what even are influencers

{rambling post (╥﹏╥)}

i don’t understand when people talk positively about influencers. Things like “I want to be an influencer”, “My favourite influencer”, etc. Also I'm not talking about content creators, obviously the two are different.

Anyway, I don’t get it. They’re literally just ads? And I’ve seen the argument that they ‘try the product for you’ which I get, like I'm sure that's how it started but now the whole career and main source of money for an influencer is from sponserships which is when a company pays the influencer to promotes their product which is shady. It defeats the whole purpose of being recommended the product because now there's an ulterior motive and nothing they say is credible anymore. Sure, it could be a good product, but it could also be a bad one and we won't know which because we're gonna hear praises about it either way.

I also think it’s a dying industry. Sure, it’s on the rise now, but a lot of people are trying to be influencers and some are succeeding but eventually people are going to realise that influencers are just ads, no matter how they may try to spin it. “cool things you should get for your room” ad. “products that changed my skin” ad. “yesstyle influencer, use my yesstyle code” ad. “how to become a product tester” AD. Please stop falling for these please oh my goodness. And another obvious point, overconsumption. Influencers do not use all the products they are given, sometimes you’ll see them start promoting the product while the packaging is still on which is ridiculous and I think that should warrant a scroll because it shows they were going to say good things regardless of if the product was good or bad. But since they don’t use all the product, most of it is just sitting in a drawer rotting away, or sitting pretty on the vanity rotting away, wasteful stupid get out its so wasteful and makes me want to stop existing.