I know dividend investing isn't all that popular...

If we were meant to invest with what is popular and hive, there wouldn't be so many options out there. There'd be no reason for trading and economy news and reports because we'd all be in VOO like good little robots, and you wouldn't need subreddits and advisors and discussions and awareness of what's out there because any outside influence means timing the markets and that is as evil as picking an industry-based ETF because you're not smarter than Buffett.

What I like about psychological and emotional aspects: It gets people to invest!!! Humans like doing things they enjoy. Humans like the feeling of control. Humans like instant gratification because we're impatient and need to little reminders we're doing the right thing. We're emotional beings. Confirmation bias is motivating. Then we discover investing is boring as shit and not welcoming to intuition.

All the links and graphs and studies might show there's a slight advantage to X popular method. You're gonna lose 5% over the long-term and take on some tax disadvantages because Y. So the fuck what? If you accept that as a possible or probable loss and it keeps you investing in your future and not spinning rims and cocaine, go for it. You want a dividend "paycheck" and some REITs? Welcome to doing what tens of thousands of people are doing. Tens of thousands of people that a bunch of twenty three-years old internet experts think are idiots. r/PFJERK exists for a reason.

You're not YOLO day trading or putting it all on the craps table. You're doing your homework. You'll do fine.

Here's my answer though, after all that bullshit: Just don't do what you're doing with 100% of your investment. I can't tell you what percent to use, but personally I've got around 50% total stock market and 25% in "safer" things and 25% to keep me interested. And a few thousand in some individual stocks and gut-feeling industry ETFs (my "scratch-off tickets"). If I lose 100% of my curiosity/hobby investing and straight-up speculation, I'm still going to survive (and so far that 25% is doing better than my VTSAX).

/r/investing Thread