Quit blagging for a living
Anyone with a smartphone and lip gloss can become a ‘‘vlogger’’,
Let’s start with a caveat: I like free stuff. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t, frankly. This could be because I’m a journalist and have been the grateful beneficiary of free books (for me to review), free theatre or cinema tickets (for preresearch before interviewing an actor) and free lunches.
Given that we’re in confessional mode, let me also admit that I have been known to pilfer the small bottles of shampoo from hotel bathrooms, in the belief that they are made small precisely because the management expects them to be taken.
But my love of free things has its limits. I have never shoplifted not even from the lolly bins at the supermarket. . And I haven’t ever asked for a free four-night stay for Valentine’s weekend with my boyfriend in a Dublin hotel so that I can share my thoughts with my 87,000 YouTube subscribers.
This was what vlogger and selfstyled ‘‘social influencer’’ Elle Darbydid recently. The subsequent response from the distinctly unimpressed hotel owner (‘‘It takes a lot of balls to send an email like that, if not much self-respect and dignity... the answer is no’’) went viral. As did the response to the response. ‘‘As a 22-year-old girl, who’s running her own business from her home, I don’t feel like I did anything wrong,’’ she said, before accusing the hotel owner, Paul Stenson, of ‘‘bullying’’.
My problem is with the whole concept of ‘‘social media influencers’’ in the first place. Brands, I’m told, like to use them because of their much-vaunted ‘‘realness’’. That’s why the YouTube vlogger Zoella, a freshfaced 27-year-old from Wiltshire, has amassed a £2.5 million (NZ$4.7 million) net worth by posting beauty tips online and why her first book broke records for the highest sales by a debut author. She has 12 million YouTube subscribers and 11.2 million followers on Instagram.
All because she seems, well, normal. She is not a traditional celebrity and has built up a relationship with her fans based on a degree of authenticity, which is why beauty companies and the rest are falling over themselves for her endorsement. Apparently, she’s relatable. But just how relatable can someone be when they’re a millionaire?
The rise of the social media influencer has happened in tandem with the rise of the toxic notion that you can get something for nothing purely by dint of being a screen-friendly version of yourself. In a talent-show culture where children increasingly want to be famous rather than slogging away at a conventional job, it’s little wonder that we’re being sold stuff we don’t need by people who believe they’re entitled to it.
And this sense of entitlement can be astonishing. I have a friend who works in high-end hotels, who says they’ve unofficially banned anyone from the television series Made in Chelsea after one minor cast member demanded a free stay for her birthday and trashed the hotel suite.
I am not convinced the opinions of these so-called ‘‘influencers’’ make a blind bit of difference to whether the rest of us want to stay in a hotel or buy a packet of herbal tea. Research published by the Global Web Index in December found that a measly 14 per cent of digital consumers say they ‘‘discover’’ brands through influencer endorsements.
The figure is slightly higher (17 per cent) among the target audience, the 16-24 age group, but they are the ones with the least disposable income. Only 9 per cent of 45- to 54-year-olds say they discover brands in this way, and the figure dwindles to 6 per cent for the 55-64 age group, who have real money to spend.
In their desperate rush to be down with the kids, corporations have embarrassingly taken leave of their senses and influencers are becoming victims of their own chimeric success.
The market is being flooded now that anyone with a smartphone and a passing interest in lip gloss can set themselves up as a ‘‘vlogger’’.
The very thing that made influencers stand out in the first place – their individuality – has been lost in a murky soup of sameness.
Like any market frenzy it’s long overdue for a crash.