Shut Up and Say Something

Everyone wants to be an influencer. 

It’s a fact of life at this point. Morning Consult reports that in 2023, 57% of Gen Z polled stated they have an interest in social media influencing as a career. And who wouldn’t? Look at the lifestyle. Travel as a must, and you’re your own boss? Not to mention that if you’re really lucky, you can do most of it in pajamas. Who wouldn’t want that life?

But more than that, there’s a deeper hunger in there, deeper than all of those mainly vapid (though exciting) reasons; everyone wants to be seen.

It’s hunter-gatherer motivation, right? Humans don’t do well alone. Give a human a couple of days in isolation and their brain begins to scramble. In many old cultures, to be exiled was worse than being dead, for even in death there is a chance of people caring about you. Our brains are programmed to crave acceptance because tribal acceptance is how we evolved to survive. 

So imagine this: a career where all of your basic needs are met and then some, where you can provide for people that you deeply care about, and for the duration of that job, your success in the field is direct confirmation that people accept who you are and what you stand for. 

That’s the life of an influencer, at least how it’s advertised. 

Sheesh. When you put it like that, I’d want to be an influencer too. 

And though this term “influencer” is a relatively new one, at least in the way it’s used today, this group has existed for as long as society has. Politicians, poets, playwrights, and prophets alike have all gained some level of influence in their time. But with the smartphone’s camera and the swarming of different social feeds, the barrier to entry in this once very exclusive group has truly never been lower. What used to require a team of twenty people can now be done by a team of ten fingers. 

And with the impending tsunami of Generative AI, that barrier continues to get lower. Now you don’t have to even be the one with the ideas.

Now it can look something like this:

“I am in the ______ industry selling _______. You are a top social media marketing strategist in that same industry. Generate 20 captivating topics for Instagram Reels within that topic, along with a script for each. Keep the script 250 words or less. Use a cheerful, friendly tone.” 

Put those scripts into a text-to-speech voice mod, add some stock footage over it, play some lo-fi in the background, and you’ve made a technically perfect batch of Instagram Reels. 

This is the modern reality of the life of an influencer. And before I go into a greater point that will generally go against this way of doing things, let me talk about why this can be a good thing. 

The good news is this: Anyone can be an influencer. 

The age of the gatekeeper in pop culture has long been over. Because record labels and agents and publishers are more suggestions than requirements now, anyone that wants to say something has the ability to say it, and previous factors that would prevent them from not being heard have begun to dissolve. Am I saying that those limiting factors have entirely disappeared? Absolutely not. But in this new way of doing things, if you have a voice, more likely than not, someone will hear it.

There has never been more of a space for diverse voices than now. Hard stop. That diversity is a good thing. Hard stop.

The good news is this: Anyone can be an influencer.

The bad news? Anyone can be an influencer. 

Social media is a constant flood. And while there has been endless talk of the negative actors on social media, we hardly talk about how neutral most things are. Inane posts of sports takes or Get Ready With Me routines or Stranger Things discourse. The entirety of social media is designed not simply to enrage you, but to dull your senses. Because a dulled mind is more likely to keep scrolling, even more so than an upset one. 

And while many big companies have a hand in contributing to that system, some even being the ones who designed it in the first place, it’s our ability to contribute to it that makes these algorithms churn in the first place. 

And I don’t blame people for going this route! Heck, I’ve gone that route myself. There are plenty of old YouTube channels that I own that I care not to think about (13 year old Connor has a video online of him eating cereal and doing nothing else. It has 100 views). Our brains crave it, our algorithms reward it, and when you’re successful at it, the money speaks for itself. 

Influencing is not in it of itself an evil thing, or even an inherently wrong thing. My issue is and always will be whether you have something to say. 

Too often I come across people desperate to be influencers, with no real conviction as to what they want to influence. They like the idea of being an influencer rather than the actual reality. They want to look nice for a camera, but don’t have anything to say to it. 

This is most people online, and with the advent of AI, that group has only increased in volume. People’s entire livelihoods are now determined by if their editing software can cut up Family Guy clips rather than if they actually have something to say. Put a text to speech description of the movie, and suddenly it’s okay to post. 

This is the modern reality of the influencer economy. It’s a lot of stuff. Not good, not bad, just stuff. And when that stuff becomes the flood it is not, it takes up space from the diverse voices still here.  

So what now? What do we do about this? Do we throw away the influencer economy and start over? No, that’s not what I’m saying. Primarily because that puts me out of a job to start. 

My greater encouragement is this: we need to be aware of the value of our voice. 

In our quest for acceptance and the modern influencer economy looming over us it can be difficult to remember that you are an individual. It can be so easy to fit into the standard of what everyone else is talking about; to fit into trends, to let programs figure it out. And yes, the ones who do this can find some success. 

But anyone who is in the influencer space will tell you that most of the time, the ones who truly succeed are the ones with voices strong enough to be heard through the flood.

IShowSpeed made videos at 16 yelling at video games. Now he educates people on the world by traveling it. But through all of his content is himself. It’s his personality, his own unique voice that makes people drawn to what he does. 

Thomas Sanders made Vines about Disney and musicals. Now he runs a channel dedicated to positivity and lifting up marginalized voices. And people follow him because he himself is distinct. His artistic voice is everywhere in his content. And people want to listen to what he has to say. 

The good news is this: Anyone can be an influencer. 

The bad news is this: Anyone can be an influencer. 

The best news is this: Anyone can be an influencer. 

So what do we do?

If you are thinking that diving into the influencer space is something you want, consider first why it is that you want to do it. I truly believe that you don’t need to get into the content business if you don’t feel you have something to say with it, despite what gurus online may say. If you don’t need to do it, then don’t. 

But if there is something in you that you need to share. If there’s nothing else you can do. If you’re willing to jump into the shark tank of stuff, slop, and senseless hate because you can’t help but share your voice. 

Then your answer is simple. Shut up, and say something.