[rowanG077]

I dislike influencers as well but this comment is painfully incorrect. Beeing an influencer does not mean you have to lie. You are however strongly influenced to lie. But that doesn't mean every influencer lies. There are plenty of very big influencer that can easily pick and choose which product they peddle to the masses. They are free to pick only the products where they agree with the marketing message.

[jrochkind1]

I think it's probably hard to distinguish what you truly "agree with" if your income relies on agreeing with it. You can avoid shilling for things you truly know are just out and out scams (although it will make your career harder, sure, before you are successful enough to call the shots yourself), but you have a lot of interest in convincing yourself you like the things that pay you. Reminds me of the well-known Upton Sinclair quote “It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it."

But if there are some influencers that make it very clear on all social media that it's a "paid placement", that they are getting paid to shill for the thing -- then I would definitely have a lot more respect for those folks. I'm not sure this is possible though? it would definitely make your "job" a lot harder, and that is telling.

But I don't necessarily want to demonize influencers; I more feel sorry for them, most of whom are hustling without making a ton of money. But the whole thing seems very sordid to me.

[com2kid]

> I think it's probably hard to distinguish what you truly "agree with" if your income relies on agreeing with it.

The simple solution is to only agree to represent products you actually like. For influencers who are popular enough that they can pick and choose, this isn't all that hard.

The thorny issue is the smaller influencers (who are the majority, for sure) who have to take whatever is offered to pay their bills.

[TeMPOraL]

> For influencers who are popular enough that they can pick and choose, this isn't all that hard.

Sure, but there's no way for me as a viewer to tell whether a given influencer is making honest choices, or just peddling whatever shit pays them the most. In fact, the whole value of influencers to the marketers is that they confuse people on this very issue, that they convince people they're being honest even though they're not.

> The thorny issue is the smaller influencers (who are the majority, for sure) who have to take whatever is offered to pay their bills.

Right. And since the popular influencers started as such smaller ones and most likely had to compromise their ethics right at the start, why should I believe they suddenly found their moral compass again once they became popular?

[rowanG077]

Sure but that's not lying. Lying is not equal to saying something that is not true. Lies are deliberate.

[jrochkind1]

I don't know about the metaphysics of what constitutes "lying", but if you're going to define it like that clearly there is unethical marketing behavior that is not exactly "lying".

I think it's crazy that it has become routine to shill for things without clearly disclosing that you are getting paid to do so, in ways that violate FTC regulations which pre-social-media would have been actually enforced.

The FTC says:

> If you endorse a product through social media, your endorsement message should make it obvious when you have a relationship (“material connection”) with the brand. A “material connection” to the brand includes a personal, family, or employment relationship or a financial relationship – such as the brand paying you or giving you free or discounted products or services.

— https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/disclosures-...

We all know that is in fact simply not done. (Sure, the clever among us know that anyone that seems to be an "influencer" is getting paid for endorsements; but it is not generally actually disclosed, we just have to assume, and if you see an individual video who's to say if it's an ordinary consumer sharing a review as a one-off, unless you are cynical or knowledgeable enough to know that doesn't really even exist anymore, everyone is on the take).

The FTC again:

> If a brand gives you free or discounted products or other perks and then you mention one of its products, make a disclosure even if you weren’t asked to mention that product.

Yeah, right. It is to laugh.

[rowanG077]

I'm not sure what you want from me at this point. I simply disagreed with the clearly wong statement of the person I was replying to that all influencers are liars. Nothing more nothing less. I didn't, nor want to, discuss the morality that a lot of influencers peddle crap without disclosure.

[jrochkind1]

Replace "lying" with "misleading" then, I'd call shilling without disclosure "misleading" without a doubt.

I am just discussing the ethics of "influencers" generally rather than trying to win a debate necessarily, but I think the picture the original commenter paints is largely accurate, and you are maybe quibbling over semantics of "lying" vs "misleading" that don't seem to be fundamental to the question to me.

But yeah, we have not much more to say on it I think.

[TeMPOraL]

> Lying is not equal to saying something that is not true. Lies are deliberate.

Yes. Being deliberate is what makes influencers liars, and not just misguided performers.

[cjf101]

I think this demonstrates how _insidious_ influencer marketing is. We feel like we're privvy to the behind the scenes decision making about this influencer or that one. But we aren't. We don't really know if they are really choosing the products they wish to promote, or if there are other considerations that influenced that decision.

The aim of influencer marketing is to leverage parasocial relationships to sell stuff, and it works because people think of influencers more like 'a somewhat distant friend' than a talking head or a traditional paid promoter.