Tim Tebow's Math Checks Out: 34 Respects Are Greater Than 110 Likes
By Kyle Koster
Tim Tebow is a hell of a guy whom I like and respect very much. Just an all-timer with a great attitude who is living life to its fullest. If there were a sports blog Hall of Fame, he'd be in the Content wing. The man who has never met a challenge he hasn't embraced is embracing a few new ones: blogging and some of that classic dorm-room philosophizing that tends to leave one a bit cotton-mouthed and hungry.
Today, so many people live to be liked on social media.
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) October 16, 2020
We’re afraid of criticism because its about being “liked”. If it’s not “likes”, it’s “followers”, and if it’s not “followers” it’s “shares...” in this recent blog, I talk about likes vs. respect: https://t.co/8aoD7j0QSw
Would you rather be respected or liked?
— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) October 16, 2020
Imagine if we didn’t have “Like” buttons, but instead, we had “Respect” buttons. Would you rather have 110 Likes or 34 Respects?
In his post, Tebow concludes that it is more important to be respected than liked.
"To earn a “Like” or “Heart” all you need to do is give people something they can identify with, something that will spark a memory, cause a laugh, or tug at a heartstring. Earning respect is much harder. You need to work for it. You need to portray integrity, skill, talent, expertise, craftsmanship, athleticism, hustle, grind, tenacity, or grit. Respect is so much deeper than a like, than saying the right thing that people want to hear. Yes, you may get criticized. For me, I then remember that I at least tried to stand for something in my life. It might not have been something that's always been popular or even everyone believed in, but at least I tried to stand with it, with a firm conviction and belief that I was trying to do the right thing for God and for people. And hopefully my actions would be able to back that up."
And he has a good point. Likes are far more skin-deep than respect, which is a bottomless reservoir. The thought-provoking missive provoked some additional thought in my brain as well. What if there were markets for abstract ideas? Like, if we can put a price on corn and oil and steel, why not love and hope and empathy? If we can now down to the thousandth of a cent the conversion rate between the American dollar and a Norwegian krone?
Who's thinking deeply now?
What if we could simply check the ticker and see that one Respect currently equals 3.78 Likes? Meaning that 34 Respects (128.52) are far more valuable than 110 Likes. This would be an obviously admission that both these entities are elastic and constantly changing. For instance, respect has been exponentially more valuable than likes for most of human history. The inception of social media helped closed the gap. Who knows what the future holds?