[dead]
How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More
81–90 of 157 posts
Re: How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More
#82I'm amazed that people still depend on "influencers" to make decisions. After all we've seen over the last 10 years of sponsored posts, and "influencers" people still blindly follow their lead.
There's no good reason to downvote this. It's a great point that many of us wonder about. Only reason to downvote this is if you yourself are an influencer or are conscious of being influenced and are taking offense, but downvoting is an inappropriate response to either case.
[dead]
Re: How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More
#83Wait, are blueberries "shilled"? I had no idea, but I indeed "shill" them myself. Eating blueberries early in the morning has improved my digestion. They also make me feel really good throughout the day. So much so, I've made numerous attempts at growing blueberry bushes myself (unfortunately I don't have a green thumb). Likewise with coconut water, a habit I developed in Thailand. If they're shilled, so be it. It wo…
2/3 of my bushes died. One is still going strong. It takes time. They also need acidic soil.
> They also need acidic soil.
For a while, I was saving the leftover from my morning coffee pot for a friend of mine, who used it to acidify the soil around her blueberry bushes. I don't know if it worked or not.
Re: How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Null hypothesis would imply we should treat them no different than other influencers. Unless you've evidence otherwise? So what exactly is your definition of a "thought leader?" How do you treat them "no different than other influencers" without closing yourself off to current ideas? IMHO, social media "influencers" should be totally ignored, but the people active in public life should be engaged with, if skeptical…
I guess, the broad definition is just someone who's good at selling their thoughts to other people. Maybe it's because they have a popular podcast, or maybe they were a former head of state. There's no general reason I should inherently trust these people aren't being biased by third parties.
In my career, it's a term I would never apply to myself and I roll my eyes a bit if someone else used it to describe me. In general, I'd say it's "supposed" to mean someone who is smart about understanding and anticipating current and future trends. But I find it a bit cringey in general.
Re: How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More
#85this is an absolutely outrageously stupid title. The entire world is a massive processed food advertising and marketing engine. We are pumping processed garbage hyper palatable foods full of sugar and wheat and bad oils and then advertising them to children with lovable cartoon characters. And that's just barely scraping the surface. The idea that some evil influencer sect are inappropriately schilling blueberries is…
Certainly an emblematic first world problem. No actual problems left in your world? Make one!
Re: How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More
#86When is it "shilling" vs making me aware of something I may actually be interested in? (I didn't even read the article)
When the promoter gets paid by the industry that makes the product without disclosing it.
I have nothing against paid promotion whether for butter, blueberries or cigarettes, but it should be made clear who is promoting it.
Re: How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean anyone with money and time to burn can sue people. This isn't unique to the food industry, this is just SLAPP which is a much more general problem. So while you're right it sucks and it's bad that they can do this, it's not specifically a "big hamburger" problem.
If "no big deal, it happens all time" is your answer, then you can just say "yes, I am trivializing it" -- that's what the term means.
Wow, you're exhausting.
Re: How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is it typical for "thought leaders" to be paid to dishonestly push certain ideas? Null hypothesis would imply we should treat them no different than other influencers. Unless you've evidence otherwise?
There's a slope between: "X paid me to promote Y" "My employer, X, doesn't mind if I write about Y on company time" "Our socioeconomic system X happens to mean I have way more free time and energy to promote on of its bases, Y, than other people do" but is it a qualitative slope or just quantitative?
Qualitative pretty much.
I've never been willing to say/write something I believed to be manifestly untrue just because an employer wanted me too. But I've certainly avoided certain topics that I might have been willing to address more candidly under different circumstances.
Re: How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More
#89I... don't remember butter boards? I'm growing convinced that the worst thing with regards to how effectively targeted social media is, is in how it convinces journalists that they know what people are talking about and doing.
Not just journalists, but the average person too. It's quite frustrating.
Re: How the Food Industry Pays Influencers to Shill Blueberries, Butter, and More
#90That said, blueberries and butter are great. Remember: pretty much everything you see is in service of someone's business model.
Store bought blueberries are garbage. Even the frozen “cultivated wild” (wtf is that) ones. If it’s not bought from the side of the road in northern Ontario or Quebec (and probably some other places), you don’t know what you’re missing.
I have no idea why the hell people are being so hard on you. I haven't had good fresh blueberries, but it is well known that food tends to be better when you get it fresh from the place where it is grown. I can certainly vouch that tomatoes and strawberries that you get at the store are but a pale imitation of what you get if you can get them fresh.
Maybe blueberries are an exception to this trend, but I doubt it. I'm 100% willing to believe that they are way better if you grow them yourself or get them from some farmer who grew them himself.