We hear a lot about ‘influencers’ these days. The more mature and sensible among us avoid them completely.
If we should stumble over them occasionally, common sense compels us to stick our fingers in our ears, close our eyes and hum loudly. Provided we’re not travelling on public transport!
Along with ‘Circus clown’ and ‘Hollywood stuntman specialising in falls from high building and mountain peaks’, ‘Influencer’ wasn’t on the list of potential jobs that my careers master at school suggested I was cut out for.
To clarify, for the handful of readers who aren’t really sure what an influencer does and how they make a living, let me quote one description I read – “An influencer is a person who uses social media to promote or recommend products, services and lifestyles to their followers and can add serious credibility to brands”.
‘Serious credibility’ mentioned in the same sentence as ‘social media’? That has to be a first.
The ‘influencer’, who receives money to try and persuade (mainly) young people to part with theirs, may be a relatively modern phenomenon.
But when many people were growing up – certainly the generation before mine – an entirely different type of ‘influencer’ loomed large in their lives . . . and there were loads of them about.
By ‘influencers’, I am, of course, referring to ‘parents’, ‘grandparents’, ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’, ‘older siblings’, and even, if you were lucky, ‘next door neighbours’.
Potentially, these were the people who, as children and young teenagers, you listened to and learned from, even if you weren’t aware of it at the time.
You observed the way they behaved, ate, dressed and interacted with each other. And probably most important of all, the way they looked after you and looked out for you, helped form the adult you became.
I’m sure that still happens, but when economic necessity forces both parents to work (family members no longer live in close proximityand we may not know who our neighbours are), the positive influence of good people in the community dissolves.
Social media ‘influencers’ are a poor substitute.
By the way, I reckon I’d have made a brilliant Hollywood stuntman!