Social Inequality or Unequally Social

We are who we spend time with.

The Pyramid of Luxuries

The Bespoke - $4,000 Vacation + $1,000 VISA eGift Card

The Ultra High End - $200 Candlelight Voucher

The Superpremium - Garden of the Gods

The Premium Core - AMC Theatres

The Accessible Core - Social Inequality or Unequally Social

The Affordable Luxury - Ducky Tran Podcast or Live Stream?

The Everyday Luxury - Gift of Ducky Tran Premium Membership

The Bespoke

This was our largest number of submissions yet! It definitely made it much more fun to judge and I hope everyone submits for this month’s too!

The winner for March’s Bespoke Contest has been selected.

And the winner…

is…

HONG from Arlington, Texas!

Congratulations! You have won the March Bespoke Contest! This is her submission for “a picture that represents the city you live in”:

Congratulations to HONG! Get ready to see more grass, trees and water!

IMPORTANT UPDATE ON PHOTO CONTESTS! Some members have been uploading images from online, which is fine; however, it is a “Photo Contest” so I will be changing how the prompt is written to be specific. Members need to submit a photo, even if you didn’t take it, rather than just any image. Of course, unless it is a photo of an image, which then has to be obvious it is a photo. If you send in a GIF, Logo, or Trademark, and it isn’t obviously a photograph, it will not qualify. This will apply to the Bespoke and Ultra High End Photo Contests from this issue forward. In summary:

• Needs to be a photo.

• Can be a photo of an image, just needs to be obvious it is a photo.

• No GIF, logo, trademark, brand marker, or clipart image.

• If it is questionable to you, it is questionable to me.

Don’t be sad, more chances are available because from the results of the last prize poll, I will continue to give out the vacation package as the Bespoke Prize for April.

Click on the banner to enter The Bespoke Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $4,000 Vacation Voucher + $1,000 in VISA eGift Cards [ARV $5,012]

• Odds: For every 660 Ducky Tran premium member by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) vacation bundle Prize

• Contest Period: April 3, 2024 at 10 AM CST to April 30, 2024 at 10 PM CST

See Issue 1 for more content about The Bespoke Prize.

The Ultra High End

Previous Contest Winner

The winner for Issue 19 is CONG from Dallas, Texas! Congratulations on winning the Food Vacuum Sealer! Here is his submission for “a picture of something that is timeless”:

Indeed timeless; however, I did read recently that a few people actually “beat Tetris”. Hopefully, this doesn’t diminish how this game kept me awake through Calculus. (Playing it on a TI-83 calculator)

This Week’s Contest

The winners of the past Candlelight events opted to take the cash prize so that leaves me with a $200 voucher! But this time, you can select any Candlelight experience, from Tribute to Taylor Swift, Adele, Pink Floyd, Imagine Dragons, Whitney Houston and much more.

Click on the banner to enter The Ultra High End Photo Contest. Click here for the Official Contest Rules.

• Prize: $200 Candlelight Voucher [ARV $200]

• Odds: For every 130 Ducky Tran premium members by the time of judging, I will give out one (1) $200 voucher

• Contest Period: April 3, 2024 at 10 AM CST to April 9, 2024 at 10 PM CST

Check out Issue 10 for more information about Candlelight events.

The Superpremium

This week’s Superpremium topic is Garden of the Gods. This is a beautiful park with natural rock formations to climb, trails to trek, and scenery to engulf yourself into nature. The park is located in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

If you love the outdoors or love scenic drives/walks, this is the place for you. Even the drive from Denver to Colorado Springs was scenic. The park itself is made so you can drive through and see all the formations with pit stops that allow you to take pictures like the one below.

You can also venture into the formations and off-beaten trails to be with nature. There are tours and guided nature walks, but I prefer to wander into nature with no direction. If you’re not afraid of heights and want more adventure, there are rock climbing trips that can be booked through their website. Like most natural parks, showing pictures and just telling you that I drove through the formations and walked the trails just doesn’t do it justice. You need to experience nature to grasp its wonders.

My wife and I only spent a few hours there, but like they say “time flies when you’re having fun”. If it wasn’t for the flight we had to catch in Denver, we would probably have spent twice as much time exploring the park.

Regardless of the adventures you take, the Garden of the Gods feel just as majestic. The enormous rock formations and engulfing natural landscapes really present the awe of nature. And even better when sharing these experiences with others!

The Premium Core

This week’s Premium Core topic is an AMC Theatres gift card. Since this week’s focus is social wealth, I wanted to give an option that allows you to invite a few friends and hang out. I’m not an avid movie-goer but I remember the days of going to the movies with friends, having dinner and then just hanging out over at someone’s apartment and talking until the next morning.

These wonderful moments and experiences are what builds lasting relationships and builds our social wealth. But don’t go it on your own, pitch in with a few friends and you can make this a recurring cheap date for a few movie nights.

Deal #1: I am offering a $25 AMC Theatres gift card $10. You can order yours by going to shop.duckytran.com. There will only be 10 available this week. If it is popular, I’ll bring it back so you don’t miss your favorite movie premiere.

The Accessible Core

Social Inequality or Unequally Social

Caution: This topic may be too controversial for some, so if it bothers you, please just stop reading this article and move to the Affordable Luxury. However, if you like this type of content, leave a comment below so I know the articles you like to read.

To make this article easier to follow, I list 3 main points I’m trying to make ahead of time and then try to explain them in depth:

1. In general, people with more money are more effective in their social lives than people with less money.

2. Social inequality inherently exists but the advantages and disadvantages are misinformed or misinterpreted by the mainstream media.

3. It isn’t social inequality but being unequally social that makes a person unhappy.

Social Hierarchy

Based on this study, the richer you are, the less frequent you tend to make social contact. Another way to say it is, the rich have less friends. However, correlating their success, it means their few social interactions are more effective or productive in nature. Many people get upset or see it as unfair that someone may be born into financial wealth and luxury, but I see it quite differently. It isn’t the money that should be envied, but the social network and how they are taught to interact with others.

The rich are often taught that every interaction, social connect and networking is the key to success. Their children tend to be more sociable and learn to nurture the relationships they have. This may seem superficial but when people have purpose and benefits involved, motivation is present. This motivation allows for the few interactions they may have to be more fruitful or effective than the many interactions a less wealthy group of friends may have.

The true issue is that it has nothing to do with social status, at every level, there are people that live this same way. You may see them around you already, they are the friend that never talks business unless you do, they are the friend that everyone can talk to, they are the go-to friend to solve any issues. These types of people are generally very happy as they see value in all their relationships but at the same time tend to excel in everything they do independently.

Misinformed

In this study, it reveals the biased take that mainstream media have when providing information to the public, especially about social inequalities. We all know there are social inequalities that simply are born into such as race, gender and sometimes wealth (money). Not to ramble, but all these factors would correlate the same way as money in the “Social Hierarchy” paragraph, such that, the effectiveness of social interaction between those social inequalities is the determining factor in happiness and not the inequality itself.

This study proves how the mainstream media will generally skew racial and gender inequality into a disadvantaged-based article by using words that indicate disadvantaged social groups. This makes these types of inequality sound more negative, which will produce a more negative response by the public. Wealth inequality has about a 50/50 split, but when racial or gender inequality is mentioned in conjunction with the disadvantaged-based words of wealth inequality, it produces the same negative response.

So unlike wealth inequality, racial and gender inequality has much less neutral-based articles and wording, which shows the tendency for mainstream media to try to produce a specific reaction to their articles about inequalities.

It has been shown these articles are used for political gain and generally under advisement of a party with some agenda. So, it’s never as it seems with the mainstream media, so stay vigilant but more importantly, realize that it’s you that need to be social and not let inherent social inequalities bring you down.

Unhappiness

By taking a look at these two studies (A & B), you can see that when correlating money with happiness, there’s always a deeper issue that plays a role. In study A, it shows that the reality and perception of wealth gap can affect an individual’s happiness. The more they feel there’s a gap in social status, the more unhappy they may be. However, a lot of this feeling comes from the poor relationship between their social groups that puts them in an inferior feeling of well-being.

In study B, again happiness is positively correlated with higher income. But when a poor individual is directly given money in some form of subsidy or government-assistance, their happiness doesn’t rise. This is to show that money isn’t the mover of happiness but many other factors. One of those being social wealth, the people around you make you who you are, and make you feel wanted and loved, hence making you happy.

With these two studies and the previous two paragraphs, it can be shown that social inequality rarely dictates happiness, but rather being unequally social to or as others is what makes certain people unhappy. There are simple fixes, but they are not easy because of the pressures of modern society:

1. Be a motivational, supportive but truthful friend.

2. Be around motivational, supportive but truthful friends.

3. Take and give criticism so you and your friends can improve.

4. Seek benefit from each other, may that be business, emotional, conversational, or motivational.

5. Leave out discussions or thoughts about social inequality, as it is rarely, if ever the reason for happiness or unhappiness.

6. Don’t compare yourself to each other, but seek goals and share the journey.

I hope this topic was intriguing to you, please let me know in the comments or email me at [email protected] if you have anything you want me to write about or like this kind of articles.

The Affordable Luxury

Issue 19 Community Poll Results

Here are the results:

1. Nearly all of you have regular meetups or calls to maintain your relationships. This makes me want to start a podcast or live stream so I can do the same for all the members.

2. It’s 50/50 on if you get FOMO. I thought FOMO wasn’t that prevalent since I’m on the “don’t get FOMO” side, but seeing that it’s split in half does give perspective.

3. Everyone agrees to implement the gifting of Ducky Tran Premium Membership in the Ducky Tran shop. There was someone that put “other” but didn’t leave feedback, if you are that person and still want to give feedback, please email [email protected]. More information about it in the Everyday Luxury.

This Week’s Community Poll

Here are this week’s poll questions:

The Everyday Luxury

(The referral program is only viewable on the email version of the newsletter.)

I’ve finally figured out a way to execute the gifting of Ducky Tran Premium Memberships. I have placed it in the Ducky Tran Shop as a 1-month and 3-month gift. By gifting a membership, you will still receive your referral program point so look out for emails about it if you gift someone special a Ducky Tran membership.

Thank you, the Members of Ducky Tran, whom have supported me in this venture to create a wholesome community with knowledge, prizes and fun.

Visit shop.duckytran.com with the weekly password: movies