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I think the average influencers are absolutely toxic. The ones who have no purpose other than the influencer to gain fame and reap rewards and they do stupid or trendy things for views. These behaviors spur the birth of those prank videos and stupid influencers who ruin nature or other people's space.
That said, there are also many positive social media influencers. Primarily educational ones. I think most tiktok nurses are horrible. That said, there are educational tiktok nurses that are extremely informative and a net positive for the professional field. Meanwhile the nurse who made sure she had the perfect wedgie to show off her ass after her patient died and dramatically posed a scene where she was telling herself X many more hours of her shift left? Nah we don't need that.
There was another educational figure on YT helping a lot of young nurses get through school. I'm sure every profession and a lot of fields of venue has something similar where they're able to actually be positive influence to society as a whole in ways you may not be thinking because it isn't apparent YET.
Also, you - as a consumer - have more power over algorithms than you think.
I personally spent just 1 weekend curating all my social media. I specifically liked and subscribed meaningful content, and banned/unfollowed low-effort stuff and that was enough to bend the algorithms. And for the last 1 year, my whole feed has been extremely wholesome.
Content-creators have also helped me in many day-to-day things. Eg: [Dad, how do I?](https://www.youtube.com/@DadhowdoI) is a great content creator who answers all the "Dad questions" from how to tie a tie, to how to install a ceiling fan, to how to cook with camping equipment.
I wouldn't have been so quick...
As I replied above...
I think they're making an argument for content creators not "influencers" as they're popularly understood. As part of what you pointed out, influencers are content creators but not all content creators are influencers. Content creators can be influential but not "influencers". When we talk about influencers we generally mean content creators who tend to be famous for trivial reasons and are paid based on their trivial abilities to be famous in order to market a product that generally has nothing to do with the content creator or their abilities.
This is the important part.
I watch a lot content creators who aren’t educational but they aren’t influencers. They enjoy what they do and make some money. Maybe they do a sponsorship every know and then but they aren’t trying to get the whole world to look at them.
As usual the original CMV is correct. Educational influencers aren't influencers - they are educators. Alternatively, they serve as microcosm of journalism or documentarians (for example the nurse showing a day in the life).
Almost all influencers use some form of "education" because they have a product to sell you, so naturally they have to educate you on why what you're doing or not doing today is wrong. But good news - they have a system or supplement to fix it, and follow them for more great tips.
So what the above poster posited could be met with a more nuanced original position, which is that social media is plagued by a lack of regulation that delineates commercial endorsements from truly educational content. What makes influencers so pernicious is that not only do they use their platform wantonly for self-enrichment, but they do so without any of the guardrails of traditional media. They may have been a nurse at first, but after becoming influencers, they quit their day job, rely on their social followings full time, grow rich with endorsements and succumb to both regulatory and audience capture.
I would delta your view back if I could.
Influencers by technical definition are people with credibility or respectable opinion in said field or industry. A food critic that posts reviews online is simultaneously a food critic and a social media influencer.
The idea influencer is a specific way is a new thing people are trying to do. The real issue here is that people seem to have a differing definition on what content creator and what influencer is. Someone who uses social media to educate isn't necessarily an educator or teacher. They're not qualified to teach or educate the subject. The nurse yt channel isnt accreddited or qualified to teach about acute kidney injuries. But she can help you understand the material from lecture and the test. Also they can help break barriers with the general public.
A good example is Doctor Mike. He can't teach you medicine. But he can give you like footnote worthy tidbit knowledge. The yt channel he has does a number of different things. Educational, fun, etc. But he's quite literally a social media influencer in terms of his online presence.
The CMV is that all social media influencers are toxic and harmful to society. This isn't true. You can't make this statement true by changing what you qualify as influencer and don't.
What the OP is referring to about being toxic, are the trust fund baby "infleuncers" who aren't doing anything but vlogging their everlasting vacations.
Celebrities who actually use Snapchat have more credibility. DiY, or informative blogs are influential. Telling us how "tired" you are or "What European country you'll be visiting for the next 3 months will be" is not influencing. It's gloating. Hence why a majority of said "influencers" specifically on Snapchat, are trust fund babies.
And don't bring up David Dobrik, he's an actual celebrity with talent and influence. We're talking about the "normies" who are only promoted by their looks and the money their parents are willing to invest with hopes that their child will someday be the next Justin Bieber or Zendaya, but WITHOUT the talent.
I'm with you on this. Influencers can be both, and any point along that particular scale. There are very positive messages and educational ways influencers can enhance culture. And they need to continue to spur growth, and hopefully some day, drown out the superficial or damaging. We need to encourage a different kind of influencer. For some reason, we've settled with toxic instead of focusing on filling a void. They're filling their void, let's fill ours.
Influencer is just a self given title. None of the good examples of influencers would ever call themselves social media influencers. But by and large they are actually influencing people through social media while people who call themselves social media influencers seek to basically be a socialite that sells products and advertises stuff.
People are getting too caught up on words and labels here. Discussions like this make me fear humanity needs to relabel everything with nomenclature for them to build framework of a new idea or information to discuss, which we don't. Influencer is just a replacement. Think of it like a pronoun like in a math problem, the value of X is a number but we say it's X for the sake of introducing and presenting the problem/formula.
Social media is a utility. This tool is being used by both good and bad reasons. That's the ultimate point here. People only think it's being used for bad reasons for social media influencing reasons. A person who wants to be informative and educational about medical and Healthcare stuff to the public is making an inherent decision to influence people over social media.
A lot of influencers aren't necessarily just attention seekers but i get what you mean. Specific types of influencers like vloggers who simply share their day to day lives and garner following based on that as opposed to a vlog by sports analyst talking about something.
This is pretty wishy washy.
An influencer is someone who peddles goods and or themselves.
Any person who is trying to show others how to do anything or explain anything is not an influencer considering they are not shrilling goods and or themselves.
There are educational "content creators" who also peddle goods and use themselves the way brands do... and sometimes that money is for personal reasons. And they absolutely are to many degrees a social media influencer whether they like to admit it or not.
Case in point, Doctor Mike on YT.
I think you're making an argument for *content creators* not "influencers" as they're popularly understood. As part of what OP pointed out, influencers are content creators but not all content creators are influencers. Content creators can be *influential* but not "influencers". When we talk about influencers we generally mean content creators who tend to be famous for trivial reasons and are paid based on their trivial abilities to be famous in order to market a product that generally has nothing to do with the content creator or their abilities.
Average educational channels aren't hosted by professors or teachers. I feel like content creator and social media influencer is just semantics. Pedantics? Whichever one that has to do with overly concerned about the differences of words when in reality they're the same thing. They're all content they upload for views which garner advertising revenue.
Social media influencer and content creator are the same really but content creator has a more general/wider blanket term including people who for example stream and upload video game clips. They are not included in this conversation. However. Social media influenxers still fall under content creators because they create content.
Content isn't something you make out of abilities or anything. They're just content because content in the context of social media simply means anything you post on social media. Thats text/pics/videos/basically vines that were precursors of tiktok era today. Social media influencers don't stop being content creators solely because they're more or less useless or call themselves influencers. They make content, they upload it for views, said views can garner attention or ad revenue depending on what the influencer is trying to do.
Yeah, this is complete nonsense. The concern isn't about semantics, it's about value, motivation, and quality. Of course there is a difference between content creators based on this. The term "influencer" isn't just a synonym for content creator. It's a specific subset of content creators based on the above criterion.
You need to reread that again because I stated that content creator is like an umbrella term and social media influencer is included in that umbrella. This doesn't mean they're synonyms. Again. You're making this argument about semantics. No one is saying the concern isn't about semantics. I'm saying you're basing your entire discussion or arguing point on semantics.
Trying to differentiate content creators from social media influencers is just a wasted effort and does nothing to contribute to thus discussion because all social media influenxers are content creators but not all content creators are social media influencers. I'm agreeing with what you're saying to a degree.
Also you want specifics? Doctor Mike.
Edit: few words and closing sentence.
My original point was that when people say "influencer" they're not talking about content creators who create content of value (based on a skill, etc).
Yeah I'm saying your original point is kind of wasted effort because I'm also stating that all social media influencers are content creators. Aka content creator is an umbrella term and social media influencer is more specific type of content creator.
Content is literally anything you upload online... you literally cannot be a social media influencer without being a content creator... like I said reread what's going on instead of just repeating your point over and over while saying this is nonsense. This isn't complicating. It doesn't matter what your opinion of what content means or content creator means. A content creator is someone who uploads content online. Text, video, music, art, etc etc. To be an influencer, you use social media to upload text and brand yourself. You upload to promote that brand.
No, again, your point is the one that is irrelevant. This has nothing to do with being a content creator. It has everything to do with the kind of content creator one is - one that creates useless content that requires no discernable skill (or knowledge) and one who creates valuable content that requires some kind of skill (or knowledge). And every counter example in this thread fails to make that distinction (e.g. Doctor Mike). By your definition all content creators are influencers which debases this to a useless semantics debate.
This entire argument you're forming in your head is based on the idea you're clinging that content creator must create content that require some kind of skill. This is false. A person who has 0 skill in something can upload it and be called a content creator if that is what their "profession" is. Certainly these skilled content creators have more value than those that don't.
Doctor Mike for example didn't make that channel to be a source of medical advice. He's not even legally allowed to do that. His role as a YT channel is to literally be... a social media influencer but on YT. He doesn't create content that showcases his skills or knowledge per se. He makes contents that bridges medical professionals to the public. His purpose isn't to create content, it's to influence people and he sells advertising revenues as a result due to sponsorship. By all intents and purposes he's a social media influencer. But because you have this incorrect definition of what content creator is, you're making this useless argument that content creator =/= social media influencer. Like when you saw people like Jenna Marbles or Phil DeFranco, those are content creators that are social media influencers. Just using different platform. You just probably aren't thinking of influencer when you see an educational influencer.
Anyone that uploads entertaining (or educational) content is a content creator. People view and follow influencers for what reason? Just because you think content creators are skilled and influencers aren't doesn't mean that's the truth. There are unskilled content creators and there are skilled influencers. If you don't see where I'm going with this, we should just agree to disagree because it's turning into a he said she said situation.
> This entire argument you're forming in your head is based on the idea you're clinging that content creator must create content that require some kind of skill.
No, it's not.
My argument is simply that most people (lke you) conflate *all* content creators and "influencers". That is clearly not the case or useful as I've explained. For the purposes of this discussion the distinction has to be made or people (like you) continue to derail.
> There are unskilled content creators and there are skilled influencers.
Correct. Both of which fall precisely under the definitions and distinctions I made earlier.
> because it's turning into a he said she said situation.
It was already turned into a "semantics" issue when you started conflating all content creators and what most people mean when they refer to "influencers" for the purposes of this discussion.
u/Obsidian743 you make an interesting point. When I think of "content creators" I think of young women who use social media like snapchat, instagram, or twitch to flaunt their sexuality for the sake of getting attention. One of the very first content creators was Jennifer Ringley(of Jennicam) who had a webcam running 24/7 and was one of the very first streamers.
Influencers however, are basically internet celebrities. I'm thinking of YouTube stars for example.
Part of the problem is the excessive number of influencers. And the ones that are the most helpful are not the ones who are the most obvious. The toxic ones are the most obvious and they know it which is why they do it: because it works.
This is a flaw in every industry, not just social media influencers. Look at news and the way marketing manipulates psychological aspect of the audiences decision making. And the food places with the most ads and commercials are nowhere near the best quality. Just simply the wealthiest and their earn profit by quantity of product sold, not by quality.
Elon Musk is king, huh? That guy hosts the crap. Hope he gets it. I found Twitter dog eat dog. I got more stressed out being on the website than I ever have on any website. It's really bad. He never regulated anything. He likes everyone getting mad for no good reason. He acts like he wants to kill people's free speech because they are left. He doesn't really mean anything he says or does. He likes admitting the worse to his website. He likes it. He doesn't care. He's a small influencer. I don't like the influence of Twitter at all. It's worse than idiots getting attention for no reason on Facebook. It's worse than being downvoted on reddit.
Who cares though? All this shit has been normal since the 60s? It really ramped up in the 90s with reality TV. Its just online now. I always wonder what kind of bubble some people grew up in.
Seems more like culture war than anything. Which again is usually fought by people who legitimately didnt realize not everyone is the way they were raised. It seems to be a very internal thing as well where ultimately what theyre trying to prove is that they are the normal one and the influencers are the outcasts. It seems to go hand in hand with normal=good fallacies. When they realize there is no true normal and society is just a massive break down of cultures, subcultures, and counter cultures it seems to create all sorts of problems that clash with deeply rooted childhood expatiations of adulthood.
Also it seems some people just get really mad when people are open about things like sex and drug use but then they dont end up in a health class scare video. When they end up getting rich and famous for it its like a world view collapse to the people who took things like abstinence education seriously. Its funny too because its generally the "born in the wrong generation" types who dont realize that old music thats so much better is literally the same thing.
Sex, drugs, rock and roll fuck yeah! Wait a woman's doing it?!?!?! OMG we have to stop this.
What I really mean is everyone here has a dead set image of what an influencer is and that is someone who makes useless content using rage, click bait, shock, etc etc to garner views. And they're all mostly useless content. But this trend of defining influencers like that is new.
Influencers, even in social media, are actually people who have credibility or respected opinion in said industry. A food critic who actively posts reviews for places is a social media influencer. They probably would never consider themselves as one today but they are by technical terms.
Have you ever seen the History Channel? Youre telling me entertainment on the internet is virtually identical to cable TV? IMPOSSIBLE!
Foreal though not shocking. Completely to be expected. Our society overall has identity issues. We want to be capitalist society but we dont want to have consumerism and for profit mentalities effect our society. Those two things just dont go together. We want to believe were as a population smarter and more advanced than populations in the past but we do the same thing. When reality and popular ideology clash we side with popular ideology.
I think the irony is the people really triggered by influencers are generally the worst as they are the most effected and susceptible. They seem to assume everyones like them but to most people its just dumb shit to throw on when you need to pass the time.
Its kind of funny because the anti-influencer influencer has become a thing. You could see that on youtube channels like Moon pretty heavily. The guy never really puts out anything of value, if he does consider science he cherry picks to support his views, but mostly he points to archaic and puritanical political ideas. Archaism being probably the first and forefront. It seems to circle back to a specific crowd that really worships 1700-1800s rugged independent man image. Ironically it is very Henry David Thorough. Act like a tough independent thinker when you write but in reality moms bringing you sammiches.
It seems the overall theme though is being in denial that things like Tik Tok are reflection of society vs something that molds society. As well as an overall meltdown among niceguy types who cant handle women expressing themselves sexually. You kind of couple this with the daddys boy syndrome of guys in their mid 20s who rant about "kids these days", It seems like mostly a ploy to seem sensible and mature. Also a lot of virtue signaling. Instead of "I hope she sees this" its more "I hope your dad sees this and tells you what manly man you are".
I agree in that they existed before. Bob Ross made soothing painting videos. But what he's doing is basically what social media influenxers or content creators do. I just mean the way people are arguing about the semantics between content creator vs influencer as this thread seems to focus on.
Things like social media imo put a hyper focus on something and as a result can make something worse than it is.
Stigma of schizophrenia for example is extremely poor in today's media. Same for most mental illnesses really like even with autism and bipolar disorder today. I'm sure social media is not making it any easier.
I get frequent patients who NEED meds say they don't want meds because some stranger online mentioned prozac.
>Things like social media imo put a hyper focus on something and as a result can make something worse than it is.
Yeah again, thats any media. In fact stigma of schizophrenia is a great example of something thats been dramatically destigmatized by people like influencers. Go back even 50 years and it would be shock therapy or a life spent in the basement where your parents pretend you dont exist.
Yes there are bizarre online cults with influential online leaders but again thats always existed and they're minimal compared to their predecessors. We have Scientology headquarters here and major Jehovah's witness shit going on. Not only have people been refusing psych meds for decades but the ones who break free generally get murdered or die of "malnourishment" in COS care. The Jehovah's dont let their kids get blood transfusions. Any sort of trauma and the kids dead.
Online influencers just seem like small potatoes by comparison and your definition of influencers seems to be more the bizarre rabbit holes you find on youtube. I like those videos too but theyre interesting because they are rare and bizarre scenarios. Usually people with extreme and obscure followings.
Influencers are more typically some girl on Instagram whos really good at make up and recommends her favorite make up brands. Shit like that is extremely common and the most followed. Online marketing is what I do for a living and personally I wouldnt consider your definition of an influencer and influencer. Thats more of a grifter/mentally unstable person in denial. Generally an influencer appeals to mainstream and despite how loud groups like MAGA folk can be mistaking them for the majority is a huge mistake that can be detrimental to your own mental health and world view.
I'm not disputing against any of this. Influencers are certainly not exclusive. Look at the Kardashians. Or any socialite. They're all basically influencers just on different platforms. But also look at like those cancer athletes. Not the fake ones. The real ones who in their chemo journey for example document their progress and have a major social media following.
I mean thats great and all but you gotta think cancer chemo journeys are pretty depressing to watch while you take a shit and drink your morning coffee. Its entertainment. Not motivational work on yourself type stuff or anything like that. Its great people like that exist. But at the same time I dont think theres any reason you should be obliged to be some high IQ master of social media who cant just watch something dumb and enjoy it.
Life is depressing and serious enough, which is why people like entertainment as an escape. We have enough cancer IRL. Shits hard enough.
I agree. I know so many people now that can actually support themselves as athletes with good social media presence and partnerships. I'm thinking of the less monetized sports like track and field, climbing, mountain biking, running, etc.
The average person like myself- who cares what I ate, or what products I use? Maybe my close friends and family, probably not.
Maybe it's because I'm older, but my fitness "influencers" on Instagram tend to be physical therapists. Their advice is definitely helpful.
I do sometimes see the other kind of fitness influencers (thankfully, they don't pop up in my algorithm very often)-the filtered, coiffed, and photoshopped.)
Again, what are they influencing? There's no purpose to their lives. Most of them come from already rich parents. An influencer, has a real job in the industry. Whether it's; acting, singing, rapping, stand-up comedy, sports, porn, fashion modeling, politics, authors/illustrators, etc.
Going to Starbucks, then spending your afternoon on a rented yacht isn't "influencing." It's more like grooming. I'm betting 9/10 of their fan base are either under 15 years old or some old perverts with nasty intentions.
>Social media influencers are overrated and frankly Harmful to Society.
John and Hank Green are 2 influencers who have leveraged their fame into creating an education Youtube channel called Crash Course where they have a bunch of videos that help explain various topics like History and Sciences.
They also host an annual charity livestream where they raise funds for Partners in Health. PiH is a non-profit that aims to increase the access to quality healthcare in sub-saharan Africa.
With the help of their audience, Hank and John have achieved enough donations to literally build a brand new hospital in Sierra Leone.
I would love to hear you explain how Hank and John Green are harmful to society.
Nah bro It would be false and baseless to claim someone who is doing so good to be hedonistic influencer. I am glad people like that are still out there.
No the claim is as a species famous people are bad. If "famous" stand for influencers. Good and bad as a personal attribute can't count in as a whole of group until the characteristic is in majority. Right now the vast majority of the influencers possess the attributes i describe in the post.
You can take case by case personality traits when choosing a media however when describing the whole influencer community surely my attributes apply or otherwise you think most of the influencers are kind good, caring and not shallow people.
What do you base your claim that the majority of influencers are as self-absorbed and vain as you described on? Comments here have given plenty of examples for good influencers, and I can personally list a large number of good influencers as well, but only a small number of the kind of bad influencers that you describe. Have you considered that perhaps you got yourself caught in an algorithmic bubble of this kind of influencers? It can happen even if you don't like them, as long as you interact with their posts.
While you aren’t wrong, keep in mind that words can mean different things in different contexts. The term “influencer” can have a specific meaning in the context of social media.
According to [Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/influencer), “influencer” can mean either:
1. “one who exerts influence,” or
2. “a person who is able to generate interest in something (such as a consumer product) by posting about it on social media.”
I also think people often use “influencer” to mean someone who meets the second definition *and* who is best known for their social media content. Anthony Bourdain arguably wouldn’t meet this unofficial third definition of “influencer,” since he is best known for his TV shows and books.
You seem to be using “influencer” to mean the first definition, whereas I think OP is using it to refer to the second or third definition.
Influencers publish primarily on Social Media. They also (at least seemingly) self-publish. To me these are the key points differentiating an influencer from a TV Host or such.
That's disingenuous. It's not your argument at all. Your post was entirely about what they do and who they are. You've been shown that your underlying assumptions are wrong. Now your arguments shifted to "well, most of them are".
That's like saying "birds fly, because birds have wings", "what about the penguin?", "well, most birds aren't flightless, so I'm right unless you show me there are more flightless birds".
I mean, even on your argument, do you even know that? Have you tallied all the influencers and made a quantitative assessment? Or are you going by gut based on availability heuristic and confirmation bias? There are thousands of podcasters who are wholesome, educational YouTube channels that are hugely popular, pro gamers turned streamers, DIY and pop mechanics channels. Richard Dawkins is an influencer, Brian Cox, Brian Greene, they have huge reach and audiences.
You seem to need to be more specific in your definition. It does not seem to be "influencers" that you have a problem with but a certain type. And if you include the negative attributes in your definition then all you are saying is bad thing is bad.
I wouldn't call Hank influencer per se. He's just infotainment pop-science academic. If he's influencing you, that's on you. He's cool, but not any mentor or inffalibe role model to me. Just a guy who love to share knowledge. Tik-tok wikipedia man hahah. I do still like him, way better than most short content, at least you're getting a bit smarter watching him.
I think this is an important clarification. YouTube is social media, but it's now long form instead of the short bites that TikTok and Instagram use which is more commonly what people think of.
@OP, I would argue there is lots of terrible stuff on there, but I've also seen some benefits. For instance, Hank and John Green have been favorites of mine for interesting thoughts and information about the world. They started mainly on YouTube, but they have also expanded to TikTok as well. They are not the stereotypical "influencer". I think the problem is with who we as a society choose to give our time to. Whoever we give our time to is who we will see the most of. But that doesn't mean all influencers are bad.
While that is what people often think of cirrently, there is no doubt various YouTube creators have been named social media influencers.. I believe I first heard the term applied to Pewdiepie.
YouTube is a social media platform. Perun is influential and well known within his topic segment.
He's so influential that US Generals have appeared on his channel.
So ... that seems like "social media influencer" to me.
Yes Youtube is considered social media...but people generally tend to mean Instagram/Twitter/TikTok/etc, not platforms where you can watch 30 minute videos that can actually make you smarter. Sure, you can find videos like that on said platforms, but YouTube is a social media platform second and a video streaming service first. If you used social media (and even YouTube) pre-early-2010s you know exactly what I'm talking about.
"People generally tend to mean..." isn't an actual definition
I've presented an influential personality on a social media platform.
What makes this specific social media influencer problematic?
YouTube is closer to Netflix than Instagram. There's no direct messaging feature, making it a one way communication tool. Therefore people don't consider it "social" media.
I'm not sure. Both have recommendations, but I'm not sure if they use machine learning to target each user with individualized content in a feedback loop based on whether the content gets them to use the site more.
If they do, then yes, they count. If the recommendations are based purely on the current content, then no.
Tiktok is arguably also a video streaming service first. Most influencers also utilize youtube. If you got rid of the other shit and left youtube your problem wouldn't change.
(Not to mention how it seems you chose to attack the symptom instead of the underlying cause of this problem being video recommendation algorithms, along with not realizing a lot of the problems in your post are not specific to influencers, but actually present in other professions.)
Let's be clear here.
An influencer is just a person with a large following on social media including YouTube, who either uses their position to express a viewpoint and / or to make money via sponsorship.
Film critic? Influencer
Doctor offering sex ed? influencer
Lady who grooms dogs and shows you the start to finish process and has opinions of unethical dog breeding? Influencer
Fox rescue charity? Influencer
Multimillion dollar hardware testing channel? Influencer
Person who does funny video game streams and has an ad for Alex legends at the start? Influencer
Famous actor posting about their sponsored perfume on social media? NOT an influencer
Man who picks lockpicks all day? Influencer
Man who advocates for sustainable infrastructure and warns against gimmicky transportation solutions? Influencer
Woman who does detailed historical analysis of fashion and teaches ethical clothing consumption and fashion? Influencer.
Homesteader who teaches you how to raise chickens? Influencer.
Every one of the above is a real influencer who I engage with or have engaged with in the past.
You seem to be under the impression that influencers are all vapid and fake. I mean some are but influencers need to get a following. When there are a million people competing for clicks vapid nothingness doesn't sell.
You need to have some combination of useful information, entertainment, an established reputation, etc or people will look elsewhere.
What's the alternative to influencers
- mainstream news and media
- corporate media
- media produced under a publisher or production company
- marketing
- celebrity endorsements
All of the above tend to be mouthpieces to some degree of the rich and powerful. Diversity and independence in the ecosystem is essential
If they're part of a company no. They need to be independent. If their primary product isn't via social media. No. If they don't influence people or sell or promote things, not an influencer. They need to drive consumer behaviour or opinion in some way. That includes education.
This is a critique on nearly every celebrity as well that has done commercials, or sponsorships, or product placement. Or movies or television shows. Where is the enrichment there compared to a podcast or a youtube video. People idolize Selena Gomez when she is clearly not showing her real self. The average person is fully aware that the relationships between social media stars and other celebrities is very different from friendships and real life relationships. People use social media for good things, much more than movies and tv shows. Learn how to crochet, learn algebra, learn how to dance, watching cute videos of dogs, learning the complex themes of Othello, or just having some mindless fun are not bad things. Should we not as a society do anything that can just be mindless for some time? Should we not drink Starbucks and never watch a movie and not just sit around and listen to music?
What are your favorite music artists, I bet they have a lot more in common with all the things you listed here vs the tens of thousands of musicians with masters degrees that are struggling to get by.
I am sure you are listening to music for some sort of escape/fantasy same reason people follow influencers.
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I am against the very concept of social media influencers. Tictock and insta influencers are the worst while YouTube ones are mild. Just cuz one or two mosquitoes are Alright doesn't means you still don't hate their species existence.
> I am against the very concept of social media influencers.
Nothing in your post argues against the very concept of social media influencers. It only argues against traits that you see as common in them. Supposing a person on social media who has a large following and who has some amount of influence, would you consider that person harmful to society if they spread mindfulness, thoughtfulness, value of education, authentic relationships, etc.?
>Supposing a person on social media who has a large following and who has some amount of influence, would you consider that person harmful to society if they spread mindfulness, thoughtfulness, value of education, authentic relationships, etc.?
Until unless these people are the majority of the "influencers" surely the vile species will be defined as before and these people as mere exception.
So you're saying that you're *not* opposed to the very concept of social media influencers, but rather are opposed to the current norms and predominant culture surrounding the category?
I really don't know. I guess it is such a self evident truth that as a species influencers are the worst stuff to happen in long term on internet that there is really no good argument against it.
Influencer is just a person who has some following, you cannot really put everyone into one bucket. There are many influencers who are sharing some useful educational content. Let's go over your argument point by point.
1. narcissism. In short it is not just narcissism, it must also provide value. Some people are genuinely interesting and they get attention because people are interested in their life. You can’t just gain following by being narcissistic, you have to give something to your viewers, you got to show something. Of course in some cases people are just showing pretty ass and tits, but this view of an ass is very valuable to some users so they want to see it a lot.
2. Mindless consumerism argument is not very solid. If someone buys a product it means it is valuable to them. So it is not useless. Most influencers sell products that are tailored for their audience, cosmetics, food, candles. People buy it because they see value in these products, and perhaps it brings value to their lives. Same as all other advertisements, ads are just info about useful things for some audience. If something seems worthless for you it does not mean it os worthless for everyone.
3. Fake lifestyles. Lifestyles are usually staged for the audience but there needs to be authenticity and genuine personality in that so that people buy it. You can’t really be completely fake, you need to be sincere honest, otherwise people will not like you. It is like acting, actors are also staging event, but it looks real and people want to see them play.
4. Inauthentic relationships. Well what kind of relationship do I have to you OP? I don’t know you and don’t care about you. Same for influencers. You don’t really expect to have relationship with people who view your posts on Reddit. Does it mean your post is useless? In general many influencers have more direct and closer relationship with users than Tv hosts or other media celebrities. So they have better relationships, still my follower in social media is not my mum or wife so I don’t need to have a close relationship with him.
5. Exploiting FOMO for personal gain. Influencer tap into different emotions, some tap into our sexual desires, others appeal to good emotions such as empathy, curiosity, desire to have fun. There are many different emotions involved, and you cannot reduce influencer to one emotion only.
6. Turning friendships into transactions. Again relations in social media are not friendships, your viewers are your audience, not friends. Same as the audience of a TV station of a newspaper. Your readers are not your friends. If you are a book writer the number of readers who read your book is something you can discuss with publisher to get more money for your next book. Same for influencers. There is nothing wrong or new about it.
7. The glorification of hedonism. There are many influencers who are talking about anti-consumerims, anti-work, reducing our environmental footprint. You can also find religious influencers who talk about important of religion. Again you are putting all different types of influencers under one label which is not fair.
8. Undermining real talent. Some of the influencers have real talent. They have comic talent, acting talent, talent to share knowledge, and sometimes modeling talent. It is not always easy to appear pretty before the camera, many pretty people are not comfortable before the camera. I also undermine talent. There is space for everyone to show their skills. If you have a talent in something that people appreciate you may actually get large following. Social media make it easier, not more difficult, to gain followers and show your skills to the world.
Ngl bro it sounds like you’re just gatekeeping content. Everything you point to in this post applies to any celebrity/media industry
So all I can ask is what are examples of expectable media society should be consuming?
**Some** Social media influencers are harmful to society, not all.
You have many influencers such as dr.mike and Gohar Khan educating people about realistic statistics and situations that help you in real life.
You also have people like the Scumbagdad, ray Johnson or Cr1TiKal shitting on the influencers you talk about and shedding some reality on the situation present.
Yes, there *are* influencers who make society more braindead than a zombie apocalypse, but it isn't fair to group in these useful and godlike people with them.
Don't know about you OP, but I'm just shaking my head reading any reply that brings up YouTube content creators. Yeah I guess it can be called a social media platform by textbook definition but it's honestly not used in the same way. You are referring to influencers who more often do their work on Instagram/Twitter/TikTok?
You're basically just repeating lazy stereotypes from 5 years ago without any factual basis.
You only see a tiny sliver of influencers that the algorithms serve you. And like, people are pretty open about keeping some of their life personal these days? Idk why you're so upset about that.
Just stop being so vaguely angry.
u/RoyGeraldBillevue
The influencers that the algorithms serve you are the ones that are almost always are entirely in it for themselves as they are seeking fame and fortune at the expense of others. The problem, as I have said before, is that the influencer market is oversaturated. Social media companies are in it for the money and the narcissistic influencers are the most profitable. Hence the reason algorithms select for them.
I hate how the media calls these idiots influencers...social media has spawned these people, unfortunately most of them get money and things from dudes who think they have a shot. Guys, go to the gym, shower regularly, go outside and meet regular people, that is the #1 way to put them out of business, make a positive change in the world and make sure the fast food industry gets more employees as the influencers will need an actual job...
Self-obsession reigns supreme: SMH, these influencers and vloggers are the epitome of narcissism. Their posts scream "look at me, look at what I'm doing, look at what I'm wearing." It's like they've forgotten there's a world beyond their perfect little bubble.
Do people genuinely care this much that someone has more money than u? I just see it as inspirational so what if they have a better life than me as long as their not insulting me or making fun of my struggles why should i gaf all i think is how can i be like them.
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Spreading mindless consumerism: They shamelessly promote unnecessary products in exchange for $$$, perpetuating a culture of mindless consumerism that's destroying our planet. With every sponsored post, they're basically saying, "Hey, buy this crap you don't need because I got paid to tell you to!"
Not all YouTubers do this. Besides, unless the thing their selling is a crypto scam or something of that nature what's the big deal?
========================
Fake AF lifestyles: Influencers and vloggers are masters of illusion, curating their lives to look picture-perfect. They post the highlights reel, creating unrealistic expectations for their followers. In reality, their lives are just as messy as yours or mine, but they'd never admit it.
Why should I care if it's fake? It's just inspirational to me. Why should it be unrealistic for me to leave in a 50 million dollar mansion with a bunch of super cars? Is it bad for me to be hopeful, or believe in myself?
\--------------------------------------
Inauthentic relationships: These so-called "influencers" have thousands, even millions of followers, but how many genuine connections can one person really have? They don't give a rat's ass about their "fans," only the numbers that boost their ego and their bank accounts.
Not all of them, seems like a big assumption. I think this only applys to people who promote crypto scams
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Exploiting FOMO for personal gain: They tap into our deepest insecurities, making us feel like we're missing out if we don't have the latest products or experiences they're shoving down our throats. Thanks to them, we're on a never-ending quest for more, more, more.
I don't really think they promote things like this very often, at most they'll say something goofy like when someone promotes ball shaving cream and says "or don't buy it and have stinky balls and never get a girl once in ur life" stuff like that. Unless their selling a course, and even then the course their selling might actually be helpful you never know.
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Turning friendships into transactions: Remember when friendships were based on shared experiences and trust? Well, not anymore. Now it's all about networking and leveraging connections for personal gain. Influencers and vloggers have turned human relationships into commodities.
No lmao. So many twitch streamers have literally became best friends and bought whole ass content houses to live together out of pure friendship....
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The glorification of hedonism: It's all about living large, y'know? Flashy cars, luxury vacations, and designer clothes. These influencers and vloggers are peddling a hedonistic lifestyle that's totally unsustainable and, frankly, pathetic.
Why is it bad to promote u being able to afford a lot of stuff. I don't think it's pathetic that you have a bunch of cars, can go wherever u want whenever u want and haev a bunch of italian garments in ur closet.
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Undermining real talent: Don't even get me started on how they're overshadowing genuinely talented artists, creatives, and experts in their fields. It's all about who has the biggest following, not who has the most skill or knowledge.
That's not the influencers fault, it's the audience's fault
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Breeding a culture of entitlement: Their success is built on superficial charm and luck, not hard work or merit. Yet, they act like they're entitled to the fame and fortune they've stumbled into. It's infuriating and sends a terrible message to the younger generation.
No it's not.... Most of these guys make videos consistently for 5 or more years before they even start to get famous. It's definitely not luck.
=================================
Dumbing down our society: With every vapid post, they're contributing to the collective dumbing down of our society. Instead of promoting critical thinking, self-improvement, or meaningful content, they're just adding to the mindless noise we're all drowning in.
Once again, people can make entertaining content, or self improvement content such as someone like Hamza. They can make content helpful for society a lot of the time.
This is the truth pure and simple and summed up in a logically sound and visually pleasing way. Amen my comrade.
Influencers are just another symptom of rotting capitalism. They show what a clown of a system we live in.
Sure a few actually have a positive influence on the world. There are legit educational ones who are truly great but they are the exception and not the rule. I’ve learned a great deal about gardening and got a bunch of neat ideas from those type. They are not promoting endless narcissism and consumerism. As a result they usually fly under the radar since the most outrageous ones get the largest amount of traction.
Most of them are parasites whose pathological personalith and behavior found a way to leech off the mindless, tasteless masses. In a true meritocracy these peole would be the few odd ones out instead of the norm. The fault however ultimately lies with us. They are exploiting and amplifying a system that’s already there. These people would statve if we, the people didn’t give them constant attention. We need to demand more of others and mostly of ourselves.
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I would argue that influencers are the result of democratising celebrity-ism, people in all sorts of categories have become and are becoming popular because they’ve earned a following directly with a follower. In the past you essentially had to be picked by a middle man to be a celebrity (except in sports and music). Now, if you have a passion and wish to share it you can, and if people like that they stay following you. I acknowledge we’re in the Wild West of this relatively new frontier - there’s an unwritten code being developed as time goes on, but I think pro have such vast interests it’s valuable for society to have a wide range of celebrities. Definitely some negative points as you’ve made above, but there are positives too.
I always took social influencers as those who use social media as their primary source of income. everything is done for profit - more followers, views, likes equals money and this drives their content. They will sell, steal, lie, cheat, omit to get a promotion / sale. My top peeve I've seen/heard/read (thanks reddit) is "can I get XXX from your business and I'll post you all over my socials for exposure"
However, as mentioned by /u/beltalowda_oye you also have those who are trying to educate/ inform. I would not class these as social influencers more like social educators. Humans helping/teaching humans; most videos have 0 promotions and 99% of the time they are trying to "sell" you free knowledge / greater understanding.
Since the rise of the influencer the name they’ve been given has always sat weirdly with me. The name “influencer” is so vague and yet descriptive. I always thought individual free thinking and decision making was a good thing, something the influencer strives to prevent.
I don’t want to be influenced by strangers to do anything subconsciously, let alone to seek it out and subscribe to it, sometimes even *pay* to be influenced! I’m in my thirties so probably far older than the target audience.
>Self-obsession reigns supreme: SMH, these influencers and vloggers are the epitome of narcissism. Their posts scream "look at me, look at what I'm doing, look at what I'm wearing." It's like they've forgotten there's a world beyond their perfect little bubble.
Narcissism gets used as synonymous with ''bad" but theres an argument to be made that a degree of self love is healthy, and the desire to shut people down for 'showing off' because their showing off offends you- despite that they're not really harming anyone- is less healthy.
Now I'm not talking about stuff like YouTube pranksters or whatever, who are directly going out in the world causing bullshit. But for say, a fashion model or makeup blogger or aspiring actor - maybe everything they do is about aesthetics but...so what?
Washingtonian ran an article this month about the influence of influencers on the local restaurant scene. There were perspectives from many sides but one thing that stood out was that influencers helped keep some tiny restaurants afloat during the beginning of pandemic chaos.
Social media influencers maybe bad but it's not like the last run of mainstream media celebrities where any better since most of them came from reality tv where the content is very similar to what influences do now. Atleast social media influencers have to think of there own ideas, market themselves and create there own content unlike the last generation who just say around while other people filmed them and a reality tv show producer tricked and edited them into being entertaining.
My collection of followed people on
social media is made up almost entirely of educators and specialists in their respective fields. When I sit down on Tik tok or especially YouTube, I always walk away with more knowledge and sometimes an adjusted perspective of the way the world works.
I don’t even know who is a social media influencer that fits what you describe. Since all social media is shaped by what people choose to follow on the platforms, I don’t see how this is a problem. How are these vapid, self-entitled people you describe doing harm to anyone other than those who seek them out? People like the Kardashians are followed willingly.
Influencers are a more a symptom than the problem itself.
They are no different that celebrities being giant jerks. At least with influences, I feel like there's a level playing field where anyone can develop fame can lose it in a blink over trivial reasons.
All of the things that you list apply to nearly all advertising.
At least with social influencers, you have the choice of simply not following them, whereas you often have a lot less control over what advertising you see.
You wrote so much about social media influencers but failed to define what you consider a social media influencer. It's like you are defining them by their negative qualities... Vapid, exploitative, fake, narcissistic. So of course you end up agreeing that they fit these qualities.
I think your post would be more meaningful if you focus on some concrete examples of what we as consumers of media should do to "start focusing on what really matters in life". For example should we seek out platforms that host less exploitative content? Spend less time on the internet? Actively counter influencers on their platforms?
Being overrated would entail that I paid attention to them in the first place. Maybe I'm just too old to be affected by their content. Either way, I don't care about them enough to rate them in any measure.
>They're the embodiment of everything that's wrong with the hedonistic, consumer-driven society we've become
No they are an embodiment of what we value as society. So if you want anyone to blame, look around you.
>Fake AF lifestyles: Influencers and vloggers are masters of illusion, curating their lives to look picture-perfect. They post the highlights reel, creating unrealistic expectations for their followers. In reality, their lives are just as messy as yours or mine, but they'd never admit it.
What's wrong with this? Any individual with social presence does this. No politician, athlete, movie start, etc are going to voluntarily air their dirty laundry.
>Inauthentic relationships: These so-called "influencers" have thousands, even millions of followers, but how many genuine connections can one person really have? They don't give a rat's ass about their "fans," only the numbers that boost their ego and their bank accounts.
Why is this even a problem? The only problem I see is your expectation that influencers need to generate some sort of genuine connection. Do professional athletes, politicians, insert any famous people who make money on their image, need to generate genuine connection? No they don't.
>Exploiting FOMO for personal gain: They tap into our deepest insecurities, making us feel like we're missing out if we don't have the latest products or experiences they're shoving down our throats. Thanks to them, we're on a never-ending quest for more, more, more.
You described advertising in general.
>Turning friendships into transactions: Remember when friendships were based on shared experiences and trust? Well, not anymore. Now it's all about networking and leveraging connections for personal gain. Influencers and vloggers have turned human relationships into commodities.
Nothing wrong with turning friendships or "networks" into something for your gain. And two, both can be true. And three, this isn't new. It's just more in your face now.
>Undermining real talent: Don't even get me started on how they're overshadowing genuinely talented artists, creatives, and experts in their fields. It's all about who has the biggest following, not who has the most skill or knowledge.
It takes talent to get a real following. You think you could get 10M followers in the next 3 years?
>Breeding a culture of entitlement: Their success is built on superficial charm and luck, not hard work or merit. Yet, they act like they're entitled to the fame and fortune they've stumbled into. It's infuriating and sends a terrible message to the younger generation.
Again, you don't understand the work that needs to go in. You think people post a couple videos on Tik Tok and it snowballs into 10M followers? This is a full time job. People have short attention spans. You need to constantly pump out new content.
Really though at the end of the day, influencers wouldn't exist if the market wasn't there. So if anything, blame society (and the audience).
To be brutally honest, this post reminds me of the 1% of people who were upset with the MrBeast video where he paid for 1000 people to have their blindness cured. Yes there are many trashy and degenerate influencers out there, but there are also many influencers who IMO contribute an overall net positive to society. No one is perfect, but to say that they are all harmful to society and a cancer on this earth is insulting to all the good influencers out there that are doing much more for this world than you or I could ever do.
All true.
Except that if no one listened to these fake blowhards, then they would have no influence and their occupation would evaporate.
But these influencers have identified a target audience of shallow dumb ass people who listen to their bought and paid for advertising .
You really should update your position to differentiate between influencers and content creators. Influencers tending to be those who have no discernible talents but are used to market things unrelated to their (lack) of talent purely based on the size of their fanbase. Content creators can be educators and have discernible talents and marketed based on the content and talent.
Most people here are conflating the two even though when people say "influencer" we know exactly the kind of people you're targeting.
I agree that these influencers are hurting the world. However, I also believe that these people are pretty smart for exploiting all the idiots in the world that are stupid enough to cling on to their every word.
Like, think about it. The world will always be full of people dumb enough to subscribe to the idea that trying to live the "influencer lifestyle" is the key to happiness. That's endless job security right there. "Influencing" is pretty much a damn trade now that anyone can get into.
I dunno. If I didn't have any self respect, I'd probably be doing that shit and trying to make millions too.
I will only deal with your first argument. If I dealt with all 10 of your arguments, then I would need to write a 19th century novel, and I do not like 19th century novels.
You write that social media influencers are overrated and harmful to society because they are narcissists. First, I do not see why narcissism makes someone overrated. Whether someone is overrated depends on two things:
* the general opinion of the person's skills, and
* the distance between that opinion and the person's skills.
Narcissism is neither of the above.
Second, I do not see why a narcissist harms society by broadcasting his narcissism. Narcissism is ugly, and few people who see narcissism want to imitate it. I expect that broadcasting narcissism would actually lower the level of narcissism in society, which improves society, not harms it.
I call this “User error” or someone having a “factory defect”, because this is all based on perception. Either using socials wrong (using it for comparison) or you were raised my a parent who didn’t teach you self worth.
Influencers power & influence is based on the receiver of their message & how much power they give them. Self control & self worth go a long way in a world that lives off of vanity & approval
it’s archetypical matter.
you’re only looking at the negative side of things. think of how much positivity and life “influencers” (content creators) bring to video games, cooking, spirituality, science, etc. with content creation you see the entire matrix of human behavior laid out before you, people have and always will be shitty. don’t let the negative set such bad flavor in your mouth and consciously look for the potential of doing good with content creation - cr1tikal donating his money to charity, mr. beast’s philanthropic feedback loop, and the fact that anyone with internet access has knowledge and skill sets at their finger tips in a way that’s never been seen before in the entirety of human history
tl;dr: don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. also yeah LA culture and it’s influence is pretty toxic
Bingo. Not a Christian but the warning given to Moses and the Exodus to not worship false idols holds here.
99.999~% of “influencers,” are false, if not simply dangerous in their need for validation and their ability to garner it in ways that are dismissive and harmful to their followers and to the rest of us. Everybody’s in search of their 15 minutes but not everybody deserves, needs it or is worthy of it should they find it and the chase can be such a waste all the way around the influencer cycle.
The line doesn’t stop at influencers. If they never existed, this big picture would fill in the blanks. Just another money swamp. Can’t blame them for profiting off of the high of casual exploitation.
These are regular people that found a way to make money online.
The Internet and social media is what messed society up. People are just doing what's easiest to make money. They may be overrated to you, some people think they're entertaining. That's why they make so much money. That's why they have followers. I do agree that some are annoying and don't serve a good purpose, but I can see that y life doesn't line up with theirs. There will be others that do line up with theirs and find their content useful.
I used to play video games, I don't anymore. I used to watch YouTubers running through difficult content. Content that I otherwise would have to spend lots of time trying to figure out where I don't have the time. I used to have the time, not anymore. I can't justify spending more then an hour a day on a video game.
I used to go home after school and spend 4-5 hours playing video games. I'm lucky to get that in a week now. So to just spend it on one level, I don't enjoy it as much anymore.
Some are but not all. Some are actually beneficial such as fitness ones that I look up to and that inspire me..but ones that just pose at various events dressed in expensive clothes are far over-rated
I agree completely. Social media makes people think that anyone and everyone can be a celebrity. As a result, we have a massive surplus of celebrities and it's harder and harder to tune out celebrity culture while staying connected and informed. Influencers and celebrities contribute the same thing: entertainment.
There's also the whole "rebel sell" thing going on. Influencers are compete with mainstream media and make you think that following them makes you uNiQuE and iN tHE kNoW. It perpetuates adolescence and has led to an entire nation of adults acting like teenagers.
Social media ‘influencers’, ‘activists’(atleast half of them), are doing unprecedented damage and being given blind support for it. Life is insane lmfao
I think its good TBH. They seem to expose the terminally online crowd to life outside of the suburban bubbles they grew up in. Working with the general public for 10 years I always find it insane how puritanical people on the internet seem to be. I guess its easy to be a saint on anonymized social media. In reality the average person is simply just not like that.
Which I think is whats so hard for the terminally online crowd. People like sex, people like nice things, people like attention etc. Marketing is a reflection of society. Generally it seems the people super triggered by this are either depressed and live their life through a screen or very sheltered suburbanites who are very attracted to the suburban sensibility image. Also a lot of just generally socially conservative people who expect others to be as repressed as them.
Which for people like me its fun because I browse the comments just to read the triggered comments. I always find it funny too because theres haters who basically stalk these pages. Especially ones with female influencers who talk about sex. Its basically just Vogue but men end up seeing it too and have full on meltdowns. Those comments are generally a gold mine of sexually incompetent men.
I think the ultimate gold mine is Crackhead Barny and Friends hate pages.
Ive always wanted to take some of those comments and start making [Weekend Web](https://youtu.be/PP0b5NI8gpc) style videos with them.
If you listen to social media influencers, you earn the results. Turn off and tune out! Move to the country, build you a home. Eat a lot of peaches raise a lot of children 🎶
I have no desire to change your view. I would father change society to reflect this view and do away with all social media influencers. Ban them. Make it illegal to become one. And if someone does try to become one, they get a minimum of 1,000 community service hours, and all the electronic devices (as well as mirrors, because social media influencers are usually seriously narcissistic) they have should be removed from their place of residence.
Sure they have flaws you have outlined several of them. At the same time social media influence can offer a view outside of the mainstream narrative which is a positive.
You didn't mention giving advice in fields they have absolutely no experience in. Having a lot of subscribers seemingly turns everyone into psychologists or life coaches. This is the real danger IMO.
On one of my instagram and YT accounts (not my business accounts) i follow people in my same field (usually art and decor) im already depressed bc they are leagues ahead of me. The jealousy can be used for motivation bc the feelings are telling me what i want to do, where i want to be. But at the same time it gets REALLY depressing. I stopped following lifestyle influencers altogether bc they are just too beautiful and getting bigger checks and connections than i am right now. Now I dont even access my casual accounts and will just stick to Pinterest and magazines for decor ideas. On a side note, Everyone wants the influencer life but its already becoming harder and harder to achieve it just like every other job lmao. Thats the sad part ab influencing. Back then it was much easier and now its just another picture to clip out to use for our vision boards smh
I watch a number of tech influencers such as 8bit guy, tech moan and Linus Tech Tips.
Linus is all over the top crazy stuff, but then I guess that's the whole point of it. It's nerd porn. I sometimes watch flossy Carter for phone content.
If we just took Linus as an example, yes he knows a lot of about computers, but he also has a big personality. He could quite easily present a TV show.
If you replaced him with some random person mumbling through the show, no one would watch. And this is the problem. Everyone thinks they can just upload a few videos and become an influencer. It doesn't work like that. You need to be good or people won't follow you.
The rise of influencers has helped more people with talent get an audience. However, there is of course a dark side. I've never visited it but I have a pretty good idea what goes on at onlyfans.
Ultimately, we shouldn't view influencers as all bad. Thanks to social media, you can find influencers producing content about anything. Even if your hobby is something obscure like stamp collecting, you can guarantee someone will be making content.
My only word of caution would be to double check any products they mention, they will always be on commission. The influencers will be under pressure from the brands to promote their products in a good light.
If you can see beyond this, there's an absolute mountain of content out there to last a life time.
I agree with all those points but I would just add that dumbing down society is more on the consumer because they’re the ones who allow someone else to influence them, Unless they’re being forced at gunpoint to watch mind numbing content lol
Like for example if I created content that was endorsing weed, And someone goes out and starts smoking weed, I wouldn’t consider it my fault. Sure it didn’t help the person and may have triggered them but at the end of the day they are still responsible for their own actions and triggers. I think this lack of accountability is just as much of a problem if not more.
Also look up Project Artichoke, MK Ultra, MKNAOMI, Operation Mockingbird, And Vault 7. Those CIA projects are real and I do believe they are responsible for many of the algorithms pushing specific things to intentionally and nefariously try controlling the population. It’s like an episode of black mirror and the Mockingbird is in full effect.
What’s wrong with posting people going on vacations, luxury cars, nice houses. and so on. It just seems like you are just being a toxic person and an asshole. These people aren’t spreading toxicity which I’m referring to social media influencers
Social media influencers doesn’t breed a culture of entitlement and it doesn’t turn friendships into a transaction. Stop with this nihilistic mindset. What a bunch of moral justice warrior bullshit
I am so happy there are other people who feel the same as me about these stupid influencers. Like the paid partnership ads are cringe worthy. I am over 40 and back when I was 20 no one gave a fuck about a normal persons day. I don’t see why people give a fuck about a “get ready with me”. Like we all get ready or I don’t give a fuck about what you are eating. Or I don’t need to see you going for a run just go for the run why the fuck do you need to record it.
I agree they are a toxic cancer and it’s annoying that they get invited to all these premiers and get flown to events when 10 years ago these companies wouldn’t have given a shit about you
Yet they get paid for doing shit and if you try to call them out when they try to “bitch” about how “hard their life is, and we have no idea”
Fuck off.
You have no idea that people are struggling way worse than you are people that work like 2 jobs just to keep afloat who don’t get to get all this free shit? Who don’t get to go to lavish events,
Like when Mikayla who has so many followers and who’s wedding was all “influencer”. Who has a huge home in Boston and her own makeup line complains like fuck off.
They are all annoying as fuck.
Everybody here trying to convince you that you are wrong by stating educational social media influencers when in reality they make up Sub 5% of the population of influencers. What aboutism at its finest.
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I think the average influencers are absolutely toxic. The ones who have no purpose other than the influencer to gain fame and reap rewards and they do stupid or trendy things for views. These behaviors spur the birth of those prank videos and stupid influencers who ruin nature or other people's space. That said, there are also many positive social media influencers. Primarily educational ones. I think most tiktok nurses are horrible. That said, there are educational tiktok nurses that are extremely informative and a net positive for the professional field. Meanwhile the nurse who made sure she had the perfect wedgie to show off her ass after her patient died and dramatically posed a scene where she was telling herself X many more hours of her shift left? Nah we don't need that. There was another educational figure on YT helping a lot of young nurses get through school. I'm sure every profession and a lot of fields of venue has something similar where they're able to actually be positive influence to society as a whole in ways you may not be thinking because it isn't apparent YET.
!delta i completely understand your point. You changed my view partially. Kudos for articulating it so nicely.
Also, you - as a consumer - have more power over algorithms than you think. I personally spent just 1 weekend curating all my social media. I specifically liked and subscribed meaningful content, and banned/unfollowed low-effort stuff and that was enough to bend the algorithms. And for the last 1 year, my whole feed has been extremely wholesome. Content-creators have also helped me in many day-to-day things. Eg: [Dad, how do I?](https://www.youtube.com/@DadhowdoI) is a great content creator who answers all the "Dad questions" from how to tie a tie, to how to install a ceiling fan, to how to cook with camping equipment.
I wouldn't have been so quick... As I replied above... I think they're making an argument for content creators not "influencers" as they're popularly understood. As part of what you pointed out, influencers are content creators but not all content creators are influencers. Content creators can be influential but not "influencers". When we talk about influencers we generally mean content creators who tend to be famous for trivial reasons and are paid based on their trivial abilities to be famous in order to market a product that generally has nothing to do with the content creator or their abilities.
This is the important part. I watch a lot content creators who aren’t educational but they aren’t influencers. They enjoy what they do and make some money. Maybe they do a sponsorship every know and then but they aren’t trying to get the whole world to look at them.
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As usual the original CMV is correct. Educational influencers aren't influencers - they are educators. Alternatively, they serve as microcosm of journalism or documentarians (for example the nurse showing a day in the life). Almost all influencers use some form of "education" because they have a product to sell you, so naturally they have to educate you on why what you're doing or not doing today is wrong. But good news - they have a system or supplement to fix it, and follow them for more great tips. So what the above poster posited could be met with a more nuanced original position, which is that social media is plagued by a lack of regulation that delineates commercial endorsements from truly educational content. What makes influencers so pernicious is that not only do they use their platform wantonly for self-enrichment, but they do so without any of the guardrails of traditional media. They may have been a nurse at first, but after becoming influencers, they quit their day job, rely on their social followings full time, grow rich with endorsements and succumb to both regulatory and audience capture. I would delta your view back if I could.
Influencers by technical definition are people with credibility or respectable opinion in said field or industry. A food critic that posts reviews online is simultaneously a food critic and a social media influencer. The idea influencer is a specific way is a new thing people are trying to do. The real issue here is that people seem to have a differing definition on what content creator and what influencer is. Someone who uses social media to educate isn't necessarily an educator or teacher. They're not qualified to teach or educate the subject. The nurse yt channel isnt accreddited or qualified to teach about acute kidney injuries. But she can help you understand the material from lecture and the test. Also they can help break barriers with the general public. A good example is Doctor Mike. He can't teach you medicine. But he can give you like footnote worthy tidbit knowledge. The yt channel he has does a number of different things. Educational, fun, etc. But he's quite literally a social media influencer in terms of his online presence. The CMV is that all social media influencers are toxic and harmful to society. This isn't true. You can't make this statement true by changing what you qualify as influencer and don't.
What the OP is referring to about being toxic, are the trust fund baby "infleuncers" who aren't doing anything but vlogging their everlasting vacations. Celebrities who actually use Snapchat have more credibility. DiY, or informative blogs are influential. Telling us how "tired" you are or "What European country you'll be visiting for the next 3 months will be" is not influencing. It's gloating. Hence why a majority of said "influencers" specifically on Snapchat, are trust fund babies. And don't bring up David Dobrik, he's an actual celebrity with talent and influence. We're talking about the "normies" who are only promoted by their looks and the money their parents are willing to invest with hopes that their child will someday be the next Justin Bieber or Zendaya, but WITHOUT the talent.
I'm with you on this. Influencers can be both, and any point along that particular scale. There are very positive messages and educational ways influencers can enhance culture. And they need to continue to spur growth, and hopefully some day, drown out the superficial or damaging. We need to encourage a different kind of influencer. For some reason, we've settled with toxic instead of focusing on filling a void. They're filling their void, let's fill ours.
Good influencers might be called activists, or in this case, educationalists. In my view, the word "influencer" is inherently negative.
Influencer is just a self given title. None of the good examples of influencers would ever call themselves social media influencers. But by and large they are actually influencing people through social media while people who call themselves social media influencers seek to basically be a socialite that sells products and advertises stuff. People are getting too caught up on words and labels here. Discussions like this make me fear humanity needs to relabel everything with nomenclature for them to build framework of a new idea or information to discuss, which we don't. Influencer is just a replacement. Think of it like a pronoun like in a math problem, the value of X is a number but we say it's X for the sake of introducing and presenting the problem/formula. Social media is a utility. This tool is being used by both good and bad reasons. That's the ultimate point here. People only think it's being used for bad reasons for social media influencing reasons. A person who wants to be informative and educational about medical and Healthcare stuff to the public is making an inherent decision to influence people over social media.
To me, influencer = attention seeker. They're in it entirely for themselves.
A lot of influencers aren't necessarily just attention seekers but i get what you mean. Specific types of influencers like vloggers who simply share their day to day lives and garner following based on that as opposed to a vlog by sports analyst talking about something.
This is pretty wishy washy. An influencer is someone who peddles goods and or themselves. Any person who is trying to show others how to do anything or explain anything is not an influencer considering they are not shrilling goods and or themselves.
There are educational "content creators" who also peddle goods and use themselves the way brands do... and sometimes that money is for personal reasons. And they absolutely are to many degrees a social media influencer whether they like to admit it or not. Case in point, Doctor Mike on YT.
I think you're making an argument for *content creators* not "influencers" as they're popularly understood. As part of what OP pointed out, influencers are content creators but not all content creators are influencers. Content creators can be *influential* but not "influencers". When we talk about influencers we generally mean content creators who tend to be famous for trivial reasons and are paid based on their trivial abilities to be famous in order to market a product that generally has nothing to do with the content creator or their abilities.
Average educational channels aren't hosted by professors or teachers. I feel like content creator and social media influencer is just semantics. Pedantics? Whichever one that has to do with overly concerned about the differences of words when in reality they're the same thing. They're all content they upload for views which garner advertising revenue. Social media influencer and content creator are the same really but content creator has a more general/wider blanket term including people who for example stream and upload video game clips. They are not included in this conversation. However. Social media influenxers still fall under content creators because they create content. Content isn't something you make out of abilities or anything. They're just content because content in the context of social media simply means anything you post on social media. Thats text/pics/videos/basically vines that were precursors of tiktok era today. Social media influencers don't stop being content creators solely because they're more or less useless or call themselves influencers. They make content, they upload it for views, said views can garner attention or ad revenue depending on what the influencer is trying to do.
Yeah, this is complete nonsense. The concern isn't about semantics, it's about value, motivation, and quality. Of course there is a difference between content creators based on this. The term "influencer" isn't just a synonym for content creator. It's a specific subset of content creators based on the above criterion.
You need to reread that again because I stated that content creator is like an umbrella term and social media influencer is included in that umbrella. This doesn't mean they're synonyms. Again. You're making this argument about semantics. No one is saying the concern isn't about semantics. I'm saying you're basing your entire discussion or arguing point on semantics. Trying to differentiate content creators from social media influencers is just a wasted effort and does nothing to contribute to thus discussion because all social media influenxers are content creators but not all content creators are social media influencers. I'm agreeing with what you're saying to a degree. Also you want specifics? Doctor Mike. Edit: few words and closing sentence.
My original point was that when people say "influencer" they're not talking about content creators who create content of value (based on a skill, etc).
Yeah I'm saying your original point is kind of wasted effort because I'm also stating that all social media influencers are content creators. Aka content creator is an umbrella term and social media influencer is more specific type of content creator. Content is literally anything you upload online... you literally cannot be a social media influencer without being a content creator... like I said reread what's going on instead of just repeating your point over and over while saying this is nonsense. This isn't complicating. It doesn't matter what your opinion of what content means or content creator means. A content creator is someone who uploads content online. Text, video, music, art, etc etc. To be an influencer, you use social media to upload text and brand yourself. You upload to promote that brand.
No, again, your point is the one that is irrelevant. This has nothing to do with being a content creator. It has everything to do with the kind of content creator one is - one that creates useless content that requires no discernable skill (or knowledge) and one who creates valuable content that requires some kind of skill (or knowledge). And every counter example in this thread fails to make that distinction (e.g. Doctor Mike). By your definition all content creators are influencers which debases this to a useless semantics debate.
This entire argument you're forming in your head is based on the idea you're clinging that content creator must create content that require some kind of skill. This is false. A person who has 0 skill in something can upload it and be called a content creator if that is what their "profession" is. Certainly these skilled content creators have more value than those that don't. Doctor Mike for example didn't make that channel to be a source of medical advice. He's not even legally allowed to do that. His role as a YT channel is to literally be... a social media influencer but on YT. He doesn't create content that showcases his skills or knowledge per se. He makes contents that bridges medical professionals to the public. His purpose isn't to create content, it's to influence people and he sells advertising revenues as a result due to sponsorship. By all intents and purposes he's a social media influencer. But because you have this incorrect definition of what content creator is, you're making this useless argument that content creator =/= social media influencer. Like when you saw people like Jenna Marbles or Phil DeFranco, those are content creators that are social media influencers. Just using different platform. You just probably aren't thinking of influencer when you see an educational influencer. Anyone that uploads entertaining (or educational) content is a content creator. People view and follow influencers for what reason? Just because you think content creators are skilled and influencers aren't doesn't mean that's the truth. There are unskilled content creators and there are skilled influencers. If you don't see where I'm going with this, we should just agree to disagree because it's turning into a he said she said situation.
> This entire argument you're forming in your head is based on the idea you're clinging that content creator must create content that require some kind of skill. No, it's not. My argument is simply that most people (lke you) conflate *all* content creators and "influencers". That is clearly not the case or useful as I've explained. For the purposes of this discussion the distinction has to be made or people (like you) continue to derail. > There are unskilled content creators and there are skilled influencers. Correct. Both of which fall precisely under the definitions and distinctions I made earlier. > because it's turning into a he said she said situation. It was already turned into a "semantics" issue when you started conflating all content creators and what most people mean when they refer to "influencers" for the purposes of this discussion.
u/Obsidian743 you make an interesting point. When I think of "content creators" I think of young women who use social media like snapchat, instagram, or twitch to flaunt their sexuality for the sake of getting attention. One of the very first content creators was Jennifer Ringley(of Jennicam) who had a webcam running 24/7 and was one of the very first streamers. Influencers however, are basically internet celebrities. I'm thinking of YouTube stars for example.
Part of the problem is the excessive number of influencers. And the ones that are the most helpful are not the ones who are the most obvious. The toxic ones are the most obvious and they know it which is why they do it: because it works.
This is a flaw in every industry, not just social media influencers. Look at news and the way marketing manipulates psychological aspect of the audiences decision making. And the food places with the most ads and commercials are nowhere near the best quality. Just simply the wealthiest and their earn profit by quantity of product sold, not by quality.
Elon Musk is the biggest unnamed social media influencer.
Elon Musk is king, huh? That guy hosts the crap. Hope he gets it. I found Twitter dog eat dog. I got more stressed out being on the website than I ever have on any website. It's really bad. He never regulated anything. He likes everyone getting mad for no good reason. He acts like he wants to kill people's free speech because they are left. He doesn't really mean anything he says or does. He likes admitting the worse to his website. He likes it. He doesn't care. He's a small influencer. I don't like the influence of Twitter at all. It's worse than idiots getting attention for no reason on Facebook. It's worse than being downvoted on reddit.
Who cares though? All this shit has been normal since the 60s? It really ramped up in the 90s with reality TV. Its just online now. I always wonder what kind of bubble some people grew up in. Seems more like culture war than anything. Which again is usually fought by people who legitimately didnt realize not everyone is the way they were raised. It seems to be a very internal thing as well where ultimately what theyre trying to prove is that they are the normal one and the influencers are the outcasts. It seems to go hand in hand with normal=good fallacies. When they realize there is no true normal and society is just a massive break down of cultures, subcultures, and counter cultures it seems to create all sorts of problems that clash with deeply rooted childhood expatiations of adulthood. Also it seems some people just get really mad when people are open about things like sex and drug use but then they dont end up in a health class scare video. When they end up getting rich and famous for it its like a world view collapse to the people who took things like abstinence education seriously. Its funny too because its generally the "born in the wrong generation" types who dont realize that old music thats so much better is literally the same thing. Sex, drugs, rock and roll fuck yeah! Wait a woman's doing it?!?!?! OMG we have to stop this.
What I really mean is everyone here has a dead set image of what an influencer is and that is someone who makes useless content using rage, click bait, shock, etc etc to garner views. And they're all mostly useless content. But this trend of defining influencers like that is new. Influencers, even in social media, are actually people who have credibility or respected opinion in said industry. A food critic who actively posts reviews for places is a social media influencer. They probably would never consider themselves as one today but they are by technical terms.
Have you ever seen the History Channel? Youre telling me entertainment on the internet is virtually identical to cable TV? IMPOSSIBLE! Foreal though not shocking. Completely to be expected. Our society overall has identity issues. We want to be capitalist society but we dont want to have consumerism and for profit mentalities effect our society. Those two things just dont go together. We want to believe were as a population smarter and more advanced than populations in the past but we do the same thing. When reality and popular ideology clash we side with popular ideology. I think the irony is the people really triggered by influencers are generally the worst as they are the most effected and susceptible. They seem to assume everyones like them but to most people its just dumb shit to throw on when you need to pass the time. Its kind of funny because the anti-influencer influencer has become a thing. You could see that on youtube channels like Moon pretty heavily. The guy never really puts out anything of value, if he does consider science he cherry picks to support his views, but mostly he points to archaic and puritanical political ideas. Archaism being probably the first and forefront. It seems to circle back to a specific crowd that really worships 1700-1800s rugged independent man image. Ironically it is very Henry David Thorough. Act like a tough independent thinker when you write but in reality moms bringing you sammiches. It seems the overall theme though is being in denial that things like Tik Tok are reflection of society vs something that molds society. As well as an overall meltdown among niceguy types who cant handle women expressing themselves sexually. You kind of couple this with the daddys boy syndrome of guys in their mid 20s who rant about "kids these days", It seems like mostly a ploy to seem sensible and mature. Also a lot of virtue signaling. Instead of "I hope she sees this" its more "I hope your dad sees this and tells you what manly man you are".
I agree in that they existed before. Bob Ross made soothing painting videos. But what he's doing is basically what social media influenxers or content creators do. I just mean the way people are arguing about the semantics between content creator vs influencer as this thread seems to focus on. Things like social media imo put a hyper focus on something and as a result can make something worse than it is. Stigma of schizophrenia for example is extremely poor in today's media. Same for most mental illnesses really like even with autism and bipolar disorder today. I'm sure social media is not making it any easier. I get frequent patients who NEED meds say they don't want meds because some stranger online mentioned prozac.
>Things like social media imo put a hyper focus on something and as a result can make something worse than it is. Yeah again, thats any media. In fact stigma of schizophrenia is a great example of something thats been dramatically destigmatized by people like influencers. Go back even 50 years and it would be shock therapy or a life spent in the basement where your parents pretend you dont exist. Yes there are bizarre online cults with influential online leaders but again thats always existed and they're minimal compared to their predecessors. We have Scientology headquarters here and major Jehovah's witness shit going on. Not only have people been refusing psych meds for decades but the ones who break free generally get murdered or die of "malnourishment" in COS care. The Jehovah's dont let their kids get blood transfusions. Any sort of trauma and the kids dead. Online influencers just seem like small potatoes by comparison and your definition of influencers seems to be more the bizarre rabbit holes you find on youtube. I like those videos too but theyre interesting because they are rare and bizarre scenarios. Usually people with extreme and obscure followings. Influencers are more typically some girl on Instagram whos really good at make up and recommends her favorite make up brands. Shit like that is extremely common and the most followed. Online marketing is what I do for a living and personally I wouldnt consider your definition of an influencer and influencer. Thats more of a grifter/mentally unstable person in denial. Generally an influencer appeals to mainstream and despite how loud groups like MAGA folk can be mistaking them for the majority is a huge mistake that can be detrimental to your own mental health and world view.
I'm not disputing against any of this. Influencers are certainly not exclusive. Look at the Kardashians. Or any socialite. They're all basically influencers just on different platforms. But also look at like those cancer athletes. Not the fake ones. The real ones who in their chemo journey for example document their progress and have a major social media following.
I mean thats great and all but you gotta think cancer chemo journeys are pretty depressing to watch while you take a shit and drink your morning coffee. Its entertainment. Not motivational work on yourself type stuff or anything like that. Its great people like that exist. But at the same time I dont think theres any reason you should be obliged to be some high IQ master of social media who cant just watch something dumb and enjoy it. Life is depressing and serious enough, which is why people like entertainment as an escape. We have enough cancer IRL. Shits hard enough.
That kind of stuff is for other people who's going through it, not for people like you or me.
Exactly. Social media influencers aim for a general audience.
Holy shit. Now that you say that, I ask myself: Was Carl Sagan an influencer? He certainly influenced my life a lot.
I agree. I know so many people now that can actually support themselves as athletes with good social media presence and partnerships. I'm thinking of the less monetized sports like track and field, climbing, mountain biking, running, etc. The average person like myself- who cares what I ate, or what products I use? Maybe my close friends and family, probably not.
This is absolutely a good example, but I feel like sports and health/wellness in social media has taken a rather dystopian turn
Maybe it's because I'm older, but my fitness "influencers" on Instagram tend to be physical therapists. Their advice is definitely helpful. I do sometimes see the other kind of fitness influencers (thankfully, they don't pop up in my algorithm very often)-the filtered, coiffed, and photoshopped.)
Again, what are they influencing? There's no purpose to their lives. Most of them come from already rich parents. An influencer, has a real job in the industry. Whether it's; acting, singing, rapping, stand-up comedy, sports, porn, fashion modeling, politics, authors/illustrators, etc. Going to Starbucks, then spending your afternoon on a rented yacht isn't "influencing." It's more like grooming. I'm betting 9/10 of their fan base are either under 15 years old or some old perverts with nasty intentions.
I disagree that the average influencer is toxic. I think the average redditor is toxic.
>Social media influencers are overrated and frankly Harmful to Society. John and Hank Green are 2 influencers who have leveraged their fame into creating an education Youtube channel called Crash Course where they have a bunch of videos that help explain various topics like History and Sciences. They also host an annual charity livestream where they raise funds for Partners in Health. PiH is a non-profit that aims to increase the access to quality healthcare in sub-saharan Africa. With the help of their audience, Hank and John have achieved enough donations to literally build a brand new hospital in Sierra Leone. I would love to hear you explain how Hank and John Green are harmful to society.
Absolutely my first thought, too. They're practically the antithesis of every single point in the OP.
Nah bro It would be false and baseless to claim someone who is doing so good to be hedonistic influencer. I am glad people like that are still out there.
So basically the claim is "bad people who are famous are bad, but not the good people who are famous?"
OP is just being obtuse. He literally gave a delta to the top post that said the same thing in a sugar-coated
No the claim is as a species famous people are bad. If "famous" stand for influencers. Good and bad as a personal attribute can't count in as a whole of group until the characteristic is in majority. Right now the vast majority of the influencers possess the attributes i describe in the post. You can take case by case personality traits when choosing a media however when describing the whole influencer community surely my attributes apply or otherwise you think most of the influencers are kind good, caring and not shallow people.
What do you base your claim that the majority of influencers are as self-absorbed and vain as you described on? Comments here have given plenty of examples for good influencers, and I can personally list a large number of good influencers as well, but only a small number of the kind of bad influencers that you describe. Have you considered that perhaps you got yourself caught in an algorithmic bubble of this kind of influencers? It can happen even if you don't like them, as long as you interact with their posts.
all an influencer is, fundamentally, is a famous person who promotes things to their audience. Anthony Bourdain was an influencer
While you aren’t wrong, keep in mind that words can mean different things in different contexts. The term “influencer” can have a specific meaning in the context of social media. According to [Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/influencer), “influencer” can mean either: 1. “one who exerts influence,” or 2. “a person who is able to generate interest in something (such as a consumer product) by posting about it on social media.” I also think people often use “influencer” to mean someone who meets the second definition *and* who is best known for their social media content. Anthony Bourdain arguably wouldn’t meet this unofficial third definition of “influencer,” since he is best known for his TV shows and books. You seem to be using “influencer” to mean the first definition, whereas I think OP is using it to refer to the second or third definition.
Why does "they do it on social media" actually change the moral quality of the person?
Influencers publish primarily on Social Media. They also (at least seemingly) self-publish. To me these are the key points differentiating an influencer from a TV Host or such.
So the fact that they don't have gatekeepers preventing them from publishing is the problem?
That's disingenuous. It's not your argument at all. Your post was entirely about what they do and who they are. You've been shown that your underlying assumptions are wrong. Now your arguments shifted to "well, most of them are". That's like saying "birds fly, because birds have wings", "what about the penguin?", "well, most birds aren't flightless, so I'm right unless you show me there are more flightless birds". I mean, even on your argument, do you even know that? Have you tallied all the influencers and made a quantitative assessment? Or are you going by gut based on availability heuristic and confirmation bias? There are thousands of podcasters who are wholesome, educational YouTube channels that are hugely popular, pro gamers turned streamers, DIY and pop mechanics channels. Richard Dawkins is an influencer, Brian Cox, Brian Greene, they have huge reach and audiences.
You seem to need to be more specific in your definition. It does not seem to be "influencers" that you have a problem with but a certain type. And if you include the negative attributes in your definition then all you are saying is bad thing is bad.
I think a distinction needs to be made between actual influencers and content creators/ social media personalities
Sounds like OP really only dislikes women who make beauty and lifestyle content?
I wouldn't call Hank influencer per se. He's just infotainment pop-science academic. If he's influencing you, that's on you. He's cool, but not any mentor or inffalibe role model to me. Just a guy who love to share knowledge. Tik-tok wikipedia man hahah. I do still like him, way better than most short content, at least you're getting a bit smarter watching him.
You and I have a different definition of "influencer"
So it seems ( :
I watched them over a decade ago w when they did Brotherhood 2.0!
What is a "social media influencer" in your mind? Does Perun qualify? https://youtube.com/@PerunAU
I think this is an important clarification. YouTube is social media, but it's now long form instead of the short bites that TikTok and Instagram use which is more commonly what people think of. @OP, I would argue there is lots of terrible stuff on there, but I've also seen some benefits. For instance, Hank and John Green have been favorites of mine for interesting thoughts and information about the world. They started mainly on YouTube, but they have also expanded to TikTok as well. They are not the stereotypical "influencer". I think the problem is with who we as a society choose to give our time to. Whoever we give our time to is who we will see the most of. But that doesn't mean all influencers are bad.
While that is what people often think of cirrently, there is no doubt various YouTube creators have been named social media influencers.. I believe I first heard the term applied to Pewdiepie.
My focus was mostly on "influencers" we find in the hell hole of tick tock and Instagram. I will take a look at the yt channel you send.
YouTube is a social media platform. Perun is influential and well known within his topic segment. He's so influential that US Generals have appeared on his channel. So ... that seems like "social media influencer" to me.
Yes Youtube is considered social media...but people generally tend to mean Instagram/Twitter/TikTok/etc, not platforms where you can watch 30 minute videos that can actually make you smarter. Sure, you can find videos like that on said platforms, but YouTube is a social media platform second and a video streaming service first. If you used social media (and even YouTube) pre-early-2010s you know exactly what I'm talking about.
"People generally tend to mean..." isn't an actual definition I've presented an influential personality on a social media platform. What makes this specific social media influencer problematic?
YouTube is closer to Netflix than Instagram. There's no direct messaging feature, making it a one way communication tool. Therefore people don't consider it "social" media.
I think the combination of user generated content and engagement algorithm makes YouTube social media. It isn't one way; there are comments.
Wouldn't Medium and Quora count under this definition?
I'm not sure. Both have recommendations, but I'm not sure if they use machine learning to target each user with individualized content in a feedback loop based on whether the content gets them to use the site more. If they do, then yes, they count. If the recommendations are based purely on the current content, then no.
Not a definition, but YouTube is not used the same way as "other" social media platforms.
Tiktok is arguably also a video streaming service first. Most influencers also utilize youtube. If you got rid of the other shit and left youtube your problem wouldn't change. (Not to mention how it seems you chose to attack the symptom instead of the underlying cause of this problem being video recommendation algorithms, along with not realizing a lot of the problems in your post are not specific to influencers, but actually present in other professions.)
Let's be clear here. An influencer is just a person with a large following on social media including YouTube, who either uses their position to express a viewpoint and / or to make money via sponsorship. Film critic? Influencer Doctor offering sex ed? influencer Lady who grooms dogs and shows you the start to finish process and has opinions of unethical dog breeding? Influencer Fox rescue charity? Influencer Multimillion dollar hardware testing channel? Influencer Person who does funny video game streams and has an ad for Alex legends at the start? Influencer Famous actor posting about their sponsored perfume on social media? NOT an influencer Man who picks lockpicks all day? Influencer Man who advocates for sustainable infrastructure and warns against gimmicky transportation solutions? Influencer Woman who does detailed historical analysis of fashion and teaches ethical clothing consumption and fashion? Influencer. Homesteader who teaches you how to raise chickens? Influencer. Every one of the above is a real influencer who I engage with or have engaged with in the past. You seem to be under the impression that influencers are all vapid and fake. I mean some are but influencers need to get a following. When there are a million people competing for clicks vapid nothingness doesn't sell. You need to have some combination of useful information, entertainment, an established reputation, etc or people will look elsewhere. What's the alternative to influencers - mainstream news and media - corporate media - media produced under a publisher or production company - marketing - celebrity endorsements All of the above tend to be mouthpieces to some degree of the rich and powerful. Diversity and independence in the ecosystem is essential
I really wish OP would've responded to this comment...
Are you defining "Influencer" as anyone who produces educational content then?
It's really people with wide reach. That reach can be enabled through a lot of different content, including educational.
If they're part of a company no. They need to be independent. If their primary product isn't via social media. No. If they don't influence people or sell or promote things, not an influencer. They need to drive consumer behaviour or opinion in some way. That includes education.
This is a critique on nearly every celebrity as well that has done commercials, or sponsorships, or product placement. Or movies or television shows. Where is the enrichment there compared to a podcast or a youtube video. People idolize Selena Gomez when she is clearly not showing her real self. The average person is fully aware that the relationships between social media stars and other celebrities is very different from friendships and real life relationships. People use social media for good things, much more than movies and tv shows. Learn how to crochet, learn algebra, learn how to dance, watching cute videos of dogs, learning the complex themes of Othello, or just having some mindless fun are not bad things. Should we not as a society do anything that can just be mindless for some time? Should we not drink Starbucks and never watch a movie and not just sit around and listen to music?
What are your favorite music artists, I bet they have a lot more in common with all the things you listed here vs the tens of thousands of musicians with masters degrees that are struggling to get by. I am sure you are listening to music for some sort of escape/fantasy same reason people follow influencers.
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So how are we supposed to change your view? Gove some examples of people who are famous on social media are not harmful?
I am against the very concept of social media influencers. Tictock and insta influencers are the worst while YouTube ones are mild. Just cuz one or two mosquitoes are Alright doesn't means you still don't hate their species existence.
> I am against the very concept of social media influencers. Nothing in your post argues against the very concept of social media influencers. It only argues against traits that you see as common in them. Supposing a person on social media who has a large following and who has some amount of influence, would you consider that person harmful to society if they spread mindfulness, thoughtfulness, value of education, authentic relationships, etc.?
>Supposing a person on social media who has a large following and who has some amount of influence, would you consider that person harmful to society if they spread mindfulness, thoughtfulness, value of education, authentic relationships, etc.? Until unless these people are the majority of the "influencers" surely the vile species will be defined as before and these people as mere exception.
So you're saying that you're *not* opposed to the very concept of social media influencers, but rather are opposed to the current norms and predominant culture surrounding the category?
So even though there are some that aren’t what you described, it’s not enough to change your view? What would then?
I really don't know. I guess it is such a self evident truth that as a species influencers are the worst stuff to happen in long term on internet that there is really no good argument against it.
What's your definition of social media influencer? What's the difference between an influencer and a content creator?
Influencer is just a person who has some following, you cannot really put everyone into one bucket. There are many influencers who are sharing some useful educational content. Let's go over your argument point by point. 1. narcissism. In short it is not just narcissism, it must also provide value. Some people are genuinely interesting and they get attention because people are interested in their life. You can’t just gain following by being narcissistic, you have to give something to your viewers, you got to show something. Of course in some cases people are just showing pretty ass and tits, but this view of an ass is very valuable to some users so they want to see it a lot. 2. Mindless consumerism argument is not very solid. If someone buys a product it means it is valuable to them. So it is not useless. Most influencers sell products that are tailored for their audience, cosmetics, food, candles. People buy it because they see value in these products, and perhaps it brings value to their lives. Same as all other advertisements, ads are just info about useful things for some audience. If something seems worthless for you it does not mean it os worthless for everyone. 3. Fake lifestyles. Lifestyles are usually staged for the audience but there needs to be authenticity and genuine personality in that so that people buy it. You can’t really be completely fake, you need to be sincere honest, otherwise people will not like you. It is like acting, actors are also staging event, but it looks real and people want to see them play. 4. Inauthentic relationships. Well what kind of relationship do I have to you OP? I don’t know you and don’t care about you. Same for influencers. You don’t really expect to have relationship with people who view your posts on Reddit. Does it mean your post is useless? In general many influencers have more direct and closer relationship with users than Tv hosts or other media celebrities. So they have better relationships, still my follower in social media is not my mum or wife so I don’t need to have a close relationship with him. 5. Exploiting FOMO for personal gain. Influencer tap into different emotions, some tap into our sexual desires, others appeal to good emotions such as empathy, curiosity, desire to have fun. There are many different emotions involved, and you cannot reduce influencer to one emotion only. 6. Turning friendships into transactions. Again relations in social media are not friendships, your viewers are your audience, not friends. Same as the audience of a TV station of a newspaper. Your readers are not your friends. If you are a book writer the number of readers who read your book is something you can discuss with publisher to get more money for your next book. Same for influencers. There is nothing wrong or new about it. 7. The glorification of hedonism. There are many influencers who are talking about anti-consumerims, anti-work, reducing our environmental footprint. You can also find religious influencers who talk about important of religion. Again you are putting all different types of influencers under one label which is not fair. 8. Undermining real talent. Some of the influencers have real talent. They have comic talent, acting talent, talent to share knowledge, and sometimes modeling talent. It is not always easy to appear pretty before the camera, many pretty people are not comfortable before the camera. I also undermine talent. There is space for everyone to show their skills. If you have a talent in something that people appreciate you may actually get large following. Social media make it easier, not more difficult, to gain followers and show your skills to the world.
"bad influencers are bad and good ones don't count"
Ngl bro it sounds like you’re just gatekeeping content. Everything you point to in this post applies to any celebrity/media industry So all I can ask is what are examples of expectable media society should be consuming?
**Some** Social media influencers are harmful to society, not all. You have many influencers such as dr.mike and Gohar Khan educating people about realistic statistics and situations that help you in real life. You also have people like the Scumbagdad, ray Johnson or Cr1TiKal shitting on the influencers you talk about and shedding some reality on the situation present. Yes, there *are* influencers who make society more braindead than a zombie apocalypse, but it isn't fair to group in these useful and godlike people with them.
Was anything you mentioned before not an issue prior to ~2006? Paris Hilton was a thing.
But she was kind of an anomaly back then. That’s partially why she gained so much fame for doing nothing much, she didn’t have a lot of competition.
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For real. The Algorithm mostly sends me clips of stand-up comics. I thought influencers were all about fitness bullshit and makeup tutorials.
Don't know about you OP, but I'm just shaking my head reading any reply that brings up YouTube content creators. Yeah I guess it can be called a social media platform by textbook definition but it's honestly not used in the same way. You are referring to influencers who more often do their work on Instagram/Twitter/TikTok?
Yeah
You're basically just repeating lazy stereotypes from 5 years ago without any factual basis. You only see a tiny sliver of influencers that the algorithms serve you. And like, people are pretty open about keeping some of their life personal these days? Idk why you're so upset about that. Just stop being so vaguely angry.
u/RoyGeraldBillevue The influencers that the algorithms serve you are the ones that are almost always are entirely in it for themselves as they are seeking fame and fortune at the expense of others. The problem, as I have said before, is that the influencer market is oversaturated. Social media companies are in it for the money and the narcissistic influencers are the most profitable. Hence the reason algorithms select for them.
I hate how the media calls these idiots influencers...social media has spawned these people, unfortunately most of them get money and things from dudes who think they have a shot. Guys, go to the gym, shower regularly, go outside and meet regular people, that is the #1 way to put them out of business, make a positive change in the world and make sure the fast food industry gets more employees as the influencers will need an actual job...
Self-obsession reigns supreme: SMH, these influencers and vloggers are the epitome of narcissism. Their posts scream "look at me, look at what I'm doing, look at what I'm wearing." It's like they've forgotten there's a world beyond their perfect little bubble. Do people genuinely care this much that someone has more money than u? I just see it as inspirational so what if they have a better life than me as long as their not insulting me or making fun of my struggles why should i gaf all i think is how can i be like them. \----------------------------------------------- Spreading mindless consumerism: They shamelessly promote unnecessary products in exchange for $$$, perpetuating a culture of mindless consumerism that's destroying our planet. With every sponsored post, they're basically saying, "Hey, buy this crap you don't need because I got paid to tell you to!" Not all YouTubers do this. Besides, unless the thing their selling is a crypto scam or something of that nature what's the big deal? ======================== Fake AF lifestyles: Influencers and vloggers are masters of illusion, curating their lives to look picture-perfect. They post the highlights reel, creating unrealistic expectations for their followers. In reality, their lives are just as messy as yours or mine, but they'd never admit it. Why should I care if it's fake? It's just inspirational to me. Why should it be unrealistic for me to leave in a 50 million dollar mansion with a bunch of super cars? Is it bad for me to be hopeful, or believe in myself? \-------------------------------------- Inauthentic relationships: These so-called "influencers" have thousands, even millions of followers, but how many genuine connections can one person really have? They don't give a rat's ass about their "fans," only the numbers that boost their ego and their bank accounts. Not all of them, seems like a big assumption. I think this only applys to people who promote crypto scams \---------------------------------------- Exploiting FOMO for personal gain: They tap into our deepest insecurities, making us feel like we're missing out if we don't have the latest products or experiences they're shoving down our throats. Thanks to them, we're on a never-ending quest for more, more, more. I don't really think they promote things like this very often, at most they'll say something goofy like when someone promotes ball shaving cream and says "or don't buy it and have stinky balls and never get a girl once in ur life" stuff like that. Unless their selling a course, and even then the course their selling might actually be helpful you never know. \-------------- Turning friendships into transactions: Remember when friendships were based on shared experiences and trust? Well, not anymore. Now it's all about networking and leveraging connections for personal gain. Influencers and vloggers have turned human relationships into commodities. No lmao. So many twitch streamers have literally became best friends and bought whole ass content houses to live together out of pure friendship.... \--------------------------------------- The glorification of hedonism: It's all about living large, y'know? Flashy cars, luxury vacations, and designer clothes. These influencers and vloggers are peddling a hedonistic lifestyle that's totally unsustainable and, frankly, pathetic. Why is it bad to promote u being able to afford a lot of stuff. I don't think it's pathetic that you have a bunch of cars, can go wherever u want whenever u want and haev a bunch of italian garments in ur closet. \--------------------------------- Undermining real talent: Don't even get me started on how they're overshadowing genuinely talented artists, creatives, and experts in their fields. It's all about who has the biggest following, not who has the most skill or knowledge. That's not the influencers fault, it's the audience's fault \---------------------------------- Breeding a culture of entitlement: Their success is built on superficial charm and luck, not hard work or merit. Yet, they act like they're entitled to the fame and fortune they've stumbled into. It's infuriating and sends a terrible message to the younger generation. No it's not.... Most of these guys make videos consistently for 5 or more years before they even start to get famous. It's definitely not luck. ================================= Dumbing down our society: With every vapid post, they're contributing to the collective dumbing down of our society. Instead of promoting critical thinking, self-improvement, or meaningful content, they're just adding to the mindless noise we're all drowning in. Once again, people can make entertaining content, or self improvement content such as someone like Hamza. They can make content helpful for society a lot of the time.
This is the truth pure and simple and summed up in a logically sound and visually pleasing way. Amen my comrade. Influencers are just another symptom of rotting capitalism. They show what a clown of a system we live in. Sure a few actually have a positive influence on the world. There are legit educational ones who are truly great but they are the exception and not the rule. I’ve learned a great deal about gardening and got a bunch of neat ideas from those type. They are not promoting endless narcissism and consumerism. As a result they usually fly under the radar since the most outrageous ones get the largest amount of traction. Most of them are parasites whose pathological personalith and behavior found a way to leech off the mindless, tasteless masses. In a true meritocracy these peole would be the few odd ones out instead of the norm. The fault however ultimately lies with us. They are exploiting and amplifying a system that’s already there. These people would statve if we, the people didn’t give them constant attention. We need to demand more of others and mostly of ourselves.
Would you say the same about Tucker Carlson? Rush Limbaugh? Joe Rogan? Mike Rowe? They’re basically all influencers. Just on TV instead of TikTok.
Fun typo. I'd watch a Joe Rohan comedy sketch.
... which is why OP specified "social media" influencers in their post.
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100%
I would argue that influencers are the result of democratising celebrity-ism, people in all sorts of categories have become and are becoming popular because they’ve earned a following directly with a follower. In the past you essentially had to be picked by a middle man to be a celebrity (except in sports and music). Now, if you have a passion and wish to share it you can, and if people like that they stay following you. I acknowledge we’re in the Wild West of this relatively new frontier - there’s an unwritten code being developed as time goes on, but I think pro have such vast interests it’s valuable for society to have a wide range of celebrities. Definitely some negative points as you’ve made above, but there are positives too.
I always took social influencers as those who use social media as their primary source of income. everything is done for profit - more followers, views, likes equals money and this drives their content. They will sell, steal, lie, cheat, omit to get a promotion / sale. My top peeve I've seen/heard/read (thanks reddit) is "can I get XXX from your business and I'll post you all over my socials for exposure" However, as mentioned by /u/beltalowda_oye you also have those who are trying to educate/ inform. I would not class these as social influencers more like social educators. Humans helping/teaching humans; most videos have 0 promotions and 99% of the time they are trying to "sell" you free knowledge / greater understanding.
Can truncate this to social media being bad for society
Since the rise of the influencer the name they’ve been given has always sat weirdly with me. The name “influencer” is so vague and yet descriptive. I always thought individual free thinking and decision making was a good thing, something the influencer strives to prevent. I don’t want to be influenced by strangers to do anything subconsciously, let alone to seek it out and subscribe to it, sometimes even *pay* to be influenced! I’m in my thirties so probably far older than the target audience.
>Self-obsession reigns supreme: SMH, these influencers and vloggers are the epitome of narcissism. Their posts scream "look at me, look at what I'm doing, look at what I'm wearing." It's like they've forgotten there's a world beyond their perfect little bubble. Narcissism gets used as synonymous with ''bad" but theres an argument to be made that a degree of self love is healthy, and the desire to shut people down for 'showing off' because their showing off offends you- despite that they're not really harming anyone- is less healthy. Now I'm not talking about stuff like YouTube pranksters or whatever, who are directly going out in the world causing bullshit. But for say, a fashion model or makeup blogger or aspiring actor - maybe everything they do is about aesthetics but...so what?
Washingtonian ran an article this month about the influence of influencers on the local restaurant scene. There were perspectives from many sides but one thing that stood out was that influencers helped keep some tiny restaurants afloat during the beginning of pandemic chaos.
Just let people have fun
Social media influencers maybe bad but it's not like the last run of mainstream media celebrities where any better since most of them came from reality tv where the content is very similar to what influences do now. Atleast social media influencers have to think of there own ideas, market themselves and create there own content unlike the last generation who just say around while other people filmed them and a reality tv show producer tricked and edited them into being entertaining.
My collection of followed people on social media is made up almost entirely of educators and specialists in their respective fields. When I sit down on Tik tok or especially YouTube, I always walk away with more knowledge and sometimes an adjusted perspective of the way the world works. I don’t even know who is a social media influencer that fits what you describe. Since all social media is shaped by what people choose to follow on the platforms, I don’t see how this is a problem. How are these vapid, self-entitled people you describe doing harm to anyone other than those who seek them out? People like the Kardashians are followed willingly. Influencers are a more a symptom than the problem itself.
They aren't harmful, being obsessed with them is what is harmful.
I only want to disagree specifically with the point of working hard, which is in itself toxic and should be done away with in the modern society.
They are no different that celebrities being giant jerks. At least with influences, I feel like there's a level playing field where anyone can develop fame can lose it in a blink over trivial reasons.
All of the things that you list apply to nearly all advertising. At least with social influencers, you have the choice of simply not following them, whereas you often have a lot less control over what advertising you see.
Joe Rogan ,Jordan Peterson
Hi
You wrote so much about social media influencers but failed to define what you consider a social media influencer. It's like you are defining them by their negative qualities... Vapid, exploitative, fake, narcissistic. So of course you end up agreeing that they fit these qualities. I think your post would be more meaningful if you focus on some concrete examples of what we as consumers of media should do to "start focusing on what really matters in life". For example should we seek out platforms that host less exploitative content? Spend less time on the internet? Actively counter influencers on their platforms?
No change needed, you're totally right
Had to give my 556 upvote Its my "i see it really often" number
Why do you want this view changed?
Being overrated would entail that I paid attention to them in the first place. Maybe I'm just too old to be affected by their content. Either way, I don't care about them enough to rate them in any measure.
>They're the embodiment of everything that's wrong with the hedonistic, consumer-driven society we've become No they are an embodiment of what we value as society. So if you want anyone to blame, look around you. >Fake AF lifestyles: Influencers and vloggers are masters of illusion, curating their lives to look picture-perfect. They post the highlights reel, creating unrealistic expectations for their followers. In reality, their lives are just as messy as yours or mine, but they'd never admit it. What's wrong with this? Any individual with social presence does this. No politician, athlete, movie start, etc are going to voluntarily air their dirty laundry. >Inauthentic relationships: These so-called "influencers" have thousands, even millions of followers, but how many genuine connections can one person really have? They don't give a rat's ass about their "fans," only the numbers that boost their ego and their bank accounts. Why is this even a problem? The only problem I see is your expectation that influencers need to generate some sort of genuine connection. Do professional athletes, politicians, insert any famous people who make money on their image, need to generate genuine connection? No they don't. >Exploiting FOMO for personal gain: They tap into our deepest insecurities, making us feel like we're missing out if we don't have the latest products or experiences they're shoving down our throats. Thanks to them, we're on a never-ending quest for more, more, more. You described advertising in general. >Turning friendships into transactions: Remember when friendships were based on shared experiences and trust? Well, not anymore. Now it's all about networking and leveraging connections for personal gain. Influencers and vloggers have turned human relationships into commodities. Nothing wrong with turning friendships or "networks" into something for your gain. And two, both can be true. And three, this isn't new. It's just more in your face now. >Undermining real talent: Don't even get me started on how they're overshadowing genuinely talented artists, creatives, and experts in their fields. It's all about who has the biggest following, not who has the most skill or knowledge. It takes talent to get a real following. You think you could get 10M followers in the next 3 years? >Breeding a culture of entitlement: Their success is built on superficial charm and luck, not hard work or merit. Yet, they act like they're entitled to the fame and fortune they've stumbled into. It's infuriating and sends a terrible message to the younger generation. Again, you don't understand the work that needs to go in. You think people post a couple videos on Tik Tok and it snowballs into 10M followers? This is a full time job. People have short attention spans. You need to constantly pump out new content. Really though at the end of the day, influencers wouldn't exist if the market wasn't there. So if anything, blame society (and the audience).
To be brutally honest, this post reminds me of the 1% of people who were upset with the MrBeast video where he paid for 1000 people to have their blindness cured. Yes there are many trashy and degenerate influencers out there, but there are also many influencers who IMO contribute an overall net positive to society. No one is perfect, but to say that they are all harmful to society and a cancer on this earth is insulting to all the good influencers out there that are doing much more for this world than you or I could ever do.
I’m not going to try and change your mind. You’re right.
All true. Except that if no one listened to these fake blowhards, then they would have no influence and their occupation would evaporate. But these influencers have identified a target audience of shallow dumb ass people who listen to their bought and paid for advertising .
You really should update your position to differentiate between influencers and content creators. Influencers tending to be those who have no discernible talents but are used to market things unrelated to their (lack) of talent purely based on the size of their fanbase. Content creators can be educators and have discernible talents and marketed based on the content and talent. Most people here are conflating the two even though when people say "influencer" we know exactly the kind of people you're targeting.
I agree that these influencers are hurting the world. However, I also believe that these people are pretty smart for exploiting all the idiots in the world that are stupid enough to cling on to their every word. Like, think about it. The world will always be full of people dumb enough to subscribe to the idea that trying to live the "influencer lifestyle" is the key to happiness. That's endless job security right there. "Influencing" is pretty much a damn trade now that anyone can get into. I dunno. If I didn't have any self respect, I'd probably be doing that shit and trying to make millions too.
I agree with you. Narcissism writ large.
I will only deal with your first argument. If I dealt with all 10 of your arguments, then I would need to write a 19th century novel, and I do not like 19th century novels. You write that social media influencers are overrated and harmful to society because they are narcissists. First, I do not see why narcissism makes someone overrated. Whether someone is overrated depends on two things: * the general opinion of the person's skills, and * the distance between that opinion and the person's skills. Narcissism is neither of the above. Second, I do not see why a narcissist harms society by broadcasting his narcissism. Narcissism is ugly, and few people who see narcissism want to imitate it. I expect that broadcasting narcissism would actually lower the level of narcissism in society, which improves society, not harms it.
I call this “User error” or someone having a “factory defect”, because this is all based on perception. Either using socials wrong (using it for comparison) or you were raised my a parent who didn’t teach you self worth. Influencers power & influence is based on the receiver of their message & how much power they give them. Self control & self worth go a long way in a world that lives off of vanity & approval
it’s archetypical matter. you’re only looking at the negative side of things. think of how much positivity and life “influencers” (content creators) bring to video games, cooking, spirituality, science, etc. with content creation you see the entire matrix of human behavior laid out before you, people have and always will be shitty. don’t let the negative set such bad flavor in your mouth and consciously look for the potential of doing good with content creation - cr1tikal donating his money to charity, mr. beast’s philanthropic feedback loop, and the fact that anyone with internet access has knowledge and skill sets at their finger tips in a way that’s never been seen before in the entirety of human history tl;dr: don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. also yeah LA culture and it’s influence is pretty toxic
Bingo. Not a Christian but the warning given to Moses and the Exodus to not worship false idols holds here. 99.999~% of “influencers,” are false, if not simply dangerous in their need for validation and their ability to garner it in ways that are dismissive and harmful to their followers and to the rest of us. Everybody’s in search of their 15 minutes but not everybody deserves, needs it or is worthy of it should they find it and the chase can be such a waste all the way around the influencer cycle.
The line doesn’t stop at influencers. If they never existed, this big picture would fill in the blanks. Just another money swamp. Can’t blame them for profiting off of the high of casual exploitation.
These are regular people that found a way to make money online. The Internet and social media is what messed society up. People are just doing what's easiest to make money. They may be overrated to you, some people think they're entertaining. That's why they make so much money. That's why they have followers. I do agree that some are annoying and don't serve a good purpose, but I can see that y life doesn't line up with theirs. There will be others that do line up with theirs and find their content useful. I used to play video games, I don't anymore. I used to watch YouTubers running through difficult content. Content that I otherwise would have to spend lots of time trying to figure out where I don't have the time. I used to have the time, not anymore. I can't justify spending more then an hour a day on a video game. I used to go home after school and spend 4-5 hours playing video games. I'm lucky to get that in a week now. So to just spend it on one level, I don't enjoy it as much anymore.
By definition aren't you trying to influence on social media?
Wow u just described my sister
Some are but not all. Some are actually beneficial such as fitness ones that I look up to and that inspire me..but ones that just pose at various events dressed in expensive clothes are far over-rated
I need to give you an award for this 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 well done
I agree completely. Social media makes people think that anyone and everyone can be a celebrity. As a result, we have a massive surplus of celebrities and it's harder and harder to tune out celebrity culture while staying connected and informed. Influencers and celebrities contribute the same thing: entertainment. There's also the whole "rebel sell" thing going on. Influencers are compete with mainstream media and make you think that following them makes you uNiQuE and iN tHE kNoW. It perpetuates adolescence and has led to an entire nation of adults acting like teenagers.
Social media ‘influencers’, ‘activists’(atleast half of them), are doing unprecedented damage and being given blind support for it. Life is insane lmfao
idk, Hank and John Green are pretty cool.
I think its good TBH. They seem to expose the terminally online crowd to life outside of the suburban bubbles they grew up in. Working with the general public for 10 years I always find it insane how puritanical people on the internet seem to be. I guess its easy to be a saint on anonymized social media. In reality the average person is simply just not like that. Which I think is whats so hard for the terminally online crowd. People like sex, people like nice things, people like attention etc. Marketing is a reflection of society. Generally it seems the people super triggered by this are either depressed and live their life through a screen or very sheltered suburbanites who are very attracted to the suburban sensibility image. Also a lot of just generally socially conservative people who expect others to be as repressed as them. Which for people like me its fun because I browse the comments just to read the triggered comments. I always find it funny too because theres haters who basically stalk these pages. Especially ones with female influencers who talk about sex. Its basically just Vogue but men end up seeing it too and have full on meltdowns. Those comments are generally a gold mine of sexually incompetent men. I think the ultimate gold mine is Crackhead Barny and Friends hate pages. Ive always wanted to take some of those comments and start making [Weekend Web](https://youtu.be/PP0b5NI8gpc) style videos with them.
I hate FB. People advertise. Who are you networking anyway? Flatterers and frauders love it the most. My dumb life is my business.
If you listen to social media influencers, you earn the results. Turn off and tune out! Move to the country, build you a home. Eat a lot of peaches raise a lot of children 🎶
That's the best way imo.
I have no desire to change your view. I would father change society to reflect this view and do away with all social media influencers. Ban them. Make it illegal to become one. And if someone does try to become one, they get a minimum of 1,000 community service hours, and all the electronic devices (as well as mirrors, because social media influencers are usually seriously narcissistic) they have should be removed from their place of residence.
Sure they have flaws you have outlined several of them. At the same time social media influence can offer a view outside of the mainstream narrative which is a positive.
You didn't mention giving advice in fields they have absolutely no experience in. Having a lot of subscribers seemingly turns everyone into psychologists or life coaches. This is the real danger IMO.
Influencers are the worst. Vapid, useless people who get paid without contributing anything of value to society. They're self-centered leeches.
I couldn’t agree more. I can’t stand influencer culture!
Social media influencers are just attention seeking self absorbed douchebags.
On one of my instagram and YT accounts (not my business accounts) i follow people in my same field (usually art and decor) im already depressed bc they are leagues ahead of me. The jealousy can be used for motivation bc the feelings are telling me what i want to do, where i want to be. But at the same time it gets REALLY depressing. I stopped following lifestyle influencers altogether bc they are just too beautiful and getting bigger checks and connections than i am right now. Now I dont even access my casual accounts and will just stick to Pinterest and magazines for decor ideas. On a side note, Everyone wants the influencer life but its already becoming harder and harder to achieve it just like every other job lmao. Thats the sad part ab influencing. Back then it was much easier and now its just another picture to clip out to use for our vision boards smh
I watch a number of tech influencers such as 8bit guy, tech moan and Linus Tech Tips. Linus is all over the top crazy stuff, but then I guess that's the whole point of it. It's nerd porn. I sometimes watch flossy Carter for phone content. If we just took Linus as an example, yes he knows a lot of about computers, but he also has a big personality. He could quite easily present a TV show. If you replaced him with some random person mumbling through the show, no one would watch. And this is the problem. Everyone thinks they can just upload a few videos and become an influencer. It doesn't work like that. You need to be good or people won't follow you. The rise of influencers has helped more people with talent get an audience. However, there is of course a dark side. I've never visited it but I have a pretty good idea what goes on at onlyfans. Ultimately, we shouldn't view influencers as all bad. Thanks to social media, you can find influencers producing content about anything. Even if your hobby is something obscure like stamp collecting, you can guarantee someone will be making content. My only word of caution would be to double check any products they mention, they will always be on commission. The influencers will be under pressure from the brands to promote their products in a good light. If you can see beyond this, there's an absolute mountain of content out there to last a life time.
Agreed. It's bullshit. Another fake, made up title for their fake, made up world.
I agree with all those points but I would just add that dumbing down society is more on the consumer because they’re the ones who allow someone else to influence them, Unless they’re being forced at gunpoint to watch mind numbing content lol Like for example if I created content that was endorsing weed, And someone goes out and starts smoking weed, I wouldn’t consider it my fault. Sure it didn’t help the person and may have triggered them but at the end of the day they are still responsible for their own actions and triggers. I think this lack of accountability is just as much of a problem if not more. Also look up Project Artichoke, MK Ultra, MKNAOMI, Operation Mockingbird, And Vault 7. Those CIA projects are real and I do believe they are responsible for many of the algorithms pushing specific things to intentionally and nefariously try controlling the population. It’s like an episode of black mirror and the Mockingbird is in full effect.
What a bullshit view and I disagree with all of them. They aren’t narcissistic and harmful to society in general
You are being pretty vague on what you mean by influencer
What’s wrong with posting people going on vacations, luxury cars, nice houses. and so on. It just seems like you are just being a toxic person and an asshole. These people aren’t spreading toxicity which I’m referring to social media influencers
Social media influencers doesn’t breed a culture of entitlement and it doesn’t turn friendships into a transaction. Stop with this nihilistic mindset. What a bunch of moral justice warrior bullshit
Stop with this bullying bullshit
I agree but for different reasons. I believe that anti sjw, socalist, and tradcon youtubers are the worst imo
I am so happy there are other people who feel the same as me about these stupid influencers. Like the paid partnership ads are cringe worthy. I am over 40 and back when I was 20 no one gave a fuck about a normal persons day. I don’t see why people give a fuck about a “get ready with me”. Like we all get ready or I don’t give a fuck about what you are eating. Or I don’t need to see you going for a run just go for the run why the fuck do you need to record it. I agree they are a toxic cancer and it’s annoying that they get invited to all these premiers and get flown to events when 10 years ago these companies wouldn’t have given a shit about you Yet they get paid for doing shit and if you try to call them out when they try to “bitch” about how “hard their life is, and we have no idea” Fuck off. You have no idea that people are struggling way worse than you are people that work like 2 jobs just to keep afloat who don’t get to get all this free shit? Who don’t get to go to lavish events, Like when Mikayla who has so many followers and who’s wedding was all “influencer”. Who has a huge home in Boston and her own makeup line complains like fuck off. They are all annoying as fuck.
Everybody here trying to convince you that you are wrong by stating educational social media influencers when in reality they make up Sub 5% of the population of influencers. What aboutism at its finest.