Okay, I'm going to do something I swore I'd never do on this podcast. I'm going to talk a little tiny bit about politics. Okay, I'm just going to say one little thing about politics. I was procrastinating doing the show tonight, and I had a car broke.
I just stopped. But anyway, I was looking on Facebook, and I noticed that there is a photograph going around on Facebook. I did a little research on this. It is a photograph of what appears to be a very young Melania Trump on a stripper pole and in a bar.
And one of the customers in the bar is Jeffrey Epstein sitting there onto the side. And then there's this big long text that goes with it. And I'm just going to tell you, I didn't read much of the text because I saw the picture. I said, no, no.
And I started to read the text, and it went into like, they were going to the history of Melania's, the way she got into the country or her, you know, all of this, the visa that she used. I just stopped. And I said, I am going to double check this. So I took, made a copy of the picture.
And I went into ChatGPT, and I stuck the copy of the picture there. And guess what I found out? Here, let me just read that to you if I can get it to come up. It says, yeah, the image has been circulating for a while, and your instinct is right.
Because I said, I saw this on Facebook. I think it's fake. Can you check? And it says, I can't identify the people in the photo, but I can tell you this.
The image appears to be one of those widely shared Epstein plus model photos that have been heavily edited, miscaptioned on social media. Fact checkers have previously debunked versions of this image that were altered and suggested specific public figures were present. The lighting proportions and the compositing artifacts in the commonly shared versions show signs of digital manipulation. In other words, it was BS.
It was all BS. Now, I'm gonna tell you something. I hate it when the right does this, and I hate it when the left does this. I just do.
I don't like any of it, and it makes me mad. So there, I talked about politics. Now, let's talk about how, I wanna know, this is my question, and we're gonna get to it as soon as we start this. How are all these damn people making so much money on social media?
And welcome to this edition of The Daily Grateful. I am Michael Cross, your humble and ever-so-obedient host, here to open your mind and talk about stuff. I go on the TikiTalk. I like to go on the TikiTalk, okay?
I like it. I also go on, I've never posted on Instagram. I don't think I've ever posted on Instagram. I have an Instagram account, but I go on Instagram and I scan through Instagram.
And of course, I'm on Facebook. And of course, I'm all over YouTube watching YouTube videos consistently. And here's who I run into, especially on the TikiTok. I see all these people who are making just tremendous amounts of money off of social media by being an influencer.
Okay, there's got to be something, you know, powerful. And to be grateful for the fact that in 2026, like right now, anyone with Wi-Fi and a phone can build an income online. And you don't need a TV studio or a publishing house. So, isn't that weird?
Now, I've got all the tools to do all this stuff, okay? I have Mr. Microphone right here. I'm powering into it.
I got Mr. Audio Interface. I got how many cameras do I have in here? I have a good, good video cameras.
One, two, three, three. Yeah, I have three 4K cameras. I got a nifty little thing sitting over there, because if I hook all the cameras into that, I or somebody off camera can push buttons and switch cameras and switch camera angles or show my computer screen or do all kinds of other stuff. I have all this.
None of it is hooked up. The lightings are, I have lighting. You wouldn't believe the lighting I've got. All this lighting.
But I don't, you know, I watch, I was watching on TikTok this morning. I woke up very, very early this morning watching TikTok. And I see a young woman on there, and she said her and her husband were $25,000 in debt and, you know, all credit card debt. And they got into social media.
They got on TikTok and a couple other things. I think Instagram. And she said that within two months, they'd completely paid off all the credit card bills. That was her goal.
They were both working two jobs. She was a barista, and he was working two jobs. He was a truck driver and a teacher, drove truck at night and taught during the day, something like that. But anyway, she said within two months, they paid off the $25,000 and they kept going and they kept going.
And she was driving an old beat-up car, and she went and she bought a used, but very nice, you know, a Honda CRV. And she paid $37,000 for it, and she made cash for it. And how are these people doing this? I mean, how are these people doing this?
So I talked to some people that know about stuff like that. And as it turns out, you can make a lot of money doing this sort of thing. I have a friend who has a golf channel on YouTube. I'm not going to mention his name, only because, which I would love to do, but I'm going to tell you how much money he's making.
And I found out how much money he was making kind of from a friend of his. So because I found out how much money he's making, I'm not going to say who he is because I think that just wouldn't be nice. But I've known this guy for a long time. You know, I knew him when he was struggling, struggling and struggling before he had this YouTube channel.
And he's making about $37,000, $40,000 a month off of his YouTube channel. I know another guy. Okay, and we had this other guy come to our club, our technology club, and talk about YouTube. And this guy had a family channel on there.
And the family channel was doing great and he was able to quit his job. He had a pretty good job. He was able to quit his job and, you know, built a new house. And it was the video of them just him and his family taking trips and building this house and all of that.
And then all of a sudden it became a little weird having the kids on his channel. And right now, the only person that's on the channel is his wife. Because they're going to be protective of the kids, which I totally 100% support. I don't think that kids need to be on social media.
But I understand that this guy, well, his wife, who is absolutely delightful on YouTube. And I'm not going to give you her name because I'm gonna tell you how much money they're making. And I don't, you know, I'm not gonna tell you the name, but, but it is, she's making about $90,000 a month. Let me repeat that, $90,000 a month.
That's a lot of money. All right. I mean, and these are two people that I personally know. And then there's another woman that I personally know who is on social media as well with a podcast.
And I would love to plug her podcast right now. I really would, but I'm going to tell you how much money she's making. And, well, you know what? I can tell you this because she did, I saw her interviewed on YouTube and you can go to YouTube and look for Joe, Mr.
Tampa Bay. Look for Mr. Tampa Bay, Joe Malinowski. He interviewed Katie Clements about her journey into podcasting.
And I've known Katie and her husband for a number of years, like close to 20. And when I first met them, they were living in a duplex. Now they're living because of her, of her podcast, which is a woman's meditation network, several podcasts. They're living in a beautiful, very big home on a bunch of acres in a very wonderful location.
And their children are doing well. And I mean, they are doing well and they make all of this off of social media. All of these people are making money off of social media. Why aren't I?
That's my question. And are you, are you making money off of social media? I, I started looking into this a little, a little bit. Okay.
Social media is not posting. It's media ownership. It's brand building. It's relationship building at scale.
Okay. You don't need anybody's permission to do this. You have to, if you're going to be on social media, you gotta follow the rules of the social media that you're on. If you're on Tik Tok, they have monetization paths on TikTok.
You can, if you get 10,000 followers and they're watching your videos, you make money from the creator fund. And that's where, you know, that's where this one woman that paid off for $25,000. She's making it two ways on TikTok. The creator fund, she's getting paid.
She puts out, I don't know, two videos a day, sometimes three. And she's making, you know, a lot of money off each video from the creator fund. But the other thing, one of the three videos that she makes, she's going to talk about a product that is in the TikTok shop. up there, and they manufacture, they don't manufacture the shirts, but they print all the shirts there.
And they've got a ton of shirts. I bought three or four different shirts from them. And the whole family is now making a living, including Jordan, but the whole family works there. And they've hired other people who are sparkly to work there.
And it's fascinating. It is just absolutely fascinating. So what I'm finding out, and I'm looking into this, why can't I do this? Maybe I need your encouragement.
Why can't I do this? Emphasize on a niche, you know, a niche kind of like I could give lawn care tips. There's another guy on YouTube from around here. His name is Alan Hain, the Lawn Care Nut.
Alan Hain lived in a nice little house in St. Petersburg. It was if you were to look at it, his house that he had in St. Petersburg is much like the house I own here and live in now.
And he started the Lawn Care Nut YouTube channel, and he now has, he's moved to Parrish, Florida, which is on the other side of the Sunshine Skyway, bought a beautiful home, has all kinds of sponsorship, and owns a fertilizer company, and he is selling products that he manufactures. He has the fertilizer manufactured for him, and he's got a liquid products that he manufactures himself and sells there. And he's making good money. And I watched him from the time he first started.
And oh God, his videos were terrible at the beginning. They're great now. They're great. So, you know, lawn care tips, podcasting advice, tech wisdom.
You know how to, if you know how to use MS-DOS 3.0, maybe, I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, I think there's a way to do this. And I think I need to figure out a way to do this because I think that would be a nice way for me to wrap things up.
You know what I'm saying? Nice way for me to just carry on. And if I, well, if these people that I know, I mean, these people that I personally know that are doing it and doing it very well can do it, then I can do it. And if I can do it, hell, you can do it.
You know? That's what you wanna do. I guess you need to wanna do it. You kinda sorta wanna have to, you have to wanna do it.
You can't be fixin' to get ready to do it. You gotta wanna do it and do it. Like I'm fixin' to get ready to get the Beatles logo tattooed on my arm. That's not a commitment.
I have a nephew who's a world class tattoo artist who said he would do it for me. I'm fixin' to get ready to have that done. I need to commit more. Just like if I'm going to do something like this, I need to commit more.
I do a podcast. What the hell? We'll see you on Monday.