You might not have noticed, but most people are into celebrities, musicians, actors, YouTubers, TikTokers, Instagrammers, etc. Famous people.

We evolved to compare ourselves to others in order to elevate the fitness of ourselves and our in-group. We look to peers. We take an interest in their gossip. We look at beautiful people, smart people, successful people. We're curious. We're also intrigued by scandalous and dangerous people. It's how we update our mental model of the world and contrast ourselves against it.

I'd be utterly shocked if you didn't, at some level, take an interest in the personal details of some person you don't know.

Virtual celebrities and influencers provide the same sort of dopamine hits that their real life counterparts do, except they can be 100% controlled by a corporation.

You don't even have to look at virtual influencers to know that people will eat them up: lots of people are already addicted to fictional characters. Movies, super heroes, even cartoons and anime. They find pieces of themselves in it. They start to care and take deep interest.

Virtual celebs are the future, and a cottage industry is already cropping up in support of it.

And just wait until people use AR/VR to optimize their own appearances and behaviors.

I'm not trying to argue that being a celebrity is a Ponzi scheme. The virtual ladder being incentivized on current social media platforms is. It's a game, being a celebrity is the end result but mostly people are just in it to make money.

I definitely don't connect to any celebrity other than those I admire for their intelligence and/or skill. So I'm not normal.

> It's a game, being a celebrity is the end result but mostly people are just in it to make money.

Being a celebrity is mostly a way to make money. And with influencers, the "career progression" that almost every upstart vlogger/instagrammer aspires to is pretty well-defined:

1) Provide some kind of entertainment content as a vector to push other people's crap

2) Over time, build up your user base and revenue base, until you become a well-known brand in a given market segment

3) Transition to pushing your own crap, e.g. a line of products with your name on it

Of course, selection is very strong there. Most would-be influencers spend years and fail at step 1. Few achieve step 3. And it can't really be any different, because attention economy is the ultimate zero-sum game: people have only so much hours in the day.

> "Influencing" is a ponzy scheme.

It's not. Influencers ask prices that are relative to how much money they'll make to a particular brand/store. That's why local influencers is a thing. And I was, too, surprised at how much sales they can drive for a simple store.

Marketing is selling a product.

Bullshit is selling a lie.

Both are very inefficient and lazy ways to generate interest.

I think you use a different definition of bullshit than the discussion here.

I'll never know. My definition of bullshit follows every definition of the people I've ever discussed with though. That is: Something that does not actually have substance, but may be propped up to be perceived as so.

OP wasn't making any value judgement like this. They were simply questioning if there is actually a story here.

The media tends to notice little phenomena like this and paint them as if it's a cultural megatrend.

Even then, the misunderstanding is in reading the question "is this story BS?" as "is influencing BS?", not in the definition of bullshit.

Using different criteria is more or less a different definition of being BS.

I don't see a way to confirm the story if you do not investigate the likelihood of the value it is "presenting" though.

I'm still confused by these two comments. I don't think we can verifiably claim any personal story on any media outlet is BS or not.

You're talking about whether this kind of account is a scam.

They're wondering whether this specific account is making money.

Those are very different questions. An account can be both, neither, or one or the other.

No. I'm talking about whether it's bullshit. Scam is not the same as bullshit.

I guess Americans use the word bullshit differently to the rest of the English speaking world? Or something else?

If one were to speak bullshit, they'd be doing exactly what I just wrote. No money is involved.

> No. I'm talking about whether it's bullshit. Scam is not the same as bullshit.

You called it a ponzi scheme!

Either way, please listen to the distinction I'm making.

You're talking about ways the industry is bad.

They're asking if the article is flat-out wrong about this single account being successful inside that industry.

Those are two separate ideas to call bullshit on. A bullshit industry can have bullshit success stories, but it can also have true success stories.

>You called it a ponzi scheme!

Yes. And then people had a problem with the word bullshit, for some reason.

It can be both bullshit and a ponzi scheme. That doesn't make bullshit necessarily a scam.

What do you mean by bullshit? People who like it and follow the fake personae on social media are wasting their time? Or what exactly? Are all invented things bullshit, so also books, music, movies, paintings...? Maybe posting this artificial person on social media is just another way to tell a story?

If I photoshop the moon into a picture and post it to a photography forum, most people will pick it up as a bullshit photo.

If I post the same thing to Instagram, most people will applaud me for being such a great photographer.

Everyone is wasting their time. Lots of people like bullshit.

According to Harry Frankfurt, author of On Bullshit, it's when someone makes statements without any regard to their truth.

But how do you define substance? It seems to me if they make money, they have substance, whether what they do is useful in the greater scheme of things or not.

I must admit I don't quite understand your attitude. I personally for example have no interest in "the Kardashians" and would consider their story "bullshit" in a way. On the other hand, they clearly made a shitload of money. So maybe it would be better to analyse what is going on and why it works.

Another example that I personally consider mostly BS is professional sports. But clearly billions of people are into it and a lot of money is being made. Rather than calling it BS, perhaps it is more interesting to think about what might be going on, and what human need seems to be fulfilled by these things.

I was also reminded of "Hello Kitty" which seems to have been going strong for decades. Maybe, among other things, people just buy into this phantasy of a happy world were everything is fine. I personally bought some Hello Kitty mugs for fun a while ago because using them gave me a little jolt of happiness. Even though it is "commercial BS".

Substance is much more than money (to me). Why use the word if we all use it differently indeed...

Eh it's not a Ponzi scheme as far as influencers go. They are the new TV/movie celebrities and share fame with those groups. Plenty have been around for years now, sure there are rises and falls and fans are more fickle than in the past. Unless instagram and twitter and tiktok die soon they're going to be around a while, even though boomers and gen-x often greatly dislike them; those aren't the audiences they are trying to appeal to.

When you try to start your own channel on YouTube, or get viral in any form, you realise just how true of a ponzy scheme it is. Even original, well created work is hidden until someone grabs it and runs with it.

Easiest way for that to happen? Spam. Lots of spam. Instagram audiences aren't fickle, or at least they're not deterred by playing the game. They are extremely easy to offend though, and follow very serious moral trains. i.e. the head of the dragon changes directions fast but the body keeps in toe regardless of how they feel.

Just click on any of the top trending videos on Reddit or YouTube, you'll see a bunch of familiar faces saying the following. The more niche the topic, the more niche the channel spammers.

"Hey this video was great! Good job! -- seoulmetro walking tours".

I'm young so all these social outlets are what are left for me. But they're just way too tiring so I usually ignore the feeds.