haven't really put the, put a name on it like you have here though.

• 8:09Mark Manson?

  I think the, the jazzification of everything.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Jazzification.

• 8:13Mark Manson?

  Such a terrible name.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  It is, it's terrible, but.

• 8:15Mark Manson?

  We'll work on that. We'll work on that one. But I think it, it, there's a, as with everything, there's a cost and benefit to everything, right? So the benefit is, is that you get to, uh, grow and evolve and age with your favorite media and art and entertainment. The cost is that we lose that monoculture.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:36Mark Manson?

  Right? Like we, we miss those cultural moments that it feels like everybody's a part of. Like when you and I were kids, um, you know, Michael Jackson would do the Super Bowl and it was like, everybody was paying attention. Everybody, everybody cared. Everybody was talking about it. Today, there's not really anything like that. Like the closest thing is maybe Taylor Swift the past couple of years. But it's like, even though I know her numbers are higher than, uh, you know, the numbers of other artists from 30, 40 years ago. But the cultural impact doesn't feel the same. Like it doesn't feel. Inescapable.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:14Mark Manson?

  The way, uh, you know, somebody like Michael Jackson or, uh, Michael Jordan was in, in the eighties or nineties.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:21Mark Manson?

  Cause you literally only had like five TV channels.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  You couldn't be completely oblivious to it like you could today.

• 9:26Mark Manson?

  Yeah, there was nothing else to watch or do, so you had to watch and do the same things that everybody else was watching and doing, which had a side benefit of making it feel like we were all participating in the same cultural moment.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Cohesiveness to the culture.

• 9:39Mark Manson?

  All the time, yeah.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  I do agree that that's a, there, the, the benefit side of that though, is there are more people who feel at least somewhat included.

• 9:48Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Or, or seen, you know, in some ways like, oh, I can go find this, this scene of mine and, and be in on that at the cost of a larger cultural cohesion.

• 9:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Second thought, here's my fuck for the week.

• 10:00Mark Manson?

  Been to a bunch of concerts recently.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:03Mark Manson?

  The fucking phones, dude.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  It.

• 10:05Mark Manson?

  Oh, totally. It kills me. It kills me. Here's the thing I noticed, and this is what I want to talk about. I kinda understand, cause I do it a little bit, but I'm also just confused. It was very interesting going to a bunch of different shows and like, like most concerts, you know, there's a couple openers and then there's like the, the, kind of the sub-headline act, and then there's the big headline act, and it was interesting watching the people around me. Of course, fucking phones in the air all the time.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. So fucking annoying.

• 10:35Mark Manson?

  It was really interesting because in, in the, in the super early opening acts, uh, that nobody had ever heard of them, you didn't see any phones. No phones. Everybody's actually watching the show.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:47Mark Manson?

  And thinking about like, oh, that part was kinda good or like, oh, this song's okay, you know? As the acts got a little bit more popular and people got more into it, the phones started coming out more. And then by the time you got to the main headlining act, people just had phones in the air the entire time. When I went to the electronic show, the headliner was like a, a big name DJ. And there was a guy next to me who, at some point, I actually thought he was live streaming the show because his phone was out for a good 30 or 40 minutes straight. And finally, like, I kinda like craned my neck back and looked and it's like, no, he was recording a video.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Just a video. Yeah.

• 11:27Mark Manson?

  I'm like, dude, you're literally recording half the show. And to me, there's like, there's something paradoxical there of the more meaningful, the moment.

• 11:37Mark Manson?

  The more people remove themselves from the present moment by pulling out their phones.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:43Mark Manson?

  Which kind of makes no sense, but then it's like also very consistent. Every concert or event I go to, this is what happens. The more meaningful the moment, the more everybody just whips out their phone and turns into a little filmmaker and removes themselves from experiencing the moment. Explain this to me. Help me out here, Drew.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Well, I don't, I, I don't, I don't use my phone in that way, but I do experience this in some different ways. Just very recently, I was standing on my back porch and I have this, there's like this beautiful little hay field across the street from my house and like a couple of little mountains and stuff. And it's to the west, so I get really pretty sunsets, you know? And I kind of glanced down, I was like, oh, it's really a pretty sunset tonight. Immediately grabbed my phone, walk out on my back porch, take a picture, look at it. It sucks because it's the picture, you know?

• 12:29Mark Manson?

  Never captured.

• 12:30Speaker 01

  And I just turn around and I walk inside.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  And then, and I got inside, I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? I'm gonna go enjoy this sunset for real.

• 12:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  And so I, you know, go back out and I enjoyed the sunset as it, as God intended it, as it were. And so, I mean, I, that's a small little sliver of the same type of thing. But it is, you, you, you look at that screen after, you know, whatever it is, a concert.

• 12:54Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Or a sunset or whatever it is, and it's just never as good. Do you put the phone right back in your pocket and just walk away? Or do you sit down and, and enjoy? That's, that's what I've trained myself to do is be like, ah, put the phone away and just enjoy this.

• 13:06Mark Manson?

  So I thought about, so I, I actually thought really hard about this because I do occasionally pull out my phone. Like, for instance, when the headline act comes out and they like, start playing their big song or whatever. And the crowd's going crazy, like, yeah, I'll pull out my phone for 15, 20 seconds. Be like, oh, cool, let's capture this moment here. And I, I asked myself, why? Like, what is the impetus there? Like, what, why, what, what scratch am I, what itch am I scratching?

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:33Mark Manson?

  And the conclusion I came to is that because it feels like a special moment, I want to be able to remember it and relive it at some future point.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 13:43Mark Manson?

  And my sense is that it's really, all I want to do is just capture enough that I remember how it feels to be here. And I can get that in 20 or 30 seconds because past 20 or 30 seconds, I'm now removing myself from experiencing the moment in the first place. Right? So now I don't have a memory. If I like sit there and record for 30 minutes, like the guy next to me, I no longer have a memory of the moment because I spent the whole time recording. But then, then I asked myself, I'm like, okay, let's think about this for a second. Out of all the concerts, all the fucking sunsets, like, how many times have I ever gone back through my phone?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:24Mark Manson?

  And actually looked at this stuff and, and sat there and been like, wow, remember that show? That was such a cool show. I never do that.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:33Mark Manson?

  Ever. Like, maybe once every three years, I'll go back and look at a handful of things, but it's, it's very rare. So I don't know. It just seems like the effort reward is completely off here. And, um,

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Well, do you think, do you think that people who are pulling their phones at concerts, like, do you think they're thinking that same thing? Like, I want to remember this later? Because I, I'm not sure that's what it is.

• 14:56Mark Manson?

  I, so.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  I think it's, I want to post this, I want to post this on social media so I can be a part of this jazzification of everything and show that I'm a part of it. Is that?

• 15:09Mark Manson?

  That's a huge part of it. So I, I, it's funny because I spent like half of this show just sitting there and like watching people trying to figure out why they were doing this.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Why they weren't watching the concert in the moment?

• 15:19Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Which is why you were just taking your stuff away from them.

• 15:22Mark Manson?

  I was ignoring the concert so I could figure out why the fuck these people were recording the concert. Uh, there was a lot of Instagram going on, for sure. There was a lot of that going on. There was also, one thing I noticed too, is that drunk people, were doing it a lot more, which is interesting.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Doing it more?

• 15:38Mark Manson?

  Yeah. I noticed that the drunk people, like the selfie thing, the, oh my God, this is the best moment of my life. Like, they're drunk people, the phones were out constantly, constantly. There's a group of drunk girls in front of us and it would like the amount of selfies, it, it reached hilarious proportions. It was like, ah, I don't think you guys got enough. I think you gotta get another one. Let's go for number 81. All right. Yeah, I think there is some sort of social signaling thing going on, uh, with social media. But then it's like, I think about the guy recording like 30 minutes. I couldn't help but think. It was almost like, this is gonna sound really condescending, but it with some of the people,

• 16:22Mark Manson?

  it felt like they were afraid to just fully enjoy it. Like, it was a way for them to feel like they were enjoying it without having to expose themselves emotionally, without having to like lose themselves and lose control and show like how excited or ecstatic they were. It was a way to.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  They don't have to acknowledge the the the temperamental nature of it. You don't have to acknowledge the fleeting nature that this isn't going to be here in a second. And so I need to somehow reconcile that.

• 16:58Mark Manson?

  They're definitely, like, I couldn't help, when I was watching people, I couldn't help but feel like there was like some sort of weird avoidance thing going on. Which, again, strikes me as so strange. Like, you spend fucking hundreds of dollars, you get nice tickets to a show, and then you just spend half of it looking through your phone.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Well, we just, I mean, we had Nir Eyal on recently, and he, you know, he brought up the term, which other people use as well, the digital pacifier.

• 17:24Mark Manson?

  So to me, this is, this is the concerning thing, right? It's like, it's never been easier than ever before to alleviate discomfort. It's always in our pocket. And that alleviation of discomfort does not, I will reiterate, it does not just happen in painful moments, it happens in joyous moments as well, which is arguably an even bigger problem. Also, the jazzification of everything is, in its own way, a, an avoidance of discomfort, right? Like, it's, there was, and now maybe I'm just waxing nostalgic, but I do remember, pre-social media, pre-mobile phone, there was, when the culture shifted, when it's like the new trendy music changed,

• 18:09Mark Manson?

  it kind of forced you of like, okay, well, this is the new thing, so you need to like start getting used to it and learning it and understanding it, and at least decide if you like it or not. And. I think as long as we all live in our own little kind of cultural bubbles with the thing that we've loved for decades and we're gonna love for the next few decades and we don't ever have to like change our minds about it or try new things, we kind of lose that cultural discomfort, that like being nudged or pushed into experiencing different things or different different stuff that maybe isn't that we don't necessarily like the first time.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  I see. So you're saying we age with that as just that this is our comfort lane here, that we're gonna age along this this subculture?

• 18:58Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Like I don't feel like I remember when I was, again, in music school, right? Like I had no interest in jazz and then I was forced to understand jazz from an artistic perspective and I started really appreciating it. I had a very similar experience with with hip hop at a certain point and I had a similar experience with electronic music at a certain point. These days, like I don't, not only do I not feel compelled to like go try to understand like a different subgenre of music, I just, I don't even get exposed to other subgenres. Like I don't even know if there are other subgenres of music being invented anymore. Like I haven't heard anything new in at least 10 years. Like I can't remember the last time I heard something. I'm like, wow, that's different.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  And there's a good chance it's because you've been siloed off into this metal EDM.

• 19:47Mark Manson?

  It jazz.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:50Mark Manson?

  This weird. This weird melting pot taste. But like, yeah, part of it is being siloed. And then I think part of it is that because everybody's siloed, the the game for the artists, for the creatives is to milk the long-term relationship and not innovate and not do the new thing, not be the new person.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:12Mark Manson?

  Not invent the new subgenre. It's capture people when they're young and then just age out with them.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:21Mark Manson?

  Over decades and decades.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you see that. I mean, you've kind of always seen that, I guess, with certain bands, maybe not whole entire genres or anything like that, but you've seen that. You know, there's always that tension between doing what's worked for me creatively versus

• 20:37Mark Manson?

  Trying something new.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Trying something new and and the kind of destructive destructive nature of creativity.

• 20:43Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  There's always been that, right?

• 20:45Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 20:47Mark Manson?

  Anyway. I don't know where we land this.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  This was weird.

• 20:52Mark Manson?

  This was weird.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  This was weird.

• 20:53Mark Manson?

  I like it. All right, well, we'll be back with another weird theory.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Right after these messages.

• 21:07Mark Manson?

  All right, we're back. I'm excited for this brilliant or bullshit.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:11Mark Manson?

  This was one that I put on the docket. This is an old, old theory. Well, it's not that old, but probably 10 years old or something.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  In the internet age, it's old.

• 21:21Mark Manson?

  Yeah, by internet years, it's quite old. Old blog called Ribbon Farm had an article about a concept called premium mediocre. And ever since I read about it, it's one of those ideas that's just stuck in my head ever since. And there's probably, I probably never go more than six months without something happening in my life. I'm like, oh, this is totally premium mediocre.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:48Mark Manson?

  So give us a brief synopsis of what it is.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Venkatesh Rao, he wrote the, I think that's how you say his name, right? Venkatesh Rao? Is it Rao?

• 21:58Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  I think that's how you say his name, yeah. He wrote this blog post in 2017 called Premium Mediocre. What Premium Mediocre is. It describes products, services, and lifestyles that appear exclusive but offer only superficial luxury or quality. Okay, so it has an irrelevant touch of premium that doesn't really improve the essential mediocrity of the experience or product. Let me give you some examples, okay? Some that he used, anyway. Cupcakes and frozen yogurt. Like, okay. Truffle oil, that's not made from real truffle. Okay.

• 22:30Mark Manson?

  That's a great example.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  That's a great example. He also uses avocado toast.

• 22:35Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  That's a special case, but it's still premium mediocre. Certain types of lettuce.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  That's great. Like, you know, obviously iceberg lettuce is not premium mediocre. But like, what's the leafy green, I'm blanking completely on it.

• 22:52Mark Manson?

  I have no idea.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  All that, what's that one kind of lettuce? Yeah, you don't eat vegetables, do you?

• 22:57Mark Manson?

  I'll cook my own food.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Certain types of lettuce, yeah. K-pop popularity in France, you know, the list goes on and on.

• 23:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  You've spot these things. Once you start, once you understand what premium mediocre is, you spot them.

• 23:10Mark Manson?

  The thing I always think of is the pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Spice latte is perfect.

• 23:14Mark Manson?

  Right, because it's like seasonal, it's exclusive, it's only available for a limited time. And it's just a fucking commodity.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Like fast casual dining, like a lot of, you know, maybe Chipotle was like an early version of it.

• 23:28Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  You know, but now, I don't know if you ever go to Kava, like, oh, I love Kava. It's like this big chain restaurant that's supposed to be a healthy Mediterranean food. It's premium mediocre.

• 23:36Mark Manson?

  It goes on and on and on. So, but it's a fun concept. He plays with it for a little while. But I love how the philosophical depth that he goes with it is really interesting.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Very bagatelle, yeah.

• 23:46Mark Manson?

  His explanation is actually really interesting, which is that, you know, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, access to things was scarce, right? And so the way you improve society and the way you sold things and made money is that you just got access to things. It's like, okay, we'll go dig up the oil and we'll sell it to you, or we'll go, you know, mine the ore and we'll sell it to you, or we'll grow the lettuce and sell it to you. At a certain point, there became an abundance of stuff. And I think his argument is that,

• 24:17Mark Manson?

  as the first generation that grew up within an abundance of stuff, that the first generation, the millennials in particular, who were no longer impressed by simple access

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:28Mark Manson?

  to scarce things, because there is no scarce thing.

• 24:32Mark Manson?

  Millennials demanded something else that felt scarce and special. And so what companies started doing is they started essentially putting like luxurious packaging on boring commodities.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Mediocre products.

• 24:47Mark Manson?

  Right. So it's instead of just being a coffee with a little bit of pumpkin spice in it, it's a exclusive seasonal pumpkin spice latte with an extra dollop of, you know, serve the way you want it.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:57Mark Manson?

  Because you deserve a special morning at Starbucks, like all this.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  It's got a little heart drawn in there.

• 25:02Mark Manson?

  Your name's written on the cup, like it is the most premium mediocre thing in the world.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:07Mark Manson?

  It feels, it is completely designed to feel like a special exclusive experience.

• 25:14Mark Manson?

  And it's just that it's a cup of mediocre coffee.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:16Mark Manson?

  And when you look around, you see this all over the place.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:20Mark Manson?

  You see it at sporting events, you see it at, you know,

• 25:26Mark Manson?

  VIP access to certain concert venues, you see it,

• 25:32Mark Manson?

  you know, being a-

• 25:33Speaker 01

  A premium economy seat on a plane.

• 25:35Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Right? Premium economy.

• 25:38Mark Manson?

  That's a perfect example. That is the most premium mediocre

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:41Mark Manson?

  seat on an airplane. You can, you see it in subscriptions to, to things like magazines.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:46Mark Manson?

  You know, you can get to like the digital plus, which is essentially you're just paying more to have a piece of paper sent to your door. Like, it's the same thing you would have paid for anyway, but like, you know, they, they just add a, a plus at the end of it.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:00Mark Manson?

  Send you a bunch of emails and you're supposedly like having a, a more premium experience. It's, I think it's, I think it, it is both the cause and the effect of a lot of the jadedness of the 21st century.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:16Mark Manson?

  It is the effect in the sense that humans crave scarcity because our perception of value is based on scarcity.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Scarcity, of course.

• 26:24Mark Manson?

  And so when most things in the world are no longer scarce, marketers, business people, they have to create a perception of scarcity. The problem is, is that people aren't dumb. And on some level, you know that the pumpkin spice latte or the avocado toast or the digital plus subscription to the New York Times. There's nothing premium about it. It's like the same fucking thing, just with a fancy name put on it. And you, there's a certain amount of cynicism that develops.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:57Mark Manson?

  And he talks about that as well. That there's just like a deep, the, the, the most defining quality of the millennial generation is their cynicism and, and it's like, it, a lot of it is generated from this sense that everything is a little bit of a lie. Like, nothing is actually what it's, was promised.

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Right. We know it, but we're also playing along at the same time, too. Yeah, he puts that out as well.

• 27:20Mark Manson?

  And it's funny, there, I mean, there, again, the list goes on and on, the premium mediocre vacations. It was funny, I was just in Spain on vacation and- There are whole sections of Madrid and Barcelona and Ibiza that you might as well just put on Google Maps, like circle it and put on like premium mediocre tourist area. It's like everything is designed to feel exclusive and special and catered just to you. And it's like, people are just herded through like cattle. And things, premium mediocre things tend to be overpriced. I think that's another cause of this.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  They slap a premium price on it, yeah.

• 28:01Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Like, there's this, there's a disconnect between the promised value and the actual value.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:07Mark Manson?

  And, I don't know. I just, it's one of those things. I remember reading the article. I loved it. I was like, wow, that's so clever. And then as the years go on, I just keep seeing it more and more and more. I would argue we have premium mediocre politicians.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:24Mark Manson?

  Yeah. Like, you, again, back, if you go back and watch debates of like, I don't know, Reagan and Bush, or Clinton and Bush, you see very smart, educated, well rehearsed men who clearly studied and thought deeply about policy and can explain their policy positions and argue against each other's policy positions coherently. If you look at our politicians today, it's just a fucking word salad of emotions and essentially just telling us that we're special and they're special and we're all gonna be special together

• 29:02Mark Manson?

  because we're all premium mediocre together. Yeah, it just, it feels, it feels ever-present.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:11Mark Manson?

  I would argue most media, like Netflix, most Netflix shows are premium mediocre.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:16Mark Manson?

  They are the same story regurgitated in new packaging that feels exclusive and special and unique, but it's really just cliffhangers and hooks and audience manipulation.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  And that movie theaters, think about that, modern movie theaters.

• 29:31Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Like, now they have these like fancy seats and, you know.

• 29:34Mark Manson?

  Which aren't really that fancy.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  They're not that fancy, but they recline.

• 29:37Mark Manson?

  You're paying like thirty dollars for it.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 29:41Mark Manson?

  Yeah, definitely premium mediocre. We live in a premium mediocre world.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:46Mark Manson?

  And I'm a premium mediocre girl.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  In a mediocre world. Vekatesh, though, he does connect this to like the larger kind of economic forces that are behind it. So he says premium mediocre is it's aspirational to some extent, yes, too. Even though we know it's mediocre, even though we're still participating in it and playing the game, it's aspirational and we're trying to at least signal that, hey, we're trying.

• 30:16Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Like, we might not be able to buy a house right now, but I can afford a nice pumpkin spice latte and an avocado toast. But he also kind of winnows that down to a certain demographic, what he calls Maya millennial. Okay, he's got Maya millennial, Molly millennial, and Max millennial. They're kind of these three different segments and Maya millennial is all about the premium mediocre. She knows she's she's indulging in it and it's okay because one day she's going to have the real, the real premium.

• 30:45Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Right. Whereas like a Maya millennial, who he calls kind of like the artist wing of our our generation and economic block, I guess, is kind of resigned to the fact that they're never going to be, you know, rich, so they're just gonna, they're gonna work at the coffee shop or art shop or whatever it is and do their thing.

• 31:01Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Max millennial, on the other hand, he went to Silicon Valley and he's trying to make it. And he's making premium mediocre products is what he's doing. Backpacks, you know, or some piece of software that's supposed to, you know, whatever it is in some sort of premium mediocre packaging.

• 31:17Mark Manson?

  I think, and I think he talks about this too. I think that the key characteristic of a successful premium mediocre product or service is that it effectively kind of dupes you, like it signals to people that you are aspiring. You know, I think WeWork is a great example, especially since what's happened the last five years.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:40Mark Manson?

  WeWork is, it's literally just deaths.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:43Mark Manson?

  In in overpriced real estate, right? Like, there was like nothing rational about that business model and.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Or new.

• 31:50Mark Manson?

  Or new.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:51Mark Manson?

  And and everything that was promised and packaged around it, like you're not just joining a coworking space, you're joining a community and we're like striving together and we're going to build a new world and blah, blah, blah. It it's it's like the core of premium mediocre. But there was a hot minute, you know, probably three to five years where it was cool to be part of a WeWork.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:11Mark Manson?

  You know, and it's.

• 32:14Mark Manson?

  It like signified of like, oh, man, he's got like a WeWork desk like he's, he's working his ass off. He's grinding on weekends, you know, like it signals to people like you, you're on your way up. But it ultimately it's, it's a little bit of an empty lie.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  He's not trashing premium mediocre necessarily. Obviously there's problems with it, but he counts himself among the people who partake in premium mediocre.

• 32:37Mark Manson?

  Of course.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  We do, I do all the time too.

• 32:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  You know, there's a difference between premium mediocre and middle-class fancy that he talks about. And there's, you know, all of us have, you're going back to, we have these arcs that we kind of get into these lanes we get into. And I don't think he's really necessarily trashing it. He's just pointing it out and observing it. And that there's larger cultural forces around it. That's his point.

• 32:59Mark Manson?

  Absolutely. And I, I think it's, it's like many things. It's, it's not the issue. It's the aware, the lack of awareness around it. That's the issue. Like if you aren't aware of the game you're playing.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:10Mark Manson?

  Then the game is a problem. But if you're aware of the game and it's, and you like playing it, then play it.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  You know what I think is a problem is the focus on creating all these products or services that are premium mediocre. So go back to the Max Millennial, you know, wants to be an entrepreneur. And so, and, and thinks he wants to take over the world by making a, whatever it is, a backpack company or whatever it is.

• 33:33Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  And I saw this, I think about this time, so this was 2017, I think, when this first post on this, he's posted about it a lot. But he started in 2017 posting about it. And about that time, I remember thinking, God, are we going to make anything useful? Like, like, you know, there's all these apps were coming out, all these like weird products that were solving a very like minor problem in our lives. Or something that we're going after some minor convenience. And that was kind of a premium mediocre thing. You still see it today though, too. You see it with, can we stop with the fucking headsets? Like, and the glasses.

• 34:08Mark Manson?

  I was just thinking about the Vision Pro.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Vision Pro and the Meta, whatever they call it, what's the Meta?

• 34:15Mark Manson?

  What do they call it? Starts with an O.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, starts with an O. Jesus, whatever it's fucking called. But then they just came out the glasses too. You say it came out these like nerdy looking glasses like these are high tech cool. I'm like, nobody wants this shit.

• 34:28Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  We want you to like solve some real fucking problems here. And I think that's the biggest drawback from the premium mediocre is that it's sucking resources.

• 34:36Mark Manson?

  Well, it's an easy business model, right? Cause you don't actually have to create.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:40Mark Manson?

  It's easier to create the perception of value than to actually create something valuable. And I think we are at a place technologically where

• 34:51Mark Manson?

  innovation in the physical world is, is just extremely difficult at this point and extremely costly. And whereas innovation in software is comparatively speaking relatively cheap.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:03Mark Manson?

  And you can also package it in a way that feels like, you know, it's new and innovative and like, oh, here we'll put this bell and whistle on it. And, you know, it's basically the same meditation app you've had 20 times, but this one feels different. And, and it's a premium mediocre product and it probably makes a couple of million dollars.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Right. Such is life.

• 35:22Mark Manson?

  It is. I get that. I don't know. I'm grumpy about it though.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  You grumpy?

• 35:28Mark Manson?

  No.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 35:30Mark Manson?

  All right. We'll be right back.

• 35:37Mark Manson?

  All right, we're back.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  With our premium mediocre podcast.

• 35:40Mark Manson?

  We are.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  What's the, what's our premium mediocre question of the day, Drew?

• 35:44Mark Manson?

  This is a premium mediocre question for sure. Uh, came in through YouTube as well. If everything we chase, like money, a partner, fame, has benefits and costs attached to it, why chase anything at all?

• 35:59Speaker 01

  It's kind of a bullshit question, but I think it's one we do need to answer. Yeah.

• 36:02Mark Manson?

  I mean, I get it. I mean, so this is something that I, I, I like to think of as the nihilist paradox, which is not caring about anything is still caring about something.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 36:15Mark Manson?

  Not chasing anything is chasing something. And you can't really escape that. And so my, my answer to this question is like, yes, there are costs and benefits to pursuing anything in life. There's also costs and benefits than not pursuing anything in life. So no matter where you go, there are costs and benefits. That's just life. You can't escape it. It is the fabric of our experience existence. So you might as well pick something.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:46Mark Manson?

  Pick something that you think the benefits outweigh the costs and you know, it's fun to get all philosophical and try to like, find a loophole here or there, but it doesn't really work.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. The drum, the drum you beat on to is you're always going to have pain. Everything, there's, there's, there's an associated suckage that comes with everything.

• 37:06Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Everything, sitting around at home, you've said this before, sitting around at home, doing nothing like you said, why try anything? Well, that has cost to it.

• 37:14Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  That's real cost. You're going to be in a lot of psychological pain from that and physical pain and your health is going to deteriorate. Working out at the gym though, and eating right, that sucks too sometimes.

• 37:24Mark Manson?

  Being lazy sucks. Working hard sucks. Being healthy sucks. Being unhealthy sucks. Like just choose the suck you want to have.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  There's better forms of suckage though.

• 37:34Mark Manson?

  Right. Choose, choose the, choose the suck that you either think is worth it or you enjoy having. Because there is some suckage that you actually do enjoy having. Like there's some, one of the ways I used to frame this question back in the day was, what kind of masochist are you? Right? Cause there's like every, everybody has something in their life that they kind of enjoy the, the pain of it. They kind of enjoy the struggle.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:59Mark Manson?

  And no matter what it is, like you have to figure out, figure it out and then try to lean into it. Cause that's where your advantage is going to be. Like what's the thing that most people can't bear, but you don't mind so much? Follow that.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Right. Do you think to the, this kind of modern form of nihilism that we do see in a lot of places, is that also like its own form? It is its own form of avoidance too, right? Like we've just talked about earlier.

• 38:28Mark Manson?

  Absolutely.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  This is also a form of avoidance. Oh, nothing matters. So I don't have to try.

• 38:33Mark Manson?

  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's an excuse. It's a very philosophical excuse.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:40Mark Manson?

  You know, and it.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  It makes you feel smart.

• 38:42Mark Manson?

  It makes you feel very smart.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  It makes you feel like nothing matters.

• 38:45Mark Manson?

  Like you see, see something that nobody else sees, but here, here's the thing is, is if, if, if nothing matters, so why do, do anything? You could also say, nothing matters, so why not do anything?

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 38:58Mark Manson?

  Like, if nothing matters.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Do everything.

• 39:00Mark Manson?

  Do everything. Go, go accomplish all the things that you want to accomplish. Like, go take all the risks, try all the things, build the stuff, talk to the people. Like, there's no reason not to either. So you have no excuse.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  An idea I'm playing with that I'd like to bring up at some point in the, in the near future, probably too. We've talked a lot about how a lot of times we over-index on happiness.

• 39:23Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Right?

• 39:25Speaker 01

  And so, a lot of people will realize that. They're like, okay, I'm trying too hard to be happy. Let's go for meaning instead.

• 39:32Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  And then you can, like, over-index on that, too. Like, I heard it recently put this way, that, you know, a lot of people, what we end up doing is, we look for the meaning and fulfillment during the week, and then we look for happiness on the weekends.

• 39:45Mark Manson?

  Interesting.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  And it's just, there's, there's no balance to even be struck there, because it's not the right formula or question even that we're asking.

• 39:52Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Are we over-indexing on meaning in a lot of ways, too? I, I feel like we are. I feel like-

• 39:59Mark Manson?

  Is it possible to over-index on meaning? Yeah, I don't know.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  Going back to like, the premium mediocre thing, is meaning like a premium mediocre-

• 40:06Mark Manson?

  Similar to, similar to happiness, it probably comes down to where you're finding it, right? Like, happiness itself is great, but you can find it in a lot of really terrible ways.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:22Mark Manson?

  And so, pursuing happiness for its own sake is, is, is not, that's not the goal, and it shouldn't be the goal. And I think you could probably make the same argument about meaning. Like, if, like, you can derive meaning in your life by, I don't know, compulsively posting photos and videos of yourself on Instagram, especially during concerts, when you're standing next to fucking me.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:44Mark Manson?

  Like, if that's where you're getting your meaning in your life, like, that's not a really effective way of doing it. And it's, again, similar to happiness, some ways of pursuing happiness are more sustainable, they're more healthy, they have less social consequences. Same thing is true with meaning. There are ways to pursue meaning that are not sustainable, they're very short-lived, they have negative externalities, and, and they, they, they put you on a treadmill. So, I think if, if anything, what premium mediocre is pointing out, is that marketers have found a way to give us little bite-sized pieces of meaning in very superficial ways. And that- By itself can become its own kind of addiction. Yeah.

• 41:27Mark Manson?

  Right? Like you, you feel like you need to be like part of the cool thing and try the new product. And oh, this brand's hot right now. And so it's, it's like you get, that's becomes another treadmill.

• 41:38Mark Manson?

  So yeah, my answer to you is yes, I do think you can over index for meaning. But again, it's, it's, it's not like, it's not a question of too much meaning or too little meaning, or too much happiness, too little. It's like, where are you choosing to get it? Where are you finding it? I would agree with that. Tune in next week. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. If you want to submit a question, you can email us at [email protected]. Join the newsletter and go to markmanson.net/newsletter. Send it out every Monday. It's free, free advice every Monday. It's like, it could be life changing. Five minutes at a time, too. Seriously, it takes five minutes to read. We have had, I think, over 12,000 breakthroughs from the newsletter. So next one could be you. Check out our premium mediocre newsletter.

• 42:19Mark Manson?

  This is just gonna go all day. I'm just gonna, everything, I'm just gonna put premium mediocre in front of everything. That's all, folks. Thanks for tuning in. We will see you next week. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck podcast is produced by Drew Burney. It's edited by Andrew Nishimura, Jessica Choys, our videographer and sound engineer. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.