Under the influence

Op-EdWhen I was a kid, we wanted to grow up to be baseball players, or firemen, or astronauts. What do kids want to grow up to be today? Don’t make me say it.My research (which the immortal Dave Barry defines as “farting around on the Internet) indicates that more than half of U.S. young’uns today want to grow up to be an “influencer.”And what is an influencer, you may ask? Basically, it’s someone who farts around on the Internet and expects to get paid for it.Ten years ago, “60 Minutes” reported that 70% of youngsters not yet 15 wanted to be influencers.Two years ago, CNBC reported that 57% of “Gen Zers” (born between 1997 and 2012) wanted to become influencers. According to another CNBC report, more than half of Gen Zers think they “can easily make a career in influencing.”There are more than 71 million Gen Zers in the United States. So if the polling is accurate, more than 40 million young men and women today think they can make a living by farting around on the Internet.Umm … really?I doubt it.The average U.S. influencer makes less than $10,000 a year: about what I made when I began teaching in public high schools.Now we come to the crux of my argument: Aside from farting around on the Internet,What does an influencer actually do?According to extensive research (vide supra) influencers “partner with companies to endorse products.”Why do they do that?Because the company will pay them if they can help sell the company’s products.The companies will pay them even more if they set up a link to the company on their “influencer" website.In plain language: An influencer wants me to spend my money to buy something that some damn corporation will pay him money if I do.What’s not to like about that? Well, why should I trust a cheapskate whore, male or female, who tells me that (s)he’s got a really good boss, and I should give my money to the boss?Knowing that this is how the influence game works, why should anyone trust an influencer?But wait, there’s more. Forty-one percent of U.S. adults would be influencers if they could, according to a Morning Consult survey of 2,204 adults.Adults want to do this? They must have even crappier jobs than I had when I was a young’un pulling weeds. Or working the night copy desk.Our kids want to be influencers when they grow up, because they think they’ll “get lots of money” and “want to be famous,” Fortune magazine reported in June. I can’t give you a link here because I don’t subscribe to that rag. Maybe you could find the article by farting around on the Internet. Or hiring an influencer to do it for you. Then you could, like, maybe, sum up your influencer’s “research.”Here is my message to the influencers:Pipe down.Who told you that?You know nothing.What else do you do?What else have you ever done?Never send me an email again, or “pop up” on my computer, or I may “influence” you.Shut up.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads