Is it more empty? I think it's easy to say something is empty when you're not the sort of person it's optimized to appeal to.

I just finished "Bad Blood", the book on Theranos. Given that it was a fraud, it was entirely empty. But it was designed to look substantial to Stanford deans and Valley VCs. Later the target shifted to other sorts of movers and shakers, including corporate titans and political bigwigs. They all got suckered, and some of them still don't know it.

I think Instagram influencers look shallow to me because their audience is people who value different things than I do. But I don't take that as a sign that I'm somehow better. Just that I have different weaknesses.

E.g., I spent years developing NeXT software because I drank the Jobs kool-aid. I didn't do that for hard-headed business reasons; I did it because the NeXT hardware and software was incredibly cool to young me. At the time, I would have smugly defended my choice as more rational than getting starry-eyed over a celebrity. In retrospect, I was wrong. I just fell for for something tuned for my weaknesses, just like we all do.

> E.g., I spent years developing NeXT software because I drank the Jobs kool-aid. I didn't do that for hard-headed business reasons; I did it because the NeXT hardware and software was incredibly cool to young me. At the time, I would have smugly defended my choice as more rational than getting starry-eyed over a celebrity. In retrospect, I was wrong. I just fell for for something tuned for my weaknesses, just like we all do.

This is actually a great example that I think supports my point. Sure, maybe you got caught up in some hype. But at least you were improving your software development skills, which is something useful.

What usefulness is accomplished or what meaning is found by getting starry eyed over Instagram fame? Maybe you could make an argument related to minor photography or artistic skills that they use to enhance their account. But it's not very substantial -- most Instagram influencers don't become highly skilled photographers in the process.

I understand people have different values. But they still have to defend them and the meaning the values supposedly carry.

I'm sorry, but it doesn't support your example. I would have been making software regardless. Instead I earned less and learned less applicable skills than I would have had I not been suckered by the Jobs reality distortion field. It was a significant harm to me, and it wasn't the last time I fell for the "cool" of a technology.

It's true that my particular weakness was related to an economically productive activity. But although I personally value production more than consumption, production isn't inherently superior; one without the other is just waste.

Steve Jobs is Steve Jobs because he was very good at manipulating both producers and consumers. The (modest) technical improvements of the iPhone over existing smartphones wouldn't have happened without the millions of people who bought the notion that a slicker device in slicker packaging with slicker ads was deeply better.

Instagram influencers are no more shallow than an Apple ad. And I'd say less, in that they have built up personal businesses by entertaining others and finding a way to monetize it. It's not my kind of thing, but it's not essentially different than the travel magazine business. In both cases people go places and get paid to performatively do fun things in a way that's funded by self-promoting merchants.

What value does all this social media stuff produce? It’s affecting how companies promote products and services. If you don’t have a social media strategy as a multinational, you’re possibly going to miss out on a rather important demographic for consumer goods (not really important necessarily for FIRES businesses... yet). All these skills are going to be in large supply in the future when previously marketing was somewhat more Byzantine than a vaguely organic, democratic process.

The utility of a skill is mostly based around societal value of said skill, not really much else. People get paid millions all around the planet putting balls in various receptacles, but such is the human need for entertainment and feeling good (even if temporary) is a business that is never going to go away. Warren Buffett has said he’s lucky enough he was born when being able to memorize and process lots of financial numbers could be extremely advantageous - maybe that may not be so valuable in 600 years while art is much more precious?

Well that's if you assume this can't be gamed to prop up the non superficial. Bill Gates or Obama constantly used influencers on social media to get interesting messages out to the masses.

What I don't like is that the most hyper, overenthusiastic, over the top characters send a signal to kids that it's the only route up the ladder. It is not.

Certainty exaggerated, however using the nosedive episode as the example, each of the "ratings" are given by people based on social interactions.

Their emptiness in the case of the show is based on the emptiness of the people themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if such a system did wind up being fairly "empty" as you say (see: twitter, IG etc...), but that's a reflection on the users, not the structure of the system.