Influencers
Are Not Your Friends
If there is one word that I have come to despise in recent years, it is “influencer”.
Tell me if you’ve heard this before... you come across the Instagram page
of a beautiful woman. Maybe she’s a
model. Maybe she’s an actress. Maybe she’s just beautiful. So you follow her page. And then she posts a series of pictures where
she’s in a sundress or a bikini, and she’s holding some herbal tea in a weird
way so the brand name is visible. And
she talks about how this herbal tea is so wonderful and how she can’t go through
a day without it. Or she’s lounging by
the pool of some expensive resort that she’s not afraid to name and brag about
and tells people to visit their site and get a discount. And the outfit she’s wearing? Yeah, she’s not afraid to name them as well
and how you can get a discount by mentioning her name.
And it seems like that’s all her life is.
Just a series of stays at resorts, wearing designer bikinis and
lingerie, drinking specific drinks, using teeth whiteners, and constantly
seeing plastic surgeons, dentists, and skin care specialists. They go to the trendy clubs. They show up at pay-per-view events. Oh and let’s not forget the vegan food! Because you know they just can’t eat a
hamburger like everyone else.
Congratulations. You’ve been
marketed to by an “influencer”.
Playboy Playmate Irina Voronina once did a comedy skit with one of her
friends where her friend starts talking about the miserable experience she was
having, where the resort they were staying in was horrendous and the food was
terrible and the outfits were itchy.
Irina then runs over and says “What are you doing?” Her friend says “I’m just telling everyone
just how horrible everything is.” Irina
then says “What? No! We’re influencers. They’re paying us to say nice things about
them! That means we now have to pay for
all these things!”
That is what an influencer is, folks.
It’s nothing more than a glorified word for salespeople.
Actress Lori Laughlin’s two daughters who were caught up in the “Varsity
Blues” scandal are
supposedly “influencers”. They make
their names telling other young people how to live beautiful lives. That’s supposedly what they do. They pitch product. They’re not alone either. Big names do it on Instagram and YouTube and
Facebook. Because it’s supposedly “better”
to claim to be an “influencer” than to say that you’re a “model” or a “spokesperson”. Or, worse yet, a “salesperson”.
And I have to seriously question these “friends” who seem to be spending
their lives pitching product on us. And
if they’re not pitching product, then they’re referring us to other “friends”
who are engaged in doing the same thing, or even worse.
Is this all that you truly do with your life? What was the last movie that you saw? You know, one that you actually paid a theater
ticket to see. Did you get the popcorn
with the fake butter and salt? What do
you binge-watch when you’re not going to resorts and nightclubs? Are you a “Game of Thrones” fan? What kind of car do you drive when you’re not
being chauffeured to the next event?
What do you buy in the grocery store?
Do you go to Whole Foods or Aldi?
Do you ever have a bad day? A
bummed-out day? A day of doing
absolutely nothing? I guess we’ll never
know, because all you seem to show us is the beautiful stuff filled with paid
product.
And if I am your “friend”, do you know when my birthday is? Do you know my cat’s name? When was the last time that you said “hello”
to me out of the blue or asked how my day was?
And I mean *you*, not some pretender with your pictures trying to scam
me with nude photos. You have no qualms
hyping other people’s stuff, but why not mine?
I have a column that I’ve been writing for 23 years that could use some more
attention from friends. I have several
websites in various stages of activity.
True friends share stuff like that without being paid.
Let’s get brutally honest here... “influencers” are really not our
friends. They are marketers. They are sales people. They get paid to pitch product. They sell the illusion of health, beauty,
popularity, and good times using the products that they’re paid to display and
hype. But that is all that it is. It’s an illusion. It’s a sales pitch. It’s the modern-day version of the athlete
holding up a can of Coke and saying “AHH” with a smile for the camera.
I happen to be friends with certain models and actresses. I know that they are my friends because they
know my cat’s name and we exchange birthday cards and emails. They’re not afraid to tell me when they’re
having a bad day and they try to bear with me when I tell them mine. I treasure those kinds of connections. That’s how I know that they’re not fake. They don’t “influence” me. They encourage me.
Be a friend. Don’t be a marketer
or an “influencer”.
No comments:
Post a Comment