But what do you do when your favorite influencers tell you to buy a product that supposedly helped them lose 20 pounds?
This is what one popular Youtuber, Trisha Paytas, has continuously been promoting on her social media. Her feed consists of ads publicizing products such as boombod, as well as other dietary fads like juice cleanses and water detoxes.
She claims that these are the ways that she "LOSES WEIGHT (FAST)!" However, diets like the juice cleanse have been debunked and proven to be very unhealthy, even detrimental to one's health. However, younger kids who see these kinds of promotional posts on their social media can be easily influenced. They don't know that copying their favorite influencer could hurt them. All they see is the before and after pictures, and that image is forever etched in their mind.
Trisha is not the only influencer who promotes these kinds of things. If you take a look at Khloe Kardashian's Instagram, you will see her promoting flattummyco meal replacement shakes. Keep in mind, Khloe has 103 million followers on Instagram. Khloe has gotten a lot of flack for posting these types of ads, but it has not stopped her or others from continuing to do so.
In essence, the things that these influencers post on their socials is bullshit. Most of the time, they don't use the things they promote. But their followers don't know this, all they know is that Khloe said that she's "seriously feeling so good."
As Frankfurt says, the bullshitter "does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out... to suit his purpose." Influencers do not care about the truth value of their statements, they just care about whether what they are saying is helping get their job done: making more people buy the product. They don't realize, and probably don't care, that people will blindly follow them and pay a price for it, a price more than money.
At the end, you mention briefly that there is a "price more than money," and I am curious to know more about what you mean by this. I know you briefly touched on the idea that their younger audience could be easily influenced, but how do you specifically think they would be hurt? I think one big consequence would be body image issues. If everything on your Instagram feed is toned celebrities telling you how great they feel, even the most secure people probably start to question whether their body is good enough.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think the author is referring to body image or body shaming of some sort. It's so common in today's world, especially within social media, to run into this problem. It's really sickening that these influencers will deliberately target certain demographics because they know they are the most desperate to look "good".
DeleteI like how you talked about influencers because they're certainly a relevant topic and a new concept in the information revolution. I think your argument could be made stronger if you included some research or evidence of how many followers actually buy influencer's products. It's easy to overestimate how effective a sponsored post might be because influencers feel like they're everywhere on social media, but some context on how they actually affect their followers' behavior would support your point more.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog, and I feel like the impact of influencers advertising these products is very relevant and important to discuss. I think you explained the situation well, and I like how the two pictures of ads you included also added to your topic. To improve your blog, I think it would help if you introduced Frankfurt and his definition of "bullshit" a little bit earlier in the post. Discussing more about what bullshit on the internet is before discussing the main topic might help contextualize more of the post and how these influencers align with Frankfurt's definition of bullshit.
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