The other day we watched Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix, a docudrama based on the true story of Australian, Belle Gibson, who fraudulently claimed to have terminal brain cancer. By 2015, she had amassed a huge following on Instagram, having claimed that she had successfully cured her cancer through a plant-based diet and natural therapies. She also produced an app, The Whole Pantry, and a book published by Penguin. She is also said to have generated a small fortune, some of which she promised to pass on to charities and real cancer patients. That never happened.
Docudramas usually state that they are based on fact, but when I watch a story about a con job, I want real, unblemished facts. So I managed to watch the BBC documentary, Bad Influencer: The Great Insta Con, which is factually based and left me tearing my hair out and asking, nay, shrieking, what the double-f were these people thinking? And when I say people I mean the gullible millions who believe the crap that so many influencers peddle.
Did it not occur to any of them that there was something dodgy about surviving brain cancer (which takes many forms by the way) for so long on nothing but an alleged diet of fruit and vegetables? It takes a special kind of psychopath to fake cancer, and how this woman isn’t locked up is beyond me.
Famous For Being Famous
You may also have heard of Kim Kardashian, who is described as an American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman. She has 357 million followers on Instagram, 10 million on TikTok, and 75 million on X. She first rose to fame following the release of a sex tape in 2003, later marrying Kanye West, aka Ye. Both are famous simply for being famous and having gazillions of social media followers. But what do these two contribute to society?
If It Looks Too Good To Be True…
There’s no denying that most of what we see on social media needs to be taken with a large grain of salt, even more so today with AI being used to distort facts.
But what I find the most disturbing are lifestyle influencers, usually unnaturally enhanced women with ghoulishly botoxed lips and pumped up plastic breasts, who target young girls with, you too can live like this and look like this. This often leads to shame, guilt, and in the worst cases, suicide. Listen, I wouldn’t mind having the chiselled features of George Clooney, but the fact is, I haven’t, so perhaps parents should take their daughters aside and tell them that they should live in the real world. Or simply say, listen, Love, you’re never going to look like that, no matter how hard you try!
Even more shameful is multi-level marketing, targeted mainly at low income women through Instagram and other platforms and is now a multi-billion dollar industry which has its roots in Utah, USA. The hook is more artificially enhanced women who promise a lavish lifestyle of flash cars, six figure incomes and holidays in the sun.
Fun fact
Many years ago I was once drawn into a similar scheme for selling water filters and attended one of those happy-clappy, quasi-religious cult events which promised to change my life forever. Fortunately I saw the light, got on my bike, started my own company and made some real money.
Investigations have revealed that in the UK alone, over 400,000 people, mainly women, have signed up to these pyramid schemes, with most of them either falling into debt by buying overpriced beauty products at a 400% markup or earning no more than $20 after six months of networking. The bottom line is recruit, recruit, recruit, and the statistics are hideous, as with any pyramid scheme – just a tiny percentage of recruits ever make anything resembling even the statutory minimum wage. On the other hand, most of the money rises to those at the top of the pyramid, and you know what usually floats to the top, don’t you?
It’s Not Just Women And Young Girls Being Influenced
You may have heard of Andrew Tate, the macho, misogynist influencer, recently charged with sexual offences in Romania and similar pending charges in the UK and US. He and his brother swim in the ‘manosphere’, promoting toxic masculinity, which degrades women with over 9 million followers on X alone and billions of views on TikTok. His entire philosophy is based on putting the man back into masculinity, promoting the view that women should stay at home, to treat them as sexual objects, to enslave them, and essentially degrade them. This has been, and still is, such an influence on young men and boys that in some schools, they won’t even speak to female teachers. His views are seen as extreme right-wing, antisemite, and he has garnered a huge following of those influenced, which is often described as cult status. It all sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? History repeating itself?
Conclusion
Influencers in one form or another have been around for hundreds of years, with politicians being the worst offenders – they promise the earth but deliver nothing. And modern-day influencers don’t care about you, despite how much you want to think they do. They’re in it for themselves at your expense, and to think otherwise is simply foolhardy.
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Lesson #1 – If it sounds too good to be true ….. it probably and usually is
Lesson #2 – Influencer – in·flu·enc·er – noun
plural: influencers
One who exerts influence : a person who inspires or guides the actions of others
The old theme of laziness and mellowness runs counter to today’s influencers, who are business people and upscale inspirational promoters of a go-getter way of life.—
John C. Dvorak
often, specifically : a person who is able to generate interest in something (such as a consumer product) by posting about it on social media
In short – modern day scam artists who make money by peddling other peoples junk and getting you to buy it because they cannot earn honest living by holding down a real job like the rest of us.
Precisely what I said in the article, Ed.
Influencers are the express reason as to why Tik-Tok has not been banned in the U.S., without the app and the influencers the Chinese cannot peddle their plastic crap and the app would have no real use.
I think they’re all scam artists as well, just looking for an easy way out to make a living, but aren’t we all influenced by “the experts” when it comes to making a major purchase? Of course, the problem is to find those experts who have credibility.
Coincidentally, since publishing this article, I read that two young influencers have been murdered. One when live streaming in Mexico and another yesterday in Colombia. Both young girls who were promoting clothes and perfume.
Another two were tragically killed in Brazil recently. I was unaware of these terrible events when writing the article and frankly, I’m shocked that this could happen.
A viral sickness continues to sweep through society, spread and amplified by Social Media, perfectly encapsulated by the late, great Isaac Asimov in his savage critique of his adopted country when he said, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.”
I grew up in a world without the Internet or Social Media; my first computer was a Commodore 64! I’ve spent most of my working life in IT and am online every single day for both work and personal use, but the seemingly endless tsunami of credulousness, wilful ignorance, lack of critical thinking, and sheer mendacity I continue to see means I stay away from most “social media” and refuse to engage with it.
As far as I’m concerned “Influencer” is just a synonym for “Grifting Scum,” and anyone who identifies as such is simply ignored… end of.
Sometimes the only way people learn is after they have been scammed. There is a wealth of information out there about how to avoid scams but the lazy, “have it now” mentality of modern youth doesn’t allow then to concentrate on anything for more than five minutes and digest the information. I have no sympathy whatsoever.
Buyer beware and trust nothing and no-one until proven otherwise. Has stood me in good stead over a lifetime.