Kyla Scanlon knows it’s easier for most people to talk about their bowel movements than to talk about money. Unlike bathroom habits, which don’t necessarily reflect one’s success or failure in life, money is personal. Money is intimately tied to our sense of self-worth; the ups and downs in our bank account often reflect our most important life choices and expose our bad habits and vulnerabilities. Taking a hard look at your finances is often easy to avoid when there is so much information online and so little guidance about what to do with all of that advice. Even for someone who is deeply committed to improving their personal finances, “the opportunity cost is high” when considering new information, Scanlon says.
So Scanlon, the 28-year-old educator and economics commentator, meets people where they are: their social media feeds. Her piercing crystal-blue eyes pop up in Instagram reels and TikToks all around the world. Scanlon’s most popular TikTok, with over 700K views to-date, unpacks hedge-funder Michael Burry’s 2021 tweet in which he speculates that the U.S. economy is headed toward hyperinflation. She typically shares economic commentary on daily news—like her recent analysis of the economics of flood insurance, posted in the run-up to Hurricane Milton’s landfall in Florida, or her updates on a latest Fed meeting day.
Like a weather woman who knows exactly where to point on a green screen, Scanlon seamlessly embodies the “talking head” native to TikTok. Scanlon knows that most of her viewers don’t have any background in finance (how many of us know what “PMI stage V recovery” means?), but refuses to treat them with condescension, instead talking to them like friends with whom she is sharing hot gossip. She makes use of pop-culture references, like the 2015 biographical film The Big Short on Burry himself, and speedruns her way through a rapid history of hyperinflation (defined as inflation at a rapid rate of over 50 percent per month), all while shuffling through scary screenshots of news headlines about rising debt and inequality. She adds a disclaimer that “this is not my opinion just a breakdown of Burry’s tweet,” hedging herself from standard accusations of fearmongering.