Live data from Hacker News

The Anxiety of Influencers

harpers.org

121–130 of 192 posts

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#122
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.

This has already happened, you can check the first people who were big on YouTube. Not many of them are still active, but some have actual lasting power. Casey Neistat still pulls 1-2M views for every video, but I think most of his income is outside of producing content for his channel.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#123
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to be rich to buy luxury goods. In fact most of them are bought by people who can't afford them but desperately want to own them. There's credit cards, parents, using all your disposable income on them since you don't pay rent, etc.

Right. The people who can actually afford $500 shoes aren't the ones buying Balenciaga sneakers that look like clown shoes. Actual wealthy people are generally not easily influenced suckers.

> Actual wealthy people are generally not easily influenced suckers

source? no, seriously. All the marketing I see for luxury products and more generally point to yes, rich people are exactly as suceptible to advertising to poor people, if not more so due to having a greater share of disposable income.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#124

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.

What TikTok ads are you referring to? Users often get completely different targeting, but the ads I've seen have been mainstream fast food and then dumb consumer crap like moon lights. Also Old Navy and some car company.

TikTok is really the anti-"influencer" platform. It is a very wide, long tail and doesn't seem to concentrate like many other platforms. People seem to be completely ordinary, versus the delusion that Instagram as an example is pitching, of aspirational perfect living.

Algorithmically TikTok seems to assign very little weight to the creator compared to other venues. Single hits that aren't achieved again are common. Versus say Twitter where if someone has a hit, the platform presumes that every tweet from that person is a brilliant insight.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#125

Man. When I was 18 I was overweight and already balding. I worked at a gas station. Once a hooker spit on me because I wouldn’t let her steal some ice cream. I cut my foot once on broken glass in the dumpster because part of my job was tamping it down with my feet (it cut through my shoe). Would I have traded it to be an influencer if I could have? Shit yeah in a heartbeat. But unfortunately for me no one wanted to w…

36 is an old man? Are you being facetious?

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the few named brands in the story is a fried chicken place. You don’t have to be rich to afford fried chicken. But fried chicken is a multi-billion-dollar industry. And it’s an industry that is deeply dependent on advertising to maintain brand awareness and segment the market. All fried chicken tastes basically the same, so customers choose stores based on brand attributes. Are you a Popeyes, KFC, or Chick-fil…

> All fried chicken tastes basically the same How many places have you had fried chicken in?

All mass market fried chicken tastes pretty similar.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#127
post #125

Man. When I was 18 I was overweight and already balding. I worked at a gas station. Once a hooker spit on me because I wouldn’t let her steal some ice cream. I cut my foot once on broken glass in the dumpster because part of my job was tamping it down with my feet (it cut through my shoe). Would I have traded it to be an influencer if I could have? Shit yeah in a heartbeat. But unfortunately for me no one wanted to w…

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 status quo.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#129
post #125

Man. When I was 18 I was overweight and already balding. I worked at a gas station. Once a hooker spit on me because I wouldn’t let her steal some ice cream. I cut my foot once on broken glass in the dumpster because part of my job was tamping it down with my feet (it cut through my shoe). Would I have traded it to be an influencer if I could have? Shit yeah in a heartbeat. But unfortunately for me no one wanted to w…

36 is an old man? Are you being facetious?

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 this fellow to the second camp and hope he is either a troll or really content with his situation.

Re: The Anxiety of Influencers

#130

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.

> Influencer is the 2020s equivalent to the dream job actor/model/dancer.

Except you don't have to have any skills.

> delusions

What else would you expect from an advertising company?

Post reply on HN