5 reasons I’m not a fan of influencer culture and am concerned it can do more harm that we might be seeing:
- They add to the noise, rather than being a helping voice in discovering good tools & talents. Anytime money is thrown their way, they will promote anything — which means they are no different from unavoidable ads we see on the walls in a city. The disclaimer that it’s an 'ad' does NOT help.
As an example, how many times in the past 1 year have you heard 'AI-powered' tagline for music & sound effects products that have NOTHING to do with AI in them and mislead the minimal (most trivial) use of ML models as being AI? How many times did the influencers then shove that messaging to you to believe it?
- Even if they start with good intentions and have strong mottos such as “we’ll only associate with ethical brands”, sooner or later when being an influencer starts to be their only way to get attention, they have no choice but to compromise.
- Influencers are assumed to be experts — this is by far the biggest problem in every industry. Repeating myself here: just because someone has a YouTube channel or owns a social media does not mean they know more. It just means that they HAVE THE TIME and the will to do so. The only credit they can be given is for taking the initiative. They are not experts.
- In most cases, they are not part of the user base, but rather brands on their own. Always see such entities as companies; marketing outlets, if that helps. Influencers are not here to help you or anyone else but themselves.
- The seemingly friendly-but-has-an-agenda behaviour. “Comment hello to get free access”, “DM plugin to get discounts” etc are as nonsensical as anything can get.
- (Bonus) They usually lack the guts to call out brands or stand by their community / audience when the time comes, because they have to please brands they get paid from. The only time they might say something is if doing so is “trendy” at the moment.
Just like 'AI', the keyword 'influencer' is deceptive. There's no influence that these people make, and the tag itself gets the audience to be subconsciously find their words meaningful.
Now, of course, not everyone who is making content online is evil. But a huge majority is. Ironically, the only way to counter this is to make more content, good content. Only a lot more +ve can make the situation less -ve.
I admire people who genuinely take the effort to guide & mentor others. One does not have to have 100,000 followers to do this. One does not have to keep invoicing brands for “getting in more users” by tricking them.
Audio industry has many such examples as of now, and I’d prefer a slower steady growth of our domain rather than fast paced hype that only leads to inflating the bubble.