EOTO Presentations- Social Influencers

 

People who have built up a reputation and a following online due to their expertise and knowledge on a topic are otherwise referred to as "Social Influencer". These individuals, as indicated by their label, heavily influence the community of social media users. 

Big companies started to realize that the influence that these people had over others was much greater than originally perceived. When a makeup influencer advocates that they use a particular makeup brand, the product is sold out almost immediately. Watching this phenomenon, major companies learned to market their products through sponsorships and deals with these influencers. 

Obviously, sponsorships honored both the companies and the Influencers by a mutual partnership. Influencers would be given free products and services, and in return, they would promote the products in order to provide a rapid increase in capital for the company. 

Unfortunately like most social media trends, this also has ample downsides. For one, this leads to the act of False Advertising, a tendency for companies and influencers to make advertisements for a product that are either untrue or are misleading. The ramifications of this tendency include people wasting their money on products that were falsely advertised, and in extreme cases, people having negative and harmful side effects to the products as well. 

Overall, Influencers and Celebrities often are targeting their content towards younger audiences, even sometimes unknowingly. As 94% of Gen Z is connected to one or more social media platforms, there is the highest recorded percentage of young generations being effected by mental health and body dysphoria. With the use of editing and FaceTune, anyone is able to showcase the most perfect versions of themselves on the internet. 

Again, this has negative ramifications on other social media users as there is now a platform for comparison and cyberbullying on a larger scale then ever before. Even if the purpose of influencers was never to be a space for negativity and comparison, the shifting of our society and the impressionable youth, has created a new reality of social detriment at the hands of Influencers. 

Perhaps the greatest detriment of the realm of Social Influencers is the turn that they have taken into the world of Politics and Agendas. Focusing on the world of younger audiences, Influencers know to create the impression of "my way is good, their way is bad". This ultimately jeopardizes the world of independent voting and our functioning society as a whole. Impressionable youth are being told on a large scale that they must vote blue in order to be accepted in today's society.

Comments like "all Republicans are racist and homophobic" and "if you care about our country you will vote blue" have been forced onto children years off of being able to vote. Why is this? Both political parties are very aware of the fact that younger generations are large factors in the way of voting in the future. As they develop in the country, they decide the fate of elections in later years, so if a Political Party can force them to think a certain way when younger, they can ultimately corrupt them into blindly following the party when they are eligible to vote. 

Taylor Swift for example, who has one of the largest fanbases in the world, created a post for the 2020 election that not only encouraged, but demanded that all of her fans vote for the Democratic Elect, Joe Biden. As much as it is hard to believe, people in large positions of power in Government often resort to paying celebrities and influencers to advocate to vote a certain way to increase popularity. Creating the impression that anyone is willing to be bought out by enough money in this world. 

Taylor Swift's post not only demanded everyone in the voting age groups to vote blue, but it also sent the message to all younger generations that if you are not a democrat, or do not vote democrat, you don't have empathy and you don't care about anyone but yourself essentially. Which ultimately sends the message to children that the only way they can be respected by their idol is by blindly following the same political party as them. Which at the end of the day is not only upsetting, but is unthinkable and unreasonable. 

Influencers have the ultimate power to corrupt and manipulate everyone that follows and watches them. Coupled with the fact that they have Government entities whispering in their ears, Influencers and Celebrities have the ability to completely brainwash the entirety of the  world of social media. If we can regulate Artificial Intelligence and Government Entities, why can we not regulate people being heavily corrupted by those same entities? Because the Government knows they can manipulate us through the use of scapegoats, Social Influencers.