Dear Chase,
You forgot to wish me a happy anniversary.
A couple days ago, I celebrated 3 full years on TikTok.
I posted my first video on March 26th, 2022 in my studio apartment in Canada.
Since then, I've amassed 500k followers, gotten almost 10M likes, and generated close to 80M views.
Crazy.
But I've also been on Twitter since 2021.
And I've been on YouTube and Instagram since 2023.
Now, in 2025, I'm noticing something interesting happening.
There are a lot of different growth hacks for personal brands.
There are certain things you can post that guarantee 100k views, or ways to get a bunch of followers really quickly.
There are ways to build trust with an audience, make yourself more likable, and really make an impact in the lives of your followers.
But there's one thing that you cannot buy, or speedrun.
The Nostalgia Factor.
Since I've been making content for so many years, I have the nostalgia factor. You have it too, Chase.
We've both been posting valuable stuff online, and going viral for it, for years now.
We have people who have been following us for 4+ years who are still consuming content, and sometimes, they see us as a form of celebrity.
We've been present in their lives for a long time.
That type of longevity adds depth to our audience that newly viral accounts lack.
Recently, I've been listening to this song called "MUTT" by Leon Thomas.
He's a new artist, he dropped this song a month or two ago, and it's one of my favorites out right now.
Total vibe of a track. Super wavy. He's super hot right now and will probably go on to have a great career.
But, I remember when I used to listen to this artist named Travis Garland.
I was listening to Travis Garland when I was 15 years old. I learned one of his songs on guitar to play for my crush because I thought it would make her like me. I played this song to her on lunch break when I was in high school. It honestly kinda worked.
Travis Garland is nowhere near as famous as Leon Thomas right now.
But if I had the choice of seeing one of them in concert, I'd probably pick Travis Garland.
He was the soundtrack to my dysfunctional high school love life. He's someone I've listened to for a full decade.
He has the nostalgia factor that Leon Thomas doesn't have.
That nostalgia factor trumps the new shiny object.
That's something you cannot buy.
Same thing for us.
I remember seeing your tweets in 2020 when I was first getting into copywriting.
I'm sure there are people who saw my TikToks or my tweets back years ago when they were starting their own businesses.
So here's the thing:
If you're trying to speedrun getting that nostalgia factor, you can't.
It only comes with time in the game.
It's something you have to patiently craft over years, not weeks or months.
But it is BY FAR the most powerful tool that we have.
I have leads coming through the door now who have been following since 2023. For a full two years, they consumed my content, and finally pulled the trigger.
I have people who think I'm more famous than I really am because of how much time I've spent making content.
That builds trust. It builds respect. It builds a real, deep connection with the audience that you can't do with one viral video.
The only solution is this:
If you want to have the nostalgia factor, you absolutely can.
As long as you start now, and never stop.
Make sense?
Yours truly,
Alex.
Sent from my iPhone 11 Pro, the phone I made my first viral TikTok on | 
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