Social media/Influencer marketing and Streamers (not exactly sure how or where this fits, but I'm adding it because, well, this is my post:) have been with us for a while now. And I'd be lying if I said there are days when it feels like navigating shark-infested waters wearing a meat suit, but it's here, and if done right, can be an asset for any brand. Here are some of my thoughts/musings/opinions/hot takes...all before coffee. If you know me, that's a Herculean feat.
The Half-Life of Human Brands
There's a moment in every influencer's/streamer's career where the content stops and the content continues anyway. You've seen it. The glow-up-to-breakdown arc. The parasocial relationship that curdles when the audience realizes they were always the product. The "taking a break for my mental health" video that gets more views than anything they made when they were fine. The apology video. The apology for the apology video. The comeback documentary on a platform they swore they'd never use.
It's tempting to call the whole ecosystem disposable. Easy, even. But that's the wrong read.
The creators who last aren't the most talented. They're the most honest about what they're actually selling. When it's a craft, they treat it like a craft. When it's a personality, they know which parts of the personality are theirs and which parts are merch. The ones who collapse are the ones who let the audience write them. They optimize for engagement until the person doing the engaging is gone, replaced by a highlight reel of someone who used to exist.
The influencer economy is tenable. It's just that most people enter it thinking it's a shortcut to something else, and it turns out to be a full-time job pretending it isn't a full-time job.
Done right: genuine expertise, a real point of view, and the discipline to say no to things that would make you more money but less you. Done right, it builds something that compounds. Done wrong: it's a performance review you can never stop passing, in front of an audience that will replace you by Tuesday and feel nothing.
The question was never whether this world is real. It's whether you can stay real inside it. Most can't. And honestly, the ones who can't are also content.
