More Eccentrics. Less Influencers.

I had two thoughts the other morning:

A. That I don’t look up to hardly anyone anymore, and

B. that a few of the people I looked up to when I was 15 are still on the list.

I’m sad about it, then embarrassed, then a mixture of both - so, I’ll do what I always do and just start writing.

Sad and embarrassed are both feelings, by the way. They’re not thoughts. I didn’t write “I had two thoughts” and then list opinions or analysis or anything - I listed feelings, which tells me something. The common wisdom is you write to figure out what you think, to which, I agree, but - there’s something more in there. When I write I figure out what I think, but more importantly, I figure out what I think by exploring how I feel. And now that I’m writing about it, I realize I’m a little mad, too. That’s because this whole “who are my role models” episode was brought on by Mark Zuckerberg’s latest manifesto.

So first off - why is this even on my mind and not just a thing I scrolled past on my feed? Part one is my sticky frustration with his “the future is for everyone” line and I can’t help but wonder who he had in his life that would have even said some new-agey BS like that? And, worse, who would have said it that he would have actually believed? The guy is almost my peer on an age basis, and between the essay and the accompanying video he released, I feel for him, too, like there’s an absence of role models crisis going on, or else he wouldn’t have done that.

Who does he look up to, and not just right now - who did he look up to when he was 15? I want those answers, not his essay. Not for a fight. To reflect on. And what about me? I’m sounding and feeling all judgy, even to myself as I’m reading this back, which means I need to go inward. I need to go deep. And writing an essay about this is so meta - which, haha, is a terrible joke and terribly on point all at once, and probably the best answer to “mother where do essays come from.”

Yes, this is why I write. I’ll accept anger as my outer perspective on this, but now I’ve got to explore the inner cause. That’s what I’m after.

On one hand, I hate letting people down that are looking to me for just about anything. I feel the weight of that more than I probably should. My greatest fear, if I’m honest, is letting the right people down for the wrong reasons - which is a much more evolved anxiety than where I started, years ago, but it’s a profoundly felt anxiety nonetheless.

On the other hand, I’ve regularly looked for others to model those roles in my life. The list of people who do things for the right reasons - it always feels short. It’s always felt short. Partly because it feels subjective, as it should, but also because feels - evolved? The people and the justifications aren’t perfectly static, somehow. All those lessons and all that nuance came from somewhere. It takes me back. There are some fun stories in here worth getting down.

Remember back when you were a kid and started to realize the adults in your life - like, the parents of your friends, your teachers, maybe your little league coach - how they were more than just those roles? How they had a life outside of that one thing you knew them for? For me, I feel like that starts happening sometime around 5 or 6 years old, and then by the time you’re 15, when the freedom of being able to drive yourself places is right there in front of you, you really understand how the multitudes of adults seem to just keep getting deeper. My role model awareness got grooved out in that decade of growing up.

You learn stuff like how the nice teacher who is also your friend’s mom can be both of those things AND married to an interesting guy who you later think of as the first person you met with OCD. No joke - he once modeled the role of buying oatmeal - in bulk - that nobody in the family liked, including him, and then proceeded to eat it for several years so as not to waste it.

You learn stuff like how your Little League coach, who is also your friend and teammate’s dad, also pitched a few games in the Majors years ago. He’d really like his kid to be that good someday, so at practice, there’s always a little extra push that he’s giving. At one memorable session, he’s modeling how hard he can throw the ball in from the outfield to his catcher son, so his kid can practice catching and tagging under pressure, and you, as home plate crasher, get the wind knocked out of you so hard by the ball hurled from his ex-major league arm that when you come to, to his cigarette breath telling you to “walk it off, we’ll get back after this tomorrow,” leaves a funny but not haha funny type impression in your head.

And then there’s the metaphorical adults in your life.

You go to a Bible oriented church camp every summer, which you love, but every afternoon you have this FOB (flat on bunk) break when the sun is at its peak. Most kids sleep or stare off, but you? You read. Since you didn’t bring any books to summer camp, that leaves the Bible, and given your natural level of curiosity, you start reading stories you’ve only ever heard at church, for yourself. Noah was the first really fun one you went deep on. You knew about the ark and the rainbow before, but nobody ever told you about how after the flood, Noah got really drunk, fell asleep naked, and brought shame to his family who found him in that condition. You asked a camp counselor later what was up with that, but they explained how Noah was modeling the role of having a covenant with God and you didn’t need to worry about all those other parts of the Bible.

So - role models are complicated. Complex, even. I’m not surprised to write this down. I’ve tried so many on and let so many slip away over the years. Roles change. Modeled behaviors are nuanced. So what. Life evolves at all the scales. Adults who can be consistently decent in an admirable way are kinda like unicorns and that’s ok. Look, even Noah had some nuance! Covenants, man. We’re talking about covenants. Damn. And now I’m sad and embarrassed again.

By 15 I figure I’d accepted the world works this way. I had lots of personal evolving to do (re: screwing up) but my skepticism was earned, or ingrained, or both. I also accepted that people evolve inside of this system. We all have our proverbial floods and that changes us as much as the worlds around us. How we respond is what matters. Maybe with less oatmeal and aggression, but - ideally with a similar ratio of getting drunk after finishing a hard project. That seems fine to (way older than 15) me.

Which leads me back to the originating source of panic from the intro. I want to know that I’m doing better as a modeler or roles as I evolve. I’m still thinking about it, clearly, because I’m still rolling it over in my head all these words and stories in, and that’s further evidence of the general nature of upset in this flood of feelings I’m experiencing. It doesn’t think off, it feels off, so we press on.

It’s like I’ve been treating finding role models and being a role model as two separate problems when they’re not. Look at my peers in this Epsilon Theory: Unplugged project and tell me I’m wrong. Better yet - go back ten years, show that 10-year-ago version of me where I end up today, and ask him if finding and becoming are different things. He’d tell you to get right the hell out of here. Then he’d add a really? Because that also sounds awesome, so - what do I do next?

Old me and current me agree on another thing too. Surface commonalities that are easily (re: lazily) uncovered by algorithmic searches mean as much as the effort it took to punch the search terms in. It’s like when somebody named Matt Zeigler friend requests me on social media because “we have the same name, how cool is that” and I look at their profile, accept the statistical odds, and then ignore the request. It’s about as close as I feel to Zuck, too, as a fellow MZ. We share initials, could have played Little League together or shared a bus stop, but I don’t really see us as likely being friends.

At the society level, I am amused we both exist. Other people with the same name AND Mr. Zuckerberg, I mean. They’d probably say the same thing about me. But only one of us built the machine that made this type of friend request available at scale. Sure, you can find people, but think about how hard and still random it is to find the right person for so many things. I say this as a user of the platforms. I say this as a finance person who gets the business model. I just can’t understand what the personality is who wants this beyond the scale - and profits - of the thing itself. Don’t we already know the flaws? We’re 30+ years into adding an online dimension to our lives and we aren’t in it any more socially to engage than we ever have been, despite all the social networks we’ve supposedly added, and I am very much ok with stating this is clearly not for everyone, nor should anything be.

To stick with the 90s teen generational metaphor - the kind of person who says “the future is for everyone” is the same kind of person who thinks it’s fine to shop at Hot Topic. The mall is for everyone, but “hey look, that store has stuff you’d like” does not mean that’s the place you’d buy said stuff. I loved hanging out at our mall, but never bought anything from that store on principle. Even when some of my friends worked there - no judgment, a paycheck is a paycheck, and at least they’d let you dress how you normally dressed, unlike the rest of the retail complex - but there’s something about a Misfits T-shirt on a mall mannequin that makes it wrong. When I hear something for everyone I remember how the mall was for everyone too, and that approach to commercialism was kind of the whole problem with it.

There’s a Dead Kennedys song called “Anarchy for Sale.” In my mind that was always basically the Hot Topic motto. It might as well be Zuck’s “the future is for everyone” theme song, too. The business-speak simplified version is Seth Godin saying “when we try to make something for everyone, we risk making something for no one.” If the role you are modeling is the person who homogenizes and commodifies everything into a uniform, for-sale, possibly at a discount product, I’m not really interested. I can respect the size and the scale and the supply chains and the capital market assumptions of the whole exercise, but - blech.

I don’t need 90s mall 2.0. I don’t want mall-sized anything. I don’t want it because it leads to mall-ethics. You get retail managers and mall cops - and that’s not the covenant I’m after even a little bit. I want my role models to be people and not Hot Topic mannequins.

And that’s when I remember the Dead Kennedys were role models. My role models. At 15, not exactly today, because - personal growth. But I still kinda admire them, even if I don’t agree with a ton of stuff Jello said or says. It’s the conviction, the heart, the “so I threw the rock” quotability, that lives forever in my head. Jello Biafra gets a Noah pass, for net-good behavior, in my good book. And then I think of who else is in that camp when I remember the thing that just happened in real 2026 time, in and around Zuck’s influencer-style phone camera read of his essay talking points. Keith Morris, who also had shirts for sale in Hot Topic I am sure, went viral at the age of 71 a few months back, and then I watched him in person refusing to go viral the other weekend. I admired the hell out of that! Now we’re cooking.

I feel this first. Then I think it, and feel it even harder: My role models aren’t influencers. My role models are eccentrics. And they don’t work at startups, they exist in scenes. Cultish Creative canon.

What originally happened was, at a gig in Las Vegas this past May, a guy in the crowd started yelling at Keith about his political commentary - which, who goes to a Circle Jerks show and doesn’t expect this? Just this guy? Apparently - and Keith ignores him for a while. Then they play “Under the Gun,” which is all about being under pressure, literally and metaphorically, and after the song ends the guy starts calling Keith a traitor, which is so unbelievably meta, and only then does Keith decide he has to respond.

Sidebar: FELT. Eccentric, scene-based role models - this is how you do it. You have a stance and you defend it when necessary, and then you go back to doing your weird little thing. Sidebar over, back to the story.

Keith starts to unload on this guy. He really didn’t like being called a traitor, and he explains how he’s voted in every election, to which the guy tells him he’s not there for Keith’s political bulls***, and Keith says, “So, you’re NOT here for my political bulls***, you’re here for the music? Do you understand our lyrics? Do you understand what we’re singing about?!” The crowd loves it. The guy backs off. Keith tells him, “The next time we come to town, stay the f*** home.”

It was like seeing an IRL Facebook comments section. Somebody captured it on their smartphone - because this is 2026 and what is a live event without smartphones recording it - which is double ironic because of the unnatural way Zuck recorded himself reading the script on his post, and don’t think for a second Keith Morris ever needed a teleprompter to tell a heckler how he feels - and, triple ironic bonus points, it’s Keith’s freakout that goes viral on Instagram and Facebook, platforms built for exactly this, which is how it makes its way to me, and now we are officially, unironically so Meta, with a capital M.

Now, this all goes down months before my wife and I are at a Circle Jerks show in August 2026 when I realize we have a new heckler standing right behind us. He’s randomly yelling and jabbing Keith between songs. First come calls for “Red Tape” with a certain vibe - like he’s waiting for Keith to say certain things and then interjecting. You know alt-right voice? I’m being apolitical here, I just mean like alt-left voice too, where there’s a tonal coding to the way something is being said and when it’s being said. It’s a feeling they give off. A vibe. This guy’s alt-right coded “Red Tape” request on tone alone told me he saw the Vegas video. I would have put money on there being someone a few rows back with a phone out hoping for a reaction.

It didn’t take long before he added “TDS” to the shouts. I was watching the bouncer’s eyes in front of me look over my shoulder toward where he was standing. There was tension at the foot of the stage because my guess is the bouncer hadn’t seen the video. He just works there. Poor guy. And all the heckler had to do was read the room, but that’s probably also why he was there, locked and loaded. He wanted to be seen by showing up in the wrong scene and being anti-social. At a punk rock show. Guy should have been a social media strategist.

Keith finally addressed him. He said they weren’t going to play “Red Tape” that night, but maybe if he’d asked more nicely they’d have found a way to fit it into their set. Instead, however, for sake of the crowd, he says he’ll tell us all a story about the song. It goes - thirty years ago on tour with Rancid, Keith stumbled into a warmup and they were playing “Red Tape” when they realized he was standing there. The band was floored. The Rancid guys told him they loved the song, warmed up to it every night, and it was an honor to thank him for it. Keith thought that was pretty cool. So no “Red Tape” performance but a cool “Red Tape” story - which 99% of the room was happy to hear.

The heckler’s shouts stopped after that. Almost creepily. Apparently the guy gave up. There was no viral moment. Just a Circle Jerks show, followed by a viewing of Repo Man in an old theater in suburban Pennsylvania. Indie, AF. Not Hot Topic, AF. Oh and we did buy shirts at the show. There were no mannequins present. We drove home talking about how there are so many ways to show up in the world, with so many more channels than we ever could even try to focus on.

The eccentrics vs influencers - including wannabe influencers - is the key to what I’m feeling. That’s what I’m thinking. That’s underneath everything I’m writing about in this essay. And what separates them has to be taste. I don’t mean anything fancy by this. I mean a social, scene-confirmed sensibility, where you and at least a few friends think something is cool, and when you’re together, your togetherness proves that it is.

Taste is a sensibility. No taste is an insensibility. Because taste requires empathy.

Eccentrics of all stripes have way more interesting sensibilities than the modern influencers who are just trying to find a shortcut to self-validation. And on influencers - that’s just what an algorithm is, right? That’s what the best AI is doing. It’s an AI influencer. It’s an AI role model. It doesn’t have taste, just a formula, and when you engage with it you’re asking it to model a role for you.

Keith Morris played a hell of a role model that night when we saw him. That’s something I still look up to without a moment’s hesitation, even if I have questions and quibbles with things he might say otherwise. I am all in on how he handled himself and his responsibilities in that moment. Vegas too. But Glenside, PA, that restraint that he showed, not to just flame the guy and be that one particular version of himself on demand - I admire his “I’ll tell a story instead” response even more so. Keith always has a point of view, one that’s definitely not for everyone, and as he showed that night ,he can still model the hell out of a role I want to contain some nugget of. Noah with the flaws style. The covenant has depth - not just the flood waters.

So what do I actually look up to? What am I trying to do, not just who I want to be or be like? I don’t want to be sad. I don’t want to be embarrassed. I don’t even want to be mad. I just want a world with people I can look up to. And I want to feel like I’m worthy of being looked up to - not for the status, but because I think it matters that all of us have some self-awareness for the positive roles we’re out here trying to model.

I want to be an active participant in this world, and in my little scenes, where I’ve got all sorts of reasons and ways to be active. I want my own cool ideas, that live or die based on the audiences I curate to - amongst my friends and fellow eccentrics - and great if it works and oh well if it fails, because I’ll have fun trying.

I already know I have my own taste. My own sensibility. I know it because it’s about feel.

Feel is the covenant with my thinking. That rainbow matters extra right now - because between the social media and AI noise we’re all being bombarded with nonstop, and the framings of the Zucks of the world, I want to just say this clearly. This is the heart of this essay and I finally worked it out: AI role models can think but they can’t feel, which makes them problematic as role models. They’re maximizers. Maybe for profits. Maybe for clicks. Maybe for eyeballs or engagement. If you want that, follow their lead. But if you don’t, and if you want anything else at all, then you have to see it to reject it. So I’m here to heckle this idea. I’m realizing that now.

I also accept I’m the heckler here too - I know that! How meta, right? This essay is me heckling Zuck from my scene, same as the guy in Vegas was heckling from his. But the difference is taste, and what you do with it.

The Vegas guy wanted a viral moment on someone else’s stage. I just want a scene worth showing up to, and something worth modeling inside of it. I’m pro-social. I can do that irrespective of what social medias are available to me.  I’m plugged in with my unplugged friends and the people we’re commenting with, in conversation for this whole series. I can accept that media is part of our reality, and so are the platforms, but I’ll take the nuance alongside the covenant, that we all get to think and feel in the name of making and keeping friends who want to do cool stuff, and not just be angry or sad or embarrassed all the time.

I’m seeing the rainbow, people. That’s the whole difference and it was worth writing down. That’s enough.