[_manifold]

The thing that bugs me about "influencers" is that it seems in a lot of cases the content is formulated as a host for ads and monetization, rather than the creator focusing on creating worthwhile content first with advertising as a secondary concern (in a lot of cases non-endemically.)

Obviously, what is considered "worthwhile" is entirely subjective - people wouldn't be following, say, Kylie Jenner on social media if they didn't see some sort of value in it. Also I'm pretty sure a lot of people just don't care about being advertised to, or even enjoy it, if it's in a niche that they follow.

To me, it feels more insidious, especially when the line blurs between what is and ad and what is not. I hate being marketed to in such a way that it is so interleaved with the "actual" content - it starts making me question the validity of the content. By example, I used to browse Pinterest every now and again (mostly as a time waster) - it was interesting to search certain keywords and save things that looked interesting or sparked my curiosity. There were ads spaced every several tiles, but in general they seemed more or less separated from user-submitted content. Now, there are ads seemingly every third or fourth tile, and many "normal" tiles are ads as well, submitted by corporate accounts. I've pretty much stopped using it entirely.

[banannaise]

There's also the fact that many of these influencers are deliberately cultivating parasocial relationships - causing their fans to create false emotional attachments as a marketing strategy. It's wildly unethical and often quite harmful to their victims.