"LET'S BE DONE"

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sorry about that. We back. We back. We back. We back. Episode, I believe 72 of the wiretap. As always, like follow and subscribe and if you feeling frisky, go ahead and comment. It's been a long weekend. I'm still trying to organize things and finding my footing in this and some things may be coming together for the future. But as as of right now, my focus is really and just providing more content as we figure things out. Now listen, I don't have a lot to talk about today. I guess again, like I said, I'm in a space where continuing to talk about the culture of, you know, America right now. Not necessarily like America America, like not America, but just what's happening around me and what I'm seeing and what I'm engaging with. But first, let's start with a mental health check in. Boy, oh boy, it has been a crazy 24 hours yesterday, meaning Saturday, April 18th, I was involved in a accident that wasn't my fault. I was hit at a light and I had three months, y'. All. Three months. Three months. Maybe a little longer than that. But I had some months left to pay off my vehicle. My vehicle would have been paid off and I could have went at least a year, a year and a half without a car payment, which would have been beautiful, especially in this economy right now. This economy is some ass. And I could have had all of this paid off. But no, someone not paying attention hit me at a light. And one thing that I know about accidents, they aren't really accidents. What's happening is someone is doing something in their vehicle, not paying attention, and boom, accident happens. Whether it be them messing with their [00:02:39] Speaker B: phone, [00:02:42] Speaker A: looking off to the left or the right, just not focused. That's how accidents happen. So I'm probably gonna have to get me a new vehicle, which means a new car payment, which sucks. Adulting. Also, I was ghosted by my therapist, shout out to her, don't know why, never given a follow up appointment. I was just told that my appointment was canceled after what, three months of going to therapy. You know, she had canceled once before, but she did reach out and we rescheduled this time around, nothing. So hopefully she's still alive. I don't know what's going on with that, but it is very discouraging and has left me wondering if this is even what I should be doing at the moment. I feel like I got a lot going on and I'm still trying to figure out how to maneuver out here with the new position that I'm in and how to grow as a man. Because I want to grow as a man. I want to be a better person, a better father, eventually a husband and so on and so on. But I just feel like lately it's just been a lot of things that's, you know, distracting, that process, or better yet, just getting in the way of my progression as a person. This year just really been rough so far with financial things and car issues. And like I said, now I'm in a different position. But that's not to say like, things can't change or things won't get better. I know things will get better and things will change. Just at the moment, it doesn't feel that way. It really doesn't. What we'll get there. We will see where we are in the next few weeks. Hopefully I'll be able to give you guys an update. And yeah, we should be in a better position, but one day at a time. Hopefully. This first half didn't bore you. I'm just processing it a lot right now and I was contemplating on even if I was going to do this or not yet. It's been a few weeks again. I'm trying to find my footing and restore the feeling, you know, I'm saying bring us back. But anyway, like I said, I don't really have a real direction tonight. I think, if anything, what I do want to talk about is this. This culture with social media right now, especially Tick Tock. And if you are familiar with TikTok, I think as far as when it comes to community and when it comes to support, Tick Tock is a great place to build a following. It doesn't give. It doesn't have the same feel as Instagram, where it almost feels like with Instagram, you have to be established already for people to kind of support you, or you got to be doing skits or you got to be. It's like, it's almost like. I think anything with social media is definitely like, in the space of performing for the most part. But with Instagram, it, to me, it just feels like you're either talking about social issues, you're talking about comedy, or it's violence. I feel like those are the three main things that have people's attention for the most part. And then it's like a weird side of Instagram as well. Like, sometimes I find myself on that side where it's like, what the is this? But. But it's also entertaining, so you kind of pay attention to it. Sometimes it is funny. Sometimes it just leaves like a little with you, but hey, that's what it is. But with TikTok, like I said, you can really build a community there. I've seen some of the people that I've made friends with do the Tick Tock camps, quote unquote, not necessarily a real camp, but find these strategies and I've seen them grow a following. Like I've seen one person go from 200 followers to over a thousand. Just by doing certain things and they continue to grow. So I feel like if you are stepping into a content space, that Tick Tock is probably better than Instagram. I think you should still have an Instagram. But I think between the two, TikTok is a better place to build. And you know, YouTube is a whole nother thing. Yet I think it's also easier to build on YouTube versus Instagram. Out of the three, Instagram is the last for me. I primarily focus on TikTok and YouTube, but right now I don't have any visuals. I can do visuals, but right now I'm just mainly focused on building around the audio and then bringing people over to the visuals once we figure things out. With that being said though, right now what I'm seeing on TikTok is a culture of like, rage baiting. Not to say that it doesn't happen on these other platforms, because it definitely does. But I find it the most on TikTok, probably because I engage with Tick Tock the most out of all the apps. But what I'm finding is these panels. Now listen, let me, let me get my thoughts together. My, my algorithm is based on what I like. Yet at times, if I engage with certain things, I'll continue to see those certain things. And sometimes those things definitely capture my attention, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I want to see it all day. I'm a music person. I love music. When it comes to art music, we can talk about that all day. So when I first interacted with TikTok, a lot of the panels that I would see were based in music. You know, music discussions. What artist is better, what artist isn't, what artists fall short, what artist is unrecognized? Those type of conversations, right? To me, those are good conversations because again, this is what I'm into. Lately I've been engaging with a lot of the content that is surrounded around. 50, 50. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, 50, 50. Now what I find interesting about these conversations is like there is this high demand and, or this absurd idea that certain men are supposed to provide a certain lifestyle and don't get Me wrong. I support any man that can go out here and get it, you know, on his own and. Or have to provide yet, given the state of the economy. And if I'm not mistaken, I think the average income for a black man is between 45 to 50,000. If I'm not mistaken, I'm actually looking it up now to see what the average income for a black man is across the nation. So the African American median income and weekly earnings. All right, so between the ages of 25 to 54, the weekly income is around 1015, 1085, which isn't a lot of money, because if you do the math on that, if you. Well, this says weekly. So let me see, It's a thousand fifteen a week. So that's four thousand a month. And again, depending on where you live, that could be some money. And again, depending on where you live, they. That. That's. That's nothing. And as I scroll down, The median income is for men is between 53,000 to 66,000. And that's coming from blackdemographics.com and it looks like the last time they did this study was in 2024. So for me, that. That's telling me that whatever this lifestyle that people expect is really asinine, for lack of a better word. Now, again, don't get me wrong. I think there definitely are situations where men are supposed to be men. Yet I also believe that there has to be some sort of reasoning here because, okay, where I live at, I believe to be comfortable in the state of Maryland, I think you have to make between, I want to say, 90 to 100 by yourself. Hold on, I'm checking it now. Let me see, let me see, let me see. Stay with me, y'. All, Stay with me. So in Maryland, to live comfortably as a single adult with no kids. Oh, it's actually, actually better than what I thought it was. It says between 65 to 85. Now, if you have one child, it's 110 to 135. So if you have more than one child, that's only going to go up even more. And I have two, but one of them is almost out of daycare, so that's a blessing. Let's shout out to that. But what I'm getting at is these panels have these discussions where they talk about the expectations of men. And again, I do. There are. I do believe that there are certain expectations of men. Right. Yet for a man to be making the amount of money that women want to, quote, unquote, be comfortable with a Man making, it's almost slim to none unless they're some type of celebrity athlete. And don't get me wrong, there are men that make good money out here. Like, especially men that's like in the IT field. Some that are in the construction field, you know, they might own their own construction companies and or you know, do like certain things to profit that type type of money. Like I know people who do a lot of home improvement things outside of their nine to five and they make good money and they're bringing in between 125, 150 by themselves. I also think too, though, for a person to make that kind of money, they're not home a lot, which can really tarnish a relationship. Because what women also like is to spend time with their spouse, which I believe men enjoy the same thing too. But how can I be at two places at once? I can't. I've actually dealt with this myself before. Wanting to have the stability means I'm not home as much. And with me not being home as much, that can create some animosity. Especially if you have a spouse that is primarily dealing with children. You can be an absent parent and live in a household with your kids because work requires so much of you. And at the end of the day, I don't think that's really healthy for the child. I personally know someone who their father was making great money. He was the only kid at my age at that time that I Knew who got $100 a week. And because his dad worked so much and he wasn't present, peer pressure got the best of him and he stepped into a space that didn't say that he came from a privileged home, granted, and luckily he didn't find himself in a grave. But all those things could have been avoided, potentially if his dad may have been around more. And again, they lived in the same house. But because his dad worked so much to provide, he was barely home. And the idle mind is the devil's playground. So I'll be wanting people to take into context of like, what they're sacrificing when you make a choice, that's another thing. Like that I've been kind of. Not kind of. That's another thing that I've come to the realization of. Right. I don't believe balance is a real thing anymore. And I say that because what I'm experiencing right now has put me in a position to kind of see things differently. I work in a space that requires a lot of attention if I want to grow. Granted, there are things that I would like to do outside of what I'm doing now. Like, I'm into content creation. I'm into the gym. I'm into a lot of other things when it comes to producing content. I make beats. I know how to edit, having a podcast, which I'm doing now, and I edit this. So there are things that I feel like I could be doing with my time that I enjoy. It don't feel like work, but this other space that I'm in, I have it. It's here. And what I mean by that is if producing income, I can, depending on how much I work, I can increase how much I make or decrease how much I make. It really depends on how much I want to work. So in my mind, I'm having this battle that I knew that was kind of gonna come one day of what do I give my attention to? Because I can't do both. I can't do all of this creation alone because it's very overwhelming. It can get overwhelming. You get uninspired and you find yourself kind of creating the same thing, or you finding yourself running out of things to do, say whatever. Whatever. I mean, don't get me wrong, consistency is the key to all of this. The more you do it, of course, the more you get seen. I know how algorithms work now and things like that. So I know that even though I may be doing the same thing, not everyone saw it. You get what I'm saying? Not everyone sees it. You know what I'm saying? Like, unless you got like 500k views to a million views, 9 times out of 10, it's not reaching. It's not reaching everybody. There have been people that I follow that don't see my timeline. And it's the craziest thing to me, but it's true because I don't see this. So it happens. And then, like I said with my other job, it's like, I know I can be in a man, a managing position. I know I could elevate. I know I'm smart enough to elevate. Yet it's not what I really saw myself doing. Now, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the opportunity that I have with this job. I'm more than thankful because it has afforded me the ability to step into content creation. I bought all of this stuff through that job. I worked the overtime and got these things through the job. So I was able to do this from that. But again, I'm at a crossroads when it comes to balance, and that's how I feel. About certain topics within this relationship space, you can't have it all, right? If you got the man that's out there making the money and he making damn good money to the point where you can stay home as a wife, you're not. You're probably. The household responsibilities are going to primarily fall on you as the woman. When it comes to disciplining the children, taking the children where they got to go, providing dinner or lunch and so on and so on, that. That's gonna fall on your shoulders. And some women I know hate it, like hate staying at home. Because when it comes to dealing with toddlers and children, it can be draining. It's going to be draining. I'm not going to say it's going to be draining. So you not having your partner there to deal with what's happening unless they have a job where they can work from home, you know, I know most IT people can work from home. So that might be a different experience. Yet when it comes to other professions that don't allow you to work at home, you are essentially on your own. And you, you can complain, but the moment he stopped knowing he doing in that space, you're gonna complain from this space because now the money didn't slowed up. You can't take two, three, four trips a year. You can't eat at these fancy restaurants four or five times a year. You get what I'm saying? Because now you want your husband home more. Now listen, this is not everybody's reality, but it's the majority, right, where both parties are working and coming home. Because with this economy that we're in, most people have to. Now, there are different variations of 50, 50 from what I've been told. I have met some beautiful women and have had this conversation, and honestly, their answer shocks me every time, because how is it that this person here in real life understands what's happening and understands that if they send their man out there to work long hours, that they're not going to see them as much as they want to just so they can stay home. They would rather go out, work, split the bills. So different variations. I've heard one being he pays the big bills, I pay the small bills, other than we split everything down the middle. Another thing, he pays 75% of the bills I pay. Was that 25% of the bills? Is that right? Yeah, 25% of the bills. Right. So it's different variations of 50, 50, granted, if you want a relationship for the long haul, right? And I've seen this growing up, if you're in a relationship for the long haul, there are going to been. They're going to be times where, like, things are up for him, things are okay for you, and everything works, then something can happen. Now you're up instead of you being just in that sweet spot. Now you're the breadwinner, and he got to figure it out and y' all stretching a dollar and then he's back up and you're. You're in the medium spot. Or you could fall from your medium spot and be up too. And now everything is on him. And that's how it go throughout the years, because that's life. Life is a roller coaster. You're gonna be at the top, and you might be at the bottom. That's just how it works. Look at me right now. Lost my car. Wasn't planning for that to happen. But hey, we. We here now. I didn't expect that at all. So it's like, that's just how life and relationships are probably more than likely gonna go at some point. What I don't like about the 5050 conversation is the demonizing of people, because why are we on people who are trying to make it work? I remember it's this clip from ASAP that I love that he says we're clowning people for trying now, like, trying. I think social media has definitely obscured the. What's happening in reality because, like, reality says something else. Reality is saying something completely different from what these people on these panels are saying. The crazy part is 10 years ago, this wasn't a problem. We wasn't having these discussions. Ten years ago, we wasn't having 50, 50 discussions and. Or is the black man to blame or the black woman to blame. And I'm not saying we didn't need these conversations, but I find that some of these conversations are not in solutions. They're not based in solutions. There. There is rage bait, and they're bashing each other, and there's no real conversation being had because if one person disagrees, it turns into, well, you or you ain't shit, or you just broke anyway. That's what the conversation turns into. Like, damn near every time I'm on these panels. Like, I have yet to be on a panel, not personally on a panel, but being like, watching where the conversation is progressive. It's not a progressive conversation at all. It's either a panel where it's six women, one man. He's trying to express what he's trying to say and they jumping them and vice versa, where a woman is trying to Give her perspective of the situation and the six minute jumping her. So I asked the question, is this really about finding a solution or is this just supposed to be entertainment? Because that's what it feels like. It's entertaining as hell to watch. But if you don't have a mind of your own, you could really think this how should go. And that's what I'm finding a lot on social media. To be real with you, people are using social media as a tool of information, which it can be. But again, if you don't have your own mind, like you're just gonna believe what you see on TikTok or on Instagram. Like I remember I had to tell my grandmother, I don't know if some of y' all remember this, but my grandmother was on is on Facebook on the. My, my grandmother on my mom's side and she used to send me these like, yo, watch out at the gas station, they putting needles under the thing. Or like these suspicious things that were supposedly happening that never happened to anyone we personally knew. But for some reason, this is what got out there. And then you got other engagement where people are like going into stores harassing people, you know, trying to prank people, whatever the case may be. It's like when people are seeing these things, they think this is the formula. This, this is what's work. This is what's going to work. I was just having a discussion with my best friend, Shout out to D. We were talking about this gentleman I had. I've never come across this, and I'm probably going to come across this once I get off of here. But he essentially is posting these intimate moments with his mother. Not intimate, but more so like these private moments with his mom, who clearly has some type of mental health issue, is continuously cussing him out and saying like the most vulgar things to him possible and probably really hurting his boy feelings. Low key, but he's using it to get viewership and someone else is going to see that and they're going to believe that's how you do it. So how are we not to believe that people that watch these panels don't believe that this is what's happening out here? Literally, I can, I'll ask women some of the questions that I see on these panels and they look at me like I'm absurd. Like, no, that's not what work out here. That's not what's going to work for my relationship. No, no, no, no, no, no. Now what I will will say is when I do hear the conversation of 50, 50 in real life, again, is is that example I gave you earlier where it's like, oh, he paid the big bills, I pay the little bills. Or he pay the bulk of the bills, I pay some of the bills. And it's never a conversation of like, I'm not helping. I'm going to help my man so we can have more money. Listen, ladies, paying 100% versus 50%, that's mathematically just stupid. If you're not going to pay the 50%, why would you pay the 100% versus the 50%? You're saving 50% of your own money. And again, if you put the bulk of it on your man, you're probably not going to see him. And then that's how shit happens. See, that's how things happen. And I'm not saying things don't happen in that other space too. But now if I'm at work all the time, more than likely I'm going to be connecting with somebody at work. Especially if I work in a field that is driven, you know, with. Had both his sexes, you know, men and women. That's what I'm trying to say. Sorry, I had to get my thoughts together. But if I'm primarily working here, I'm going to have a work wife. Best believe I'm going to have a work wife. If I'm at work 12 to 16 hours a day, I'm going to have a work wife because I need that connection. And vice versa, if I'm not home, the FedEx, the FedEx person, mailman, I don't know, you might get bored. Here's somebody that's paying attention to you, and now you're entertaining that. Why? Because I'm out here doing this? Because, let's be real, people take things for granted. We do. It's a human. It's a human thing. We take things for granted. So, yes, you may be staying at home and he paying all the bills and y' all living a lifestyle, but at some point, you're going to get bored with that. At some point, if there's children involved, you're going to become envious because now he's never dealing with the children. You deal with the children. You do everything around the house. You are the only parent to do everything in this house while he's at work. And that's going to create a problem eventually. But again, my point being is that's how shit happens. And again, I'm not to say that shit doesn't happen on 50 50, because it definitely does. But if I'm Like I said, we're going 8, 10. Sorry. Not 8, 10, 12 hours a day. I'm gonna have work, wife. And you gonna probably be messing with the FedEx man, because, again, we take things for granted. Things aren't going to always be perfect. And whatever those problems arise within that relationship, you know, hopefully y' all can work those things out. But that's not always the case. And then you'll look back and be like, where did we go wrong? Again, I'm not trying to say that you can't have it that way, but what I'm saying is you got to make a choice. You either going to choose materialistic things or you're going to choose your happiness. And sometimes your happiness is in materialistic things. That's just the case. But these conversations that I'm seeing, it just. It's like, let's wrap this up. Let's wrap it up. Okay, we get it. Y' all don't want to go 50, 50 with your man, Cool. But be okay with what comes with dealing with those type of men. And I'm not saying you should be dealing with any type of abuse, anything. That's not what I'm saying at all. But there are downsides to everything. Again, there are downsides to everything. So you have to decide. And the same with men. Men, you have to decide. Like, if you're going to be the sole provider, you have to be okay with not seeing your wife. You have to be okay with certain things that comes that. That comes with not being home. You like. I used to hate the conversation of submissiveness, where they'd be like, men want us to be submissive, right? And it's like, men are submissive, too. Men don't see it that way, but men are submissive, too. Because if I have to go to work, I gotta trust you with the house. I have to trust you, But I have to trust you to do the shopping. I have to trust you keep this house full of food. Well, furniture, you know, have plenty of furniture. You, as the woman being home, do everything. When it comes to the whole. The home stuff, I'm just the one paying for it. When something go wrong with the kitchen, you call up people, babe, we need this money. They come and fix the sink. Boom. Car stuff. Nine times out of ten, if I'm not in the car with you, boom, babe. Car stuff, boom. And so on and so on. So it's not like men aren't being submissive in the scenario either. They are. Because trust is a big thing. Trust really is a big thing. But like I said, these conversations are just not progressive at all. We're not looking for solutions. I think we're looking to blame. I think men are looking to blame women and women are looking to blame men. What's even more interesting is I'm not seeing these conversations happen with other races. And I wonder why. And I'm not saying they're not having these conversations, but they're at least not having them publicly to the point where they're bashing people. I've been on panels where, like, depending on how the woman looks, they'll let something slide with one, but if the. If another. If a. There's an undesirable female that's on the panel, sorry to say female, but if there's an undesirable woman on the panel, they'll try to hold her accountable, but let the other, you know, the one that they find more attractive slide and vice versa. I just. I thought we was leaving this in 2025. I really did. And it's crazy because the year before we said we was leaving in 2024. Listen, the discussion is okay to have if you're looking for a solution, but if you're just looking to come up on TikTok, have this boring ass discussion just to insult people because you had a bad day, then it's not a progressive conversation. You're just adding to the problem. Yeah, you're adding to the problem. But, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to end it here. Like I said, it's been a long day. I have some things I got to handle tomorrow. And, you know, we'll be back soon. Like I said, I'm figuring it out and I'm gonna get the show up and running. So we're gonna finish off with some Mobb Deep. This is a song that I really enjoy. Y' all have a good one. [00:39:58] Speaker B: With the tongue with too loose hand. Have everybody on the corner going, holding their mouth, shocked as fuck. I have it just air that boy out. And that is blood on my Tim. Snitches calling 1-800-CRIME STOPPERS when they see me they like. Cause they want that thousand dollars. And not only that, police will die to catch a fucking collar. And I'm out of.