Hear a lot about the somewhat modern concept of the social media influencer, seems useless to me because I do not regularly consume the social media products where these folks...guess you would say "spread influence".

Do have a friend I have known for years that is a fairly well know influencer in certain circles, we all thought of him incredibly narcissistic in nursing school, smart and competent, but bragged about stuff most people do every day as a part of the profession. However, this apparently makes him quite an authority for those that do not work in the field, it's mystifying to me, but he has tons of followers and apparently has been able to monetize his following to a certain extent.

Wondering, given that this board tends to skew, well let's be honest, is likely mostly made up of dudes that are likley a little more, "seasoned", if the social media influencer thing is as foreign to others as it is to me?

Have watched lectures from many behavioral theorists that discuss how people, especially women, ascribe social status and attraction to those they view as popular, it seems the completely made up world the internet provides gives those that want to falsely project expertise and then appear to have a great number of "followers" would be somewhat attractive to people that are psychologically programed that way.

We are all influenced by whistler and his never ending stream of “have you ever fucked a farm animal in an urban area?” themed posts. I looked into getting a guernsey.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

So, you would have to take the farm animal to an urban area?

Feels like that would limit the size of the animal that you feel the need to have relations with....hmmm...

As far as influencers go, I understand the concept but I don't get it.

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You know me like that.

I would procure it in an urban to avoid transportation issues. Grant Park seemed like a good place to “milk” her.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

The niece of one of my college friends is an Ariana Grande lookalike. She has over 700k followers on Instagram, TikTok, etc. I don't understand why.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

We used to call them experts but social media changed things to where they have to be attractive but they also don't have to be an expert as long as you are telling them what they already want to hear.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think at this point "influencers" are mainly on Tik Tok. Facebook, Twitter, and to a somewhat lesser degree maybe even Instagram are passé. I have no idea how Tik Tok works. It seems to be similar to Vine which was a perfectly good app that disappeared. It seems that the other apps have tried to create their own versions like fleets and Instagram stories, but I think for people who care about "influencers" Tik Tok is THE app.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I always thought Anusface AKA Penisbreath was the original internet influencer.

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You know me like that.

The reason I stopped brushing my teeth.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

it's not much different than Mac and Meatpants getting deals on leased vehicle to promote a local car dealer. Those who engage a large number of earballs/eyeballs naturally become compensated conduits for advertising. Maybe the issue is that social media influencers often lack accomplishments to prop up the justification for their influence--they are seemingly well-known or famous solely for being well-known, which is usually on social media grounded in being attractive in some manner. Possibly if America had a royal family to obsess over we wouldn't elevate Kardashians and their celebrity ilk to serve as proxy royalty.

It’s basically a chick being followed by someone behind her as she is in a bikini on some island, turning around at the last moment and somehow…that is their talent.

For every "influencer" there's a pussy-whipped dude with a cellphone camera.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Social media held up the mirror and we haven't stopped staring at ourselves since

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

you mean we haven't stopped staring at each other's daughters' asses since.

This is how one of the Jenner girls became the youngest billionaire in America. She has millions of followers and a high percentage will buy the makeup or perfume she promotes. A much higher percentage than traditional advertising. She then launched her own brand of crap to sell.

This is typically the goal of even people like July—if you can get enough followers, you can get paid to endorse things.

There’s also a ton of money in YouTube guys like Dude Perfect or those boxing doofuses. My son has a “dude perfect” branded nerf football.

Recently watched a guy that talked about how easy it was to buy fake followers from sites in India, he pointed out how easy it was to make it look like you had tens of thousands of supporters when in fact, you had none, even discussed how despite the fact that several "famous" people have been caught red handed faking followers that there were no consequences, so he expected the practice to not only continue, but to become much easier and to be used in effort to manipulate opinion.

Often see this locally, there will be a few odd posts on area news or discussion boards, when you track the person that posted, you find it was an obviously fake account, but the people behind it come at you with very odd thoughts which are easily dismissed once you find the source of the stuff they are posting, can easily do that here, but it is why I like to come here because you often get completely different takes that are worded in a manner that you know they are, even if they are quite odd, are somewhat unique/thought provoking/informative/challenging.

Some of them are entertaining and it becomes part of your routine to check them. Like a little relationship or habit that requires no real effort but then can share with real friends.

I'd go one earlier. The second people became even more uncouth and publicly kept loudly screaming into their phones, the world increasingly revolved around the individual and whatever else is on their phones.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

as a crossover into the 'prescription drug advertising thread', i saw one of the Kardashian's is advertising a migraine drug. Bc of course

SNL had a semi-funny skit based off of Tik Tok. I don't have that app and no plans to add it.

My wife put her screen on the TV and showed me what 2 minutes of Tik Tok would be like and I had her turn it off. I thought it was awful and total waste of time. I can see how certain people could get sucked into it and be influenced I guess but it ain't gonna be me.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

That's an exceedingly offensive ad. A bubble head bimbo pushing drugs. How'd that work out for Lamar Odom?

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

i've seen Tik Tok's of like old wrestling, TV shows, stuff like that. But over the weekend one of my nephews was trying to show me something that was apparently very funny and i had absolutely no idea what was going on

There are a couple of guys whose YouTube channels pulled me in, and both have transitioned into the influencer realm. I think from my reaction and that of the commenters, most of them likely grumpy, old guys like me, that the "commercialization" of the formerly free content was inevitable, and the creators are simply reaping the rewards of their hard work/luck/good timing that built the following. I won't buy a SimplySafe system or new lathe just because the Millennial Farmer or Abom79 told me to, but giving them one for free may convince someone else to do so. I probably will shop the cooling fluid sprayer Adam uses, but may look at an off-brand, or a used one!

Would you like to build an Epoxy table?

I have a couple running-related YouTube channels I follow (or used to follow) that initially were 100% free content. On one of them, the guy openly stated in his videos his desire to make it his full-time job and to do that we had to join Patreon to enjoy his "exclusive" content. Now his free content is little more than advertisements for whatever gear his sponsors are pushing. I never joined Patreon so I don't know what those subscribers are seeing, but I imagine it is all the stuff I used to enjoy for free and drew me to his channel in the first place. If he was able to make it work I can't fault the guy for doing it I suppose, but I sure miss the early content he did where he proclaimed he was posting free content for the people for the sheer love of the sport.

I have never used Patreon, nor would I ever with the sea of free stuff that there is on YouTube. There must be a lot of people that do however.

These two examples from me have gone in slightly different paths- Adam made simple manual machining videos and taught technique while doing his work. His videos became half mail bag segments as viewers sent in tooling or stickers to get included in the cool kids crowd. When enough complained about that, he naturally opened up to Patreon, to make things more cash-based and not just unusable junk cutters or duplicate tools. The premium subscribers needed to see content early to justify their investment. He clearly made enough money to quit his day job and focus on the family shop, and now he spends more time traveling around in a camper and filming he and his wife sightseeing to fill an alternate channel, to the scorn of the old timers who want to see chips fly. Now, he's bought property for a new compound and is outfitting a new rental shop space with new machines, etc for the interim. He's always been one to tell you the manufacturer and model of the equipment he's using, down to the cutting tool insert maker/number, which is actually helpful to those of us trying to make metal smooth. But it seems somehow overboard in all the current videos.

Zach, the Millennial Farmer, gets more opportunity to test run farm equipment from the manufacturers- with nearly a million subs, he's an obvious choice for product placement, and he actually does a nice job reviewing the stuff, not just polishing their knobs. His fundraisers have gone to local charities and organizations, not to shop stuff. His wife quit her day job to do editing, etc, and they did buy some additional land, but for the most part, the equipment level is about the same. He does straight-up ads for sponsors, but actually uses the products after the sponsored video is over, so its not quite like Joe Dimaggio/Mr. Coffee.

Both of these guys cater to a crown unlike the true influencers reference in the OP. They have pretty significant followings, but nothing like the ladies. These guys can't come close to pleasing all their viewers, I can only imagine the nature of hawking makeup or fashion or music; I can't stand those topics/arenas and the people who live and die on the influencers' every words. I don't think either started out to get where they are, but I don't doubt it has been a lot of hard work, some wild ride, and even some bad stuff mixed in. I don't envy any of the closely watched.

I use Patreon for two content producers. One is Joe Posnanski, who changes his home every couple of years but is generally very good. The other is a podcast creator who does sleep podcasts, he does two ad-sponsored ones a week for free, and for $5/month he takes out the ads and does some additional compilations each month.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

you pay $5 a month to sleep? Send me 10 dollars a month and not only will you not have to listen to any ads before you fall asleep, but you won't have to listen to any annoying podcast either.

Whistler is available. Tune in!

5 years or so back, the most popular golf youtube influencer was an English guy. He did a lot of equipment reviews. He wasn't sponsored by any companies and his reviews were very fair. He made a point of saying that he wasn't paid by anyone and was completely unbiased.


Two things happened.

1. He became sponsored by one club equipment company and as a result, trust in his reviews were greatly reduced across all the golf blogs and forums.

2. He started doing golf course reviews vlogs sponsored by a golf travel company.

The second thing revealed his personality to be a bit of a mean spirited bully. He enjoyed nothing more than making fun of the bad shots others hit while having no sense of humor about his own missteps.

The combination of the two cratered his channel. He might be in the top 10 now, where he was once on top. The current top Youtube golf influencer has over 2 million subscribers while the former top English guy is stuck under 400,000.

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"I give you my word as a Biden"