VintageRobot

> The friend who saw conspiracies everywhere built a following. Then an audience. Then a 7-figure income stream.

That person is almost certainly a grifter. If I was dishonest enough to do it, I would to.

It isn't that difficult if you are reasonably articulate, look reasonably tidy and can upload a 20 minute video once day to get an audience. A lot of these people are simply choosing a "side" and then repeating the talking points.

There are people that make 10-20k a month just reading the news and many of them aren't even good at doing that.

> A lot of this goes away when you stop spending so much time on social media, which is a very poor reflection of "reality."

It mainly "too much time of political social media". You can always tell.

What you find is that a lot of people will be repeating talking points and/or catch phrases without putting much thought into it. A lot of this is fed to them by people who are essentially evangelists and many of these people I am convinced are given they talking points, because they all say the same thing at roughly the same time.

> Prominent figures on social media change their minds all the time, but they'll re-sculpt their reality around the basis that they were always right anyway

They can do that if they are getting a decent turnover of new viewers. That doesn't work too well when their fanbase is declining.

If you look into the UFO land which is the worst for this and the most obvious because often the claims are ridiculous. What often happens is that someone will be outright exposed for being a fraud e.g. someone proves that a video was fake. They will then disappear for a few months or maybe a few years. During that time, many more new people would have filtered into the community and many won't look into that person's background.

There is a large number of people that appreciate being told the truth. That model actually works better over the long term.

Grifting (which is what is often seen on social media platforms by many of the personalities) can give you large rewards quickly however you are always at risk at being found out. Once they are exposed, it is often usually over for them.

You can't, unless you a Saudi billionaire. These things are completely custom, are hugely expensive (why they have sponsors all over them) and often they will have work lined up for literally years.

You also wouldn't want one. They cannot be driven on the road really as they aren't legal. They will also break a lot. Generally the more tuned a car is the more maintenance it needs.

If you are interested in cars, you are better getting an older vehicle and somewhere to work on it e.g. a garage and working on it as a hobby at the weekends. You will learn a lot more and can actually enjoy it.

It isn't that simple. I've been learning to work on my own car over the last few years. I'm not even doing anything crazy just fixing up an older vehicle and modernising some parts of it (mainly interior).

I had to fix the wiper system. The wiper system you would think it wouldn't matter much whether the parts are aftermarket or not. I was very wrong, parts that even look almost identical may not work properly, due to differences in tolerances.

There is also different revisions of particular parts and it will become obsolete. You can lose an afternoon on the internet just doing that.

Then there is the tools. I've spent about a small fortune on tools. I have 3 torque wrenches, 3 sets of sockets, 3 sets of spanners and loads of weird specialist tools like special pliers. There are many jobs I can't do myself because they needs specialist knowledge to do properly e.g. gearboxes.

You have to be prepared to spend potentially years on it and huge amount of money, even on relatively simple projects.

There is a reason that a lot of guys get into old 4x4 pickups and do those up, because they are a known quantity and parts are readily available.