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The Anxiety of Influencers

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Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#161

Post by korse »

theshadowknows wrote: post #137
korse wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He might not be. 'Getting Old' is largely a mental choice, at least until 75 when your physical capability takes a pretty solid hit regardless of lifestyle choices. I've met people in their mid sixties who are more 'with it' than many teenagers and I've also met people in their twenties who have convinced themselves that their time has passed and there is nothing left to do but work and die. I'm mentally consigning t…

I’m fairly content with my situation :) What I mean by old is that I don’t “get” a lot of the newer fads these days. Particularly around the social space. Instagram, Snapchat, tik-tok and the newer voice based services just seem so intrusive and crazy to me. And snap and tik-tok are almost seizure inducing with the amount of content just screaming at you. It’s just not -for- me. And I get that. But I don’t get it :)…

Glad to hear you are solid! I've had some friends who got 'old' unrealistically quickly and so I feel the need to push back a bit when I see posts that remind me.

I'm with you regarding the social space though. I don't understand why entertainment appears to consistently trend toward requiring less conscious thought.

The way I see it we've gone from Physical Experience > Word of Mouth / Live Physical Performance > Books / Woodcuts > Newspapers / Pamphlets / Pulp Novels > Radio > Television > Modern Social Media. To be complete, I'd add a branch from Newspapers... > Telegraphy > Telephony > Usenet / BBS > Non-Walled Garden Internet but that is another story and not the mainstream.

The early steps all exhibit ?clear? trade-offs (more reliable information storage and dissemination at the expense of shallower engagement with the information being transferred), but the later stages appear to be reaching the limit of what we can consciously process.

I feel that at some point soon (if not already), the volume of information that can be received will outstrip conscious processing ability. This has a massively negative side effect of limiting human agency which seriously disturbs me.

I don't think the blame is entirely on social media however and because of reasons stated above, suspect the current state of affairs has been brewing at least as long as network television has existed. Possibly into the preceding era of disposable print. Thus, I don't put the problem into a 'kids these days' frame but more of a 'everyone I have known throughout my life' frame.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#162

Post by smoldesu »

runawaybottle wrote: post #111
Clewza313 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lifestyle they're put into, of living in huge mansions, eating in fancy restaurants, partying at the hottest nightclubs, virtually guarantees that they'll burn every cent they earn just keeping up appearances, even if most of it is freebies or sponsored.

This happens to celebrities mostly because they have an actual talent and are not necessarily equipped for money/fame (no one is). Influencers probably don’t have a huge ego. They know what they are and the game they are playing. You don’t often hear about politicians spiraling downward due to their success. They understand the game they play. In other words, why would a parasite spiral out of control if they deliber…

I'd argue that "traditional" celebrities are much less talented than today's influencers. On the internet, you have to find something that can at least capture someone's attention over everyone else. In the world of celebrities though, you just need to broker enough power to apprear in front of the audience you want.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#163

Post by smoldesu »

theshadowknows wrote: post #105
tmaly wrote: post #36

I think TikTok is fundamentally changing marketing. If you go on YouTube, you see 1-2 traditional ads. On TikTok all the ads blend in and just appear as another video in your for you page. What I thought was really interesting was that 50% of the user base is over the age of 30.

Because it lets adult men watch young scantily clad boys and girls jump around for free. That’s the sick part to me. These kids (and they are kids) are basically soft core porn for pedophiles. And Nike and Amazon subsidize it.

That's a pretty broad generalization. I'd argue that since it's a Chinese company, they were more interested in marketing the apps to the entire family, rather than the most profitable or most active users. Traditionally, that's how Asian companies have found long-term success.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#164

Post by acoard »

Invictus0 wrote: post #159
rictic wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An engagement pod is a group (or ‘pod’) of Instagram users who band together to help increase engagement on each other’s content. This can be done through likes, comments, or follows.

You would think it would be trivial for an enterprising network scientist at these social media companies to identify these pods.

I know of at least one person/group that does that here on HN, or at least did ~3-5 years ago.

Honestly, there's no incentive to stop this type of work. IG wants engagement; comment pods are peak engagement, you've programmed yourself to beat the machine.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#165

Post by StavrosK »

InvertedRhodium wrote: post #127
bloqs wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

36 is an old man? Are you being facetious?

I think 34/35 is when I began to notice actual age related differences - relatively small things like not being able to take it for granted that your sore back will be good tomorrow and I'd accrued enough general injuries over time that they were noticeable and compounding - sore/weak knee from a car accident, stiff shoulder from a motorcycle crash, etc. When you're 35, 35 feels pretty old compared to the personal st…

I'm 38 and I only have aches when I stop working out for a week or two. Otherwise there's no soreness.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#166

Post by stjohnswarts »

sircastor wrote: post #69
inreverse wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love the source for this. It seems too ridiculous to be true unless they're using a non-standard definition of 'influencer'.

What is the standard definition of influencer? Is there some standard being set? And by what body?

Probably anyone who has more than a couple thousand followers and made $5 last year from youtube/instagram video profits considers themselves and influencer, and since there is no regulating body of the definition they wouldn't necessarily be wrong.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#167

Post by stjohnswarts »

korse wrote: post #131
virgil_disgr4ce wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a "real" standard as per an international organization, but there is already an emergent consensus in marketing around tiers of influencers based on number of followers. For one instance: https://www.tribegroup.co/blog/influencer-followers "Nano" influencers, according to this particular company, are people with 1000-3000 followers, Micro are 1,000-100,000, Macro are 100,000+, etc. Here's another example…

Why is this post grey?

Probably influencers downvoting

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#168

Post by sjg007 »

rvz wrote: post #14

> You’re trying to impress everyone who watches the video, and you want everyone to like it. This is where the race to the emotional rock bottom starts. What if those influencers become irrelevant in 10 years time and are replaced by another generation? The key here is to expand to other ventures. The ones who stay on the same platform for years will gradually become irrelevant.

The smart ones will mentor and manage their proteges.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#169

Post by StavrosK »

defaultname wrote: post #151
yawaworht1978 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very odd, as I have never installed the app or even googled the term. I have seen some as linked Instagram feeds, but involuntary. Tiktok would be the last thing in the world I care about, I am also quite a bit beyond that age bracket. Usually it's a woman doing a poorly choreographed dance move or two while displaying a duck face. I am not sure if that is possible but maybe somehow there is an IG/tiktok data e…

Ah, okay I misunderstood. I thought you were referring to the ads on the service itself. As to the "age bracket", there is no age bracket for TikTok.

> As to the "age bracket", there is no age bracket for TikTok.

That's possible, but for some reason TikTok keeps showing me 16-year-olds livestreaming themselves talking about nothing interesting. I have no idea why TikTok thinks I'd be interested in seeing that, so I've concluded that that's what the platform has an abundance of.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#170

Post by yawaworht1978 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #135
yawaworht1978 wrote: post #112

Influencer is the 2020s equivalent to the dream job actor/model/dancer. When I see the level of delusions on these most unwelcome tiktok ads I get, I need a moment to calm down from laughing. Stay away from social media as much as you can. I have deleted fb, ig and WhatsApp, life was never better. People get in touch via call or signal, not missing a thing.

Is WhatsApp social media? I use it to talk to my friends. Isn't WhatsApp basically just Signal with less data protection? Does that make iMessage social media?

I think it is in the twilight zone between intrusive app and social media. It is not designed like Instagram, but many people do share quick snapshots/video there. It does not have a like/dislike feature, but it does go beyond a messaging service I would say.
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