Cyber Monday Smashes Records, Ryan Declares War on Elf on the Shelf, and Social Media Crackdown for Teens!

Speaker 1 This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network Production.

Speaker 1 We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month,

Speaker 1 taking the BS out of business for over six years in over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.

Speaker 2 Welcome to December.

Speaker 2 It is right about now. It is Friday, December 6, 2024.

Speaker 2 Ho, ho, ho.

Speaker 2 Brianna, what's up? Hey.

Speaker 2 No Chris today.

Speaker 3 Just us.

Speaker 2 A little under the weather. Hats off or a shout out.
Whatever you do to someone sick. Get well soon, bud.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Pat him on the back with a broom.

Speaker 2 Yeah, food poisoning's

Speaker 2 no fun. No.
So our thoughts with Chris, just Brianna and I today here in G. Vegas.
That's Greenville, South Carolina, to anyone who doesn't know. Great place to be.
Just come visit.

Speaker 2 You don't have to stay, though.

Speaker 2 We want you to visit. Except for Brianna.
We wanted her to stay.

Speaker 2 How's it been? Okay, you're almost six months, right? Five, six months.

Speaker 3 You have amnesia of timelines.

Speaker 2 Hey, almost

Speaker 2 round up.

Speaker 2 I mean, so five or six months. Okay.
Yep. What's up?

Speaker 2 Brianna moved from California to South Carolina. So, you know, one of those migrators that

Speaker 2 can't blame her.

Speaker 2 Just saying.

Speaker 3 There's so many things that are amazing here. Things that, you know, we didn't have in California.

Speaker 3 Kind people,

Speaker 3 not a lack of homeless people.

Speaker 3 Clean streets. You can walk down in the city and feel safe.
And that's great.

Speaker 3 But yeah, I'm definitely getting used to it and ready to explore kind of more parts of the state for sure.

Speaker 2 Do you think it's

Speaker 2 if I can imagine the family side of it, you know, missing family, support, and all that. If you could extract that, do you feel like it's better?

Speaker 3 I do. And I think if you ask my husband, my husband's much less emotional and he likes loves it.
He thinks it's so much better. I'm definitely struggling with a family piece.
I really miss my family.

Speaker 3 I really miss my mom.

Speaker 3 And so, but I'm more emotional.

Speaker 2 You know that.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Women are more emotional, emotional, typically. Yeah.
I've met some that aren't, but you know, my wife's not too emotional. I don't deal with emotion that well.
Most men don't.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Unless I'm being emotional. You know, that's how it works, right? For men, right? Yeah, yeah, totally.

Speaker 3 Yeah. So, you know, it is, it is better, I think, like, in terms of certain things.

Speaker 3 I really like my kids' school. I like, you know, that they learn about, you know, Jesus and that they have a relationship.
My son is, you know, praying at the dinner table every night.

Speaker 3 And I love that.

Speaker 3 You know, we're just getting, we're still getting in the swing of things, though. Trying to figure out where everything's at.
I was angry last weekend when we went to get a Christmas tree because

Speaker 3 it's just different here. We had to go to a tree farm, which we've never, you know, really done that before.
We usually go and cut one down in the forest.

Speaker 3 People said you could.

Speaker 2 They were like, you can. Might get shot.
You might get shot.

Speaker 2 You got to know whose land you're on. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, we actually protect our land here in South Carolina.

Speaker 3 Well, we paid 10 times more for a Christmas tree here than we did last year.

Speaker 2 How much are Christmas tree? Yeah, this is a good economy question. You know, so this is business.
We're taking the BS out of business. How much are Christmas trees going for these days?

Speaker 3 You want a real, what did I get at?

Speaker 2 Frasier fir. Frasier fir.
That's the real Christmas tree. Seven feet.
Seven feet, pretty tall. $120.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 That's about where they were, I feel like, the last time I bought one. It was probably 10 years ago.
I tell you what. I I don't feel like they were much cheaper than that.

Speaker 3 What I paid for my Christmas tree last year, seven or eight feet tall. Beautiful, Doug, for

Speaker 3 10 bucks.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 3 Yes! 10 bucks.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but how much did you pay for gas?

Speaker 3 Well, okay, it was an hour drive

Speaker 2 every week. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, $7 a gallon.

Speaker 2 Yeah, seven a gallon every other week or every week. I mean, geez.
Yeah. You go to the gas.
Think about this.

Speaker 2 Back, and it's been a while, I'll admit, but like high school days where, you know, I might have $5 to my my name. And, you know, that'd get me five gallons of gas.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's, that's a couple weeks of gas. You're in California Cali, you got five bucks in your pocket.

Speaker 2 That ain't getting you, and you got to drive pretty far around there, especially when you live, right? Yeah, pretty rural. It ain't getting you far.

Speaker 3 No, it used to cost, so in my SUV, it costs about $97 to $100 to fill it up once a week. And here it's like $35.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 So that's real nice.

Speaker 2 Yes. Yeah.
Gas is supposed to be going down, though.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I think I will say overall, and I read this before I came in, and I've certainly felt it.
And just for the record, my crypto is doing really well.

Speaker 2 And so the sentiment of the economy seems to be much higher. And

Speaker 2 I guess we're all in our own little bubbles. And so it's not that it's necessarily that there's been an impact to my wallet or the company's wallet yet.

Speaker 2 But it does seem like the sentiment about overall economy stuff next year seems a lot more positive.

Speaker 3 I think so. And I think that, you know, in one of our articles that we're going to discuss today, that's reflected with the biggest U.S.

Speaker 3 online shopping day for Cyber Monday, a record-breaking $13 billion spent from U.S. consumers.

Speaker 3 So I think people are optimistic about, you know, what's coming next year because they're willing to spend.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 it's different for everybody for sure.

Speaker 2 But sounds like 7%

Speaker 2 is significant year over year. Yeah.
So that's definitely a sign of people

Speaker 2 taking money off the shelf, so to speak, and feeling confident that they are going to make it again. Yep.
Exactly. That's kind of what happens.

Speaker 2 Like, I mean, definitely there's all levels to this, but sometimes it's people,

Speaker 2 I don't know that you could oversave, so I don't want to say that they're over saving, but they're not as

Speaker 2 they're much more judicial in what they purchase, you know.

Speaker 3 I would say from July to November, people were really holding.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it seemed that way. And I think all the retail numbers sort of supported that.
So now it just

Speaker 2 everybody just let it go. Yeah.

Speaker 2 They really did. They really did.
They were like Christmas shopping. Yeah.
Let's go. I think my wife did.
Yeah. The packages hidden like in the closet under the bed.
Like, I mean, I'm opening drawers.

Speaker 2 Like, I went literally last night, Nicole was at her holiday party, and I go into the laundry room and getting ahead on a little laundry. Hey,

Speaker 2 that kind of husband, you know.

Speaker 2 I was selfishly just washing something I needed.

Speaker 2 But I opened the thing. I opened the cabinet, which is kind of high.
So it is a place where the kids wouldn't get.

Speaker 2 And I just was, you know, doing those, you know, kind of turned to the side open and I crunch into like boxes we've got boxes wrapped gifts already jammed up into

Speaker 2 i'm like what in the world is this so uh the economy the offered economy is definitely on

Speaker 2 i love

Speaker 3 i love having little kids because my son doesn't like he really thinks that you know everything's and it is right it is coming from the north pole um what do you mean what are you implying i'm not implying anything i'm saying it's going to imply that that santa clauses are

Speaker 2 All I'm saying. Clearly you haven't been in South Carolina long enough.

Speaker 3 All I'm saying is that moms across America are Santa Claus.

Speaker 2 But what?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 3 I have a whole table in the garage, right? And it's covered. And nothing's wrapped yet because I haven't had any tape this week.
So I need to get some tape. But nothing's wrapped.

Speaker 3 But my kids are still young enough that I just have a blanket over all the boxes. And

Speaker 2 they don't know to look.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I do remember those days. It was a lot easier to hide them.
Now it's like a little harder. At least my wife says it is.

Speaker 3 The cool thing about when your kids get older, though, is I feel like the presents get smaller.

Speaker 2 Well, let me tell you, it's not smaller. Another instance, this morning, I went out because I had a package delivery

Speaker 2 that wasn't a gift for anyone, except for me. And

Speaker 2 I about, it was kind of still dark out in the morning, you know? It was pretty early, but I guess it, I kind of don't know if it delivered really early this morning or last night or whatever.

Speaker 2 I go out and I about tripped because like you to your point, there was a a box about four feet high and three feet wide right on the front porch. And it was

Speaker 2 a certain gift. I don't think my kids listen to the show.
I don't, you know, but we, uh, just in case, it was a large gift for them right on the front porch that uh daddy about fell over.

Speaker 2 I did not expect right at the, again, just sort of walking. And

Speaker 2 yeah, so about fell over on that one. Oh my gosh.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, I feel like, yeah, when they're little, right, they've got like these tracks and these train tables and all this stuff.

Speaker 3 And like as they turn into teenagers, then they want like little games and I don't know. They get more expensive, but smaller.

Speaker 2 Yes. So potentially.

Speaker 3 Until they want a car. That's pretty big.

Speaker 2 Did you do any Black Friday shopping?

Speaker 3 I didn't. My husband did.
I didn't.

Speaker 3 I did all my shopping in November. Well, in early November.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 My wife took the boys out. She went to the mall.

Speaker 2 I stayed home. All out.
Did nothing, but I was like, you're crazy. They went to the mall at like noon and came back like two hours later and looked exhausted.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, yeah, that's what I'm telling you.

Speaker 3 I want to, but I just, you know, this year was a big year for us. We did a very expensive move, purchase a house, all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 3 So we're on a, the whole household is on a waiting till January kind of budget.

Speaker 2 Understood. And I see something on, you know, this article.
We'll stay on the Cyber Monday,

Speaker 2 the Black Friday theme here. I see an item on here that I would like to stranglehold the creator of that exists in our house.
And that would be the creator of Elf on the Shelf. What?

Speaker 2 I freaking hate that creator. I would like to,

Speaker 2 if I could go back in time and allow them not to think of that invention, I would do it.

Speaker 3 I love Elf on the Shelf.

Speaker 2 I'd like to choke that elf.

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 2 because here's what it does. All it does is add stress to families.
Yeah. The kids might like it, but parents, you know how many times in the middle of the night, I get broken up.

Speaker 2 I didn't have the elf. You know, like worried, because, you know, we still have an eight-year-old who, you know,

Speaker 2 loves that elf and is look for him every morning. I was going to pull up.
I have.

Speaker 2 I get waken up at least five times,

Speaker 2 you know, and my wife buys these kits.

Speaker 2 The economy that's driven by elf on the shelf, she buys the kits now with all the stuff every day i talk about a racket i need to i'm gonna create the the right about now elf on the shelf package little sweater little no it's gonna be a uh more like a noose

Speaker 2 uh

Speaker 2 you know one of those one of those things you get in that's the uh the the old guillotine no i i like elf on the shelf i have a better idea yeah it's a branded bills hat it's a branded bills sweater it's elf size and it's a holding a plate of steak.

Speaker 2 Yes. And it's the Ryan Alford elf on the shelf special.
That Fodger, I'm telling you, I don't like him.

Speaker 2 I punch him like secretly. And like when I'm looking, I'm sort of joking, but I flick him in the face when I walk by because you know you're not supposed to touch him or whatever.

Speaker 2 And when my kids aren't looking, I thump them right in the head.

Speaker 3 This is my calendar that I have every day on my husband and I's shared calendar. Move the elf.

Speaker 2 See, that's what I'm saying. Stress, added stuff to do.

Speaker 2 this is not helpful people this is not the way it's supposed to be one more thing to worry about it's fun for one person only or one depending on how many kids you have i mean yeah it's just stress added stress that's all elf of the shelf creator did shame on you you should be ashamed shame to yourself i kind of like it no I'd like it if I didn't get woken up or I'm worried look, I got a flashlight about more guns.

Speaker 2 So you don't want to come in my house. And let me say, my wife makes noise in the middle of the night that I didn't help.

Speaker 2 Then I am jumping out of that bed and ready to shoot somebody. And it's just, oh, I forgot the elf.
Oh, Jesus. Let me go back to sleep.
Oh, my gosh. Yeah.
I hate that guy.

Speaker 2 Anyway, I'm glad he was one of the top-selling units. You know, that was toys, elf on the shelf dolls, Lego sets, and Harry Potter figurines.
Two of those three can go straight to you nowhere.

Speaker 2 I don't have any love for Harry Potter either. Probably get some hate mail for that.
I know a lot of people do, but I just got nothing for Harry Potter.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's an American classic.

Speaker 2 Ah, he's a funky wizard.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 they're going to come for you. That's all right.
It's okay. I don't hate Harry Potter.
It's just not my thing. I just hate on the show.
And hate's a strong word. I don't like to hate things.

Speaker 2 I don't hate many things. I'm pretty.
But this I'm passionate about because I really do think it has caused more like issues than solved. It has met

Speaker 2 joy should not come at the expense of others.

Speaker 3 Yeah. My four-year-old is already asking way too many logistics questions with the elf.

Speaker 2 See, there you go. You got a lie.
Increase lies. No.

Speaker 2 This is, I mean, this is not good for anything.

Speaker 3 You know what I do have to say, though, is I love. Christmas for the reason of it does feel like as Americans and I think in the world, but definitely in America, we're so divided on so many things.

Speaker 3 But one thing that I absolutely love is how, for the most part, and I know there's outliers to this, but it does seem like for Christmas and the lie of Santa Claus and the elf on the shelf, we come together.

Speaker 3 We like unify to really

Speaker 2 you had me at Santa until you brought elf in. Nobody wants to lie about that fucker.

Speaker 2 They do, but they don't. They do.
Everybody acts like they like it, but they don't. There's some people listening right now that are shaking their head.
They know. They know I'm right.

Speaker 2 And I'm not a humbug. I love Christmas.
I love all the decoration. I love all the pageantry.

Speaker 2 I am not a humbug. But that little

Speaker 2 elf.

Speaker 2 He's going to come into your house and smother you. No, he's not.
Fly in with a little tiny pillow.

Speaker 2 The first thing that goes, the sooner is like, Nash is too smart is that guy.

Speaker 2 Like, when Nash figures it out, done.

Speaker 2 We're We're going to have a little exercise called a bonfire in the backyard. Oh my God.

Speaker 3 What age, what age is like the age where like the magic dies a little bit?

Speaker 2 10?

Speaker 2 I think it's getting pretty close there.

Speaker 2 No, the child. Child, I mean, I have four boys, and it's been a little different with each one.

Speaker 2 Clayton's my oldest. He's 15, going on 71.

Speaker 2 Very stoic, very

Speaker 2 smart, intelligent, and no nonsense. And, you know, he played along because he's always had the younger brother, you know,

Speaker 2 and,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 the gig was up around nine or 10 for him. Yeah.
He played along. I knew when he knew, but he didn't tell me he knew because he's very thoughtful.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And he didn't, he didn't want, he knew that it mattered to the parents, to us.

Speaker 2 that he still believed.

Speaker 2 But I could tell he knew.

Speaker 2 You know what I'm saying? But that's how he is. He wanted us to still enjoy it because he knew he had younger brothers.
Yeah. So, but

Speaker 2 like Hogan, who's 13,

Speaker 2 turning 13,

Speaker 2 he's already, I mean, certainly in the know now. Yeah.
But he was late.

Speaker 2 I think, I just don't think, I don't think he wanted, even when maybe he, it was possible, he was like, he didn't want to believe that it wasn't real. You know?

Speaker 2 Clayton and Hudson, pragmatic. Nash is probably like Hogan a little bit, wanting to hang on because he's the baby.
Yeah. So you never know.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I know. I'm like, four is too young.
He's got to still like believe in the full, the full picture of all of the matches.

Speaker 2 We're in a good time though. Like,

Speaker 2 and it's fleeting. It's going fast.

Speaker 2 You know, but we're in a good spot where we don't have all the bullshit you deal with with three-year-olds, four-year-olds that you're going through that's wonderful but terrible.

Speaker 2 You know, you know what I'm talking about. Like just they're just young, and you have to do a lot for them.
So, mine are very self-sufficient, but they have fun.

Speaker 2 There's still joy because of Nash and the others playing along, but like, it's

Speaker 2 getting to different phases, you know, and they're all fun, but I am having more nostalgia over it because I am, I, you know, I know these moments,

Speaker 2 you know, much as I don't like the elf, I like everything else. And

Speaker 2 I'll look back and go, man, because it, it flies.

Speaker 2 Like, I just remember the kids being, you know, two and four before Nash. And then Nash comes along.
They're six, four,

Speaker 2 one.

Speaker 2 It was,

Speaker 2 it goes fast. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then it's going to, you know, it'll be a whole new season of college, a bunch of kids in college.

Speaker 2 That's right. And if you're watching college football, the playoffs are coming.
We won't talk about the game this past weekend. You know, the bad guys beat the good guys.
It happens sometimes.

Speaker 2 So I'll come out and beat Clemson. I gave him credit.
The old robbery, they played better. They were the better team for at least a moment.

Speaker 2 They had the one better player. I think that's what it came down to.
But Clemson could backdoor their way into the playoffs. That's what I heard.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 On Saturday. So, you know, Sawyer and Breonna Sarge, our producer, at our holiday party on Saturday night, that was, you know, going to be one thing.

Speaker 2 That will have

Speaker 2 a football watching party. We'll still have all the other holiday holiday stuff, but it will be on and I will be paying attention at least partially.
So that's good.

Speaker 3 My husband will be there. He'll like that.

Speaker 2 We'll see what happens.

Speaker 2 Clemson plays SMU for right to go to the college. I don't even feel like we've really earned it, but who's to say what earns? It's a weird year.
A lot of strange things happening.

Speaker 2 A lot of money being handed around. I know that with players and otherwise.
But

Speaker 2 speaking of a lot of money, what's up with Tesla?

Speaker 3 Elon.

Speaker 3 Let's see. I got to get down to it.
Elon loses a bid to get $56 billion pay package. Who is making $56 billion?

Speaker 2 I had to double read that.

Speaker 2 It's $56 billion pay pack. What? How much in the pay package is that? $56 billion.
Like, is that

Speaker 2 over time or is that annual?

Speaker 2 Like, what?

Speaker 2 It says Musk, despite the legal setback, Musk's net worth has surged by $43 billion since Donald Trump's election victory.

Speaker 3 Like, would you even notice if you had an additional $56 billion?

Speaker 2 It's getting to be a lot of zeros for me. What could you even buy with that? It's not really the point at that point.

Speaker 2 It's sort of a, I don't know, what can't you buy? You bought Twitter for damn sake, you know?

Speaker 3 It's true.

Speaker 3 So it sounds like there was one thing that I wanted to say on this, and that was that

Speaker 3 as a visionary, right? As the person who you know acquired tesla built space x has done all these different things

Speaker 3 it's interesting to think that like you can be an entrepreneur and do all these amazing things but like what is the line between your social responsibility and like you know leveraging this money for yourself

Speaker 2 i think it's a personal decision if you make that money you earn it you innovate i i i would have my me personally

Speaker 2 i do a lot of good with that money.

Speaker 2 You know, I would feel

Speaker 2 not even like it's my responsibility. I think I'd just be like compelled personally.
And look, there's no telling how much Elon Musk gives away or does his charities. You know, he does.

Speaker 2 All those guys do.

Speaker 2 It's just, he may not, just because he doesn't run headlines, you know, about it. And I know like Bill Gates and all them, you know, all you see is the headlines for how much charity they do.

Speaker 2 You know, I don't know that Elon Musk puts the PR releases out the way others do for every donation he gives, but I've seen certain remnants of that occasionally.

Speaker 2 And I think I'd be compelled to want to do it. So I know that I would give a lot away because you have once you get to that level.
But at the same time, it's a personal decision.

Speaker 2 While you're a free country, I mean, you know, if you want to put all that in a bank account and go live in a cave by yourself,

Speaker 2 it's your right to do so.

Speaker 3 Yeah. It sounds like he gives away about

Speaker 3 5.7 billion to charity each year,

Speaker 3 including 160 million to nonprofits, 55 million to St. Jude's Children's Hospital, and various

Speaker 2 charities. Exactly.
And do you ever see that in the headlines?

Speaker 3 No. No.
I had to dig. I had to dig, ask this question

Speaker 3 twice.

Speaker 2 But he doesn't run PR releases on every one of them. So who's the better servant?

Speaker 2 The Bible would tell me one,

Speaker 2 you know.

Speaker 2 So if you believe in that book.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's definitely very interesting. Like why, depending on where you look and like what you type into Google, the answers that you'll get on Elon Musk.

Speaker 2 You're not saying it's slanted, are you? You're not saying it's biased, right?

Speaker 3 I'm saying it definitely does not paint him in a positive light.

Speaker 2 Yeah, of course it doesn't. But,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 I saw one positive light that was positive, non-positive light that surprised me on this next article, which is dollar stores struggling. What? What? It didn't make sense to me at first.
Like, okay.

Speaker 2 But then I read further and it kind of does, the people most impacted. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Well, and it is crazy.
This is one thing that I kind of wanted to touch on with like the American Dream segment is the vast differences, right?

Speaker 3 Like we just talked about Elon Musk and a $56 billion pay package. He's able to give away, you know, $5 billion a year to charity.

Speaker 3 And then, versus like certain, you know, people in a completely different living situation right now, you know, there's a lot of lower income shoppers that are about 60% of the dollar general sales coming from households that earn less than $30,000 a year.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I don't know. I've gone to stores and I feel like a couple of things have happened.

Speaker 2 One on a flight that

Speaker 2 I like to open up in those places,

Speaker 2 but I feel like the packaging's gotten smaller.

Speaker 2 Like me personally, I don't go to them anymore because I feel like the selection's gotten a little worse and the packages got smaller.

Speaker 2 I used to go in there and, hey, oh, I can get this shampoo or this deodorant. They've gotten wise, they've shrunk it down to like the miniature size.

Speaker 2 I'm like, okay, well, I mean, I could buy that size at the drugstore for $1.50 and not have to drive over here in the middle of nowhere to get to it.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And in last year, I think it was 2023, the Dollar tree, they raised their prices by 25%.

Speaker 2 Yeah, $1.25. You can't say, I mean, you got to have a whole name change.
You can't be the dollar tree if you're $1.25. Yeah.
You know? Exactly. Yeah.
Dollar quarter tree is just doesn't ring as well.

Speaker 3 I know.

Speaker 2 I know. It doesn't.

Speaker 3 And it's like, you don't think about it being like a lot, but I used to go to the dollar store and I would buy a whole basket full of, you know, stuff for the kids and toys and different things just to like make up, you know, an Easter basket or something like that.

Speaker 3 And it'd be like 20 bucks for a whole shopping cartful. And then they raise their prices by 25%, and you're like, oh, no, it's 40 bucks.
Yeah. Why does it seem like it went up half 50%?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's five-quarter tree. I mean, like, none of these things, I'm trying to come up with a name for them, and none of them ring.

Speaker 2 It's like,

Speaker 2 25% too much. And look and go, go, lo and behold, their sales are off 30% or whatever it is.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Home, poorly maintained stores, overworked employees.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, you're not going to be successful.
You're going to get shattered if you, you know, don't serve your demographic correctly.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And I think it'll be interesting like next year, like, if the economy does improve, if these numbers go up, but I think they need to re-look at the size of those packages for me because that box of cereal, you ain't fooling me.

Speaker 2 You reduced the size of it. I know you did.
I go to pour that cereal or whatever it is and it doesn't even, it fills up like one bowl. And I'm like, wait a second.

Speaker 2 This is hold it up to one of the cabinet.

Speaker 2 They're tricky.

Speaker 2 Packaging people. Those markets.
They call it shrinkflation. Yeah, shrinkflation.

Speaker 2 I'm telling you, go into one of those stores and go like take a normal size item with you or something, like a bar of soap. Everything's a little smaller now.
Plus, it's 25% more.

Speaker 2 You ain't fooling us, Drawer Tree. He ain't fooling us.
All right. Enough of that.

Speaker 2 I know we didn't even start there. What was our first article today? Oh, yeah.
You got to talk about this one. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 This one is good. Australia is banning social media for people under 16 years of age.
The question is, could this work elsewhere or will it even work there?

Speaker 3 This is a new social media ban passed by the Australian Parliament, and it targets platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. And it goes into effect next year.

Speaker 3 So the purpose of the ban is to protect children from online harm, including inappropriate content, social pressure, bullying, and mental health issues. I mean, I'm all for it.

Speaker 3 Keep those kids off social media. But what do you think?

Speaker 2 This is a tricky one. Like,

Speaker 2 as a father of four boys, I like the thought of this.

Speaker 2 But then I think a few things, how are they going to force it? Is it just going to create FOMO? Thus, they're going to seek it out and

Speaker 2 try to do it more, try to do it differently, like in worse ways, like some of the behaviors, like in getting it.

Speaker 2 And then I think, like, okay, what's their right, you know, with free expression, all these things. And I, you know, as a teenager, I

Speaker 2 struggle with, you know, someone that believes heavily in free speech and doing all that and having a show like this. But at the same time,

Speaker 2 you know, it's our job to protect our children.

Speaker 2 And 13, 14, 15-year-olds are not adults yet. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And the behaviors that social media can lead to for that demographic have been proven to be negative in a lot of ways.

Speaker 3 I think that if you look at some of the science, it's just as dangerous as smoking. It's just as dangerous as drinking alcohol.
It's just as dangerous, right?

Speaker 3 So in terms of like the habits, the habitual nature of social media, how addicting it is, how it changes your brain.

Speaker 3 So in that aspect, I would agree with this ban.

Speaker 3 But on the aspect of like them being able to have free speech, I mean, but they're not adults. So do they have the right to free speech?

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, I don't know.
I don't know. Yeah, I think you

Speaker 2 maybe, but not without oversight. Yeah.

Speaker 3 The thing is, is, I mean, I think like looking into what access to the internet looked like in the early early 2000s you know there there were things that you know we did um there was this one was it like i don't know it was some kind of like chat roulette or something and you would like put in like age sex location or something asl remember that yeah and then they would type in like whatever and you were totally chatting with strangers on the internet yeah unsafe unsafe um my space

Speaker 3 you know, a little bit different. You're just like, you know, putting a song to your profile profile to tell people how you really feel and rating your friends in order of importance.

Speaker 2 Yes. I do think it will be interesting

Speaker 2 how this plays out. Yeah.
And how much backlash versus

Speaker 2 enforcement and everything. Like, how are you going to

Speaker 2 keep them from bypassing it? Does it just create?

Speaker 2 Does

Speaker 2 do children trying to bypass it create more dangers than just allowing them to do it?

Speaker 3 Well, you know, yeah, it's such an interesting question because yeah, to your point, like making it making something

Speaker 3 off limits drives the desire to want to do it.

Speaker 3 Two points that I have top of mind are, do you remember Finstagram?

Speaker 3 It came out like a couple years ago. It was called like a do you have a Finsta? And it was a fake Instagram.

Speaker 3 So kids, all these kids, 13, 14, 15, they would have their real Instagram that their parents followed and then they'd have a Finstagram, which was their fake Instagram, which was like what their friends followed.

Speaker 3 So that was a thing like two, three years ago.

Speaker 3 And then the other thing that's top of mind for me is Instagram recently released their updated terms and conditions for 2025.

Speaker 3 And in that terms and conditions, you cannot have an Instagram account if you are a registered sex offender.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 I support that. Yeah, me too.
Yeah,

Speaker 3 I just, I mean, I don't know how it's regulated, but yeah, I don't either, but I support it.

Speaker 2 I will say we live in a global environment, though, in a global world, and the America, you know, sort of has influence on a lot of the rest of the world.

Speaker 2 So, again, in trying to shut this off, you know, 13, 14, 15 year olds in Australia, I would imagine, look to the U.S. and sort of the trends there.

Speaker 2 And so, if it's not turned turned off everywhere, again, I don't know how you're going to sort of dial this back, especially the demand and desire for it.

Speaker 2 And I think all you're doing likely is pushing more traffic to YouTube. Yeah.
Because that's where they're going to go probably.

Speaker 2 It's not viewed as social media. It's just a ton of content.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I think that attention will go somewhere and probably in attempts to get at it nefariously or whatever you want to call it, combined with other platforms. So I don't know.
It's complex.

Speaker 2 I'll just say that.

Speaker 3 Social media really is. And while it does connect to the world and on a global scale, you know, it gives us access to each other.
I don't know that that access is healthy.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't think so at a certain point.

Speaker 3 You're not supposed to know what everyone in the world is doing.

Speaker 2 I think 16 and up at a controlled level is where it can.

Speaker 2 And it really depends on the child. It's like, it's not one size fits all.
Yeah. Because every

Speaker 2 child, I mean, I have four. I see the differences in them.
And whether they're, you know, it's not like a God-given right if it's not right for where you are developmentally.

Speaker 3 Here's an idea, developers. Put a little like 100-question quiz in the front of signing up.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 If they can pass that, then they can have it.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? They're like socially responsible or have emotional intelligence. Yeah.
Emotional intelligence test.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Or just intelligence in general.

Speaker 2 There you go. There's an idea.

Speaker 2 I think that's all we got today. Got to jump out.
Got things to go. We got checks to cash.

Speaker 2 Next to snap.

Speaker 2 Where were our

Speaker 2 intros, snap and next and cash and checks? Yeah. Yeah.
That's what we're, we're hoping you guys are doing that. So we welcome to December.
Welcome to the holidays. Any final words, Brianna?

Speaker 3 Thanks, guys. Have a great week.

Speaker 2 There you have it. RyanisRight.com.
Find the highlight clips. Go to YouTube.
Check out the you want to see Brianna in person. You got to go check her out on the YouTube channel.
And we appreciate you.

Speaker 2 We'll see you next time or right about now.

Speaker 1 This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network Production. Visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening.