Social Media Influencers: It's All About the Money
Social Media Influencers have been gaining attention as they promote health misinformation and phony lifestyles
If you know what an influencer is, I take it you are one of my younger readers. Influencers are often found on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, platforms where those 45 years and younger tend to gather the most. If you don’t know what an influencer is, well get ready, this is going to be a wild post!
What is an influencer anyway? Let’s do our old definition time!
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, influencers are those who are “able to generate interest in something (such as a consumer product) by posting about it on social media”. In the last 10 years or so, influencers have become a major marketing strategy for all kinds of products, the big to the small - and at worst, the controversial, the wrong, and the dangerous.
Now influencers can be almost anybody on social media. They can be random people who want to be influencers as their career choice. They can also be comedians, content creators, and actors, all of whom don’t often post products on their video clips (it’s usually social media platforms with videos that have influencers) but will do so now and then. Then you have people who are looking to make a name for themselves in certain industries or sub-cultures, such as fashion, veganism, goth, fitness, etc., and they will promote products on their accounts so they can be famous in that field or sub-culture.
As you can see, being an influencer is a big thing these days and it seems like many more will get in on it as time goes on. Some people may make a decent living doing this work, even though it may be time-consuming to create that content nearly every day.
About 10 years ago, some influencers I followed on Instagram started selling SugarBear Hair Care, a gummy multivitamin meant to make your hair grow more quickly. It seemed like everyone of those influencers I followed was promoting those gummy vitamins and it got to the point that some people online were poking fun of these vitamins. By the way, despite the marketing scheme, SugarBear Hair Care did not become hugely popular; they’re still on the market but not a big deal.
And who knows if those influencers actually used those gummy multivitamins themselves? As long as they post about them, as per the business or barter deal, that’s all that matters.
No really, the influencer world is filled with fakery and phonyness. Aside from Photoshop and filters, a lot of what you see is not what’s going on just a few feet away outside of the photograph. That influencer who may be petting a dog on a green lawn at a big local park? She’s probably borrowing someone else’s dog and is on that person’s front lawn. That influencer with 50K followers? How many of them were bought and paid for? Better yet, in 2019 a young woman posted a pic of her on a lounge chair on a tropical beach and even wrote in the blurb on how great her life was. But then it was revealed she had managed to get that photo down by going to a department store that was selling trips to tropical beaches, sitting on the lounge chair on display, angling the camera in a way that nothing looked suspicious (the tropical beach was a screen).
There was an HBO documentary called “Fake Famous” that took a look at what really goes on in the influencer world. This New Yorker article maps it out for your reading pleasure.
Maybe you’ve heard about the Tradwife movement, which is a woman who chooses to be a homemaker and serves her husband; in other words, traditional gender roles. Some women in this movement are showing what their lives are like on social media, making them influencers because they are promoting the Tradwife movement. They even make some money from their subscribers, which calls into question their homemaker lifestyle.
At the same time, some of what they film or do (or don’t) are scripted and lack authenticity. For example, do any of these women make clips of themselves scrubbing the toilet? And how many homemakers iron the clothes and dust the furniture while wearing perfect makeup and fancy dresses?
Below is a video from Hannah Alonzo, a YouTuber who analyzes social media influencers, including Tradwives. A homemaker herself, Hannah is happy to point out the flaws and fakery in those Tradwife videos.
I like how Hannah is willing to call out the influencer world, even on one of the biggest platforms for influencers.
Aside from fakery, influencers have been known to spread misinformation when it comes to health. It started when the COVID vaccine came out and influencers saying the vaccine was unsafe were mixed into the many who were saying the same.
But lately, there are influencers who are promoting health practices that are just plain wrong and even dangerous. One of them is actress Gwyneth Paltrow, who isn’t really an influencer because she runs her Goop wellness company, a company that had many doctors call her out on her misinformation. Sadly, some of the things she has encouraged women to do regarding their period and taking care of their lady parts, are being repeated by social media influencers, leading some young women to go to the hospital.
This year alone, there were influencers who encouraged drinking raw cow milk; even some doctors and politicians did the same. This is despite that raw milk can carry listeria, salmonella, E Coli, and other diseases. Even more so, bird flu was a big concern a few months ago because it was spreading through cow farms.
And then came the anti-sunscreen movement. Yes, people online encouraging others not to use sunscreen. Influencers are saying sunscreen causes cancer, despite the reality being the opposite. As a fair-skinned person, I can attest sunscreen is very important.
Gosh, what is going on here? Well, we are simply getting our information from more places than just newspapers and TV news 30 years ago. We have so many options now and many of us are relishing in it. There are so many avenues now and so many ideas and information out there. Who would’ve thought we could have such a wealth of information?
But is it wealthy? It really can’t be if some of those selling products or giving health information are not the best people to rely on. Like always, you have to wonder what is an influencer’s agenda. What is their goal? What do they really want to do? Just make money and be famous? Is that who you are really going to rely on when it comes to products, lifestyles, and health tips?
Then again, our world is surrounded by ads everywhere. I mentioned in the last post that we are being bombarded with ads and marketing strategies everywhere we turn. Why not social media and our favorite accounts? Yes, Instagram and Facebook are ad-saturated, and TikTok is pretty much the new QVC. As annoying as that is, how many of us have canceled our accounts and left those platforms? Even so, it would be nice if we could block all those damn ads and just check out our friends, family, and those strangers we follow.
Also, we Americans are less likely to trust the medical field, thanks to the CDC, FDA, and Big Pharma. There are a lot of things wrong with those three, but should we substitute them with a long list of more problems?
Trust your gut, that’s all I can say. Use your brain too. Trust yourself. Those influencers likely want your money; so do those companies they have a deal with. And those people encouraging unhealthy and dangerous practices just want to be right; they aren’t too concerned if you end up in the hospital or worse.