Have you noticed that everything online feels like it’s dialed up to eleven lately?
The calm, reasonable takes barely get a ripple. But the second someone screams that the world is ending or that we’re all about to be trillionaires – boom, millions of views. It’s not an accident. It’s the game now.
I recently sat through a conversation with Nuseir Yassin – the guy behind Nas Daily – at a crypto creator event in Lisbon, and he cut straight through the noise with a truth that’s uncomfortable but impossible to ignore: social media rewards extremes, and creators are just giving the algorithm what it’s hungry for.
The Algorithm Doesn’t Care About Nuance
Let’s be honest – nobody is doom-scrolling at 2 a.m. looking for a measured, 12-minute video titled “The Economy Is… Complicated.”
We say we want depth, but our thumbs betray us every single time.
“People don’t want to hear about someone with a 9-to-5 job. They want the guy who never works – or the one who works 100 hours a week and still finds time to mine Bitcoin with a nuclear reactor in his basement.”
– Nuseir Yassin, paraphrased from the Lisbon interview
He’s not wrong. The tallest man in the world, the shortest woman, the teenager who turned $300 into $30 million on a memecoin, the trader who lost everything shorting Bitcoin at 90k – those are the stories that stop the scroll.
Average height? Average portfolio? Average life? Invisible.
Why Extremes Win the Attention War
It’s basic human wiring meeting ruthless algorithmic incentives.
- Extreme content triggers stronger emotional responses
- Strong emotions = longer watch time = more ad revenue
- More revenue = platform pushes that content harder
- Creators see the numbers and lean in harder
- Cycle accelerates
In my experience covering this space for years, I’ve watched perfectly reasonable creators slowly crank the volume. One day they’re doing calm market analysis. Six months later they’re shirtless, screaming about the coming financial collapse while zooming in on candlestick charts with a green laser pointer. And their channel triples in size.
The quiet ones? Most of them are gone now.
When Facts Meet Flash: Where Most Creators Draw the Line (Or Don’t)
Yassin actually pushes back on the “say anything for views” crowd. His rule is simple: the extreme claim has to be verifiably true.
You can make the flashiest video in the world about the tallest building, the richest teenager, the most profitable trading bot – but the underlying fact better check out. That’s the part that still takes real work.
Unfortunately, a lot of creators discovered that fact-checking is optional when the algorithm pays the same either way.
Crypto: The Perfect Playground for Extremes
If you want to see this dynamic on steroids, look no further than crypto Twitter in 2025.
We went from “have fun staying poor” to full-blown apocalyptic religious warfare in under five years. One side is building generational wealth before age 25. The other side is apparently ushering in the mark of the beast. There is no middle ground anymore.
And the coins that win? The ones with the most unhinged, memeable narratives.
A dog coin can hit a $40 billion market cap literally because people think it’s funny. A privacy coin can 10x because a few respected thinkers quietly suggest the world might be heading toward wealth confiscation.
Both are extreme stories. Both move markets now.
The Israel-Palestine Discourse: A Case Study in Lost Nuance
Perhaps the most painful example Yassin gave was how social media handles the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The algorithm wants a clean hero and a clean villain. It wants extreme suffering on one side and extreme power on the other. Reality, of course, is infinitely messier.
“The framing is always one side extremely weak, the other extremely strong. Someone in extreme pain, someone extremely powerful. That’s what gets attention. But that framing isn’t accurate.”
He grew up Arab in Israel, speaks fluent Hebrew, carries an Israeli passport, and still calls himself Palestinian. If anyone has the standing to speak on nuance, it’s him. And even he admits the online discourse has become cartoonish.
Seventy years of flawed global perception didn’t start with TikTok – but short-form video certainly poured rocket fuel on it.
The Global Rise of Extremism Isn’t Just Israeli or American
Look around. Hungary, Germany, parts of Asia, Latin America – far-right sentiment is surging everywhere at once. This isn’t coincidence.
Social media didn’t create tribalism, but it globalized it and monetized it. The angriest voices travel farthest and fastest.
And creators – whether they’re political commentators or crypto influencers – are just rational actors in a broken incentive system.
The ZCash Moment That Caught Everyone Off Guard
Then the conversation took a turn I didn’t expect.
Talking about recent political shifts in New York, Yassin dropped a quiet bombshell: rising anti-billionaire sentiment might be the best thing that ever happened to privacy coins.
When wealth itself becomes politically radioactive, the wealthy start looking for ways to disappear financially. And on the blockchain, there’s really only one proven way to do that.
This wasn’t a pump. It wasn’t coordinated. A few respected thinkers started connecting the same dots publicly, and the market listened.
In a world that increasingly wants to tax, seize, or shame large fortunes, optional privacy suddenly looks a lot less optional.
Can We Fix Social Media Without Fixing Humans First?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth Yassin left us with:
“Social media is a reflection of humanity, and humans aren’t perfect either. If you want to fix social media, you’d have to fix humans first.”
Heavy, right?
Moderation comes and goes. Platforms swing between heavy-handed censorship and total free speech chaos. But as long as human attention is wired the way it is, the extremes will have the advantage.
The only real defense any of us have is self-awareness. Recognize when you’re being yanked around by outrage bait. Ask yourself if the take you just retweeted is extreme because it’s true – or just because it’s engineered to spread.
Because until we change the demand, the supply will keep getting louder.
And louder.
And louder still.
The age of nuance isn’t dead yet. But it’s definitely on life support – and the machines keeping it alive are running on pure, weaponized attention.
Choose what you amplify carefully.
