I remember a time nearly over a decade ago when influencers weren’t a thing. Social media was practically at its infancy especially with sites like Facebook and Instagram being the primary sources of having what we’d consider for influencer marketing these days and there was this charm in being anonymous. Think about it, these pages like Senyora were all the rage back then and Pewdiepie and Co were still on long form videos but recently almost anybody could be an influencer and in an era where it’s easy to think too highly of yourself, these so called influencers have a different air around them.

Now with short form content reigning supreme and the pandemic solidifying it even more, there begs the question, are these influencers as invincible as we set them out to be or are we just putting them too high up on a pedestal with them just high up on their own success?

Here’s what haffened

Humanizing anything often comes from one’s own experiences and in my case questioning my own validity came from an experience with a friend of mine. For context, recently I’ve been going to events here and there with me taking selfies with other “influencers” or even the event itself. To me it’s another event and seeing friends there but to others their perception to my normal is exaggerated. Am I really just nonchalant about the whole ordeal or is it really a bigger deal than it is?

Personally speaking, the way I see an influencer’s success is in their “clout” or specifically their reach and following. Influencers are in a way mascots meant to sell their product and if Jollibee could sell you his food, influencers should be able to market their product with their other “content” being advertisements for themselves as a brand. With that said, I don’t qualify as an influencer personally but that doesn’t mean I’m not one. I still think I’m funny and my girlfriend thinks so too (hopefully 🤞) but the content creator Dinocornel said it well. Anybody could do what I do. He’s not wrong but there are other factors like luck to be considered but it still holds that anyone could do it. Success is still relative.

Shortcuts? You mean longcuts with extra steps

I’ve been in the content creation scene for a while now starting out movie reviews and eventually gaming with the world of being an influencer genuinely new to me, you learn a few things. The same way that we need to be wary of AI in our day to day, influencer authenticity and validity are also something you need to be careful of.

I remember a time when I joined a streamer group back then that wanted to prioritize members for a paid gig and they even went forward saying follower count didn’t matter but they picked the creators with the highest followings. It would’ve been alright if they were impressive but could you imagine a page with 100k plus followers but never had any actual likes on their streams or content? It was a huge topic of debate in that community with that group disbanding after.

These days influencers can come from more than one background with some growing organically over time and others being good enough to catch lightning in a bottle and ride it out. Giving examples would show my personal biases on these influencers but truth be told, it’s really the ones that actually worked for it that you’d find humility in.

There’s this saying that money only amplifies the type of person you actually are with money here being interchanged with clout. I’ve met loads of influencers that allegedly had a decent following but something just wasn’t adding up in either their attitudes or how they carried themselves only to find out that they were just lying off the skin of their teeth or even worse they just bought their followers in a random facebook group.

Closing thoughts

The world of influencers is weird and wacky yet so overinflated that it’s easy to understand why some individuals would be overwhelmed or even intimidated. Honestly, even if I’m somewhat used to talking to people, it still gets intimidating regardless of whether or not that individual is even a big deal to begin with to converse with a stranger. It’s not all bad though  because over time you realize that behind these personalities are some of the most genuine people you could meet.

Don’t let the smoke and mirrors of the internet cloud your judgement because while you should never meet your heroes, you could definitely meet your friends.