Ice cream truck makes Instagram 'stars' pay double
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
It also comes across, that he rather enjoyed his meta role of becoming an 'anti-influencer' and then using that influence to get the traditional media involved, thus influencing the silent majority to get behind his message, with bonus points for boosting his business without compromising on his ideals.
I walk by the CVT ice cream truck in the article about once a week. Maybe my same influencers tried him as well. I hope so.
Humanity will have a lot more 'influencers' or 'stars' who stand out and have incredible influence. This can be entertainers who have a billion followers, or software developers who make a living as speakers and 'evangelists', but can also mean political influence: The last elections in Germany were massively impacted by a polarizing video from a blue haired Youtuber - why shouldn't that guy run for office himself next time? There are still many institutions and gatekeepers due for disruption.
This is economically fueled by advertising. Firstly, using influencers to present a product is fundamentally stronger than classic advertising. Secondly, it's cheaper for the advertiser, while the influencer just needs a few thousands/month to quit their job.
Additionally, regarding politics: While I do believe that empowering people who are actually concerned with the well-being of their community is important and an area in which our political systems could improve, I also think that "disrupting" politics by giving power to influencers would ultimately lead to more bad than good (in the form of indoctrination, corruption and populism).
It’s just more complicated than YouTube and free distribution.
The way in which people use free distribution provided the internet has changed, and will change a lot.
The problem with your ideas is that they are just concepts extrapolated from very current trends. You should get a wider scope, and make fewer lazy predictions.
This happened in Brazil. Kim Kataguiri[1] gained visibilty as a YouTuber and is now a congressman.
Eh, do you have that backwards? Wouldn't we classify "everyone paying their own" as individualistic?
On a side note, we've always had "influencers." They were the celebrities that appeared on ads. This is just the internet-enabled, more granular manifestation of that phenomenon.
I'm gonna have to say [citation needed].
It is true that the video went viral and was very controversial, but the only effect was that the green party gained about 5% in the 18-29 age group, according to polling statistics. All other age groups were unaffected [1].
Also note that this election was for the parliament of the European Union.
[1] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/rezo-effekt-hat-e... (German)
Are there legit ones? Yes. But there are far more fake ones that game the system.
That's why there's a "backlash".
Assuming you're right, I would argue that the kind of "influencer" who sets their price point to advertise your ice cream truck at "one free ice cream" is unlikely to provide enough value to offset the opportunity cost of actually selling an ice cream to a paying customer, moreso if we take into account dishonest freeloaders.
There is no value in providing products for free to self-proclaimed advertisers who just arbitrarily show up at your business.
Isn't that the very thing they're successful at? Getting deals and stuff for free in exchange of their pretty little faces promoting it to their fans.
So more like "come play at Max's Kansas City without pay for the exposure" -- tons of bands would have jumped at the chance.
It's just that not all influencers have equal reach (and not all businesses need the extra promotion. Nike can always sell more shoes, but an ice cream stand might have to push people away if they have too many customers, as there's so many a person can serve).
The Guardian are asking the readership to support the articles, you'll note they paid for their own icecream.'Influencers' are asking the subjects to fund the articles. One is advertising, one is journalism.
I'll backtrack slightly on that last sentence, advertising/sponsorship can work for certain things, in general though its a big conflict of interest.
And of course they also need to pay for "food and rent".
If it was about "actual" work, then those journalists in need of "support" could go do a job that actually pays, in a non declining industry.
I'd rather have a vibrant scene like the blogging of yore, with good voices rising to the top (or not), than large press interests and gatekeepers.
I'm talking about real independent news. That is the kind of news that is absolutely vital for a democracy, and it's the one kind for which there is no easy business model. Ideally the readers would care about independent news, but it turns out a lot of people love getting lied to.
I do miss the old blogosphere, but it could only exist as long as it had no influence. Once it became large enough to move politics, a takeover could not be prevented.
As the old question goes, who influences the influencers?
I don't. But the beauty of it is that there are no gatekeepers there (online), and the cost of having one's voice heard are zero. And the public has the same power to call them for it (either in their own comments, or from similar outlets).
I don't care for propaganda being peddled to the public -- as long as it a voice among other voices.
I do care for private interests (e.g. like Heart or Murdoch or today's moguls) having the only means to publish theirs, and having a faux-prestige because of them being "official", "press", etc.
Blogs did away with most of that.
I am waiting for a 'before they were famous' expose from someone who does make it to get the millions of subscribers. At that level of the game it works differently, everything comes for free and stuff has to be turned down. But these people were struggling once, they once had zero subscribers/followers and nothing they could say would be received well by anyone. They must have 'couldn't even get an ice cream' stories.
Fun that it is to deride the influencer, there are options for more constructive approaches.
The ice cream truck could offer just the one ice cream to an influencer a week, with an online application form and many other administrative hoops and hurdles. Then the free ice cream could go to whomever has the most followers. Then, when awkwardly asked at the van, he could just politely show them the form. If they win the competition (of who has the most followers) and can come back a week later then sure they can have their free ice cream. That is fair enough, surely?
Before they were famous? Broke college students probably or something like that. Frankly a more respectable career than begging and peddling shit on social networks.
> Fun that it is to deride the influencer, there are options for more constructive approaches.
But why should the food truck operator care? He didn’t ask for anything and still gets solicited by these beggars (they call it a “business” but I’d argue if your business can’t buy you a $4 ice cream then something is horribly wrong). It can also be offensive, just like when artists are asked to perform for “exposure”.
If hollywood accepts it and starts including it in popular shows/movies the respectibility level will raise.
You see local news personalities/sports stars all in tv/print ads. They are trading on the respectability of their primary career you would think they suffer from a drop respectability but it increases.
Though this is true, I think there's also a lack of perception on the influencers part on the current definition of "influencer".
It's a term loosely used by people with a large following, and right there the definition crumbles - what's a large following?
I think we can agree that it depends - to some niches 200.000 followers it's not that big of a deal, while on others 50.000 followers could be a rare sight.
Then it comes the "value" of that following - the potential reach might be terrible in terms of value: they might have the wrong motivation, might be bloated with bots, or simply may not see the influencers as a value adding individual but as a good distraction while browsing the feed.
Finally the scarcity of recommendations - what used to be a monthly product placement/mention/promo, or weekly, or daily, with the current state of social media (with stories) it's almost like a big reality show, with real time shit happening all the time, and they pump so much stuff that the value as diluted - that ice cream truck was a small stop in their day of pumping content: they had breakfast somewhere, lunch, brunch, and will have dinner and party in some place.
Imo influencers from a lot of niches will increasingly become less valuable, to the point where they might have to make the decision of dropping it, after a slow vanishing due to the lack of constant content production, then it will correct itself.
> The ice cream truck could offer just the one ice cream to an influencer a week
If no one came from that influencer, it would be a wasted ice cream, plus he had no control on the content (could be damaging), plus it's a ice cream truck - doubt he has time to be fiddling with that. If one location isn't cutting it, he just moves.
30,000 followers, according to the UK's Advertising Standards Authority.[0] People who have more than that will be classed as "celebrities" and fall under a tighter set of regulations.[1]
[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/30000-followers-...
[1] The ASA is an industry self-regulatory body, rather than a government-run regulator, so they can't make anything illegal per se.
Point being, curators that are good invest a lot of time (and money) into the domain they are curating. People that love ice cream can tell you a lot about how and why different companies ice creams are different from one another.
Basically the same as saying “they have a conflict of interest and nothing they say can be trusted”. Why should I trust an influencer’s opinion about any product?