I’m about to sound a little outdated when I say I cringe at the word “influencer” these days. I’m a Millennial, but often find myself scratching my head at why so many massively popular influencers are, well, massively popular at all. Perhaps the generation before me, not without their own challenges, are insulated from this censure.
The infected groups, 78% actually, of both creators and consumers are 39 and under. Petabytes of digital refuse passing through the minds of so many people every day. But is society better for it? Social influencing is hyper nuanced, and it would be unfair to say that it is exclusively narcissistic and harmful. However, it’s reasonable to argue that it is at minimum largely narcissistic and produces adverse outcomes in many cases.
Philosophy vs Full-of-selfie
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the word “influencer”, but rather what it has come to represent. Floods of challenges, contrived fake private jets and enough selfies to satisfy even the hungriest of appetites. It appears that officially the aforementioned visual pollution is gobbling up the lion’s share of clicks and views.
