If it’s from TV, podcasts, and social media, it’s time to reevaluate

The other day, I happened across a financial radio show while driving home from work. The caller was a young, intelligent woman who was trying to get out from under a crushing amount of debt that she and her husband had accumulated.

The host asked if she’d completely lost her mind, then berated her for getting into such a situation and told her she deserved to be scared.

This really upset me. Professional financial advisors would never respond this way. But hosts like this can get away with it because the people they’re advising won’t show up in their office next week. They don’t have the day-to-day responsibility for their financial success. There’s no accountability. It’s strictly entertainment, and it’s okay if someone gets shamed and yelled at.

The king of yelling is on CNBC. Jim Cramer’s rants are epic, and his show Mad Money features more shouting than a Liverpool-Manchester United soccer match. Every time I tune in, I’m half expecting him to drop dead of a heart attack. (By the way, I never ring a bell when I make a stock purchase or shout, “Booyah!”)

In an interview with Jon Stewart in 2009, Cramer said this: “I’m not Eric Sevareid. I’m not Edward R. Murrow. I’m a guy trying to do an entertainment show about business for people to watch.”

I’d like to believe that people watch him primarily for entertainment, not financial advice, but I’m not so sure about that. These are just two examples. I could go on and on.

No matter who it is, there’s always some degree of yelling and an undercurrent of accusations such as “You’re dumb” or “You don’t know what you’re doing.” If you watch or listen long enough, you start to believe that, and it gradually beats you down.

Even worse, since there’s no filter or fact-checking on social media, some influencers are supplying financial information or advice that’s misleading or just plain wrong. In 2022, Kim Kardashian agreed to pay $1.26 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle a charge of unlawfully promoting EthereumMax, a crypto asset security, on her Instagram account. Her original post had included a link to a website that provided instructions for buying the tokens.

Kardashian did not disclose she was being paid for the promotion.

The number of fans who took Kardashian’s advice and lost money in the volatile crypto market is unknown. But given how many women are getting Botox and butt lifts, I’m guessing it was quite a few.

MoneySuperMarket.com analyzed 350 videos from so-called “finfluencers” (financial influencers) on social media and found that 74 percent contained “poor, misleading, high risk, or potentially harmful” advice.

The difference between these finfluencers and a Certified Financial Planner® professional like me is that finfluencers are salespeople. Whether they’re pushing a specific financial product or their personal brand, your connection with them is purely transactional. You’re a follower, a listener, and maybe even a buyer of whatever it is they’re promoting.

But even though it may feel like you have a relationship with them, you don’t. They don’t know you, and they don’t care about you. So, how can their advice ever apply to you? It’s like a doctor giving you a diagnosis without knowing your medical history and vitals.

There is no stigma or shame if you’re fifty-five and your 401(k) is underfunded or if you don’t even know what a 401(k) is. Don’t stand for being labeled as an “unsuccessful” investor by the financial “experts.” And never forget that their primary goal is to entertain and enrich themselves.

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