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Comment by odshoifsdhfs | Hacker News Reader

Is she pretty? I'm not trying to be sexist, and I don't even use IG, but my gf does and a while ago I worked in a product targeted at IG 'influencers'.

When researching, basically your success as an influencer had to do pretty much solely on your looks (or your photoshop skills) rather than your message. (for both men and women). You can be a 'vegan' influencer or a 'I eat meat still dripping in blood' influencer, and the most important 'variable' on your success was how attractive you were.

(outliers existed, but mostly they were 'connected/endorsed' by some big brand or celebrity already)

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You already know the answer to that question. It's just how it is.

Tangentially, I've always been fascinated by anti-consumerist lifestyle design, and a little envious of people who have that natural earthy style to them, who appear cool without a lot of effort.

Then I read an article about Instagram influencers in some surfing town in Australia and saw how much their "anti-consumerist" lifestyle cost: long story short, looking poor is extremely expensive and it turns out they were married to corporate VPs who were able to work remotely and fund that kind of lifestyle.

It actually made me feel much better about my life. Now I'm convinced that actual anti-consumerism is frumpy, and I'm happy with that.

Commodetized anti-consumers are exactly what you describe. Vapid shells of a 'message' who tend to be funded by wealthy external donors of some kind, be they spouse or the internet or whatever.

If you want to meet real anti-consumerists, they're not on the internet extolling their lifestyle. (yes, I know, no-true-scotsman and what-not).

They're busy surviving. Because they tend to be subsistence farming or very near to that. They may sell art at local fairs, or goods at local produce stands. But mostly they spend their time just trying to get by.

It's just like the 'homesteading' and 'van-living' movements. The people who are actually living those lives, and who aren't just doing it for validation on the internet aren't posting updates daily about their cute new milk goats or whatever, because they're super busy not dying and just trying to get by.

Source; the throw-back hippy communes near where I live.

Well, you're discussing basically a subset of the rural poor, who maybe are more okay with/intentional about that lifestyle than we give them credit for.

However, there's the class of bloggers who advocate for being middle-class frugal, saving up as much money as you want, and doing whatever you want with the rest of your life. Maybe some of them are full of crap but I believe many of them actually are practicing what they preach.

And there have been countless middle class professionals who've done basically the same thing without writing blogs about it -- they've just quietly lived their lives.

That lifestyle appeals to me. It just seems so much simpler and more efficient.

So... You want to believe...?

You can be anti-consumerism and be on the internet (I would call myself one, that except food, I haven't really bought anything for myself in this last year but still online ;)), but you are right, you will find them in different media than twitters/igs/facebooks. I focused on IG (but I guess twitter/facebook are the same) 99% of popular content you see is fake, produced to attract a certain audience. van-living, or surfing around the globe is as said before, mostly paid for by external sources that they don't disclose. I used to do a lot of surfing and met a lot of surf bums. They aren't usually in social media except maybe to share things about surf etc, and in most posts, are about the waves/new surf board, etc and you rarely see their faces. When you see 'whatever audience target' person in IG and it is a pretty face (usually loads of make up or youc an see the hair took 3 hours to prepare), these people have teams/donors behind them to sell you something.

yeah she's pretty, also ethnic (like, born and raised in the middle east)

There is nothing wrong with being sexist. Reality is sexist. She is only successful because she's an attractive female. And there's nothing wrong with that. Not everybody is equal.

most of these influencers think they're famous for their unique talents, that's why it might be sexist to suggest they are famous for their looks only

There's something wrong with posting flamebait comments to HN. Please don't.

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