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