Fake Instagram Influencers

Way back in the day when blogs ruled the Internet getting admitted to the BlogAds network was kind of a big deal. It meant that you could start to make some cash from ads on your blog, and it meant your blog mattered at some level since advertisers were willing to spend money to be there. Yes, it's all pretty ridiculous in hindsight. FWIW, advertising probably brought in $100-$200 a month for me back in peak blog.

Now imagine you are a blogger in 2005 and your blog is rejected for the BlogAds network, but that validation meant so much you to you that you created fake BlogAds so your readers would think you were part of the network. That would have been really stupid, right?

Welcome to Instragram 2018, where wanna be "influencers" that can't get paid to influence do it for free to create the perception of demand for the influencer skills, in the hopes that perception will become reality and they will start getting paid deals. On Instagram, being a paid influencer is apparently a form of credibility. I guess what these kids are saying is that the only reason to be on Instagram is to get paid, so if you aren't getting paid you need to fake it so you don't look lame for being there at all?

It's a classic case of fake it till you make it. However, if people will promote brands for free it seems like that will drive down the value of paid influencers, unless they really are particularly good at driving revenue for the brands, which I doubt.

I don't know, I don't even have an Instagram account, and I'm kind of considering not having a Facebook or Twitter account in 2019. Between the privacy violations, Twitter coddling Nazis, and all the rest of the ridiculousness, I'm hard pressed to find any good coming into my life from social media.

This is entry #19 in my attempt at 31 days of blogging for December 2018. I've haven't posted here daily since about 2007, so this should be interesting.