Fun rule: if you're ever wondering why something odd or stupid is popular, it's probably kids.
My wife does the same in interior design.
There are lots of kids, true. But try looking at mommy-instagram and you'll see a whole other world.
But older people spend lots of money on non essential items.
Also have you seen how much time a stay at home Mom spends on social media? They'd give any teenager fair competition.
I am right here in Poland and I tell you, the things you show, and the things described in the article and in the first comment in this thread, they are all consumed en masse by young and mid-age adults (especially women). Lifestyle, sports, fashion, diet, craft, yoga, coaching, ikebana, it's all on Insta and Facebook and other platforms and when you see who's commenting, it's not JUST kids. And there's way more people 20+ than the kids. I never said kids do not have influence (sic) of that kind, they do. But when someone says "if you see something odd or stupid, it's the kids", it's just completely wrong. Kids have serious purchasing and decision making power now, but still it's just a fraction.
I'm not disputing the existence of such 20 - 40 y/o, just that their percentage of YT or IG usage is small compared to real kids.
My gut feeling is, the higher the number of followers, the higher the percentage of those followers are bots.
Perhaps guilt prevents many of the influencers from charging "full price"? I also presume any contracts with big brands - however difficult they might be to enforce - clauses that attempt to mitigate such fraud.
The internet...the news is fake...the people are fake...fake is the only thing that's real.
Personally, I sometimes accept review copies of things/books/etc. But, if I don't like them, that's what I'll write.
And when you have nothing, but followers, and all you want is followers, you don't really want to say negative things anyway.
So, it's a social game, of how to climb the ladder made of nothing, by latching on to those who are somehow higher up all the way up to the sky. This is the Kim Kardashian model.
But again, this could be why some many brands pay so little most of the time. They're just tossing shit at the wall, but in this case kinda hoping not too much actually sticks.
People know it, but that doesn't matter, what matters is that people like those who live the high-life. Crystal clear ocean lapping the painfully white sand beach, the sky so blue, even its reflection seems to burn out as it shimmers on the endless cerulean horizon, all there for those who "have it". And the next post is a seemingly boring street, just shops, and our hero, somewhere in Europe, and maybe a messy hair day photo thrown in, our hero rests, somewhere in a 5 star hotel, a scantly clad young female caught an impromptu point in time, yet somehow critically perfectly advantageous for her, all of it - of course - done effortlessly. The next post is just a boring "shopping" pic again. Maybe a bag, a shoe, a dress from Prada, Gucci, Dior, but the 1000-3000 USD ones, of course.
So little said, everything implied.
We even talk about the "net worth" of someone, like if their money what "what they're worth".
It was always thus.
To me, I am worth infinite money. But I accept that to others, I am hardly worth much of anything.
Eh. Everyone has a job, and everyone has an opinion. The difference between an honest "influencer" and you posting a comment here talking about a product/service you like is that the influencer is getting paid for their honest opinion while you're doing it for free. I don't see that as a bad thing personally.
As for dishonest influencers who shill for products they don't like... well, probably half the people on this forum work for an advertising company. It's literally the same thing. Me telling my Instagram followers to buy a product isn't any different from Google showing you an AdWords ad for the same thing.
Being a sellout is only a pejorative to hippies and artists. To anyone else, it's called having a job.
You're describing a reviewer, brainiac.
>you posting a comment here talking about a product/service you like
The only difference between unsolicited, antisocially consumerist behavior and what you do is that you're pay to play. Sure, this is factual.
>As for dishonest influencers who shill for products they don't like... well, probably half the people on this forum work for an advertising company.
Imagine the frailty of a life propped up by shit like transparent tu quoques and $38 in revenue plus like sephora samples and mushroom brand watches with busted dials. Imagine the intense shame and suicidal ideation over the worthlessness of such a life
>Me telling my Instagram followers to buy a product isn't any different from Google showing you an AdWords ad for the same thing.
Google's game is to be large enough that this process can almost be tolerable, while remaining bureaucratically impersonal yet targeted to the ad recipient's consumer profile. It's also eminently avoidable.
Your game is to get access to "exclusive social events" in Area City at the expense of anyone who might've followed you thinking you were an actual person, while failing to get compensated more meaningfully because you just ain't that pretty.
>Being a sellout is only a pejorative to hippies and artists. To anyone else, it's called having a job.
Sellouts are people without professional integrity. That's what the term means.
I'd only promote something I truly liked or "believed" in, and even then it's risky - the establishment, recipe or product can change on a dime, and then you're image and promotion is still tied to it.
But you're still a shill either way. Maybe I'm just old but when I was growing up being a sellout was a pejorative. Now it's considered a virtue. I frankly don't get it.