Written by Abi C. Keane
I think the time has come to talk about one of the most absurd recently emerged internet phenomena: social media influencers. The question that puzzles me the most on this topic is why the !@*# can someone get away with making money for doing nothing? Before you chew me out, listen to what I have to say. I know that not all “influencers” are stupid or terrible people – that is not the issue. The issue is the concept of an influencer itself. How do you even define that? What is an influencer? When I try to answer that question on my own, I think “Well, it’s someone trying to influence you to do something, duh.” But what are these people trying to influence you to do? They post pictures of themselves doing cool activities, going to cool places, and wearing cool things. Though it may seem that they’re just rubbing their “better”, “richer” lives in your face, they’re actually doing so much more – they’re trying to sell you their life. The way I see it, that happens in several different ways. First, you need to convince others that you’re interesting enough for others to be interested in you. Once you accomplish that, you need to convince others that you’re important enough to keep paying attention to. So what is really happening here is the promotion of a certain lifestyle. However, that is by no means the end of it. The next step, the thing that really makes someone an “influencer” is making money. The ultimate purpose of being an influencer is to market the products of different companies through social media (and make money off it). If you ask me, that’s the epitome of consumerism. So once again, what is an influencer? So far, it seems all they influence one to do is buy new stuff.
Photo by Jake Weirick

Photo by Mliu92