Tariff Terrors, Meta Machine, Fake Communities, and the Engagement Bait

This week, we’re predicting the downfall of fake brands, diving into the cruel chokehold Meta has on your ad budget, exposing your hollow "community," and calling out the brain-dead clickbait flooding your feeds.

Here’s the heat:

🔥 Bryan says fake brands are about to get roasted by tariffs 
You’ve been living the e-commerce dream, slapping logos on mass-produced junk from overseas. But with tariffs looming, that bubble is about to burst. Brands that were just “vibes” are about to crash and burn, and we’re here for it. Real businesses that own their supply chain will rise from the ashes.

⚔️ John says you’ve been played by Meta 
Stop pretending you’re just a victim of rising ad costs. Meta doesn’t care about your ROAS. They care about their billions, and you’re the pawn funding it. The game’s rigged, and if you’re still relying on Meta for growth, guess what? You don’t own your business—Meta does. Time to rethink your strategy.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Amer says your “community” is a mannequin army 
What’s the point of a community that only comes to life when you wave snacks in front of them? If your people scatter when you log off, you didn’t build culture—you built a stage with no encore. Real communities have chaos, energy, and passion. You can’t control it—you can only fuel it.

🤯 Jimmy says your hot takes are making you a clown 
Engagement bait has become the norm, and it’s ruining the quality of discourse. Posting dumb, extreme opinions for clicks isn’t a hot take—it’s lazy and uninspired. The real disruptors aren’t the ones who shock and anger for engagement—they’re the ones who challenge with thoughtful, nuanced perspectives.

This edition hits harder than realizing your “viral” post didn’t land. Read it, reflect, and if it stings? Perfect.

DTC Founders: Visionaries or Operators - EP41

In this ASOM Pod episode, we’re diving into the world of successful DTC founders. Are they visionaries with groundbreaking ideas, or are they operators who excel at scaling and execution?

We’re breaking down the balance between innovative product creation and operational brilliance, looking at well-known brands to see which side they fall on. Plus, we’re reviewing the culture and practices of industry giants like Ritz-Carlton to uncover what makes their success tick.

We’re also serving up practical advice for aspiring founders, how do you balance the vision with the grind? Tune in to find out whether your business growth is driven by big ideas or flawless execution.

Grab your headphones and check out the episode here!

Big thanks to our sponsors at: Omnisend, Nacelle, and Workspace 6.

The Tariff Apocalypse Will Burn the Fake Brands to the Ground (and I’m Here for It)

Hope everyone’s enjoying the calm before the tariff storm…

For the past decade, we’ve been living in a golden age of eCommerce cosplay. Everyone and their little brother has been out here flexing “brands” that are really just logos slapped on mass-produced junk from Shenzhen. T-shirts that melt in the wash, skincare with ingredient lists that look like chemistry homework, collapsible dog bowls that might be radioactive, and all sold under the illusion of being “premium lifestyle goods.”

Let’s be real: most of these brands aren’t brands. They’re vibe-driven middlemen. They bought a domain, picked a neutral color palette, paid a Fiverr designer for a logo, and ran TikTok ads with the emotional manipulation of a Sarah McLachlan ASPCA commercial.

And hey, that worked! Thanks to overseas manufacturing and shipping rates that made no economic sense but somehow persisted, you could build a million-dollar business out of a Gmail account and a dream.

BUT NOW? Oh baby. The dream is getting taxed.

That 65¢ unit cost? Try $1.04. That 3X markup? Crushed. Suddenly those sexy “8-figure brand” screenshots don’t hit the same when your margins are dead, your freight is delayed, and your supplier just ghosted you because they don’t want to deal with America anymore.

This isn’t just a correction, it’s a reckoning. The DTC space is about to find out the hard way who built an actual business… and who was just drop-shipping hot pink water bottles while LARPing as a “founder” on LinkedIn.

But here’s the silver lining: this is actually great for the brands who’ve been doing it the hard way. You know, the ones who:

• Actually own their supply chain
  

• Manufacture in the U.S.
  

• Know their co-packer by name
  

• Had to fight for FDA approval
  

• Have customers who genuinely care about their product, not just their packaging
  

For those of us who actually build American brands with American labor, materials, and sweat? This could be the best thing to ever happen.

Being a U.S.-based brand with U.S. manufacturing means you’re not just sidestepping the tariff chaos, you’re standing for quality, traceability, and a real commitment to your customers. You're creating jobs, not logos. You're building something real.

So yes, things are about to get messy. The graveyard of Shopify “brands” is about to get a whole lot bigger.

And I, for one, am bringing marshmallows to this bonfire.

🚨You didn’t get priced out of Meta ads. You got played.🚨

CPMs are up 48.5% year over year.
Blended CAC is up.
LTV is down.
And Meta? It’s winning.

This isn’t a market correction.
It’s the perfectly engineered chokehold.

You spent years building your acquisition engine on someone else’s land.
Now they raised the rent, and you’re stuck paying it.

You are not the customer.
You are the product.
And the system is built to make you bleed budget just to tread water.

Meta doesn’t care if your Q1 ROAS tanked.
Or if your budget vanished by week six.
They already won.

They got what they wanted.
Your dependence.

They changed the algorithm. Again.
They tweaked targeting rules. Again.
They throttled reach. Again.
Then told you to go optimize your creative.

And you did.
Because you had no other choice.

You kept testing.
Kept spending.
Kept burning cash to learn faster.

Meanwhile, Meta pulled in over $40 billion in ad revenue last quarter.
A new record. And you helped fund it.

This is not sustainable.
Not for DTC.
Not for bootstrapped brands.
Not for marketers running on tight margins and tighter timelines.

The playbook has to change.

Own more of your growth.
More brand.
More retention.
More community.
More content that doesn’t require a bid.

If your entire growth model depends on Meta, you don’t own your growth.
They do.

And they’re not letting go.

You got a what? A Community? Ha!

Is your “community really a “community”?

No, your “community” isn’t a community. It’s pretty much a mannequin army, kinda just standing there, looking the part, but dead behind the eyes. No soul.

Let’s say it the way it is…most of these so-called “communities” are just digital waiting rooms.

Everyone’s sitting around... bored... waiting for you to show up and say something mildly interesting. Well, I lied…they are not even waiting or sitting around…they are forgetting about you and your brand.

But, something to note…If the conversation dies the second you go silent, you didn’t build a community... you built a stage with no encore.

I always said... just the way it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a community to build a brand. But too many brands are out here playing single parent to a room full of strangers who only respond when you wave snacks in front of their face.

You want to test what you’ve built? Leave. Seriously. Log off. If your people scatter like roaches when the lights go out, guess what…you weren’t building culture...you were babysitting attention spans. If you think they will scatter, do not test it…build on the little momentum you have.

You know who has wild communities? Lego. Shopify. Battlbox. Gymshark.Redbull. 

A real community is a dive bar at midnight. Nobody owns the room. Conversations overlap. Vibes shift. The energy exists because of the people, not in spite of them. 

The moment you try to choreograph every move, it stops being a community and starts being a cult of personality.

And here’s the kicker…a very sad kicker…most of you don’t want community. 

You want control. 

You want applause. 

You want the illusion of connection without the chaos that comes with it. But that chaos? 

That’s where the magic happens.

Let your people talk. 

Let them take ownership. 

Let them say dumb s#!t. 

Let them create new lanes without asking for permission. 

Because when you build it right... they don’t just follow you…they show up for each other.

That’s when it stops being your show...And starts being their home.

Until then... stop calling it a community.

It’s just a room full of mannequins... and you’re the only one pretending they’re alive.

Engagement-Bait Hell: How 'Hot Takes' turned us all into clowns…

Let's talk about the absolute state of our feeds these days. Remember when people shared actual thoughts instead of intellectual clickbait designed to make strangers angry?

I swear to god, LinkedIn and X have devolved into a competitive sport of 'who can post the most outrageous opinion with the least nuance for maximum engagement.' 

It's the digital equivalent of a toddler screaming in a restaurant for attention.

'Hot take: Sleep is overrated.' 'Unpopular opinion: Employees should work 7 days a week.' 'Hard truth: If you're not hustling 24/7, you're failing.'

No, BOB, that's not a 'hot take' – it's just stupid. But hey, it got you 347 comments from people telling you you're an idiot, so mission accomplished, right?

What's truly exhausting is watching otherwise intelligent professionals reduce themselves to carnival barkers, intentionally posting absolute garbage they don't even believe just to 'start a conversation.' Is this really what we've become? Professional internet trolls with job titles?

The formula is painfully transparent:

1. Take a nuanced topic

2. Strip it of all complexity

3. Present the most extreme position possible

4. Add 'Agree?' at the end

5. Sit back and watch the algorithm reward your intellectual arson

The worst part?

 It works. 

Our feeds are now just behavioral psychology experiments where the rats (that's us) get rewarded for increasingly outrageous behavior.

Remember when expertise meant thoughtful analysis? When professionals shared insights that were actually... insightful? 

Now it's just a race to see who can make the most people angry before lunch.

And let's not pretend this is about 'starting important conversations.' It's about engagement, period. It's about watching those sweet, sweet notification numbers climb while actual discourse circles the drain.

So here's my hot take: If your content strategy relies on intentionally pissing people off or dumbing down complex topics into misleading oversimplifications, you're not a thought leader – you're part of the problem.

The truly radical act in 2025 isn't having the spiciest take – it's having a thoughtful, nuanced perspective that doesn't fit in a sound bite. It's creating content that respects your audience's intelligence instead of exploiting their emotional triggers.

But I guess that doesn't get the same engagement, does it?

And that’s a wrap on this week’s unfiltered takes! If you’re hooked on our no-BS rants (or just love the chaos), be sure to hit that Subscribe button and let us keep your inbox spicy. 🌶️

And of course, don’t be selfish—share with your friends, coworkers, or anyone who needs a wake-up call from their boring newsletters.

Have an ASOM day ✌️