Sensible Woo is the mind. Sasquatch Media Grounds is the muscle.
Hey Reader,
Welcome to billionaire theater… the plot twist nobody saw coming.
Netflix was circling Warner Bros. Then their CEO makes a little White House visit and suddenly… they’re out. Enter the Ellison family, hot and heavy, ready to scoop up one of the largest content libraries on the planet. If you felt a chill run down your spine, congratulations… your pattern recognition still works.
Let’s refresh the stakes.
The Ellisons already control Paramount. Add Warner Bros. and you’re looking at a breathtaking concentration of broadcast power. Not just entertainment… journalism. And when political fingerprints start showing up on media consolidation, that’s not a culture war meme. That’s a First Amendment conversation.
A lot of folks decided Netflix was the villain in this story. I disagree.
Warner Bros. was drowning in debt. It needed a buyer. Netflix, rich as hell though they are, is still a tech-forward distribution company that understands the future is hybrid and evolving. The “Netflix will kill movie theaters” narrative? 🙄 Cute. Movie theaters were wobbling long before Covid. The industry has been shifting since every major current player began streaming services between 2005 - 2007. I remember because I was at Disney when it happened. ABC even won a technical Emmy for that early streaming push. This disruption is not new. It has been simmering for nearly two decades.
The fear campaign worked, though. “Death of cinema.” “Antitrust apocalypse.” Meanwhile, Paramount acquiring Warner Bros. creates even more consolidation risk… and let’s not pretend the Warner acquisition isn’t sitting comfortably inside Project 2025 talking points.
So what does billionaire consolidation have to do with you and your little podcast corner of the internet?
Everything.
When media power concentrates at the top, two things happen: prices go up and trust goes down. People start canceling subscriptions. They start boycotting. They start feeling like the content they loved is being manipulated, sanitized, or weaponized. Or they simply lose access to what used to be freely available because licensing wars lock it behind new paywalls.
Audiences do not disappear when that happens... they migrate.
They look for voices that feel human, independent, unbought, and unscripted. They vote with their dollars and vote with their clicks. They vote with their attention.
And when the giants start fighting over libraries and leverage, there is a vacuum created downstream. Attention has to land somewhere.
Here’s your indie lesson: Public perception is a weapon. Fear is a tool. Consolidation at the top always creates disruption below. And disruption is oxygen for independents.
Right now, attention is already drifting away from bloated, big-budget sameness and toward independent creators, podcasts, YouTube channels, and vlogs. Niche communities that feel like real people talking about real things. The early bloggers who started before 2010, and subsequently built multi-million dollar businesses, did not win because they were louder than cable TV and newspapers. They won because legacy systems were wobbling and audiences were looking for somewhere new to belong.
But here’s the part no one wants to say out loud… that attention does not automatically transfer to you.
There is nothing for audiences to grab onto if you are not publishing. No catalog. No backlog. No body of work. You do not inherit opportunity just because the billionaires are acting like toddlers in a boardroom.
Your indie voice is premium currency right now. What you (yes, you!) have is scarce, valuable, and time-sensitive. But currency only circulates if you mint it.
The Creator Economy Dojo exists for this moment. We just ran a killer workshop on 30-second ad spots because monetization is not optional anymore. If your show cannot cover its own overhead, you are bleeding energy into a void. The ad workshop will circle back… but the discipline of building infrastructure is happening now, month by month, brick by brick.
The billionaires are consolidating, audiences are migrating, and that vacuum creates opportunity.
Do the work. Get paid. Grow your shit... this year.
Gossip From the Creator Trenches...
🧠 Can You Tell What’s Real Anymore?
AI literacy is no longer optional. Deepfakes are getting disturbingly good, especially in political spaces, and most people still assume “I’d know if it were fake.” No, you wouldn’t. This breakdown shows just how sophisticated the manipulation has become… and why your ability to spot it is about to matter a whole lot more as we head toward midterms.
🔗 See how convincing it's getting
🪡 The Resistance Is Handmade
QuiltCon might seem worlds away from podcasting, but stay with me. Creative expression has always been a form of resistance. Quilts carried stories long before RSS feeds existed. Instead of doom-scrolling and calling it “staying informed,” what if you batched your next season? Publishing your work is active. It builds your business, stabilizes your nervous system, and contributes something meaningful to the cultural landscape. That’s far more powerful than passive outrage.
🔗 Get inspired
📱 When Everyone Has the Tool…
Samsung’s newest AI photo editing features are impressive. The 2010 version of me would have wept with joy over that level of control without Photoshop. But scale changes the conversation. When powerful editing tools sit in millions of pockets, the risk isn’t the tech… it’s human judgment. Visual evidence used to anchor truth. Now it’s becoming easier to warp it without anyone noticing.
🔗 Decide for yourself
🤖 You, Me, & ChatGPT 2.0 Is Live
Version 2.0 is officially out — and this one is different.
This isn’t a beginner tutorial and it’s not a prompt parade. It’s a real conversation about AI infrastructure: platform differences, vendor lock-in, portability, capital pressure, and what creators actually need to understand right now.
I’ll be honest... this one was hard to make. Not because I don’t use AI every day (I do), but because I’m not an AI training business. I run a media production company. The AI conversation matters to me because it impacts speed, leverage, and sustainability. It does not matter as spectacle.
If you want to see how I’m thinking about ChatGPT, Claude, and the bigger ecosystem shift, this video training is for you!
And going forward, deeper implementation support around AI will live inside Sasquatch Media Grounds, specifically in the Creator Economy Dojo. That’s where we apply these tools to real workflows. The speed at which AI is growing and changing is too fast to give you YouTube trainings... come get them live instead!
If you just want the tools, the Bot Library is updated. ⤵️
 |
$13.00
Buy My Bots: Get the whole library
Build your AI dream team.
This is your all-access pass to Mary’s custom GPT bot library... complete with the bots she... Read more
|
🔥 The Yes Friend Lab Is Live
If you’ve ever left a networking event thinking, “I could’ve said that better…” — this is for you.
On March 28, Megan and I are hosting The Yes Friend Lab, a 3-hour live workshop where we practice the actual skills that make rooms work:
- How to clearly tell people what you do
- How to ask for what you need
- How to offer what you can give
- And yes… the art of small talk
This is not a lecture. It’s reps. Breakout rooms. Real-time coaching. Real feedback.
It’s pay-what-you-can (minimum $97, suggested $197) because we know it’s a crunchy season... and better networking helps all of us win.
If you’re serious about getting paid through relationships, this is where you sharpen the blade.
Stop overthinking the room. Start practicing.
 |
$97.00
The Yes Friend Lab: March 2026
A 3-Hour Live Networking & Conversation Skills Workshop | Live on Zoom
Saturday, March 28th
10am - 1pm PT (1pm - 4pm ET)... Read more
|
🛠️ Mercury Retrograde Is Not a Crisis
If you’ve seen the dramatic headlines about this being the “worst Mercury retrograde of the year,” take a breath… and maybe join me in a gentle eye roll.
This week is not chaos. It’s calibration.
With Mercury fully retrograde in Pisces and a Virgo eclipse on March 3, the universe is not trying to ruin your launches. It’s asking you to tighten your systems, clarify your messaging, and fix the small inefficiencies that will matter later when expansion returns.
The businesses that win in March will not be the loudest… they’ll be the most organized.
I dropped a short excerpt on YouTube so you can feel the shift for yourself. Tap to hear this week's excerpt ⤵️
Want the whole thing?
$7 a month gets you the full breakdown, CEO-level context, and the practical guardrails that keep your brand steady while everything else glitches.
Reach got us through the last decade. Reputation will decide the next one.

Let's Hang Out
I have exciting news! I'm officially booked to speak on stage at Podcast Movement Evolutions @ SXSW. I'll be speaking on March 15th at Skybox on 6th. Priority is given to badge holders for SXSW but you can request admission through Podcast Movement for access. I'll have an interest form soon, so I can coordinate an IRL meetup for those of you headed to the ATX.
|
|

Participate + Join In
Got some tea time stories? Well, if you're economically independent and you're also an entrepreneur... you've definitely got a few. I want to hear from you! I'm casting for season 3 of The School of Moxie Podcast and I have a couple more guest spots open. This season features you talking about your business through your favorite "comfort show". Share your wisdom and get visible!
|