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Gen Z and the rise of influencer culture
- bawolff 4y agoPeople fuss about influencers, but its no different than the celeberities of 30 years ago, just a little more decentralized.
- theshrike79 4y agoCelebrities 30 years ago used to be celebrities because they did something. Influencers are mostly famous for being famous.
- nemothekid 4y ago>Celebrities 30 years ago used to be celebrities because they did something. You are looking at the past through rose colored glasses. I don't think Anna Nicole Smith is any more particularly talented that an influencer today (infact influencers today deal with more competition than celebrities 30 years ago).
- jollybean 4y agoThere were only a small number of Anna Nicole Smiths and nobody wanted to 'be like her'. In fact, they were hugely derided. Edit: not only that, she wasn't particularly famous. I suggest anyone disagreeing provide some names of people who were arbitrarily famous, specifically wherein 20% of that generation would have aspired to become. It simply didn't exist. I suggest most people who disagree weren't even alive a the time. In the perennial game of 'prejudices about generations' I think this one is a material issue.
- bawolff 4y agoAh yes, the no true scotsman defense. If i, as a person who dont give a shit about celebrities, know who she was, then she's probably reasonably famous. At least as famous as a modern B-tier influencer.
- jollybean 4y agoNo. Fame, Aspiration and attitudes towards those people are empirically measurable. There were very few 'Anna Nicole Smiths' before 2000, it wasn't really until Paris Hilton who broke the mould and 'professionalized' the notion. And nobody wanted to be Anna Nicole Smith, there was no aspirational aspect to her fame.
- nemothekid 4y ago>There were very few 'Anna Nicole Smiths' before 2000, it wasn't really until Paris Hilton who broke the mould and 'professionalized' the notion. Just because you didn't know about socialites before MTV poured millions of marketing dollars in Paris doesn't mean they didn't exist. Anna Nicole Smith came into real fame in 1993. You have women like Gigi Hadid and Kate Moss who were very famous socialites who were the aspirations of teen girls everywhere. Typically they were models, but that isn't any different than an influencer today who takes selfies. I know I'm being extremely condescending to both of these women but on the barmoeter for "doing something" there isn't that much different from someone like Kate Moss and Addison Rae or Valkyrae. To claim that no one wanted to be Kate Moss in the 90s given how much of a problem anorexia became is ridiculous. Honestly, someone equally unaware could say the same thing about gaming. It's like saying "Notch" professionalized the notion of being a game developer. For Gen Z there is likely far more people who played Minecraft than have played Quake, but it would be ridiculous to say that game development didn't exist before Notch or that people didn't aspire to be game developers before Minecraft. >And nobody wanted to be Anna Nicole Smith This is a woman who had several modeling deals but I guess the executives at those companies were completely braindead and didn't realize that people didn't care for her.
- ryangibb 4y ago> the no true scotsman defense How is this a 'no true scotsman' defense? I don't see the relevance.
- bawolff 4y agoSomeone presented an example, which was then summarily dismissed as not a real example. That's pretty textbook example of no true scotsman.
- bushbaba 4y agoEh, there’s been socialites for many hundreds of years.
- earleybird 4y agoPerhaps courtesan is the word you're looking for.
- unsupp0rted 4y agoOften the thing they did was be attractive enough to be put in a room with Harvey Weinstein or someone like him. Step 4: ... Step 5: profit There's a positive argument to be made that YouTube only cares about eyeballs and wallets, and the characteristics of who's getting YouTube those eyeballs and wallets is of no interest to them.
- cjbgkagh 4y agoI think famous for being famous is the millennials embodied by Paris Hilton.
- baxtr 4y ago“Did something” as in “appear in a reality Show”?
- seydor 4y ago'something', like being a model or an actor, who dated other famous people. It has changed, but let's face it, their celeb fame was always disproportionate to their work we are in a postmodern world now, everything is meta. We deal with the celeb and scrap the work
- desindol 4y agoMaybe you are an influencer…
- dehrmann 4y ago> Celebrities 30 years ago used to be celebrities because they did something. Or Harvey Weinstein.
- gumby 4y agoNot really — the “It girls” of the early 20th century were no different.
- nopinsight 4y agoArguably, highly successful influencers tend to be very talented in some way. Hacksmith, Zachs King, Mark Rober have skills few can imitate. Mr Beast is a video producer whose creativity easily rivals those with much larger budgets. Some less obvious talents like connecting with a large number of people over one-way videos propelled PewDiePie's and Markiplier's channels to great heights. It appears easy to do what they do, but given such intense competition and few such successes, it's likely they provide something pretty rare that people want. (Some channels admittedly have early mover advantages). It is possible that algorithms and crowdsourced data in Youtube and Tik Tok are more meritocratic than the more traditional ways of selecting talents.
- theshrike79 4y agoDunno about the first two, but Mark Rober is actually doing something useful. He's not famous for being famous, the dude worked at NASA for almost a decade and is a legit accomplished engineer. What I'm mostly referring to are the "influencers" who follow this formula: 1) Be hot 2) Don't be not hot 3) Get on TV 4) Goto 3 Now you're famous. What are your skills? Looking good on TV and stirring up drama on and off screen.
- baxtr 4y agoI highly recommend Tim Wu’s book on the history of “Attention Merchants”. Very interesting to see how the industry to capture and monetize attention developed over the last 150 years or so.
- jollybean 4y agoNo, it's completely different. 1) 30 years ago, large swaths of people didn't want to be 'famous for being famous'. Yes, people may have wanted to be athletes or actors, but that's different. 2) Even those things were hugely aspirational. People didn't think that they could really just quite their jobs and play for the NFL. Surely meany dreamed of that, but few know NFL players in real life. Everyone knows someone with a social media account a few followers. I generally don't think generations are that that different, but I find this data to be repulsive, it's almost sickening. It gives me a very dim view of that generation. In particular is the complete lack of sense of civic duty or even self betterment that goes along with that. The word 'duty' has completely fallen away from the lexicon, but even here the aspiration towards exceptionalism (even when it can be selfish) is a bit absent. It's the most egoic, selfish, lacking in virtue aspiration, it's probably the lowest form of existence above doing something actually harmful. People who are social influences due to something else i.e. sports/entertainment, that's fine, but when an entire generation wants to be 'famous for being famous' it's just toxic.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago> 1) 30 years ago, large swaths of people didn't want to be 'famous for being famous'. Yes, people may have wanted to be athletes or actors, but that's different. They absolutely did. > It gives me a very dim view of that generation. It was by happenstance that our generations grew up without the same influencer content being pipelined into our brains not by virtue. > People who are social influences due to something else i.e. sports/entertainment, that's fine, Why? Why someone's ability which is apropos of nothing worth turning into a following? Sure I can respect an impressive display of a skill but fame in general seems toxic to me. People see one thing a person can do and they wish to know them, emulate them, hear their opinions. I don't see that as that much better than following someone because you like their marketing.
- jollybean 4y ago1) "They absolutely did" Nope. Which list of people 30 years ago were 'famous for being famous' and which cohort of society aspired to be them? Name names. It was not 'a thing' aside from a few random, quixotic people. Nobody wanted to 'be them' or thought they could be that. 2) Yes, we live in different circumstances, that's fair. But my grandparents were born in homes without electricity or plumbing. They did not turn to prostitution or aspire to the 'least' they could be. 3) "Why someone's ability which is apropos of nothing " Because being a great athlete or artists (or scientist etc.) is not 'a propos of nothing'. Yes, it's a bit glib for people to fanboy athlete's the way we do, and Michael Jordan is a jerk, but he's also a spectacular athlete.
- hindsightbias 4y agoThose celeberities were never queued up 20 deep at my favorite hiking spots to take selfies.
- DubiousPusher 4y agoYou should visit Big Sky Montana sometime.
- zdragnar 4y ago"Perhaps even more shockingly, our study found that Gen Z males (20%) are more likely than females (13%) to believe that being a social media influencer is the only choice of career for them, with almost half of the males surveyed (49%) agree that being a social media influencer is a good career choice."
- 0xChain 4y agoPerpetuating hollowness, disingenuousness, and products people don’t need. The future is bleak.
- jwilber 4y agoMaybe the current bleak situation of expensive education, unaffordable housing, medical debt, etc. is pushing many in gen z to go for what they see (whether it’s true or not) as their only option?
- zbird 4y agoNot to mention all of the surveillance/targeted advertising that happens on these platforms while the "influencers" are busy influencing each other.
- jrumbut 4y agoI don't know that it's any bleaker than being an actor, musician, athlete, or any other type of entertainer. It perhaps involves more skills since they might their own sets, photography, cosmetics, scripts, etc plus I think it's easier to achieve a little success compared to trying to make it into the movies. You can generate a following and make a little money to supplement your day job. Not a bad idea and it shows an entrepreneurial spirit.
- belugacat 4y agoThose are questionable parallels. Music, acting, sports, writing, etc are human practices many millenia old, recognized as such by universities, labor unions, etc. Influencing on the other hand is primarily about being an intermediary for platform/advertiser relationships. If one were to stretch things a bit, I guess you could say they're performers deriving their income from private companies. But even then there's probably still a little bit of a difference between a theater actor performing a role in MacBeth and a teen getting a commission off sneakers they advertise on Tiktok.
- eimrine 4y agoBeing social influencer is good until you meet all kinds of censorship. Both from a platform (ban) and from a society (gate).
- theshrike79 4y agoIt's not even censorship. Building your product on someone else's platform is always a risk.
- DubiousPusher 4y agoI keep sending the New York Times my article "Ted Kaczynski was Right" and they refuse to publish it. Censorship is outta control I tell you.
- zbird 4y agoHey guys, make sure to check out my Youtube channel and smash that Like & Subscribe button.
- unsupp0rted 4y agoIf I otherwise like what I'm seeing in a video and they ask me to "smash", or worse, "destroy" the like button, that's my cue to leave and not come back. But then I'm not the target audience, so it's not their loss.
- seydor 4y agoi really hate the new youtube designs, cause i cannot tell if i have pressed the like button or not, the visual difference is so tiny that i often unlike stuff i have liked before. So sorry dear influencer, but i promise i am beholden to your influence forever
- collegeburner 4y agook y'all need to calm down a little on this (talking to the article as much as comments). this is just the zoomer version of "i wanna be a rockstar!" or substitute football player, fashion designer whatever else. y'all know those jobs where there are always a lot more people who want them than jobs available. so kinda like kids started bands 30 years ago now kids start social media "influencer" pages and try to grow it and most fail. ain't that deep.
- pram 4y agono cap. optimizing user engagement and leveraging network effects is bussin fr fr
- collegeburner 4y ago
- eyelidlessness 4y agoI’m not gonna comment on the central topic, but that map is … not a good visualization in so many ways. Never mind it inverts the scale of intensity it supposedly conveys, the geography regions are not representative of any of the people in those regions. Edit: it doesn’t even invert the scale! It’s just using a monochrome color range without any regard for scale.
- davidkuennen 4y agoI don't really see a significant change here. Influencers today are like movie/tv stars in the past. They produce content to entertain. Young people want to become influencers. So they want to become famous? Young people wanting to become famous is nothing new either
- prox 4y agoI think it’s the time when you are in still in school and you had classmates whose only ideal was to “have money”. Had no idea what to do or how to do it. Influencers kind of embody that.
- yieldcrv 4y agoI think the best way to understand this is that Gen Z life and prospects are more like The Hunger Games The ones that choose to do this are volunteering for tribute, go make their face known amongst potential sponsors, and go out into the hopeless world streaming it live hoping for the sponsors to send them gifts and be subscribed financially to the outcome Its not really as vapid and narcissistic as it otherwise seems It can be enough to make or break rent even with low success
- oarabbus_ 4y agoIsn't that a bit overly reductionist? Cars - I don't really see a significant change. Cars are like [trains, horse carriages, boats] of the past. They provide seating for people to travel. People wanting to travel is nothing new either. Airplanes aren't so different from this lens either. But I don't think most people would agree that cars aren't a significant change from railroads or horse-drawn carriages. Likewise, one can become an influencer from their bedroom, quite unlike having to travel to Hollywood (or the country equivalent) to become a movie star.