An epidemic of fake influencers and the death of meritocracy
Apologies if this is too meta, but all the claims of &quot;ugh so glad I don&#x27;t care about social media&quot; and &quot;what do influencers am I right????&quot; feel really, really disingenuous on a forum run by a silicon valley incubator, where discussions of building products that run on advertisements regularly take place.<p>I think there&#x27;s a deeper truth that most people, including us here on HN, don&#x27;t want to admit: humans are at not rational, logical beings; rather we are emotional decision makers who largely don&#x27;t understand our own opinions and preferences, where they come from, or how much &quot;influence&quot; comes from sources outside ourselves.<p>The next time you decide on a particular brand of product, or vote for a particular politician, ask yourself: <i>why</i> do I think this? Why do I have <i>these</i> beliefs about how the world works, about how society should be organized, or about why people should act <i>this</i> way?<p>At this point it&#x27;s almost a truism to say ads work. How is the &quot;influencer game&quot; different from ads? A trusted source shows a product or service, and some percentage of the followers buy it.<p>A platform has hundreds of millions of users. Some do anything necessary to capture as big a slice of that audience, and monetize it.<p>This may be a revelation for Joe Average who knows nothing of the ad-driven-startup world, but it shouldn&#x27;t be a surprise to us.