Rising Instagram Stars Are Posting Fake Sponsored Content

[avip]

So finally we've come full cycle. The wannabe "influencer" with his fake "followers" bought 1$ a pound on fiverr, is posting fake "sponsored content", so social media "marketers" would perceive him as valuable enough to (fakely) promote their (probably faked) product. I ran out of double-quotes, you could legitly double-quote any other word up there.

[snaky]

The question is what should be the next logical step?

[pmlnr]

A fake internet, with real names, vs a real internet with pseudonyms, 10-15 years ago. Interesting. Maybe one of those things need to be fake to keep the universe in equivalent exchange.

[BadassFractal]

I've always been fascinated with the paths and lives of hustlers and con men, people who (try to) make a living misleading others about their success and credentials. Obviously this is as old as humanity itself, and it always makes for a good story. Social engineering is fascinating.

Anybody remember good old https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Is_Nothing_(video_r... from the dark ages of the Internet?

[jjeaff]

The role of "confidence man" used to be relegated to a small few with enough brains to pull it off and not enough morality to stop them.

Now, those select few con men have been using the internet to teach masses of wannabes that are too dumb to come up with the con, and too deluded to realize the immorality of what they are doing.

[ACow_Adonis]

Why give them (and their industry) the respect they so desperately crave by calling them influences and brand ambassadors when the English language already has an entire cornucopia of applicable organic words describing this phenomenon.

Shill, plant, phoney, stooge, wannabe, peddler.

Don't let the marketers win :p

[mdolon]

This feels like a scene straight out of Idiocracy. The brands must be pleasantly confused.

[scarejunba]

Haha, this is great. It’s a race to the bottom because most influencers aren’t providing anything unique: One is as good as another for the number of people they reach.

[catacombs]

It's all a sham. It amazes me that some people simply need to be attractive, wealthy, live an impossible lifestyle or all three and make hundreds of thousands of dollars from brands on a social media platform.

Many of these people hang on every update to Instagram, to the point that, eventually, the platform will be too big to fail.

I'd love to see the day when Instagram vanishes and all the influencers who put all their eggs in the filtered baskets are knocked back to reality.

[village-idiot]

Not surprising. If sponsored content is a signifier of success, people will fake it.

[lolc]

Meet the fake shill. A sad byproduct of consumerism.

Sometimes I'm suprised at society. Then I'm annoyed at my surprise. Then I tell myself not everybody is like this.

[Para2016]

From the article: "If someone who is 20 years old watching YouTube or Instagram sees these people traveling with brands, promoting brands, I don’t see why they wouldn’t do everything they could to get in on that.”

-- It's interesting to see quotes like this, especially in the context of the "everything bubble". 2019 is going to be economically horrendous, these people won't survive.

[catacombs]

> these people won't survive.

I already said it in another comment, but I'd love to see what would happen if Instagram just shuts downs or if they are impacted heavily by the incoming recession.

[matte_black]

Will this ultimately lower the revenue from sponsored content if so many people are tripping over themselves to pay companies to post their content?

[Rotten194]

> Though it may seem like a useful tactic when you’re starting out, more established influencers worry that fake sponcon is creating a race to the bottom. Because brands can piggyback off of waves of unpaid influencer promoters, some have ceased paying influencers completely, or now pay rates far below what they previously spent.

[bobthepanda]

Smells like an FCC regulation waiting to happen.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Smells like an FCC regulation waiting to happen

I don't see a problem. Users want influencers backed by brands. Brands want influencers with lots of users.

Unless the influencer falsely represents their sponsorship history to a brand, this "hack" doesn't hurt anyone. The worst-off party are users. They follow someone they think is shilling products but is actually shilling themselves. Given this is Instagram, I don't see that as a huge problem.

[untog]

Sounds very difficult to regulate. It's not actually advertising, so what regulations are people actually breaking?

[willart4food]

You mean FTC (T=Trade).

[dmitrybrant]

News at 11.

[willart4food]

Well, on a positive note, since they pay for those products themselves, they can write off the cost from their taxes.

#thot_patrol

https://www.reddit.com/r/thot_patrol/

[BadassFractal]

I like justice porn as much as anybody else, but I wonder if some of these outlets become more about venting one's misogyny, more than about pointing out wrongdoing?

Lots of people out there who ascribe their grievances to a group of "others", be that immigrants, ethnicities, genders etc. I can see those channels turning into a confirmation bias echo chamber pretty quick.