You know that feeling, right? You're sitting
on the couch. It's maybe 1130 at night. You should
have gone to bed an hour ago. Oh, I know this
feeling very well. The TV is playing something,
maybe a rerun or just the news on mute, but you
aren't watching it. You're looking at your ham.
Specifically, your thumb is doing that repetitive,
almost hypnotic motion. The scroll. The scroll.
Swipe up, stop, swipe up, stop. You see a photo.
of a living room that is cleaner than your house
has ever been, then a video of a girl making
a green smoothie that somehow looks delicious
even though you know it tastes like grass. Right,
you just know it does. And then a guy recommending
a specific brand of noise -canceling headphones
that will, you know, revolutionize your workflow.
And usually somewhere in that caption, buried
under a mountain of emojis or maybe hiding in
the first comment, is that little phrase we've
all been trained to look for, link in bio. It
is the ubiquity of the scroll. It has effectively
become the default state of modern leisure. But
what you were describing, that trance -like state,
it isn't just a passive pastime. It feels passive.
It feels it, but it is the front end of one of
the most sophisticated engines of behavioral
modification in history. Okay, that sounds ominous.
Behavioral modification. It feels like we are
just looking at people taking selfies or sharing
their morning routine or doing a dance challenge
in their kitchen. It feels pretty harmless. On
the surface, absolutely. But today, we are going
to talk about the sheer scale of this industry.
Because when you actually look at the numbers,
and more importantly, the psychology behind it,
it's just mind -blowing. We are diving deep into
the world of influencer marketing. And we need
to be really precise about what that means because
the term influencer gets thrown around so loosely.
to describe anyone with an Instagram account.
Right. Anyone with more than a thousand followers
is suddenly an influencer. Exactly. But based
on the materials we have today, we are defining
influencer marketing strictly as a form of social
media marketing involving endorsements and product
placement. But here's the crucial distinction
that separates it from, say, a celebrity holding
a can of soda in a magazine ad. It involves individuals
or organizations. with a purported expert level
of knowledge or social influence in their specific
field. Purported. That word is doing a lot of
heavy lifting there. It is. And we will get to
why that distinction matters so much. These influencers
operate on platforms like Instagram, YouTube,
Snapchat, and TikTok. And they have the power.
to affect the buying habits or quantifiable actions
of others just by uploading their own original
content. So here is our mission for this deep
dive. We aren't just looking at how much money
these people make, though, spoiler alert, the
top tier is making more than most CEOs. Much
more. We are going to peel back the filter. We
want to understand the psychology of why we trust
these strangers on the Internet more than we
trust, you know, established institutions. We're
going to look at the economy of it. Why a staggering
percentage of teenagers now view this as the
ultimate career path, eclipsing doctors and astronauts
and everything we grew up wanting to be. And
we cannot ignore the darker aspects. This isn't
just about selling tea or leggings. We are going
to explore the shadow world. We're talking about
billion -dollar fraud, fake followers, and even
how this whole industry intersects with geopolitical
propaganda in places like the UAE. And finally,
we'll look at the future. where the influencers,
the people we trust, might not even be human
anymore. It's a fascinating and, frankly, somewhat
terrifying trajectory. It is. If we zoom out,
this is really the modern evolution of what sociologists
call the two -step flow of communication. It's
reshaping global economies, and it is certainly
reshaping our mental health. Okay, let's unpack
this. I think the best place to start is with
the history, because it didn't always look like
this. I mean, celebrity endorsements have been
around forever. It's the dawn of celebrity, pretty
much. A movie star sells cigarettes or cars in
the 50s. You'd see John Wayne or Marilyn Monroe
on a billboard. But this feels fundamentally
different. It is different, and the shift is
subtle, but it's really profound. As I mentioned,
it moved from celebrity to authenticity, or at
least the curated appearance of it. The performance
of authenticity. Exactly. In the traditional
model, you have a celebrity. Let's say George
Clooney. You see him drinking Nespresso. You
know he is a wealthy actor. You know he lives
in a villa in Italy. You know he's being paid
millions of dollars to hold that cup. Right.
There is a distance there, a safe distance. Right.
I don't look at George Clooney drinking coffee
and think he's just like me. I think that's a
cool movie star. I don't assume we're friends.
There's no illusion. Exactly. But the influencer
is different. They are viewed as a neutral authority
pitch. The source material highlights that. Unlike
a random celebrity, an influencer is seen as
having specific niche expertise or just good
taste. That good taste part is key. It's like,
oh, I like how she dresses, so I trust her recommendation
on this shampoo. It feels personal. It's peer
to peer. Yeah. It feels like getting advice from
the cool girl in your sorority or the guy at
the gym who lifts more than you. And the explosion
of platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
just accelerated this. It democratized fame.
Suddenly, you didn't need a studio contract to
have an audience. You just needed a phone and
a point of view. And a good ring light. And a
very good ring light. But as with any gold rush,
it started as the Wild West. Oh, totally. I remember
the early days of Instagram around 2012 or 2013.
It was just a free for all. People were pushing
skinny tees and waist trainers and nobody knew
if they were getting paid or if they just really,
really. loved loose leaf tea that makes you run
to the bathroom. It was incredibly murky. That
ambiguity was actually a major problem, right?
It was a huge problem. And it brings us to the
FTC intervention of 2016. Now, for those who
don't follow regulatory history, this was a watershed
moment. Before 2016, it was truly unregulated.
But the Federal Trade Commission in the United
States began framing influencer content as testimonial
advertising. Testimonial advertising. That sounds
serious. That sounds like legal jargon. It is
legally significant. It means you are personally
vouching for the product. So let's go back to
that moment in 2016. This wasn't just a press
release. The FTC sent out what are known as educational
letters. But that's a polite term for a warning
shot. A warning shot, right. Dozens of massive
brands and stars. We're talking about A -listers
who suddenly realized they could be liable for
deceptive marketing. So they're on the hook legally.
They're on the hook. Imagine the panic in the
marketing departments of these major cosmetic
companies. They had built their whole strategy
on stealth. on making it look like organic love
for the product. And suddenly the government
is saying, we see you. The party is over. You
have to tell people this is an ad. And this is
where it gets really interesting because I remember
this vivid panic among influencers. They were
terrified. They thought if I put hashtag ad,
hashtag ad on my post, everyone is going to unfollow
me. They'll think I'm a sellout. My engagement
will tank. They genuinely believed that the magic
was in the secrecy. That was the prevailing fear.
They thought the illusion of authenticity would
be shattered if they admitted money was changing
hands. But the data shows something completely
counterintuitive happened. Yeah, the fans didn't
care. In fact, didn't the engagement actually
go up in some cases? It often did. Okay, but
I have to stop you there. That doesn't make any
sense. We usually hate ads. We skip YouTube ads.
We pay for premium Spotify to avoid them. We
install ad blockers on our browsers. Why would
we suddenly cheer for an ad just because it's
on Instagram? That's a great pushback. It does
seem completely illogical. But the sources suggest
that the relationship is different. It's not
a brand -to -consumer relationship. It's a person
-to -person one. Fans were actually happy to
see the disclosure because it signaled success.
It was like, oh, wow, look at her. She's landing
deals. She's making it. It validated the creator
status. So it's not an interruption. It's a celebration.
It's a celebration. When you see a YouTuber you've
watched for years suddenly get a sponsorship
from a major brand, you don't feel annoyed. You
feel a sense of vicarious pride. That is so wild.
So the thing they thought would ruin them actually
made them more popular. It's like they were cheering
for their friend getting a promotion. Good for
you. Get that bag. Precisely. Yeah. But this
created a really bizarre side effect. And this
is one of those details that truly highlights
the strange psychology of this entire industry.
Okay. What happened? Some influencers started
faking sponsored posts. Wait. Wait. Let's pause
on that. You mean they were pretending to be
sponsored? When they weren't? Correct. They would
style a post to look exactly like a paid advertisement,
tagging the brand, writing the caption in that
specific ad -speak style, maybe even saying,
thanks brand name for the gift. But no money
had changed hands. The brand didn't even know
who they were. The brand didn't even know who
they were. That blows my mind. Why would you
do that? You're giving the brand free advertising.
You are working for free. To gain credibility.
They wanted to look successful enough to be hired
for real. It was a fake it till you made it strategy.
So if other brands saw you posting sponsored
content, they might think, oh, this person is
in demand. We should hire them. Exactly. She's
already working with our competitors. We need
to get in there. That is the ultimate inception
of marketing. Faking an ad to get a real ad.
It's layers of deception. But surely that couldn't
last forever. The pendulum did swing back eventually,
right? The audience had to get wise to it. It
did. By mid -2018, the market became saturated.
You couldn't scroll three inches without hitting
an hashtag ad, a backlash hit. The audience started
to get fatigued. Fatigued. Totally. It became
too commercial. So the market corrected itself,
and the pendulum swung aggressively toward...
authenticity and now we're in this weird phase
of curated authenticity people trying to look
real to sell products messy hair no makeup crying
on camera but it's all still content it's all
still a performance is the authenticity paradox
you have to perform reality to monetize it which
leads us perfectly into the psychology of all
this because clearly it works if it didn't work
brands wouldn't be dumping billions and billions
of dollars into it Not at all. Why is this so
much more persuasive than a TV commercial? You
mentioned trust, authenticity, and reliability.
But I want to dig deeper into the mechanism.
How does it actually work in our brains? To understand
this, we have to look at that two -step flow
theory I mentioned earlier. Back in the 1940s,
sociologists realized that mass media doesn't
usually just inject ideas directly into your
brain. Right. Instead, media goes to opinion
leaders first. the respected guy at the barbershop,
the union rep, the pastor. They digest the news,
and then they tell their community what to think.
Okay, so in the 1940s, it was the guy at the
barbershop. Now it's the beauty guru on YouTube.
Precisely. Influencer marketing is just the industrialization
of those opinion leaders. The brand talks to
the influencer. That's step one. And the influencer
translates that corporate message into vibes
for you. That's step two. They launder the corporate
message into something that feels personal. That's
a great way to put it. But the reason it sticks
today is because of the shift from word of mouth
to electronic word of mouth, or EWOM. And that's
where the parasocial relationship comes in. We
hear that term a lot. We do. But I think people
miss how calculated it is. It describes a one
-sided emotional bond. You feel like you know
the influencer. You know their dog's name. You
know what their kitchen looks like. You know
about their struggles with anxiety. They're sharing
so much. Right. They don't know you exist, of
course, but you feel a bond with them. It's true.
I catch myself doing it. I'll see someone I follow
recommend a book and I'll buy it without even
reading the reviews because I feel like, oh,
if she likes it, I'll probably like it. My brain
just accepts the recommendation. That is the
mechanism at work. But it's not just that you
feel like you know them. The research shows that
influencers deliberately use what's called phatic
communication. Phatic communication. What's that?
That sounds academic. It does, but it's actually
very simple. These are small, non -informational
exchanges. Think about when you text a friend
just, hey, or send a funny meme. It conveys no
information, really. It just maintains the connection.
It just maintains the connection. Influencers
do this constantly. They ask coffee or tea in
a poll. They share a photo of a messy room with
a caption, Monday mood. These acts serve zero
purpose other than to lower your psychological
defenses. So they are mimicking friendship protocols.
Exactly. They mimic friendship protocols so that
when the ask comes, the product pitch, your brain
processes it as advice from a peer, not a commercial
from a corporation. That feels... I don't know,
a little bit manipulative. It is highly effective
engineering, and it connects directly to something
called self -determination theory. Okay. Influencers
foster engagement by aligning with what consumers
already want to see, their motivations and intentions.
It's not just shoving a product in your face.
It's showing you a lifestyle that you already
aspire to. So it feels like they are helping
you, not selling to you. I'm showing you this
blender because I want you to be healthy like
me, and I know you want to be healthy too. Precisely.
This isn't an ad. This is a solution to your
problem. But the more potent and potentially
damaging mechanism is social comparison theory.
This sounds like the keeping up with the Joneses
part. It is, but on steroids. And with a direct
buy now button attached. A researcher named Che
published work in 2018 showing how influencers
serve as a comparison tool. A benchmark for our
own lives. Yes. Followers view the influencers
having a perfect lifestyle, perfect interests,
perfect style. But here's the twist. Che's research
found that women with low self -esteem compare
themselves to influencers. And instead of resenting
them, they actually elevate the influencer's
status. They put the influencer on a pedestal.
So the more insecure you feel, the more you admire
them. That seems backwards. It does. But it's
about aspiration. The influencer becomes the
goal. And that's where the brand steps in. The
brand uses that insecurity. What levered it?
Yeah. The product becomes a shortcut. You can't
have the influencer's life. You can't have her
face, her money, or her vacations. But you can
buy the lipstick she is wearing. You can buy
a little piece of that life. You can buy the
vitamin she takes. It is a transactional attempt
to bridge the gap between your reality and their
curated perfection. You know, hearing that actually
makes me feel a bit heavy. I think about my niece
scrolling on her phone. It's not just marketing
to her. It's a direct attack on her self -esteem
to sell a vitamin supplement. That's a very real
way to look at it. It stops being business and
starts feeling predatory. Is the industry acknowledging
that moral weight at all? In some circles, yes,
there are conversations about mental health.
But largely, no. The metrics for success are
sales and engagement, not the mental well -being
of the audience. Right. The algorithm doesn't
track well -being. Not at all. And because the
trust is so high, it leads directly to impulse
buying. High trust in an influencer correlates
directly with a higher likelihood of impulsive
purchases because the trust bypasses the critical
thinking center of the brain. You don't evaluate
the product, you evaluate the person. So we have
this massive psychological engine driving sales,
which explains why so many people want to be
on the other side of the screen. We need to talk
about the career aspect of this, because for
a lot of kids growing up now, this isn't just
a hobby. It is the new American dream. It truly
is. The statistics are staggering. A 2023 survey
by Junior Achievement found that 76 % of U .S.
teens are interested in becoming entrepreneurs.
76%. But when you dig into that, the majority
cited social media influencers as their primary
inspiration for that. 76%. That is a massive
generational shift. When I was a kid, the dream
job was being an astronaut or a doctor or maybe
a rock star. But now it's influencer. And we
shouldn't dismiss it as just. vanity or kids
being lazy, Gen Z views this as a reputable career
choice. And the reality is it is a business,
a very demanding one. Yeah, let's give credit
where it's due. It looks easy just taking photos
and talking to a camera, but it's not, is it?
No, not at all. A group of researchers, Cheng,
Guo, and Zhao, published a paper in 2024 describing
this as requiring a mastery of algorithms and
digital reputation. That's a full -time job in
itself. These are viewed as new forms of social
capital. It's a new kind of currency. Mastery
of algorithms. It sounds like you need a degree
in computer science. But it's true. You have
to know when to post, what audio to use, how
to edit, how to engage, how to read the analytics.
It's a huge skill set. It is. Internet celebrities
are turning that... window of fame, which can
be very short, into diverse income streams. And
this is a global phenomenon. That's not just
the U .S. and Europe. Research by Okereke and
Ize in 2025 shows that youth in Nigeria are using
these digital marketing tools for business creation.
In Thailand, studies link authenticity and creativity
directly to marketing effectiveness. This is
a global economic shift where influence is a
currency. But there is a cost, right? It can't
all be free clothes and brand trips. You're talking
about managing a business where you are the product.
Your life is the product. The cost is significant
and it's deeply personal. Burnout is rampant
in this industry. A sociologist named Hund, writing
in 2023, pointed out that the constant focus
on authenticity creates a massive negative pressure.
Young entrepreneurs have to maintain these idealized
online personas. You can never turn it off. If
you are a doctor, you take off the white coat
and you go home. Exactly. If you're an influencer,
your home is the set. Your dinner is the content.
Your vacation is work. Exactly. You neglect your
personal identity for commercial intent. Imagine
if your livelihood depended on you being happy,
beautiful, and interesting every single day,
regardless of how you actually felt. I can't
even imagine. Regardless of whether you were
grieving or sick or just tired, the algorithm
punishes silence. If you stop posting for a week,
you might as well disappear. That sounds like
a recipe for a complete mental breakdown. It
is. And that pressure, the pressure to succeed,
to grow, to beat the algorithm is what pushes
people toward the edge. Because the pressure
is so high and the competition is so fierce,
people start looking for shortcuts. And that
is where the fraud begins. That's where it really
gets dark. This is the perfect transition to
the dark side. We've hinted at it, but let's
go there. We need to talk about the fraud, the
bots, and the really shady stuff happening behind
the scenes. The dark side of influencer marketing
is extensive. And it's a lot more than just people
being disingenuous. Let's start with the economic
fraud. We assume that when we see an influencer
with a million followers, those are a million
real people. Right. That's the metric. That's
why brands pay them the big bucks. But often
it is a mirage. The researchers call it fabricated
veracity. Follower accounts, likes, comments,
all of the criteria used to determine if an account
is real and valuable can be bought via third
-party apps. So you can literally just buy popularity,
click a button, pay a fee, and suddenly you're
famous? You can. An analysis of 7 ,000 U .K.
influencers showed that half of their followers
had low -quality followers themselves, essentially
bots following bots. Another study found that
12 % of U .K. influencers in 2018 had knowingly
bought fake followers. That is a huge number,
and that's just the ones they caught. It's probably
higher. It's almost certainly higher. And this
isn't a victimless crime. This is fraud. Businesses
are paying these influencers based on those inflated
numbers. It is estimated that influencer fraud,
specifically, from fake followers costs businesses
1 .3 billion dollars a billion three Just gone.
Gone. That is 15 % of global spending in this
entire sector. Just vanished into thin air, paid
to bots. So companies are just lighting money
on fire, paying robots to look at ads. Precisely.
But if we move beyond simple economic fraud,
we get into something much more disturbing. Government
propaganda. This is where the story takes a turn
I didn't expect when we started looking into
this. I get selling tea, but selling a political
regime. Governments have realized the power of
the influencer. If you can trust an influencer
to sell you a lipstick, you might also trust
them to sell you a political narrative. That's
a chilling thought. The source specifically mentions
countries like Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
They have enlisted influencers to spread positive
images and, crucially, to distract from human
rights criticisms. So come visit our beautiful
beaches and our amazing skyscrapers and please
ignore the political prisoners. Essentially,
yes. And this brings us to the Dubai case study.
This needs a deep dive because Dubai is often
called the influencer capital of the world. You've
seen it. Oh, constantly. The desert safaris,
the infinity pools, the supercars. Every influencer
seems to go there. It's like a pilgrimage. It's
not an accident. It is deliberate policy. But
to operate there as an influencer, you often
must acquire expensive licenses or work through
government -approved agencies. So there are strings
attached. Big strings. They are strictly restricted
from speaking about religion, politics or saying
anything against the regime. It is a curated
reality on a state level. So when I see those
vlogs, I'm watching state approved content, even
if it looks like a fun vacation video. Yes, but
it gets darker. There is a seedy underbelly to
how this lavish lifestyle is funded for some.
A Dark Side report from October 2022 reveals
some really shocking details. Are we talking
about the porta potty rumors? I've seen those
on TikTok, but they always felt like urban legends
or just misogynistic gossip. Is there actual
truth to it? We have to be careful with Internet
rumors for sure. But the source material we reviewed
specifically cites reports regarding illicit
funding. The report revealed that some influencers
promoting Dubai were engaging in prostitution
to fund their lavish lifestyles. Wow. So the
designer bag isn't always from a brand deal?
Not always. The report indicates the demand was
driven by a rise in ultra -rich expatriates,
specifically mentioning Russian oligarchs who
had moved to the Emirate to escape U .S. sanctions.
Wow. This huge influx of wealth increased the
demand and the rates for these illicit services.
That paints such a grim, grim picture. You have
these influencers posting photos of a dream life
yachts, luxury hotels, living my best life. And
behind the scenes, it might be funded by sanctioned
money and sexual exploitation. It really shatters
the illusion. It highlights the extreme gap between
the digital image and the physical reality. It
is a house of cards. And the influencers are
often trapped in it, right? Once you start living
that lifestyle, you have to maintain it. You
can't just go back to flying economy. The pressure
is immense. So with all this fraud and sketchy
behavior, the bots, the fake ads, the propaganda,
the illicit funding, surely someone is trying
to police this. We mentioned the FTC earlier,
but is it actually working? Regulation is trying
to catch up, but it is very much a Wild West
scenario. In the USA, as we said, the FTC treats
this under native advertising. The rules are
simple in theory. Disclosures must be hard to
miss. Use simple language and give honest reviews.
Hard to miss. So no hiding the hashtag ad in
white text on a white background or burying it
in a list of 20 other hashtags. Exactly. And
there have been enforcement actions. In 2017,
they sent out those 90 educational letters to
celebrities and athletes. But there was one specific
scandal that really forced their hand. The gambling
scandal involving two YouTubers, Trevor Martin
and Thomas Cassell. Oh, I remember hearing about
this vaguely. This was the CSGO thing, the video
game, right? What exactly happened there? This
is a perfect example of predatory influence.
Martin and Cassell were massive YouTubers in
the gaming space with millions of young followers.
Right, kids, basically. Mostly kids and teenagers.
They were posting these very slickly produced
videos where they would go onto a website. a
skin gambling site and win thousands and thousands
of dollars they'd be screaming jumping out of
their chairs telling their fans oh my god i just
won huge you have to check this site out standard
endorsement stuff look how fun and easy this
is except for one crucial detail they owned the
site no they earned it they had access to the
back end they were likely manipulating the odds
to ensure they won on camera so the whole thing
was fake the whole thing was a setup They were
encouraging their fans, many of whom were minors,
to gamble real money on a site where they, the
influencers, were the ones profiting directly
from the losses. It was deceptively endorsed.
That is evil. There's no other word for it. It's
stealing from kids who trust you, who look up
to you. It triggered specific legal enforcement
and warnings from the FTC. But it shows the danger.
When you remove the corporate label, people lower
their guard. They didn't think they were walking
into a casino. They thought they were playing
a game with their favorite YouTuber. And regulators
are now looking at other sectors too, right?
Financial advice seems to be the new minefield.
Yes, the finfluencers. The UK's Financial Conduct
Authority, the FCA, is cracking down hard on
this. You see these guys on TikTok saying, buy
this crypto or this stock is going to the moon.
Quit your job and day trade from your phone.
And often they have zero qualifications. They're
now facing real legal consequences if they fail
to include risk warnings for investment products.
Because bad financial advice can ruin lives faster
than bad skincare. That's for sure. It seems
like every time the regulators catch up, the
industry just moves somewhere new, somewhere
even harder to police. Which brings us to the
final frontier. Right. The place where regulation
might get really tricky. Because what happens
when the influencer isn't a person at all? This
is the uncanny valley. We are talking about virtual
influencers. We are talking about computer -generated
people, not cartoons, but realistic avatars designed
to look like us. Yes. Defined as 3D characters
designed to look like real people. They have
biographies. They conduct interviews. They act
like models or singers. But they're created and
managed entirely by 3D artists and advertisers.
The most famous one is Lil Miquela, right? I
remember when she popped up on Instagram and
everyone was so confused. Lil Miquela is the
prime example. When she first appeared, she was
so realistic that she prompted this massive wave
of speculation. Is she real? Is she an art project?
Is she a heavily edited human? Right. Nobody
knew what to believe. It was eventually revealed
she was an advertising creation from a tech startup,
a product. But she has millions of followers.
People engage with her like she's a human. They
leave comments saying, you look beautiful today
or I love your outfit. They're having a relationship
with the computer program. And from a business
perspective, the implication is incredibly seductive
for brands. Think about it. Why hire a human?
Humans are messy. Humans get tired. Humans age.
Humans have scandals. Humans might say something
offensive on Twitter 10 years ago that gets them
canceled today. Yeah. Humans demand raises. A
virtual influencer is always on brand. Always
perfect. Always. They never complain. They never
renegotiate based on ego. And they can be in
10 places at once filming 10 different campaigns.
Some are now so realistic they can fool users
entirely. But let's look at the philosophical
implication here for a second. If a brand owns
the influencer, they own the parasocial relationship.
That is the absolute key. With a human influencer,
there is still a person there. They might refuse
to sell a product they hate. They might have
a moral compass. They have some agency. A virtual
influencer has no agency. It is a puppet. It's
a puppet. The corporation can change its personality,
its politics, or its values with a software update
to better match the target demographic. It's
like the ultimate realization of the industry.
We started by trusting humans because they felt
authentic. And we might end up trusting code
because it's perfectly calibrated to seem authentic.
It brings us full circle. We sought connection
and we found a simulation of connection. So let's
recap this whole journey. We started with a teenager
with a camera in their bedroom, just wanting
to share their outfit of the day. And we ended
up with a multi -billion dollar industry that
is deeply integrated into global economies used
for government propaganda. riddled with fraud
and potentially moving toward a post -human future.
It is a massive tension. We crave that connection,
that parasocial relationship, but we are engaging
with a highly commercialized, potentially artificial
entity. And that leads us to the final thought
for today. The source mentions that 86 % of brands
plan to use influencer marketing in 2024. The
industry is not slowing down. Influence is moving
from advocacy to what they call loose interactions.
It's just becoming the water we swim in. So here's
the question for you listening right now. Next
time you are doing that scroll and you see that
perfect face recommending that perfect product.
Ask yourself this. If the most effective way
to sell a product or a political regime is through
a friend on your screen. A friend who might be
faking their lifestyle, engaging in illicit activities
to fund it, or might not even be a real human
being. What does that do to your ability to discern
truth in the real world? When the person you
trust most is a marketing construct. Who is actually
making your decisions? That is the reality behind
the post. Thanks for listening. Stay curious.