It sounds ridiculous that it even has to be stated, but with the New Year we need to focus on fact-based solutions to our problems… and that will be considered “revolutionary.” As I usually do, I have been on my annual end-of-year break and, unfortunately, I had a chance to dig a few inches deep into social media and pop culture “news” topics. What I found was ridiculous.
Andrew Tate
One of the biggest stories during this period is the online fight between former fighter Andrew Tate and teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and the subsequent, unrelated arrest of Tate for sex trafficking. If you’ve been spared this drama, Tate was bragging about his 33 cars and the carbon emissions they put into the environment while tagging Thunberg. She clapped back online with an insult. Tate did a full-on insult video back to Thunberg, and the fact that he had a local Romanian pizza box in the video led authorities to confirm he was in house in Romania so they proceeded with a raid and arrest that was already planned, and the authorities released the raid video to the public.
What happened online next was the shocking part for me: commentary videos exploded about Tate, everyone commented, and I could barely find any fact-based opinions nor anyone asking about the actual facts of the case. It was nothing more than polarized opinions. One side was screaming about how their hero Andrew Tate was being unfairly persecuted in a vast conspiracy by Leftists with goals of abolishing testosterone in our society or some other nonsense.
The other side was screaming about how it was time they locked up the “proven” misogynist pedophile and groomer Andrew Tate who was beating bloody every woman he came into contact with and, until this point, no one was doing anything about it. The fact was Tate runs several businesses with one of them being management of OnlyFans accounts. There are allegations he was restraining some of the women in that business from leaving the Romanian-based business location, and the police believed they found enough evidence to arrest him for that.
No one online cared about the facts. They only cared about their feelings and what they wanted to believe was true, so videos were produced, people commented in screams to each other, and no one cared about reality.
That was when I backed out, tuned out Reality TV 2.0, and recommitted myself, my firm, and online publishing business to providing facts.
Here is what you can expect in 2023 and beyond.
- The firm Website at www.LivingTrustLawFirm.com will increase its focus on being a hub of basic estate and Medicaid planning information. In fact, it has been recently overhauled, so please check it out.
- We will be adding to our online educational tools in the form of updated courses, reworked videos, and other simple downloads for the general public so they can quickly access accurate planning information. This also means an increase in shorter, more basic videos on quick topics, increasing the number of longer “podcast length” videos and courses more broadly covering advanced topics, and cutting back on medium length videos that only scratch the surface (www.YouTube.com/nclawyer).
- Finally, we will provide webinars with live Q&A sessions for existing clients as well as their friends and family to help spread the word about planning well ahead to avoid problems down the road. We already have some of these webinars available for the general public (without the live Q&A) on topics such as paying for long term care, blended family estate planning decisions, and a new basic trust 101 webinar launched about a week ago.
It is an unfortunate reality that the most popular media online is based entirely on sparking emotional responses and speculation rather than facts, and it is probably only a matter of time before this leaks into getting legal information on estate and Medicaid planning. So our commitment in 2023 will be based on a 1950s television show (actual) quote from Sargent Joe Friday from the series Dragnet, “All we want are the facts, ma’am.”
To check out some of the recently released webinars, please go to: