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.
Trying to cater to consumer whims and maintain relevancy (which is what influencers are doing) is a blurry moving target that multi-million dollar corporate marketing departments can't even consistently hit. The dumpster is practically deterministic by comparison.
Granted the income ceiling without adding skills is much lower but I would rather do a crappy job with trash than do a crappy job with consumers any day (and back when I worked such jobs I made that choice).
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.
He might not be. 'Getting Old' is largely a mental choice, at least until 75 when your physical capability takes a pretty solid hit regardless of lifestyle choices. I've met people in their mid sixties who are more 'with it' than many teenagers and I've also met people in their twenties who have convinced themselves that their time has passed and there is nothing left to do but work and die.
I'm mentally consigning this fellow to the second camp and hope he is either a troll or really content with his situation.
> 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.
> when content gets expurgated because of blatant misinformation, it is taken as a sure sign of that source’s truthfulness.
The difficulty is that it can mean either it's true and the authorities don't want you to know it, or it's false and they don't want you to believe it. Judging information either way based only on it being censored leads to error of two different types. Neither is correct thinking but plenty of people make the opposite mistake of trusting authorities and I think we need both types if we're going to have either. A country full of conformist sheep of any sort would be at risk of some sort of totalitarianism or other political disaster.
> but plenty of people make the opposite mistake of trusting authorities
In almost 40 years, my heuristic of trusting the government and ignoring anything being sold to me as “THEY don’t want you to know this!!” has worked out really well for me.
The author is mistakenly adding the 12% and 11% numbers. The real proportion is around 12% of young people. Given that in the poll, "influencer" is used basically synonymously with "celebrity" (Will Smith is considered an influencer) I'd say this is pretty reasonable actually.
>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.
Its funny how oblivious pro-censorship people are to the nature, effects, and history of censorship
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.
> 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.
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.
> I was shocked by the 54% of younger people wanting to make money being an influencer comment
Honestly, I think it just seems to most like the current 'easy money' route. I'm in the UK - I can remember reading an alarming statistic 15 or so years ago, in the hey day of "Nuts" and "Zoo" magazine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuts_(magazine)), regarding the number of young girls who wanted to be a Page 3/Topless model when they were old enough. Because at that time, they were always in the red top papers, with footballer boyfriends, etc etc.
In 2021 you can be a no one, spend a few weeks on "Love Island" and end up with a million followers on Instagram. Your feed is then full of expensive clothes and shoes (#gifted), and there's an article every week about how "[name] from [show] gets £xx,xxx for a single Instagram post!"
Why bother working in an office, or building a business, or learning a skill or a trade - when 20 minutes a day of revealing photos can make you more money than your parents earn? (See also: OnlyFans)
Ironically, I think (and the article seems to show) the bulk of the really successful influencers are the ones that treat it like a business and actually work hard at it and creating content.
> 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
There’s always the option of creating an account, giving it an impossible-to-remember password, putting that on your ToDo list with a monthly cadence, and getting 80% of the value with ~2% of the work/stress/distraction. LinkedIn especially is easy to fire up IFF you you have a specific company to research.
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 :/
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
It took me a while but I've got all social media off my phone. I allow myself 5 minute of twitter in the morning (I use a block to keep me off it otherwise) and 15 minutes of hackernews.
My brain feels radically calmer than it did a few years ago. My parents have Instagram accounts. Why?
Is WhatsApp social media? I use it to talk to my friends. Isn't WhatsApp basically just Signal with less data protection? Does that make iMessage social media?
I think it is in the twilight zone between intrusive app and social media. It is not designed like Instagram, but many people do share quick snapshots/video there.
It does not have a like/dislike feature, but it does go beyond a messaging service I would say.
Readit News
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.
Granted the income ceiling without adding skills is much lower but I would rather do a crappy job with trash than do a crappy job with consumers any day (and back when I worked such jobs I made that choice).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvYJeLUXMG8
When you're 35, 35 feels pretty old compared to the personal status quo.
I'm mentally consigning this fellow to the second camp and hope he is either a troll or really content with his situation.
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.
The difficulty is that it can mean either it's true and the authorities don't want you to know it, or it's false and they don't want you to believe it. Judging information either way based only on it being censored leads to error of two different types. Neither is correct thinking but plenty of people make the opposite mistake of trusting authorities and I think we need both types if we're going to have either. A country full of conformist sheep of any sort would be at risk of some sort of totalitarianism or other political disaster.
In almost 40 years, my heuristic of trusting the government and ignoring anything being sold to me as “THEY don’t want you to know this!!” has worked out really well for me.
Deleted Comment
The author is mistakenly adding the 12% and 11% numbers. The real proportion is around 12% of young people. Given that in the poll, "influencer" is used basically synonymously with "celebrity" (Will Smith is considered an influencer) I'd say this is pretty reasonable actually.
Its funny how oblivious pro-censorship people are to the nature, effects, and history of censorship
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.
Deleted Comment
Deleted Comment
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.
Honestly, I think it just seems to most like the current 'easy money' route. I'm in the UK - I can remember reading an alarming statistic 15 or so years ago, in the hey day of "Nuts" and "Zoo" magazine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuts_(magazine)), regarding the number of young girls who wanted to be a Page 3/Topless model when they were old enough. Because at that time, they were always in the red top papers, with footballer boyfriends, etc etc.
In 2021 you can be a no one, spend a few weeks on "Love Island" and end up with a million followers on Instagram. Your feed is then full of expensive clothes and shoes (#gifted), and there's an article every week about how "[name] from [show] gets £xx,xxx for a single Instagram post!"
Why bother working in an office, or building a business, or learning a skill or a trade - when 20 minutes a day of revealing photos can make you more money than your parents earn? (See also: OnlyFans)
Ironically, I think (and the article seems to show) the bulk of the really successful influencers are the ones that treat it like a business and actually work hard at it and creating content.
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
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 :/
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My brain feels radically calmer than it did a few years ago. My parents have Instagram accounts. Why?
Except you don't have to have any skills.
> delusions
What else would you expect from an advertising company?