Kenneth Kennilo Smith recently raised an important issue during an interview that deserves a much deeper conversation. He questioned why it sometimes appears that people are more willing to financially support controversy, bullying, social-media drama, and individuals who make their names tearing other people down than they are willing to support someone who is genuinely trying to build something positive. Smith spoke about promoting his books and asking people to support his work through donations and purchases. From his perspective, he wasn’t asking people to finance foolishness or contribute to something destructive. He was trying to promote something he created, establish himself as an independent author, and use his talent to create a better economic future for himself. As a Black creator attempting to build something of his own, he found it frustrating to see how difficult gaining that support could sometimes be.
What makes Smith’s argument worth discussing is what we see every day on social media. People can spend hours watching arguments, personal attacks, public feuds, bullying, gossip, and creators humiliating one another. Some audiences don’t simply watch this content; they financially support it through memberships, subscriptions, livestream gifts, donations, paid content, and merchandise. Meanwhile, an independent author, artist, entrepreneur, filmmaker, musician, or small-business owner can ask those same audiences to purchase a book or support a legitimate project and struggle to receive anywhere near the same enthusiasm. Of course, not everyone who watches controversial content approves of bullying, and entertainment has always included conflict. Still, there is a legitimate conversation to be had about what happens when controversy becomes more financially rewarding than creativity, education, entrepreneurship, and community development.
Social Media Has Learned How to Make Negativity Profitable
Part of the problem is that today’s social-media economy runs heavily on attention. Content that makes people angry, shocked, frightened, or emotionally invested can generate enormous engagement because people comment, argue, share the content, create response videos, and repeatedly return to see what happens next. Research on social-media behavior has shown that emotionally charged and morally outraged content can spread rapidly through online networks. This doesn’t mean positive content cannot become successful, but it helps explain why creators sometimes discover that conflict attracts attention faster than thoughtful or constructive work. When audiences repeatedly reward controversy with views and money, platforms and creators have an economic incentive to continue producing more of it.
That creates a cycle that we should seriously think about. Audiences complain that social media has become toxic, yet some of the most toxic content continues receiving tremendous engagement. People say they are tired of bullying and negativity, but they may still watch every episode of an online feud, follow every person involved, share every new argument, and sometimes financially support the personalities creating the conflict. At the same time, someone trying to sell a book, establish a small company, produce educational content, or build an independent media platform may be told that people don’t have the money to support them. The contradiction is difficult to ignore. If we want better content and stronger communities, we also have to think about what our attention and money are encouraging people to produce.
The Black Community and the Difficult Conversation About Support
Smith’s comments also raise a sensitive but necessary discussion about support within the Black community. It would be inaccurate and unfair to say that Black people simply don’t support one another. Black consumers support countless Black-owned restaurants, salons, churches, clothing companies, authors, entertainers, nonprofits, community organizations, and entrepreneurs every day. There have also been successful movements specifically encouraging consumers to buy from Black-owned businesses. However, acknowledging those successes doesn’t mean we should ignore the frustrations expressed by some Black entrepreneurs and independent creators who feel that gaining consistent support from their own communities can be extremely difficult.
There are also larger economic conditions that make community support especially meaningful for minority entrepreneurs. Federal Reserve Small Business Credit Survey research has documented differences in financing experiences among businesses owned by people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Reports on firms owned by people of color have found that Black-owned businesses can experience significant challenges obtaining the financing they seek. This matters because an entrepreneur who cannot easily access traditional financing may depend more heavily on customers, personal networks, community referrals, crowdfunding, and word-of-mouth promotion. When somebody purchases a book from an independent author or buys something from a small minority-owned business, that transaction might appear insignificant individually, but thousands of those transactions can provide the revenue necessary for a creator or entrepreneur to continue operating.
This is where Smith’s frustration becomes understandable. Imagine watching thousands of dollars flow toward online personalities because they are fighting with someone while you’re trying to sell something you actually created. Imagine spending months or years writing a book, developing an idea, learning a skill, or building a company, only to discover that controversy receives immediate attention while productive work struggles to be noticed. That doesn’t mean anyone is automatically entitled to another person’s money simply because they created something. People should absolutely expect quality before spending their money. However, it does raise a legitimate question about whether our culture sometimes celebrates destruction more enthusiastically than construction.
What We Can Learn From Strong Community Business Networks
There are lessons to be learned from immigrant and ethnic communities that have successfully used community relationships and business networks to help entrepreneurs establish themselves. Research into entrepreneurship and ethnic networks has examined how social connections can help business owners gain knowledge, employees, suppliers, customers, financing information, and other resources. These networks can become especially important when entrepreneurs are entering industries where previous members of their community have already developed experience. Instead of every entrepreneur starting completely from scratch, information and connections can move through families, neighborhoods, professional relationships, and community organizations.
This should not be turned into the stereotype that every Asian, Jewish, Hispanic, immigrant, or other community automatically supports every business owned by someone who shares their background. No racial or ethnic group operates as one unified economic organization, and every community has disagreements, competition, and businesses that fail. The useful lesson is much broader: networks matter. When successful people share knowledge, recommend businesses, mentor younger entrepreneurs, connect customers with trustworthy companies, and circulate money through legitimate businesses, they can create opportunities that extend beyond one individual. Communities become economically stronger when people are not forced to reinvent the wheel every time someone tries to start something.
That is an area where Black creators and entrepreneurs can continue building stronger networks as well. Supporting someone doesn’t necessarily mean giving them money without receiving anything in return. Support can mean purchasing a good book instead of simply liking the author’s promotional post. It can mean recommending a trustworthy Black-owned company to someone looking for that service. It can mean inviting an entrepreneur onto a podcast, sharing a creator’s work, offering mentorship, explaining how to obtain financing, introducing someone to a business contact, or simply telling other people about a product you genuinely enjoyed. Those actions create an ecosystem where one person’s success can help another person find an opportunity.
Supporting Black Creators Should Never Mean Supporting Bad Products
There also needs to be balance in this conversation. Supporting Black businesses and minority creators shouldn’t mean blindly spending money simply because someone belongs to a particular racial group. Customers deserve quality products and services regardless of who owns the company. Authors should work to produce books worth reading, businesses should treat customers properly, and creators should continue improving their work. Genuine economic empowerment isn’t built by protecting people from criticism or pretending every business deserves support. It is built when talented people receive a fair opportunity to compete, grow, improve, and reach customers.
At the same time, there is a difference between constructive criticism and actively enjoying someone’s failure. Communities cannot talk seriously about economic empowerment while simultaneously becoming more excited when someone falls apart than when someone succeeds. When an entrepreneur fails, the conversation shouldn’t always become an opportunity for celebration or ridicule. Sometimes the better question is what can be learned from that failure so the next entrepreneur doesn’t make the same mistake. Successful business communities are not created because nobody ever fails; they are created because information, experience, relationships, and opportunities continue circulating even after failures happen.
Supporting Entrepreneurship Can Help Create Economic Opportunity
Smith’s comments become even more important when we consider the relationship between business ownership and economic opportunity. Someone writing books, producing original content, establishing a company, developing intellectual property, or creating an independent media organization is attempting to build something that could potentially generate income beyond a traditional paycheck. There is never a guarantee that entrepreneurship will eliminate poverty, and starting a business carries significant financial risks. Nevertheless, successful businesses can generate income, create jobs, develop assets, and provide opportunities for future generations. Federal Reserve research has repeatedly examined the importance of small businesses while also documenting financing challenges experienced by minority-owned firms.
That is why supporting legitimate entrepreneurship should be about more than slogans. If communities genuinely want more economic independence, there has to be greater interest in ownership, financial education, business development, intellectual property, entrepreneurship, technology, publishing, media, real estate, skilled trades, and professional advancement. Entertainment will always have a place in society, but entertainment alone cannot build economic stability. Watching another online argument might provide thirty minutes of excitement, but helping a promising entrepreneur find customers can potentially contribute to a business that operates for decades.
We Have to Decide What We Want to Make Famous
Perhaps the biggest lesson from Kenneth Kennilo Smith’s comments is that audiences have more power than they sometimes realize. Social-media platforms respond to engagement, creators respond to what attracts attention, and businesses respond to where consumers spend their money. If audiences continuously reward humiliation, fighting, bullying, and personal destruction, there will always be creators willing to produce more of it. However, if audiences become equally excited about discovering talented authors, entrepreneurs, independent journalists, artists, inventors, educators, and small-business owners, those creators gain a better opportunity to grow as well.
Imagine what could happen if people discussed an independent author’s new book with the same enthusiasm they bring to a celebrity argument. Imagine if a young entrepreneur’s successful business launch received as many shares as someone’s embarrassing viral moment. Imagine communities following a person’s journey out of poverty through education, creativity, ownership, and entrepreneurship with the same emotional investment that audiences currently give to online feuds. Social media doesn’t have to be used only for entertainment and controversy. The same technology that can make an argument go viral can also introduce an unknown writer, business owner, artist, or inventor to millions of potential supporters.
This is ultimately why Smith’s experience represents something larger than whether people donated to one author’s books. It forces us to think about what we value and what we financially reward. There will always be entertainment, disagreements, gossip, and controversy because those things are part of human society. But there also needs to be room for people who are trying to build without destroying someone else in the process. Supporting productive people doesn’t require blindly giving away money. It means recognizing quality, sharing opportunities, purchasing worthwhile products, recommending talented creators, mentoring people when possible, and becoming just as interested in watching people succeed as we have become in watching people fight.
The Black community has produced extraordinary entrepreneurs, authors, artists, inventors, educators, executives, and business leaders throughout American history. The goal should not be to pretend that Black people never support one another or to compare communities in ways that create more division. The better goal is to strengthen the networks that already exist and become more intentional about creating new ones. When someone develops something worthwhile, we should be willing to recognize it. When someone is sincerely trying to improve their economic situation through legitimate work, we should at least consider whether their work deserves our attention. We cannot demand more positive examples while giving nearly all of our attention to negative ones.
Kenneth Kennilo Smith’s message therefore leaves us with a powerful question: Are we willing to become as excited about watching people build something as we have become about watching people tear each other down? If the answer becomes yes, then supporting independent creators can become more than a social-media slogan. It can become part of a larger culture of ownership, cooperation, economic development, creativity, and opportunity.
