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I guess your definition of influencer is different than mine. I think of influencers as a face selling products and lifestyle crap. Basically advertising.
But your definition expands to include pretty much anyone making any commentary on anything. Even local news reporters.
Here is the Booker incident I am referring to. https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
And I'm sure there are a handful of good Dems. I can think of a few. But like 80% of them are corrupt and need replaced.
If the majority were working for the people we wouldn't be in this shit show we are in now.
I think your narrow definition is part of the problem. There's much more to sell than products and lifestyle crap. It's why two certain countries have been funneling billions of dollars to social media political commentators. Because they're influencers. It's why governments are fighting so hard to gain control over those platforms, because every single video on them is meant to influence.
I don't know if you are familiar with Nick Powers but he is another leftist political commentator, but cites sources and had a site where you can see not only every source he uses for every video, but gobs of free spreadsheets that are completely transparent about their sources and allow anyone to keep track of both federal and state bills and who votes which way on each one. It is an amazing resource and he consistently uses it to debunk other influencers (emphasis on other) on both the left and the right. He is transparent about entities that try to pay him to speak on certain narratives or use certain soundbites and calls them out when used by others, and always asks viewers to do their own research despite the fact that his work is heavily sourced. And he is fully transparent about his position as an influencer. Anything less from any popular content creator should be seen as clear propagandizing. But yes I agree that Booker sucks, we just need to make sure we are basing him sucking on fact and not conjecture, you dig? If the majority were working for the people we wouldn't be in this shit show we are now, I completely agree. And by majority I include the people, who are constantly working against their own best interests.
I'm just saying your argument is that anyone who could influence is an "influencer".
I'm not saying you are wrong but that we definitely have different definitions.
I mean you could even extend that to saying a history teacher is an influencer.
I think that definition is too loose but I acknowledge that there is no specific defined cultural definition so it's up for personal interpretation.
Technically yes, but also no. We're talking about two different thresholds.
I wouldn't call a history teacher an influencer just because they influence people. My definition is much narrower. If someone consistently posts content online and has an audience in the thousands or more, they're an influencer, regardless of whether they're obviously selling a product.
The influence itself is the commodity. Advertising is only one way to monetize it. We've seen adversarial governments spend billions under the table paying popular Instagram and TikTok personalities to shape public opinion, and governments around the world are fighting over control of these platforms precisely because people with large online audiences can influence beliefs and behavior at scale. That's what makes them influencers. It isn't my definition, it's what the term commonly refers to. Thinking someone has to be in your face marketing to you to be an influencer only serves to make influencers more effective at shaping public opinion.