The New Gatekeepers: Who Gets to Reach the Top?

 

This past weekend I was sitting watching K-pop videos with my daughters. They love K-pop, and as a dad I have spent quite a bit of time watching it with them. But this time, while I was watching, I found myself noticing something that had very little to do with whether I liked the music or not.

How did we get here?

What struck me was just how incredibly well designed these performances are to capture and hold your attention.

There is obviously enormous musical and dancing talent involved, but I don't think we always appreciate just how much more is happening in a K-pop performance than the music itself. The carefully choreographed moves, the gestures, the facial expressions, the hand and body movements, the styling, the camera work, the timing and the visual synchronicity all seem to work together to keep your attention locked onto the performance.

I don't say that as a criticism of K-pop. In fact, I think it is quite the opposite. They are doing their particular art form extremely well. What fascinated me was that I was watching something that seemed to sit somewhere between musical performance, visual art, psychology, sociology and technology. There is clearly a lot more going on than simply making a good song.

And that got me thinking about something much bigger.

How did we get here?

How did we arrive at a place where capturing somebody's attention has become an industry in itself?

For most of human history, fame was generally a by-product of something else. You might become known because you had achieved something extraordinary, because you came from an important family, because you held political power, because you were a military leader or because society believed you had some form of divine right.

Ordinary people didn't know the personal lives of these people in the way we know celebrities today.

Then things began to change.

The Industrial Revolution changed how information could be produced and distributed. The penny press discovered that people were interested not only in politics and important events, but in stories about other people. Human-interest stories, scandal and sensationalism sold newspapers. Showmen like P.T. Barnum understood that attention itself could be cultivated and turned into a business.

Then came Hollywood.

The Golden Age of Hollywood took the manufacture and management of celebrity to another level. Studios didn't simply make movies; they built stars. They carefully managed their public images, controlled what the public saw and didn't see, and created personalities that millions of people could follow. Fan magazines and gossip columns then fed the public's growing appetite for the personal lives and dramas of people they had never met.

Television took it further.

And then came the internet.

And social media.

The delivery mechanism changed, but the underlying machinery didn't disappear.

The gatekeepers simply changed costumes.

The old executives and editors have increasingly been replaced by algorithms.

And that brings us to the world we live in today.

We are surrounded by the idea that anyone can become famous.

Anyone can become an influencer.

Anyone can build an audience.

Anyone can reach millions of people.

And technically, that is true.

But there is a part of the story that we don't often talk about.

There are millions of people trying to do exactly the same thing.

There are millions of artists, musicians, writers, entrepreneurs, photographers, filmmakers, podcasters, coaches and content creators all competing for the same limited resource: human attention.

And human attention is finite.

There are only so many hours in a day. There is only so much information one person can consume. There is only so much attention that can be given to all the people and all the things competing for it.

So while we are constantly being told that everyone can reach the top, the mathematics tells us something rather different.

Everyone can try.

Everyone can participate.

Everyone can improve.

Everyone can potentially have a breakthrough.

But everybody cannot occupy the top.

There is only one number one.

There are only so many people at the very top of any industry.

And that is where I think we need to start questioning one of the stories that society has been selling us for a very long time.

"Work hard and you will be successful."

Now, there is truth in that statement. I believe in hard work. I believe in learning. I believe in developing your skills, persevering and giving your very best.

But it is not the complete story.

Hard work is one of the ingredients.

It isn't the entire recipe.

There are systems.

There are pipelines.

There are channels.

There are networks.

There are gatekeepers.

There is timing.

There are people who open doors.

There are people who introduce you to other people.

There are teams behind individuals who appear to have done everything themselves.

There is money.

There is marketing.

There is marketability.

And sometimes, if we are honest, there is simply luck.

A person can be extraordinarily talented and work incredibly hard and still never reach the level of prominence that somebody else reaches.

And that can be incredibly painful.

Think about the artist who has spent years developing their craft. They may be more talented than someone who becomes famous, but perhaps they don't have the right image. Perhaps they don't want to be packaged and sold. Perhaps they don't have the right connections. Perhaps they arrived at the wrong time. Perhaps they simply didn't get the opportunity that somebody else received.

That doesn't mean they weren't good enough.

It means that reaching the top involves far more than being good enough.

And this is where I think the attention economy becomes particularly interesting.

The system makes the path look accessible to everyone while the destination remains accessible to very few.

Millions of creators populate the base of the pyramid, while attention is increasingly concentrated towards a relatively small number of people at the top. Algorithms decide what gets seen. Marketing budgets amplify some voices. Existing audiences create more audiences. Media exposure creates more media exposure.

Attention attracts attention.

And once you understand that, you begin to realise that celebrity culture isn't really a meritocracy.

It is an attention economy.

And, increasingly, an attention monopoly.

This doesn't only affect musicians and entertainers.

It has moved straight into business.

As entrepreneurs, we are increasingly expected to be content creators. We are told to write blogs, make videos, host podcasts, build personal brands, post constantly and keep ourselves visible because apparently, if people aren't seeing us, they won't know we exist.

And there is some truth in that.

But there is also something exhausting about it.

A person can spend years becoming exceptionally good at what they do, only to discover that being good at the work is no longer enough. They must also learn how to market themselves, understand algorithms, create content and compete for attention.

I have managed to navigate this digital arena reasonably well, but I think part of that comes from a decision I made very early in life.

I remember, back in the late 1980s or early 1990s, we had a VHS machine at home that came with a barcode-scanner remote. At the time, it was quite an advanced piece of technology. I remember watching other people in the house trying to use it and it simply made no sense to them.

And I remember thinking that I wasn't going to be like that.

I wasn't going to get left behind by technology.

So throughout my life I've tried to understand technology as best I can. I'm not a technology professional. I've never worked in the technology industry. But I have tried to understand enough of it to navigate the world that I live in.

And I'm increasingly aware that there are people in my generation, and particularly people older than me, who are finding this incredibly difficult.

Friends, colleagues, people I interact with in business and even members of my own family battle with this digital world.

And my heart really goes out to them.

Because these skills aren't something you can simply pick up in a conversation.

Digital fluency is almost like learning another language.

It takes time.

It takes immersion.

It takes practice.

And some people are trying to learn that language while the world around them is already speaking it fluently.

The problem is that society often assumes that because the technology exists, everyone should automatically know how to use it.

But that's not how learning works.

And perhaps that is another part of the pressure we need to recognise.

Because underneath all of this is something I've been thinking about a lot in my writing: the invisible pressures that we carry.

We are constantly being told that we should be doing more.

Growing faster.

Reaching more people.

Building a bigger business.

Getting more followers.

Becoming more influential.

Getting to the next level.

And because we are constantly exposed to people who appear to be succeeding, it becomes very easy to believe that we are falling behind.

But what we often don't see is the system behind the success.

We see the person on the stage.

We don't see the people who opened the doors.

We see the entrepreneur.

We don't see the network, the investment, the timing and the opportunities.

We see the celebrity.

We don't see the machinery that helped turn that person into a celebrity.

We see the K-pop performance.

We don't necessarily see all the disciplines that have come together to create something so carefully designed to capture our attention.

The gatekeepers haven't disappeared.

They have simply changed costumes.

And I think capitalism deserves some criticism here.

Capitalism has done some remarkable things. It has driven innovation, created opportunities and allowed people to build businesses and wealth in ways that would have been unimaginable in previous generations.

But capitalism also has a tendency to turn almost everything into a commodity.

And human attention has become one of the most valuable commodities of all.

The problem comes when we begin to believe that the market's ability to measure something is the same thing as its ability to determine its value.

Followers become value.

Views become value.

Likes become value.

Revenue becomes value.

Prominence becomes success.

And suddenly we find ourselves measuring our lives using a system designed primarily to measure what can be bought, sold and scaled.

That is where I think we need to pause.

Because perhaps the person who has reached the top isn't necessarily more successful than the person who is doing good work at a smaller level.

Perhaps prominence and success aren't the same thing.

Perhaps prosperity isn't the same thing as prominence either.

And perhaps we need to become much more comfortable with that distinction.

As Everyday Mavericks, I don't think our response should be to give up on ambition.

Quite the opposite.

Work hard.

Learn.

Grow.

Become better at what you do.

Take opportunities when they come.

Build relationships.

Use technology.

Understand the world around you.

If you have a dream of reaching the top, pursue it.

It might be you.

It really might.

But we also need to recognise that there are many other people climbing the same mountain.

And there are systems and channels and pipelines that influence who eventually reaches the summit.

Sometimes you will have the right skills.

Sometimes you will have the right team.

Sometimes you will meet the right person.

Sometimes the timing will be right.

Sometimes you will simply be extraordinarily fortunate.

And sometimes you will work incredibly hard and still find yourself somewhere else on the mountain.

That doesn't mean what you did wasn't good.

It doesn't mean you failed.

It doesn't mean you didn't work hard enough.

It may simply mean that the world is more complicated than the story we were given.

Perhaps the freedom we need is the freedom to do our very best without demanding that our very best must always result in reaching the top.

We can celebrate the people who get there.

We can learn from them.

We can admire their achievement.

And we can also celebrate where we are.

Because there is something deeply unhealthy about a society that convinces millions of people that they are failures simply because only a tiny percentage can occupy the apex.

Maybe the goal isn't always to reach the top.

Maybe the goal is to find the place where your work matters, where your life has meaning, where the people around you are better because you were there, and where you can look back and honestly say:

I did my best with what I had.

And perhaps that is a much more useful definition of success than simply being seen.

Because in a world that is constantly trying to capture our attention, perhaps the real Everyday Maverick learns something else.

We don't have to give our lives to the attention machine.

We can learn how it works.

We can use it when it serves us.

We can step away from it when it doesn't.

And, perhaps most importantly, we can decide for ourselves what is actually worth paying attention to.

Moving Forward

Live curiously.
Lead courageously.
Life is worth living.

The Everyday Mavericks keep moving forward with intention.

Shalom.

 Read: The Disco Ball Life: Learning to See Goodness, Kindness, and Gentleness