this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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Influencers have a lot of overlap with artistic expression online, but this is not even all that it is about. This is not going to end simply with replacing Logan Paul and stopping at that. This is only one more step in a trend to replace a lot of creative, intellectual and service jobs. Which wouldn't even be so bad if those people had a guarantee of a living and could do anything they want with their time... but this is not how it goes.
We couldn't guarantee a living to all the people who had to go around picking up horse shit or lighting gas streetlamps either. Sure, a UBI would be nice, but technology advances. And I really do not believe it is a slippery slope from ending the career of Logan Paul to ending the career of a future Leonardo Da Vinci.
Back then we couldn't guaranteed. But since productivity has grown immensely. We do grow more than enough food to feed every single person, and often that food it thrown out for a myriad of economic reasons. Technology advances but we see less and less of the benefits. It used to be at least that it freed us from manual labor into service work, but if it takes that too, then what?
You may not believe it all you want, artist are already seeing their careers diminishing in financial viability. Before we even could speculate about the threat to influencers, there were already visual artists and voice actors who gave up because their commissioners and employers decided to use AI instead. One might say "this means they weren't very good so no loss", but how does an artist get good if not practice? Nah, we aren't sliding from ending Logan Paul to ending a prospective Leonardo Da Vinci, likely we already ruined the chances of that Da Vinci and now it's sliding towards influencers.
And you know what, I don't even think Logan Paul is going to lose his job considering how established he is. But some smaller, more integrous and creative influencers might.
Good, maybe they’ll get a productive job then and stop forcing their attempts at being influencers. You either are or aren’t one; they clearly don’t have what it takes to influence their viewers to buy sponsor products as efficiently.
Advertising isn’t a noble business and influencers are just advertisers. There is no noble human spirit in advertising, it is (and always has been) an exploitative and ignoble career.
You can resent advertising however much you want but you are getting this one backwards. Influencers can be anything from models, reviewers, comedians, actors, so forth. It's a catch-all term for internet performers. They often rely on brand deals because it's one of the few reliable ways to make money on the internet. But do you really think millions of people follow influencers for the sole purpose of getting advertised at? That doesn't make sense.