SabirHaque

For emerging content creators, crossing those first few follower milestones brings an exciting new wave of attention: brand DMs offering "free gifts," complimentary meals, or exclusive product hampers in exchange for a "simple collaboration."

It feels amazing. But structurally, it's one of the most asymmetric power dynamics in modern media.

In this episode of Fix Your Focus, we dismantle the illusion of the gifting economy. When a brand targets micro or meso-influencers with free merchandise instead of a proper marketing budget, they are bypassing fair labor practices. They are getting your scriptwriting, your editing, your production hours, and—most importantly—your audience’s trust, all for a fraction of what traditional advertising costs.

If a product does the work of a payment, it IS a payment. And your community deserves total transparency.

👇 Let's talk in the comments: Have you noticed an increase in hidden, "gifted" advertisements on your feed? Creators, how do you handle these pitches?

🎬 Watch the full video below and subscribe to Fix Your Focus on YouTube and Spotify for deeper media analysis.

Most of us argue like we’re trying to win a court case, but you can’t heal a society—or a friendship—with a verdict.
This reel looks at one of the most difficult examples of public disagreement: the abortion debate. Pro-life and pro-choice positions are often discussed as if they are only abstract moral categories. But real life is rarely that clean. Behind every argument is a person, a context, a fear, a relationship, and a set of consequences that cannot be fully understood through slogans alone.

Carol Gilligan’s Ethics of Care offers a different way to think about disagreement. Instead of beginning only with rules, it asks us to begin with the person in the situation. That does not mean abandoning conviction. It means asking whether our convictions are still capable of seeing the human being in front of us.

This matters far beyond abortion. It applies to politics, family arguments, online debates, religious disagreements, and every space where we reduce people to positions before we try to understand what shaped them.

Stephen Batchelor uses a phrase I find very useful: leaving an “inch of light” between identity and opinion. That space does not make us weak. It gives curiosity somewhere to survive.

Moral seriousness is not the same as moral certainty. We can hold strong values and still refuse to dehumanize the person who does not share them.

This is part of my Fix Your Focus series on media literacy, disagreement, and how we can think more carefully in a polarized world.

I’d still vote for him even if..." 🚩 🚩 🚩
We’ve all heard it. That level of loyalty that defies logic, scandal, and even self-interest.

But here’s the truth: It’s not always about a lack of information. Sometimes, it’s about the fear of losing Belonging.
We are trading our ability to be critical for the comfort of being "in." Whether it's Modi Bhakts or the MAGA movement, the brain is doing the same thing: filtering out the truth to protect the pride of the tribe.

The question is: How do we break the Spiral of Silence?

Why does being wrong feel so uncomfortable?
This reel looks at Cognitive Dissonance, Motivated Reasoning, and why online arguments so quickly become personal.
We often imagine ourselves as rational people looking for truth. But when our worldview is challenged, the mind often moves into self-preservation. It starts defending the version of ourselves that our beliefs help protect.
That is why admitting “I was wrong” feels so difficult online.
But in a media environment full of fake news, outrage, and constant certainty, that sentence may be one of the strongest acts of media literacy.

This is the final part of my ensh*ttification series. In this reel, I move from doomscrolling and brain rot toward the bigger question: how do we actually build an exit from platforms that are designed to keep us locked in?

Welcome to the Rigged Casino of E-Commerce.
Ever wonder why searching for the "best laptop" on Amazon feels like scrolling through an endless list of ads? That’s not a glitch—it’s Algorithmic Attention Rent.
Platforms like Amazon have evolved from being "helpful assistants" into "rent-extracting toll booths". Here is the breakdown:
- The Payola Scheme: Search results are no longer ranked by quality or value; they are ranked by who paid the most in advertising fees to be there.
- The 45% Squeeze: Many sellers now hand over nearly 45% of their sale price to Amazon in fees alone.
- The Invisible "Amazon Tax": Because of most-favored-nation (MFN) clauses, Amazon prevents sellers from offering lower prices on their own sites. This means when Amazon raises its fees, prices go up for everyone on the internet, even if you shop locally.

Ever tried to delete an app only to realize your entire social life is buried inside it? That’s not a lack of discipline—it’s the Collective Action Trap.
It doesn’t mean you lack discipline.
And it doesn’t mean you’re addicted.
It means you’re inside a system that’s designed to keep you there.
Because you are "locked in," the platform has a strategic pricing advantage. They can flood your feed with ads and lower quality because they know you have nowhere else to go.
You aren't a customer. You’re a captive.
Fix Your Focus. It’s time to stop blaming yourself and start understanding the system.
*ttification

Why your favorite apps are turning to... 💩
Ever feel like your favorite app is holding you hostage? 📱⛓️ That’s not a glitch—it’s Ensh*ttification.
Coined by technologist Cory Doctorow, this term explains the predictable 3-stage pattern of platform decay:
Stage 1: The Honeymoon (User-First) – Platforms use venture capital to give you a great, subsidized, friction-free experience just to build a habit and lock you in.
Stage 2: The Hostage (Business-First) – Once users are locked in, the platform pivots to selling your attention to the highest bidder (advertisers and sellers).
Stage 3: The Shakedown (Platform-First) – Now that everyone is dependent, the platform squeezes both sides to extract maximum value for its shareholders.
It didn't accidentally get worse—it was always the plan. It’s time to Fix Your Focus and see the digital game for what it really is.
Which app has you in the "Hostage Phase" right now? Let me know in the comments. 👇
*ttification