4 ms·

I do not agree with the author's arguments. Creators are typically selling their own creation while influencers are using their reputation to sell something ot

• bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
  This is how I have always thought of the distinction, too. An influencer is a content creator that specializes in sponsored content.
  • username90 5y ago
    Or aims to do it. Most influencers doesn't get a lot of sponsors and therefore can't afford to travel/buy lots of fashion required to maintain the lifestyle influencer audiences wants to see.
    • noduerme 5y ago
      But they were influenced into trying.
• snowwrestler 5y ago
  It’s complicated because to sell things, influencers create their own content. The videos and photos they post to show off the products they’re touting, are still videos and photos. They still have to be high-quality and engaging pieces of content or folks will scroll past and not follow/subscribe/etc. And they can’t just post ads all the time or people won’t watch. Even the most commercially-oriented influencer is posting original content on a schedule to keep their audience engaged, whether or not they’re fulfilling a sponsorship deal at that moment. Consider that it’s a long-standing convention to call a company that makes traditional ads (print magazine, network TV, etc) a “creative agency.” “Creative” and “creator” are terms that have been associated with commercial influence for a long time, as the article notes.
  • II2II 5y ago
    I agree that influencers are creators in the generic sense, and certainly don't mean to dismiss their creativity or skill. That being said, context is important. When creators are contrasted to influencers, the context implies that motivation is being considered.
  • noduerme 5y ago
    If only 1% of someone's creative output is product placement, the other 99% is rubbish. They don't have creative freedom. Product placement is a sneaky form of advertising that degrades the creative value of whatever it's in, because unlike an ad next to an editorial, the advertiser in a placement explicitly alters and by definition limits and demands what the creative content can or cannot include. There's a word for rock stars who tout products - sellouts. Influencers are basically people whose idea of a great gig is to be popular enough to sell out. Put another way, creatives get paid for their own ideas, whether by selling work product directly or by ads placed which go with that work. And one way we judge the quality of any art or medium is the degree to which the creators are free from the influence of their advertisers. Influencers, on the other hand, merely mimic creativity as a means to shill for an advertiser. I'm an art director among other things, and I make ads for a living. In that industry, I'm a "creative"... as are designers I work with. But we're creating on behalf of a commercial enterprise, i.e. we don't have true creative freedom in that realm, or freedom of expression. And neither do influencers. In fact, they have even less than the marketing departments who sponsor them. So there's a difference, and 'influencer' is disparaging, and the social disdain is well-earned.
• chongli 5y ago
  Publishers don't send a game key to a "let's play" channel ... have an influencer use their product. Is a let’s player a creator or an influencer? Yes, they are playing someone else’s game. Yet many people prefer to watch their favourite let’s player over playing the game themselves. This indicated to me that the let’s player is creating some value that the game alone did not have. It may be, for some people, that they want to save money by not buying a game and instead enjoying the story as provided by their favourite let’s player. On the other hand, lots of people like to play the game alongside the let’s player and talk about it with the community. They also donate money to the let’s player directly so it isn’t necessarily about saving money. I think there is real value in these communities that gets built up around a game or genre of games, especially during the pandemic. Many people who would otherwise not get a lot of socialization in their lives are able to socialize with those in their favourite let’s player and streamer communities.
  • pram 5y ago
    Theres a more obvious word for them: entertainer. No need for a false dichotomy between 'creator' and 'influencer'
    • jameshart 5y ago
      Or 'personality', or 'celebrity'. People being famous-for-being-famous is hardly a new thing.
• slightwinder 5y ago
  > Creators are typically selling their own creation while influencers are using their reputation to sell something other than their creation. That's a bit missing the point. Influencers as also creators are both doing the same, using the same tactics with the same goals. And more and more the differences are becoming blurry, as both are doing what the other side is doing. Creators advertising other products than their own is not uncommon. And Influencers starting to create also high quality-content outside of cheap social media-content is also happening quite often after they reach a certain point in their career. We also see very often confusion about who when someone is an influencer, when is someone a creator. Because technical everyone with reputation is influencing others, and everone is creating content when building their reputation via social media. And on top, we are specifically talking in context of social media with this terms. But they also exist outside of social media and predate them. Maybe, we should start using those terms for what they are and accept that people can be both, and not exclusivly one or the other.
  • teawrecks 5y ago
    If someone both cooks and eats, does that confuse the description/roll of each task? I don't think so. We can talk about them independently and it doesn't change anything appreciably when one person happens to do both.
    • slightwinder 5y ago
      Which is exactly what I said? We do not talk independently about them. You are either influencer or creator, not both.
  • shkkmo 5y ago
    > Maybe, we should start using those terms for what they are and accept that people can be both, and not exclusivly one or the other. That seemes self evident to me. > Influencers as also creators are both doing the same, using the same tactics with the same goals. And more and more the differences are becoming blurry, as both are doing what the other side is doing. I disagree. When inluencing, the product is access to their follower and the customer is advertisers. When creating, the product is the content and the customers ate the consumers of that content. These two activities are pretty easily distinguishable and just because people do both doesn't make the activities less distinct. I think it is important to have both terms understood separately because they help understand the motivations and incentives behind the content that is being consumed.