Influencers .. Will Be the Last Gasp of Centralization?
Does the Thought of Following-the-Leader Make You Feel Ill?
Congrats, you have developed the proper, future-oriented, autonomous and fully-decentralized mindset.
A recent NYTimes article The Rise and (Maybe) Fall of Influencers got me thinking about these digital age chieftans and empresses. We have a few of our own now on STEEMIT - are they followed because they are very very good bloggers, or are they followed because they are followed, and people are simply going where the curation cheddar is, or to give their two-pom-pom support to these new-phatties in hopes they will recieve phat upvotes?
So what of so-called "Influencers", people who have developed online followings by packaging their cool lifestyle or vibrant and interesting personality and ideas, and used their new found fans to sell them all kinds of shitty products, or to hype other personalities, events, handbags, perfume, undies, cars, tampons.. youuuuu name it!
Kids following other kids on Instagram, religiously, simply because they are rich .. spoiled rotten and EXTREMELY WASTEFUL .. going so far as to spend their days battling the fans of competing rich kids in endless "f*** you!" threads?
I don't know about you, but this kind of thing makes me wretch. It's one thing to agree with what someone believes, or who has given you useful information, and in return you give them support by subscribing, following, liking what have you, it is quite another to put oneself in that person's "camp", and engage in online warfare on their behalf - in a place and time where we can free ourselves from our self-appointed betters, we seem to wish not to fully escape, but instead return to a kind of pathetic feudalistic serfdom.
STEEM Growth & Influencers
I entirely understand why we should seek out these new age warlords, and bring the to STEEM/STEEMIT, so that they can drag their cults in behind them, but I only hope that this will become unnecessary .. I hope that individuals find us, and discover the value and the potential for themselves, so that it can be their personal find .. and in that way, feel far more a special thing, which is how I came to be here.
While we want this special place to blow up and grow at an uncontrollable rate, it would be nice if we did not have to bring the old world ways of gathering ourselves - we are here as individuals, bonding and sharing with other individuals, not a collection of cliques trying to get ahead of other groups of this or that.
great post , I wish i could re-steem it but seems it is not possible.
"influencers" are mostly puppets of the powers that be anyway.
Excellent article. I totally agree with you. In fact I was about to start following you but after seeing your wallet I realized that I could not be hypocritical, and let me influence in that way and go behind the cheddar .... But still, I confess that I have been influenced by your words.
Best regards...
Haha..great reply. We should change "Follow" to "Remember" or something like that. :) I will be remembering you, and will give as much cheddar as I can in appreciation of your wit!
I am just doing my best to cause some thought-provoking trouble. :-)
Remember sounds so much better It's more perzonal. I wonder how that would take as far as influencing otherstoblike the platform as well as.
Wow! I definitely believe that now I will remember you.
I like your copyrighted❊ phrase :
Because in the case of this article you are going to make people think and reflect: what would my influencer say about it?
But it would be a great first step ..... we think ....
Happy day
❊ Hint: google translator joke (en ➔ es)
Beautiful article....thanks for sharing @kurtbeil ! Follow you :)
The word "influencer" literally makes me wretch. ;-)
Interesting thought, that the so-called "influencers" or social media stars, represent the end of the old world. An analogy was synchronous linear television, and the age of film before DVD and online streaming ... everyone gathered around the television at 08:00 on a particular weekday night to watch the latest greatest .. and on the weekend, EVERYONE went and watched the same film, and talked about it around the water cooler on Monday morning.
Very interesting!
AWESOME! I upvote and Resteemed! Steem needs more of this!
woo .. thank you so much @teamsteem!
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