13 ms·

The Anxiety of Influencers

206 points by acabal 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
seattle_spring 5y ago
Wow, the subject influencers in the article were insufferable just to read about. I can't think of any group I have less empathy for than them. The world would be such a better place if the concept of an "influencer" completely ceased to exist.
- ______- 5y ago
  They train you to be an influencer[0] in China. I have empathy for them. They're embracing modernity, not being a boring archaic Luddite for a living. [0] https://www.dailydot.com/irl/china-influencer-school-video/ https://www.dailydot.com/irl/china-influencer-school-video/
  - noisy_boy 5y ago
    They also have click farms in China. Way to embrace modernity. Everything modern is not beneficial to us individually or as a society.
  - 10000truths 5y ago
    There’s nothing modern about “influencing”. The only difference between influencers and sponsorships/advertisements of olde is that the medium has changed from newspaper/radio/TV to social media websites.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    What do you mean by modernity? This is basically an "as seen on tv" marketing channel diluted in forced #relatable / #inspiration content. It's really not new technologically. Just a new way of making you look at sponsored content. > not being a boring archaic Luddite for a living. ... proceeds to advertise new Nike shoes / holiday destination in a video for a living.
- Swizec 5y ago
  In tech we call them thought leaders. DevRels if they’re not self-employed. Are they so bad?
  - seattle_spring 5y ago
    Oh God, those are even worse. My LinkedIn feed is garbage largely because of people like this.
- mc32 5y ago
  Just get eliminate user seeable statistics (likes, shares, etc.) as well as artificial trending. Once people are freed from that yoke, they'll find better things to do.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  They're children. Or possibly animals, like show ponies or show poodles. Theirs is not to ask why, or to have a free thought in their head. If they were being raised to be slaughtered, you might have an easier time finding empathy, even when this raising is not doing great at giving them human qualities. Well, they ARE being raised to be slaughtered, in a slightly more abstract sense. I think empathy is completely reasonable. The thing is you have to have empathy for what they MIGHT have been if they weren't yanked out of normal life, kept from growing up or seeing any reality, and trained to be incredibly vacant and damaged. You're seeing human beings getting ruined. Maybe they could have been a lot better if they didn't get sucked into this madness.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  I kind of had a similar reaction but about the author! It read like he used an auto-thesaurus, or purposefully chooses more esoteric words simply to up the contrast between how he sees himself - the professor writing smart think pieces whilst going for tenure - versus those dumb vapid teenagers.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - default-kramer 5y ago
    The contrast was intentional, but I don't think the author did it to sound superior. The contrast is more that the author is jaded and depressed, but the kids are still innocent and hopeful (for now).
- jaimex2 5y ago
  I don't know who calls them influencers other than the media. I just know them as social media narcissists.
ggm 5y ago
I keep on thinking this is like the "washing clothes of goldrush miners in China" story, or maybe the "got rich selling shovels to miners" story: The profit is not in the influencer, its in 2nd order effect consequences, where people predate on the money flow. Really? These people are in the entertainment business. All those 6pm eyeballs which used to be on free-to-air TV moved, and the advert money followed them down the narrowcasting rabbithole. The usual people are looking to extract rent.
anm89 5y ago
I find this topic interesting but the style of writing is intolerable
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  Harpers typical. Someone must like it.
- redisman 5y ago
  Eh yeah. “I’m so over educated I can’t relate to normal people anymore”. I miss David Foster Wallace. At least he understood humans. https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazi...
Gatsky 5y ago
Well this was always going to happen in an attention economy, the worship of fame for fame's sake. Success has shed the burden of actual achievement, vanity has become a job qualification. Why bother being good at sport or dancing or playing guitar, just be famous. Fine whatever, but it is poison candy for children.
- seibelj 5y ago
  Family, friends, health, purpose. These are the only things in life that truly matter. Some people get very low emotionally before they realize this.
  - frankbreetz 5y ago
    Some might say fame gives friends and purpose.
    - chomp 5y ago
      Does fame really give friends? It's been my understanding that a lot of famous people are chronically lonely.
      - frankbreetz 5y ago
        Really? No, but if someone says friends are important in life, some people will think fame would be a good way to make friends.
        chomp 5y ago
        I upvoted you but I think you and I might differ in our definition of friend; I think you're right that you have the opportunity to "cast a wide net" so to speak, but an internet search turns up numerous quotes from celebrities that find those relationships lacking in humanity and are void of meaningful connections. I don't think there's anything in fame that inherently precludes you to making true friendships, but you might have to sift more to find them.
ZephyrBlu 5y ago
What I don't understand is why brands throw so much money at very young influencers. Are they specifically targeting young rich kids who spend big on products/merch? Seems like a small demographic for a $15B projected market...
- dylan604 5y ago
  It's the ultimate in product placement. "Someone who looks just like how I want to look is using product X. I need to use my money (or my parent's money) to buy product X so all of the everyone will like me." It's an absolute no brainer for them to do this. It makes more sense to me than targeted advertising from FB/G/etc. These people have subscribers that voluntarily decided to follow them, and are guaranteed eyeballs on anything/everything they post.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    I understand the advertising part of it, what I don't understand is who is actually spending the money. The people who follow these sorts of TikTok influencers probably don't earn their own money. I guess parents are shelling out big time?
    - dylan604 5y ago
      Every large corporation has an annual advertising/promotional budget. They hire ad agencies and PR firms to handle that work. These agencies would be the people I'd expect hiring/paying the influencers. I'm sure they have a group of young fresh out of college employees that do nothing but scour the web for influencers keep tabs on their followers, the type of content they produce, etc. When a campaign comes along, they fit the prodcut with the influencer and hope for success.
      - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
        I meant from the customer side who is spending the money, because kids generally don't have that much discretionary income.
jp0d 5y ago
What a horrible life these kids have. They don't realise it. Their influencing value is inversely proportional to their rise in numbers. If everyone becomes and influencer, who'll they influence. And why does anyone need influencing. It's just advertising by reinvented. Most of it is just showing skin.
- prostoalex 5y ago
  "In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people".
  - adamjb 5y ago
    That's a surprisingly eutopian vision when you put it like that.
  - smitty1e 5y ago
    They will become increasingly addicted to that fame, and some will drift into chemicals and porn and tragedy. It is not my place to judge this, but some will look back and reflect.
    - koolba 5y ago
      Interestingly the first wave of social media influencers started with porn videos and drug problems. It’s a flat circle.
- EthanHarv 5y ago
  FWIW, as a younger person, I have started to see friends (and myself) shift away from influencer culture as it becomes apparent it's unhealthy. When you see so many influencers quit due to mental health, it starts to add up. My perspective is likely skewed by the social groups I tend towards, but the cycle of influencer culture is so short-lived a lot of us do start to catch on.
rvz 5y ago
> You’re trying to impress everyone who watches the video, and you want everyone to like it. This is where the race to the emotional rock bottom starts. What if those influencers become irrelevant in 10 years time and are replaced by another generation? The key here is to expand to other ventures. The ones who stay on the same platform for years will gradually become irrelevant.
- yuppie_scum 5y ago
  It’s not a matter of if, but when. Companies will trade for a younger, cheaper model just like your mustang driving Weekend Dad did
- datalus 5y ago
  This is what I keep thinking about. I feel it’s going to get even darker on the internet when these influencers have to begrudgingly hand the reins over as they get traded in for the newer models.
  - redisman 5y ago
    Hasn’t that been happening for a long time already? We’ve had social media and reality tv for over a decade now and plenty of people have fallen from their pedestal. The truth is that the cycle keeps getting more vapid and depersonalized so these kids will be tossed aside and forgotten very quickly.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  What do you mean 'if'? They're about as disposable as toilet paper. They are created to be disposable and nothing is moderating that impulse at all. Hell, back in the times of Motown they made the child stars go to school. This is in some ways less organized than, but also less moral than, the music business and the film industry. And that takes some DOING, to be worse than the music business and the film industry. I think it's the decentralization that does it: platforms that are very algorithmic, distributed, with nobody to claim responsibility for anything. In the absence of oversight or obvious control we're supposed to see the true nature of what all this stuff becomes when it's free of top-down control. We are, and it's Lord of the Flies, but for celebrity children. It's not far off child abuse, but with a nice little disconnect between what happens and how the situation's created. These kids aren't the product, they're the Soylent Green. They're there to die for the algorithm.
DC-3 5y ago
Hope they have the brains to not burn their income as soon as it hits their bank accounts. This sort of popularity can surely not last more than a few years in almost all instances.
- pureliquidhw 5y ago
  But what about nostalgia? AVGN came back recently and I love it. I also didn't watch for years between. I wonder if it's potentially cyclical over one and done.
- Clewza313 5y ago
  The lifestyle they're put into, of living in huge mansions, eating in fancy restaurants, partying at the hottest nightclubs, virtually guarantees that they'll burn every cent they earn just keeping up appearances, even if most of it is freebies or sponsored.
  - runawaybottle 5y ago
    This happens to celebrities mostly because they have an actual talent and are not necessarily equipped for money/fame (no one is). Influencers probably don’t have a huge ego. They know what they are and the game they are playing. You don’t often hear about politicians spiraling downward due to their success. They understand the game they play. In other words, why would a parasite spiral out of control if they deliberately parasitically establish themselves (versus a celebrity who gets there from sheer talent and luck and has no clue what to make of it)?. Mega church speakers are similar. Nothing about what they do messes with their sleep at night, not an ounce of ‘Is this really who I am?’. Textbook shamelessness. ————- The big problem with this is that everyone in their formative years (sub 30) shares at least one dilemma with Patrick Bateman (and Evelyn for that matter): Evelyn: Get married. Have a wedding. Bateman: No, I can't take the time off work. Evelyn: Your father practically owns the company. You can do anything you like, silly. Bateman: I don't want to talk about it. Evelyn: Well, you hate that job anyway. Why don't you just quit? You don't have to work. Bateman: Because I want...to fit...in. ————- Influencers are going to win this fight sadly.
emsign 5y ago
I don't see any text only the images. That site is broken.
tmaly 5y ago
I think TikTok is fundamentally changing marketing. If you go on YouTube, you see 1-2 traditional ads. On TikTok all the ads blend in and just appear as another video in your for you page. What I thought was really interesting was that 50% of the user base is over the age of 30.
- jollybean 5y ago
  This is because it's early and the ads are well designed for the platform, i.e. a lot of ads for flip flops and those 'butt lifting' pants for girls. Once it opens up you'll see more annoying ads because most products don't fit well. That said, even car companies are making things a little less 'advertisy'.
  - tmaly 5y ago
    Ads are already opened up for everyone. I tried to promote a simple post talking for a few seconds. The system seems to auto review and it rejected the ad saying there were exaggerated claims in it.
- theshadowknows 5y ago
  Because it lets adult men watch young scantily clad boys and girls jump around for free. That’s the sick part to me. These kids (and they are kids) are basically soft core porn for pedophiles. And Nike and Amazon subsidize it.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    That's how it started yes, preteens and teens doing dances and lip-syncing to songs. But the kids have already fled to other platforms. The amount of content produced by people in their 30s and (a lot) over is staggering. You can easily spend hours just scrolling the front page and get stuff you like. And you'll never see any one under 20 unless you specifically go look for that stuff and engage with it. I do see scantily clad people, but they're mostly in their 30s or 40s. =) The TokTok algorithm is scary good, it makes Youtube and FB suggestion engines look like someone's high-school project...
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Brilliant. Love getting insight into the cultural changes arising from smartphones.
im_down_w_otp 5y ago
I sometimes wonder about the reach of this value system into unexpected or non-obvious ecosystems. For example, the tech industry has its share of perennial celebrity conference circuit speakers for <insert tech du jour> who grace stages with hundreds to thousands in attendance, Twitter personalities who have loyal followings for their respective thought leadership, and a reinforcing cycle of one feeding the other. Where are the lines between one form of cultivation of celebrity and another? Can anyone really fault these people, given they're reaping rewards from the persona they've created? If it's easier to raise money or get a job as a recognizable personality than it is by way of other acumen or expertise, then it seems like it might well be a shrewd and wise pursuit. If not necessarily a particularly fulfilling one by other measures.
- ilaksh 5y ago
  I don't know if value system is quite the right description. Sounds like you are talking about celebrity or popularity in general. I think the obvious thing that different about most generic "influencers" is that they are not "thought leaders" in any domain, but generally just famous for their personality, looks, or "precoital" posturing.
peteretep 5y ago
> According to a poll released in 2019, some 54 percent of Americans between the ages of thirteen and thirty-eight would, if given the chance, become a social-media influencer. A whopping 23 percent believed that this term already fit them. EDIT: Jesus, this article is the gift that keeps giving: > Later, when I ask Chase [about the veracity of the video he] explains that the video must be legit because “it’s gotten deleted multiple times off the internet, which is insane.” Epistemologically, this is where we are as a country: when content gets expurgated because of blatant misinformation, it is taken as a sure sign of that source’s truthfulness. also the whole post apocalyptic vibe is lit: > It is raining ash while we play basketball.
- inreverse 5y ago
  I would love the source for this. It seems too ridiculous to be true unless they're using a non-standard definition of 'influencer'.
  - sircastor 5y ago
    What is the standard definition of influencer? Is there some standard being set? And by what body?
    - virgil_disgr4ce 5y ago
      There isn't a "real" standard as per an international organization, but there is already an emergent consensus in marketing around tiers of influencers based on number of followers. For one instance: https://www.tribegroup.co/blog/influencer-followers https://www.tribegroup.co/blog/influencer-followers "Nano" influencers, according to this particular company, are people with 1000-3000 followers, Micro are 1,000-100,000, Macro are 100,000+, etc. Here's another example with slightly different values: https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/social-media-influencers-mega-macro-micro-or-nano/ https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/social-media-influ... Because this is now big business, I'd expect convergence on a common definition some time relatively soon.
      - 5y ago
gexla 5y ago
Can't take the time to dig further right now, but is this a riff off... The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry is a 1973 book by Harold Bloom.
- keiferski 5y ago
  Unfortunately not. The premise of that book would be an interesting contemporary article, though: the anxiety of needing to differentiate yourself as an influencer while inevitably being influenced by other influencers.
rubslopes 5y ago
I couldn't stop thinking about the movie Idiocracy while reading this.
- jaimex2 5y ago
  Same, my mind started reading in the narrators voice a few sentences in.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
I'm a millennial and didn't really have social media growing up. I used Facebook for a little bit in college and then deleted it. It bothered me in my 20s that a lot of social things seemed to be closed to me because I didn't have some form of social media. Even though I had email and text I was somehow treated as if I was asking to be contacted on a fax machine or something like that. It's baffling. Every time I've even gotten a little bit closer to joining some online community, let alone social media, my anxiety spirals and I have severe mental health symptoms. For my own good and my disinterest I keep off of it for now. Honestly HN is as far as I push those limits! I can't imagine how this could have been though if social media was a constant throughout my childhood and middle school. It was hard enough dealing with the social fallout in my 20s but I felt like I at least had some degree of choice and control and I feel if I had taken it for granted when I was younger I would have had really severe symptoms growing up probably leading to hospitalization. Obviously the influencers in that article aren't like me in that regard but I was shocked by the 54% of younger people wanting to make money being an influencer comment, wow! And I do think there's a serious exploitative/mental health factor that's not being addressed here. I wonder how this is going to turn out for those kids later in life. I just can't imagine being under the spotlight and dependent on external validation that much.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  > I wonder how this is going to turn out for those kids later in life. I just can't imagine being under the spotlight and dependent on external validation that much. It’s not just millennial who deal with this. LinkedIn is becoming inescapable… not to mention any advocacy for a “platform” as part of a resume
  - cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
    That's true, I hadn't thought of LinkedIn. But my experience on there was becoming so ridiculous. Maybe it's more helpful for people who are in other industries but I was getting tons of recruiter spam etc. But yes, it sucks so much when you're expected to be tied to a platform and that's not to mention the serious privacy issues with this. As an unrelated irony a local meetup.com group focused on Inclusivity now has switched some Facebook video platform...Supposedly you don't have to have a Facebook account but I don't want to give it a try on Linux and all the privacy issues are there :/
VelNZ 5y ago
Reminds me of Calhoun's Mouse Utopia experiments: "Other young mice growing into adulthood exhibited an even different type of behavior. Dr. Calhoun called these individuals “the beautiful ones.” Their time was devoted solely to grooming, eating and sleeping. They never involved themselves with others, engaged in sex, nor would they fight. All appeared [outwardly] as a beautiful exhibit of the species with keen, alert eyes and a healthy, well-kept body. These mice, however, could not cope with unusual stimuli. Though they looked inquisitive, they were in fact, very stupid." https://fee.org/articles/john-b-calhoun-s-mouse-utopia-experiment-and-reflections-on-the-welfare-state/ https://fee.org/articles/john-b-calhoun-s-mouse-utopia-exper...
- NavinF 5y ago
  Like many psychology and sociology papers, Mouse Utopia is now discredited because nobody could reproduce those results: https://www.gwern.net/Mouse-Utopia https://www.gwern.net/Mouse-Utopia "Kessler 1966 only somewhat resembles Calhoun’s results: while Kessler does describe deviant mice behavior driven by density (such as homosexual matings) and high infant mortality/cannibalism, on the other hand, there are no population crashes or cessation of reproduction but stable populations after initial growth, there are no behavioral sinks, any ‘beautiful ones’ or ‘drinkers’ or ‘autistic’ mice are not described as such by Kessler, the mice are healthy overall, and transplanted mice revert"
salamanderman 5y ago
It reminds me of American Bandstand, MTV summer shows in the 90s, etc. Just aim cameras at teenagers and get paid.
ffggvv 5y ago
i really tried to read this article but god is it pretentious and long. they could do with shortening it 20x.. but i get it.. it’s harpers..
theshadowknows 5y ago
Man. When I was 18 I was overweight and already balding. I worked at a gas station. Once a hooker spit on me because I wouldn’t let her steal some ice cream. I cut my foot once on broken glass in the dumpster because part of my job was tamping it down with my feet (it cut through my shoe). Would I have traded it to be an influencer if I could have? Shit yeah in a heartbeat. But unfortunately for me no one wanted to watch me gyrate. (That’s unfair, some people probably would have). That said. Now I’m a fully bald old man (I just turned 36). I’m not as overweight anymore though I could prob lose a couple of pounds. Blood pressure is good, though. Would I want to be an influencer? Jet set around the world and stay in lavish hotels for free? Have companies throw products at me? Have thousands or millions of people knowing my every move? Have to give a shit if there’s a stain on my shirt? Hell no. I want to sit here on my porch with my dog and my wife and do my work. Then at the end of the day I want to turn it off and set it aside. Maybe we’ll go hiking. I know it sounds glamorous and maybe it’s appealing to some people. But man it’s not for me.
- nus07 5y ago
  Jim Jefferies-Secret to Happiness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvYJeLUXMG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvYJeLUXMG8
- bloqs 5y ago
  36 is an old man? Are you being facetious?
  - InvertedRhodium 5y ago
    I think 34/35 is when I began to notice actual age related differences - relatively small things like not being able to take it for granted that your sore back will be good tomorrow and I'd accrued enough general injuries over time that they were noticeable and compounding - sore/weak knee from a car accident, stiff shoulder from a motorcycle crash, etc. When you're 35, 35 feels pretty old compared to the personal status quo.
    - subpixel 5y ago
jollybean 5y ago
Conan O'Brien said 'Fame is the most addictive thing, much more so than heroin, and you wouldn't give heroin to children, would you?' - when talking about kids in the business who grow up destroyed. For whatever evolutionary reason, we are wired to love attention. I loathe the notion of social media - but I do play music - and I can attest to the fact that time literally stands still when you have an audience's attention, there is nothing like that. I think this kind of addiction will be up there with nicotene, barbituates, gambling, anorexia etc.. We probably should be having PSAs in school. But the issue is more problematic because it's not just a 'habit' - some 'side thing' - it's an 'aspiration'. Since when did everyone want to grow up just to be famous, and basically contribute nothing? We used to regard that attitude with some skepticism. It's as though Paris Hilton then the Kardashians completely just broke them mould. Kids are really open minded to day, and generally 'good' but the upside down value of 'me me me' vs. at least doing something instrumental for the community (aka anything: doctor, carpenter, teacher, soldier, police, social worker, professor etc.) should have us a little worried. Maybe it's just a phase, or a perspective ... but flipping from communitarian values to brazenly self-oriented values is spooky.
yawaworht1978 5y ago
Influencer is the 2020s equivalent to the dream job actor/model/dancer. When I see the level of delusions on these most unwelcome tiktok ads I get, I need a moment to calm down from laughing. Stay away from social media as much as you can. I have deleted fb, ig and WhatsApp, life was never better. People get in touch via call or signal, not missing a thing.
- defaultname 5y ago
  What TikTok ads are you referring to? Users often get completely different targeting, but the ads I've seen have been mainstream fast food and then dumb consumer crap like moon lights. Also Old Navy and some car company. TikTok is really the anti-"influencer" platform. It is a very wide, long tail and doesn't seem to concentrate like many other platforms. People seem to be completely ordinary, versus the delusion that Instagram as an example is pitching, of aspirational perfect living. Algorithmically TikTok seems to assign very little weight to the creator compared to other venues. Single hits that aren't achieved again are common. Versus say Twitter where if someone has a hit, the platform presumes that every tweet from that person is a brilliant insight.
  - yawaworht1978 5y ago
    It is very odd, as I have never installed the app or even googled the term. I have seen some as linked Instagram feeds, but involuntary. Tiktok would be the last thing in the world I care about, I am also quite a bit beyond that age bracket. Usually it's a woman doing a poorly choreographed dance move or two while displaying a duck face. I am not sure if that is possible but maybe somehow there is an IG/tiktok data exchange if someone has an account on both. This still happens even though I have terminated the ig and fb accounts a while ago
    - defaultname 5y ago
      Ah, okay I misunderstood. I thought you were referring to the ads on the service itself. As to the "age bracket", there is no age bracket for TikTok.
pharmakom 5y ago
I would hate to be an influencer. People pay you to be cool, but one day you won’t be cool anymore and then what?
UltimateBallR 5y ago
Influenzas afraid
codeOnMaster 5y ago
What I try to keep in mind is that for these things to work, you have a few influencers at the top, making money and creating "content" and you have a sea of people who consume the "content". I deleted all (most) of my social media because I know very well that I'm part of the consumers if I'm on there at all. And if I'm consuming, then I'm not producing. So I try to focus on producing during my day - work (career), personal projects, working out, working on projects around the house, building/investing in my friendships and relationship. Sure, I also consume sometimes. But I try to minimize it.
gerbilly 5y ago
These kids are letting themselves be exploited. They are being 'paid' with useless perks like luxury accommodations, and shoes and clothes. The 'perks' aren't even a reward, but are the just 'products in use' that the advertisers are using to make money. In olden days, as exploitative as it was, you'd still have to pay a model to wear your clothes if you wanted to create an ad campaign. Now they'll do it for the 'privilege' of having cool gear.
meowzero 5y ago
I used to know a few influencers. I still do. I was part of that culture since I was a photographer and cared about my social media clout. This was 3-4 years ago, when IG used to rule, instead of Tiktok. I don't know if things changed since then. Most of these influencers looked miserable. It seemed like they were having the best times in various exotic locations. In reality, they were all broke. They barely scratched by staying at the cheapest places, eating cheapest foods, etc. They're stressed out trying to get content and followers They're fake as well. I took some photos of one influencer in the my studio. She posted the photos few weeks later with the location tagged as Bali, NYC, etc. I thought that was funny. Another, I mentioned to her that I noticed she's using comment pods due to the way some people commented on her posts. I wasn't accusing her, only stated a fact I noticed. She got embarrassed, denied, and acted like she didn't know what a comment pod was. I pushed it a bit more and she relented she was using pods. Why so fake? I'm glad I'm out of that world. It adds too much stress in your life to produce content, find followers, and to create world where you seem cool and popular when you're not.
- dash2 5y ago
  What's a comment pod?
  - rictic 5y ago
    > An engagement pod is a group (or ‘pod’) of Instagram users who band together to help increase engagement on each other’s content. This can be done through likes, comments, or follows.
    - Invictus0 5y ago
      You would think it would be trivial for an enterprising network scientist at these social media companies to identify these pods.
      - acoard 5y ago
        I know of at least one person/group that does that here on HN, or at least did ~3-5 years ago. Honestly, there's no incentive to stop this type of work. IG wants engagement; comment pods are peak engagement, you've programmed yourself to beat the machine.
Nimitz14 5y ago
What a fantastic article. To me, the point of the article was that the influencers are just a symptom of a deeper malaise stemming from social media of raising everyone's expectations of themselves, the increased isolation as people spend more time online and have less real friends, and the (flawed) assumption that the average person is a good judge of quality. All the comments just talking about influencers are missing the point.
fergie 5y ago
This guy was really keen to remind us over and over that he is a professor.
- ludamad 5y ago
  It seemed natural stream of consciousness to me - he's in a play-school setting with people within a few years of the age of his students
xyzelement 5y ago
I think a lot about society and culture -- especially now that we have a young child. I think a lot of the "ills" are just different manifestations of bad parenting. It's a values thing -- I learned from my parents and grandparents to think futuristically, to get value by creating value, to be suspicious of the free lunch, to not orient my sense of self too much around what others around me are thinking and doing. This set of thinking prevents me from being interested in being an influencer, which is the same thing that kept me from being sucked into the dot-com boom and bust, from getting excited about crypto, from being sucked into the ebbs and flows of caring about what twitter cares about, etc. There's a sort of steadiness that comes from your parenting and your values. And in the lack of that, you fall for one thing or another. If it wasn't "influencing," it'd be something else.
brian_cunnie 5y ago
This reminds me of the advent of television, when vaudevillians such as Milton Berle made the transition to TV. A few became famous; most didn't.

206 points by acabal 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Wow, the subject influencers in the article were insufferable just to read about. I can't think of any group I have less empathy for than them. The world would be such a better place if the concept of an "influencer" completely ceased to exist.

______- 5y ago
They train you to be an influencer[0] in China. I have empathy for them. They're embracing modernity, not being a boring archaic Luddite for a living. [0] https://www.dailydot.com/irl/china-influencer-school-video/ https://www.dailydot.com/irl/china-influencer-school-video/
- noisy_boy 5y ago
  They also have click farms in China. Way to embrace modernity. Everything modern is not beneficial to us individually or as a society.
- 10000truths 5y ago
  There’s nothing modern about “influencing”. The only difference between influencers and sponsorships/advertisements of olde is that the medium has changed from newspaper/radio/TV to social media websites.
- viraptor 5y ago
  What do you mean by modernity? This is basically an "as seen on tv" marketing channel diluted in forced #relatable / #inspiration content. It's really not new technologically. Just a new way of making you look at sponsored content. > not being a boring archaic Luddite for a living. ... proceeds to advertise new Nike shoes / holiday destination in a video for a living.
Swizec 5y ago
In tech we call them thought leaders. DevRels if they’re not self-employed. Are they so bad?
- seattle_spring 5y ago
  Oh God, those are even worse. My LinkedIn feed is garbage largely because of people like this.
mc32 5y ago
Just get eliminate user seeable statistics (likes, shares, etc.) as well as artificial trending. Once people are freed from that yoke, they'll find better things to do.
Applejinx 5y ago
They're children. Or possibly animals, like show ponies or show poodles. Theirs is not to ask why, or to have a free thought in their head. If they were being raised to be slaughtered, you might have an easier time finding empathy, even when this raising is not doing great at giving them human qualities. Well, they ARE being raised to be slaughtered, in a slightly more abstract sense. I think empathy is completely reasonable. The thing is you have to have empathy for what they MIGHT have been if they weren't yanked out of normal life, kept from growing up or seeing any reality, and trained to be incredibly vacant and damaged. You're seeing human beings getting ruined. Maybe they could have been a lot better if they didn't get sucked into this madness.
dillondoyle 5y ago
I kind of had a similar reaction but about the author! It read like he used an auto-thesaurus, or purposefully chooses more esoteric words simply to up the contrast between how he sees himself - the professor writing smart think pieces whilst going for tenure - versus those dumb vapid teenagers.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- default-kramer 5y ago
  The contrast was intentional, but I don't think the author did it to sound superior. The contrast is more that the author is jaded and depressed, but the kids are still innocent and hopeful (for now).
jaimex2 5y ago
I don't know who calls them influencers other than the media. I just know them as social media narcissists.

ggm 5y ago

I keep on thinking this is like the "washing clothes of goldrush miners in China" story, or maybe the "got rich selling shovels to miners" story: The profit is not in the influencer, its in 2nd order effect consequences, where people predate on the money flow. Really? These people are in the entertainment business. All those 6pm eyeballs which used to be on free-to-air TV moved, and the advert money followed them down the narrowcasting rabbithole. The usual people are looking to extract rent.

anm89 5y ago

I find this topic interesting but the style of writing is intolerable

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
Harpers typical. Someone must like it.
redisman 5y ago
Eh yeah. “I’m so over educated I can’t relate to normal people anymore”. I miss David Foster Wallace. At least he understood humans. https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazi...

Gatsky 5y ago

Well this was always going to happen in an attention economy, the worship of fame for fame's sake. Success has shed the burden of actual achievement, vanity has become a job qualification. Why bother being good at sport or dancing or playing guitar, just be famous. Fine whatever, but it is poison candy for children.

seibelj 5y ago
Family, friends, health, purpose. These are the only things in life that truly matter. Some people get very low emotionally before they realize this.
- frankbreetz 5y ago
  Some might say fame gives friends and purpose.
  - chomp 5y ago
    Does fame really give friends? It's been my understanding that a lot of famous people are chronically lonely.
    - frankbreetz 5y ago
      Really? No, but if someone says friends are important in life, some people will think fame would be a good way to make friends.
      - chomp 5y ago
        I upvoted you but I think you and I might differ in our definition of friend; I think you're right that you have the opportunity to "cast a wide net" so to speak, but an internet search turns up numerous quotes from celebrities that find those relationships lacking in humanity and are void of meaningful connections. I don't think there's anything in fame that inherently precludes you to making true friendships, but you might have to sift more to find them.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago

What I don't understand is why brands throw so much money at very young influencers. Are they specifically targeting young rich kids who spend big on products/merch? Seems like a small demographic for a $15B projected market...

dylan604 5y ago
It's the ultimate in product placement. "Someone who looks just like how I want to look is using product X. I need to use my money (or my parent's money) to buy product X so all of the everyone will like me." It's an absolute no brainer for them to do this. It makes more sense to me than targeted advertising from FB/G/etc. These people have subscribers that voluntarily decided to follow them, and are guaranteed eyeballs on anything/everything they post.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  I understand the advertising part of it, what I don't understand is who is actually spending the money. The people who follow these sorts of TikTok influencers probably don't earn their own money. I guess parents are shelling out big time?
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Every large corporation has an annual advertising/promotional budget. They hire ad agencies and PR firms to handle that work. These agencies would be the people I'd expect hiring/paying the influencers. I'm sure they have a group of young fresh out of college employees that do nothing but scour the web for influencers keep tabs on their followers, the type of content they produce, etc. When a campaign comes along, they fit the prodcut with the influencer and hope for success.
    - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
      I meant from the customer side who is spending the money, because kids generally don't have that much discretionary income.

jp0d 5y ago

What a horrible life these kids have. They don't realise it. Their influencing value is inversely proportional to their rise in numbers. If everyone becomes and influencer, who'll they influence. And why does anyone need influencing. It's just advertising by reinvented. Most of it is just showing skin.

prostoalex 5y ago
"In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people".
- adamjb 5y ago
  That's a surprisingly eutopian vision when you put it like that.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  They will become increasingly addicted to that fame, and some will drift into chemicals and porn and tragedy. It is not my place to judge this, but some will look back and reflect.
  - koolba 5y ago
    Interestingly the first wave of social media influencers started with porn videos and drug problems. It’s a flat circle.
EthanHarv 5y ago
FWIW, as a younger person, I have started to see friends (and myself) shift away from influencer culture as it becomes apparent it's unhealthy. When you see so many influencers quit due to mental health, it starts to add up. My perspective is likely skewed by the social groups I tend towards, but the cycle of influencer culture is so short-lived a lot of us do start to catch on.

rvz 5y ago

> You’re trying to impress everyone who watches the video, and you want everyone to like it. This is where the race to the emotional rock bottom starts. What if those influencers become irrelevant in 10 years time and are replaced by another generation? The key here is to expand to other ventures. The ones who stay on the same platform for years will gradually become irrelevant.

yuppie_scum 5y ago
It’s not a matter of if, but when. Companies will trade for a younger, cheaper model just like your mustang driving Weekend Dad did
datalus 5y ago
This is what I keep thinking about. I feel it’s going to get even darker on the internet when these influencers have to begrudgingly hand the reins over as they get traded in for the newer models.
- redisman 5y ago
  Hasn’t that been happening for a long time already? We’ve had social media and reality tv for over a decade now and plenty of people have fallen from their pedestal. The truth is that the cycle keeps getting more vapid and depersonalized so these kids will be tossed aside and forgotten very quickly.
Applejinx 5y ago
What do you mean 'if'? They're about as disposable as toilet paper. They are created to be disposable and nothing is moderating that impulse at all. Hell, back in the times of Motown they made the child stars go to school. This is in some ways less organized than, but also less moral than, the music business and the film industry. And that takes some DOING, to be worse than the music business and the film industry. I think it's the decentralization that does it: platforms that are very algorithmic, distributed, with nobody to claim responsibility for anything. In the absence of oversight or obvious control we're supposed to see the true nature of what all this stuff becomes when it's free of top-down control. We are, and it's Lord of the Flies, but for celebrity children. It's not far off child abuse, but with a nice little disconnect between what happens and how the situation's created. These kids aren't the product, they're the Soylent Green. They're there to die for the algorithm.

DC-3 5y ago

Hope they have the brains to not burn their income as soon as it hits their bank accounts. This sort of popularity can surely not last more than a few years in almost all instances.

pureliquidhw 5y ago
But what about nostalgia? AVGN came back recently and I love it. I also didn't watch for years between. I wonder if it's potentially cyclical over one and done.
Clewza313 5y ago
The lifestyle they're put into, of living in huge mansions, eating in fancy restaurants, partying at the hottest nightclubs, virtually guarantees that they'll burn every cent they earn just keeping up appearances, even if most of it is freebies or sponsored.
- runawaybottle 5y ago
  This happens to celebrities mostly because they have an actual talent and are not necessarily equipped for money/fame (no one is). Influencers probably don’t have a huge ego. They know what they are and the game they are playing. You don’t often hear about politicians spiraling downward due to their success. They understand the game they play. In other words, why would a parasite spiral out of control if they deliberately parasitically establish themselves (versus a celebrity who gets there from sheer talent and luck and has no clue what to make of it)?. Mega church speakers are similar. Nothing about what they do messes with their sleep at night, not an ounce of ‘Is this really who I am?’. Textbook shamelessness. ————- The big problem with this is that everyone in their formative years (sub 30) shares at least one dilemma with Patrick Bateman (and Evelyn for that matter): Evelyn: Get married. Have a wedding. Bateman: No, I can't take the time off work. Evelyn: Your father practically owns the company. You can do anything you like, silly. Bateman: I don't want to talk about it. Evelyn: Well, you hate that job anyway. Why don't you just quit? You don't have to work. Bateman: Because I want...to fit...in. ————- Influencers are going to win this fight sadly.

emsign 5y ago

I don't see any text only the images. That site is broken.

tmaly 5y ago

I think TikTok is fundamentally changing marketing. If you go on YouTube, you see 1-2 traditional ads. On TikTok all the ads blend in and just appear as another video in your for you page. What I thought was really interesting was that 50% of the user base is over the age of 30.

jollybean 5y ago
This is because it's early and the ads are well designed for the platform, i.e. a lot of ads for flip flops and those 'butt lifting' pants for girls. Once it opens up you'll see more annoying ads because most products don't fit well. That said, even car companies are making things a little less 'advertisy'.
- tmaly 5y ago
  Ads are already opened up for everyone. I tried to promote a simple post talking for a few seconds. The system seems to auto review and it rejected the ad saying there were exaggerated claims in it.
theshadowknows 5y ago
Because it lets adult men watch young scantily clad boys and girls jump around for free. That’s the sick part to me. These kids (and they are kids) are basically soft core porn for pedophiles. And Nike and Amazon subsidize it.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  That's how it started yes, preteens and teens doing dances and lip-syncing to songs. But the kids have already fled to other platforms. The amount of content produced by people in their 30s and (a lot) over is staggering. You can easily spend hours just scrolling the front page and get stuff you like. And you'll never see any one under 20 unless you specifically go look for that stuff and engage with it. I do see scantily clad people, but they're mostly in their 30s or 40s. =) The TokTok algorithm is scary good, it makes Youtube and FB suggestion engines look like someone's high-school project...

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Brilliant. Love getting insight into the cultural changes arising from smartphones.

im_down_w_otp 5y ago

I sometimes wonder about the reach of this value system into unexpected or non-obvious ecosystems. For example, the tech industry has its share of perennial celebrity conference circuit speakers for <insert tech du jour> who grace stages with hundreds to thousands in attendance, Twitter personalities who have loyal followings for their respective thought leadership, and a reinforcing cycle of one feeding the other. Where are the lines between one form of cultivation of celebrity and another? Can anyone really fault these people, given they're reaping rewards from the persona they've created? If it's easier to raise money or get a job as a recognizable personality than it is by way of other acumen or expertise, then it seems like it might well be a shrewd and wise pursuit. If not necessarily a particularly fulfilling one by other measures.

ilaksh 5y ago
I don't know if value system is quite the right description. Sounds like you are talking about celebrity or popularity in general. I think the obvious thing that different about most generic "influencers" is that they are not "thought leaders" in any domain, but generally just famous for their personality, looks, or "precoital" posturing.

peteretep 5y ago

> According to a poll released in 2019, some 54 percent of Americans between the ages of thirteen and thirty-eight would, if given the chance, become a social-media influencer. A whopping 23 percent believed that this term already fit them. EDIT: Jesus, this article is the gift that keeps giving: > Later, when I ask Chase [about the veracity of the video he] explains that the video must be legit because “it’s gotten deleted multiple times off the internet, which is insane.” Epistemologically, this is where we are as a country: when content gets expurgated because of blatant misinformation, it is taken as a sure sign of that source’s truthfulness. also the whole post apocalyptic vibe is lit: > It is raining ash while we play basketball.

inreverse 5y ago
I would love the source for this. It seems too ridiculous to be true unless they're using a non-standard definition of 'influencer'.
- sircastor 5y ago
  What is the standard definition of influencer? Is there some standard being set? And by what body?
  - virgil_disgr4ce 5y ago
    There isn't a "real" standard as per an international organization, but there is already an emergent consensus in marketing around tiers of influencers based on number of followers. For one instance: https://www.tribegroup.co/blog/influencer-followers https://www.tribegroup.co/blog/influencer-followers "Nano" influencers, according to this particular company, are people with 1000-3000 followers, Micro are 1,000-100,000, Macro are 100,000+, etc. Here's another example with slightly different values: https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/social-media-influencers-mega-macro-micro-or-nano/ https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/social-media-influ... Because this is now big business, I'd expect convergence on a common definition some time relatively soon.
    - 5y ago

gexla 5y ago

Can't take the time to dig further right now, but is this a riff off... The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry is a 1973 book by Harold Bloom.

keiferski 5y ago
Unfortunately not. The premise of that book would be an interesting contemporary article, though: the anxiety of needing to differentiate yourself as an influencer while inevitably being influenced by other influencers.

rubslopes 5y ago

I couldn't stop thinking about the movie Idiocracy while reading this.

jaimex2 5y ago
Same, my mind started reading in the narrators voice a few sentences in.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

cupcake-unicorn 5y ago

I'm a millennial and didn't really have social media growing up. I used Facebook for a little bit in college and then deleted it. It bothered me in my 20s that a lot of social things seemed to be closed to me because I didn't have some form of social media. Even though I had email and text I was somehow treated as if I was asking to be contacted on a fax machine or something like that. It's baffling. Every time I've even gotten a little bit closer to joining some online community, let alone social media, my anxiety spirals and I have severe mental health symptoms. For my own good and my disinterest I keep off of it for now. Honestly HN is as far as I push those limits! I can't imagine how this could have been though if social media was a constant throughout my childhood and middle school. It was hard enough dealing with the social fallout in my 20s but I felt like I at least had some degree of choice and control and I feel if I had taken it for granted when I was younger I would have had really severe symptoms growing up probably leading to hospitalization. Obviously the influencers in that article aren't like me in that regard but I was shocked by the 54% of younger people wanting to make money being an influencer comment, wow! And I do think there's a serious exploitative/mental health factor that's not being addressed here. I wonder how this is going to turn out for those kids later in life. I just can't imagine being under the spotlight and dependent on external validation that much.

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
> I wonder how this is going to turn out for those kids later in life. I just can't imagine being under the spotlight and dependent on external validation that much. It’s not just millennial who deal with this. LinkedIn is becoming inescapable… not to mention any advocacy for a “platform” as part of a resume
- cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
  That's true, I hadn't thought of LinkedIn. But my experience on there was becoming so ridiculous. Maybe it's more helpful for people who are in other industries but I was getting tons of recruiter spam etc. But yes, it sucks so much when you're expected to be tied to a platform and that's not to mention the serious privacy issues with this. As an unrelated irony a local meetup.com group focused on Inclusivity now has switched some Facebook video platform...Supposedly you don't have to have a Facebook account but I don't want to give it a try on Linux and all the privacy issues are there :/

VelNZ 5y ago

Reminds me of Calhoun's Mouse Utopia experiments: "Other young mice growing into adulthood exhibited an even different type of behavior. Dr. Calhoun called these individuals “the beautiful ones.” Their time was devoted solely to grooming, eating and sleeping. They never involved themselves with others, engaged in sex, nor would they fight. All appeared [outwardly] as a beautiful exhibit of the species with keen, alert eyes and a healthy, well-kept body. These mice, however, could not cope with unusual stimuli. Though they looked inquisitive, they were in fact, very stupid." https://fee.org/articles/john-b-calhoun-s-mouse-utopia-experiment-and-reflections-on-the-welfare-state/ https://fee.org/articles/john-b-calhoun-s-mouse-utopia-exper...

NavinF 5y ago
Like many psychology and sociology papers, Mouse Utopia is now discredited because nobody could reproduce those results: https://www.gwern.net/Mouse-Utopia https://www.gwern.net/Mouse-Utopia "Kessler 1966 only somewhat resembles Calhoun’s results: while Kessler does describe deviant mice behavior driven by density (such as homosexual matings) and high infant mortality/cannibalism, on the other hand, there are no population crashes or cessation of reproduction but stable populations after initial growth, there are no behavioral sinks, any ‘beautiful ones’ or ‘drinkers’ or ‘autistic’ mice are not described as such by Kessler, the mice are healthy overall, and transplanted mice revert"

salamanderman 5y ago

It reminds me of American Bandstand, MTV summer shows in the 90s, etc. Just aim cameras at teenagers and get paid.

ffggvv 5y ago

i really tried to read this article but god is it pretentious and long. they could do with shortening it 20x.. but i get it.. it’s harpers..

theshadowknows 5y ago

Man. When I was 18 I was overweight and already balding. I worked at a gas station. Once a hooker spit on me because I wouldn’t let her steal some ice cream. I cut my foot once on broken glass in the dumpster because part of my job was tamping it down with my feet (it cut through my shoe). Would I have traded it to be an influencer if I could have? Shit yeah in a heartbeat. But unfortunately for me no one wanted to watch me gyrate. (That’s unfair, some people probably would have). That said. Now I’m a fully bald old man (I just turned 36). I’m not as overweight anymore though I could prob lose a couple of pounds. Blood pressure is good, though. Would I want to be an influencer? Jet set around the world and stay in lavish hotels for free? Have companies throw products at me? Have thousands or millions of people knowing my every move? Have to give a shit if there’s a stain on my shirt? Hell no. I want to sit here on my porch with my dog and my wife and do my work. Then at the end of the day I want to turn it off and set it aside. Maybe we’ll go hiking. I know it sounds glamorous and maybe it’s appealing to some people. But man it’s not for me.

nus07 5y ago
Jim Jefferies-Secret to Happiness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvYJeLUXMG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvYJeLUXMG8
bloqs 5y ago
36 is an old man? Are you being facetious?
- InvertedRhodium 5y ago
  I think 34/35 is when I began to notice actual age related differences - relatively small things like not being able to take it for granted that your sore back will be good tomorrow and I'd accrued enough general injuries over time that they were noticeable and compounding - sore/weak knee from a car accident, stiff shoulder from a motorcycle crash, etc. When you're 35, 35 feels pretty old compared to the personal status quo.
  - subpixel 5y ago

jollybean 5y ago

Conan O'Brien said 'Fame is the most addictive thing, much more so than heroin, and you wouldn't give heroin to children, would you?' - when talking about kids in the business who grow up destroyed. For whatever evolutionary reason, we are wired to love attention. I loathe the notion of social media - but I do play music - and I can attest to the fact that time literally stands still when you have an audience's attention, there is nothing like that. I think this kind of addiction will be up there with nicotene, barbituates, gambling, anorexia etc.. We probably should be having PSAs in school. But the issue is more problematic because it's not just a 'habit' - some 'side thing' - it's an 'aspiration'. Since when did everyone want to grow up just to be famous, and basically contribute nothing? We used to regard that attitude with some skepticism. It's as though Paris Hilton then the Kardashians completely just broke them mould. Kids are really open minded to day, and generally 'good' but the upside down value of 'me me me' vs. at least doing something instrumental for the community (aka anything: doctor, carpenter, teacher, soldier, police, social worker, professor etc.) should have us a little worried. Maybe it's just a phase, or a perspective ... but flipping from communitarian values to brazenly self-oriented values is spooky.

yawaworht1978 5y ago

Influencer is the 2020s equivalent to the dream job actor/model/dancer. When I see the level of delusions on these most unwelcome tiktok ads I get, I need a moment to calm down from laughing. Stay away from social media as much as you can. I have deleted fb, ig and WhatsApp, life was never better. People get in touch via call or signal, not missing a thing.

defaultname 5y ago
What TikTok ads are you referring to? Users often get completely different targeting, but the ads I've seen have been mainstream fast food and then dumb consumer crap like moon lights. Also Old Navy and some car company. TikTok is really the anti-"influencer" platform. It is a very wide, long tail and doesn't seem to concentrate like many other platforms. People seem to be completely ordinary, versus the delusion that Instagram as an example is pitching, of aspirational perfect living. Algorithmically TikTok seems to assign very little weight to the creator compared to other venues. Single hits that aren't achieved again are common. Versus say Twitter where if someone has a hit, the platform presumes that every tweet from that person is a brilliant insight.
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  It is very odd, as I have never installed the app or even googled the term. I have seen some as linked Instagram feeds, but involuntary. Tiktok would be the last thing in the world I care about, I am also quite a bit beyond that age bracket. Usually it's a woman doing a poorly choreographed dance move or two while displaying a duck face. I am not sure if that is possible but maybe somehow there is an IG/tiktok data exchange if someone has an account on both. This still happens even though I have terminated the ig and fb accounts a while ago
  - defaultname 5y ago
    Ah, okay I misunderstood. I thought you were referring to the ads on the service itself. As to the "age bracket", there is no age bracket for TikTok.

pharmakom 5y ago

I would hate to be an influencer. People pay you to be cool, but one day you won’t be cool anymore and then what?

UltimateBallR 5y ago

Influenzas afraid

codeOnMaster 5y ago

What I try to keep in mind is that for these things to work, you have a few influencers at the top, making money and creating "content" and you have a sea of people who consume the "content". I deleted all (most) of my social media because I know very well that I'm part of the consumers if I'm on there at all. And if I'm consuming, then I'm not producing. So I try to focus on producing during my day - work (career), personal projects, working out, working on projects around the house, building/investing in my friendships and relationship. Sure, I also consume sometimes. But I try to minimize it.

gerbilly 5y ago

These kids are letting themselves be exploited. They are being 'paid' with useless perks like luxury accommodations, and shoes and clothes. The 'perks' aren't even a reward, but are the just 'products in use' that the advertisers are using to make money. In olden days, as exploitative as it was, you'd still have to pay a model to wear your clothes if you wanted to create an ad campaign. Now they'll do it for the 'privilege' of having cool gear.

meowzero 5y ago

I used to know a few influencers. I still do. I was part of that culture since I was a photographer and cared about my social media clout. This was 3-4 years ago, when IG used to rule, instead of Tiktok. I don't know if things changed since then. Most of these influencers looked miserable. It seemed like they were having the best times in various exotic locations. In reality, they were all broke. They barely scratched by staying at the cheapest places, eating cheapest foods, etc. They're stressed out trying to get content and followers They're fake as well. I took some photos of one influencer in the my studio. She posted the photos few weeks later with the location tagged as Bali, NYC, etc. I thought that was funny. Another, I mentioned to her that I noticed she's using comment pods due to the way some people commented on her posts. I wasn't accusing her, only stated a fact I noticed. She got embarrassed, denied, and acted like she didn't know what a comment pod was. I pushed it a bit more and she relented she was using pods. Why so fake? I'm glad I'm out of that world. It adds too much stress in your life to produce content, find followers, and to create world where you seem cool and popular when you're not.

dash2 5y ago
What's a comment pod?
- rictic 5y ago
  > An engagement pod is a group (or ‘pod’) of Instagram users who band together to help increase engagement on each other’s content. This can be done through likes, comments, or follows.
  - Invictus0 5y ago
    You would think it would be trivial for an enterprising network scientist at these social media companies to identify these pods.
    - acoard 5y ago
      I know of at least one person/group that does that here on HN, or at least did ~3-5 years ago. Honestly, there's no incentive to stop this type of work. IG wants engagement; comment pods are peak engagement, you've programmed yourself to beat the machine.

Nimitz14 5y ago

What a fantastic article. To me, the point of the article was that the influencers are just a symptom of a deeper malaise stemming from social media of raising everyone's expectations of themselves, the increased isolation as people spend more time online and have less real friends, and the (flawed) assumption that the average person is a good judge of quality. All the comments just talking about influencers are missing the point.

fergie 5y ago

This guy was really keen to remind us over and over that he is a professor.

ludamad 5y ago
It seemed natural stream of consciousness to me - he's in a play-school setting with people within a few years of the age of his students

xyzelement 5y ago

I think a lot about society and culture -- especially now that we have a young child. I think a lot of the "ills" are just different manifestations of bad parenting. It's a values thing -- I learned from my parents and grandparents to think futuristically, to get value by creating value, to be suspicious of the free lunch, to not orient my sense of self too much around what others around me are thinking and doing. This set of thinking prevents me from being interested in being an influencer, which is the same thing that kept me from being sucked into the dot-com boom and bust, from getting excited about crypto, from being sucked into the ebbs and flows of caring about what twitter cares about, etc. There's a sort of steadiness that comes from your parenting and your values. And in the lack of that, you fall for one thing or another. If it wasn't "influencing," it'd be something else.

brian_cunnie 5y ago

This reminds me of the advent of television, when vaudevillians such as Milton Berle made the transition to TV. A few became famous; most didn't.