This article is an excerpt from The Rise & Fall of Influence & Influencers and first published on LinkedIn
Sometimes, I sit around with my friend 80 Proof and marvel at the ridiculous mantras, narratives and tropes we’ve not just internalized, but parrot ourselves. One that came up again yesterday is another “expert” preaching, “Building a personal brand is more important for leaders now than ever before.” It isn’t. Like a bad sitcom, the mindless glorification of “personal branding”, “influence”, and “influencers” persists, despite abysmal ratings. Alas, my friends, it’s time for us to exorcise this demon, with extreme prejudice. I’ll pause while you grab your holy water.
Let’s start in the most rational place (of an irrational pursuit) – the MATH:
Twitter followers are “distributed far more unequally than wealth. The top 1 percent of accounts has 72 percent of the followers…It is much, much harder to get to a million followers than it is to make a million dollars” – Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking)
Other networks are no different. But this impulse has nothing to do with economics. Or rationality.
The Envy Industrial Complex
When we watch the Kardashians (and I know you do…they own jets) – or when our kids obsess over YouTubers or Twitch stars, this isn’t the innocent celebrity worship of old. This is psychological warfare.
“Influencers” and the platforms they’re on are envy factories.
We’re no longer limited to coveting a neighbor’s new Honda Accord. For the first time in history, we can eavesdrop on the lavish comforts of billionaire strangers with jets, yachts, hot spouses and Instagrammable children. Not the misshapen, bucktooth monsters our loins can expunge. The aggregate effect of their carefully curated online personas and seemingly-perfect lives makes us feel like colossal losers.
With envy comes a strange, misguided feeling that we can have what they have.
‘Hey, all they did was open an Instagram account! I have an Instagram account! I have clothes! I have an exasperated, enabler spouse…and what could technically be considered a pool. I can do this!”
You can’t.
What we can’t see online are the immense advantages they started with – or the unimaginable effort it took to make something look effortless, sort of like hipster hair. Your odds can’t match the envy.
So what we’ve done is decoupled fame from achievement. Survey after survey shows kids, more than anything, want to be famous, not masterful at something where the byproduct is fame. “Screw mastery! We want the byproduct!”
The Grifters
Whenever there are so many eager beavers thirsting for fame. A cottage industry of opportunists and charlatans pops up. Each calls it something different. Most ends up under the insidious umbrella of “personal branding”. That term is as nauseating as “content strategy”. It suggests pumping low-grade bullsh*t to sell some crappy product or get a few more clicks to show your boss. “Content” is the arch-enemy of creativity. It isn’t made to say something meaningful. It’s litter manufactured to steal attention from real creators.
Same goes for all these “personal brands” and their grifters.
Grifting has many flavors:
- “I got 100,000 followers, you can too! Buy my course!”
- “Get my new books about writing books.” Or, “Listen to my podcasts about making podcasts.”
- The other day, I heard about a “mommy blogger forum” called…MOMFLUENCERS – new moms being milked…for cash. Literally. Figuratively. Like, literally.
At best, they preach a shallow form of “empowerment” to people who’d be much better off in a resume prep class. At worst, they prey on people’s worst impulses for fame and validation.
To the right person – a tiny group – some of this might be useful. But it’s not in the grifter’s interest to filter. They’re not grilters. (Sorry, I had to.) It’s like a university that accepts D-students with 850 SATs. The students would be far better off in a trade school. But as long as they can pay…
And the social networks aren’t going to stop them or you. They need billions of wannabes TRYING, HOPING, DREAMING. Filling up feeds to attract clicks for billion-dollar advertisers. That’s the irony of “the feed”. It doesn’t feed us. It starves us of our humanity.
A paradox…and an intervention
You don’t need a personal brand. Most shouldn’t try to be an influencer – or be on social media at all.
If you expect to get noticed, know that you’re diving into a massive, bloody pool, packed with floating corpses.
There’s no such thing as a “personal brand”. There are only reputations.
It’s very rare someone reads your article or watches your video and gets so flushed with lust, they hire you to consult or speak at their next event. Reality is, 99% of your yield will come from growing relationships, networking and selling.
And that’s the paradox.
Doing what you need to do to be a real business, doesn’t leave much time to “be a brand”.
Few can produce the quality and quantity needed to stand out, by creating as a side-hustle. Even if you’re a prodigy and commit HARD, you’ll toil in obscurity for years, howling into the wind, before you can buy a Big Mac with your content riches, if at all.
Content is the absolute worst way to make money. Longshoremen do better. Old Navy salesmen do better. Navy pets do better.
Now, do your own taxes, book your own travel, do your own CVS checkout, chase your own customers, do your own chores, invest your own 401K, watch your own kids…AND BE A BRAND! Peddling this tripe is stealing freedom.
Even if you’re f$%^ing phenomenal. I mean, AMAZING. There’s a limit to what you can achieve on your own.
To have any chance, you need to be employed by someone who’s not going to fire you for your warmed-over Trump jokes. Or, you need to partner with others who make money so you can focus on “influencing”. But chances are, they’ll have a big say over your work.
A better option is to be rich. Have FU money – or better, F-myself money. That way, you can do whatever you want, even if you bleed cash and abandon your family to pursue this fantasy.
Otherwise, you’re a front end with no back-end. You’re not a brand. You’re a broke freelancer, drowning in work that doesn’t pay. Solo practitioners, spinning the hamster wheel, “branding” themselves silly. Most will tap out. It’s too much work, too hard to stand out.
And if you don’t make it, you get all the downsides of having your thoughts public, with zero upside. No money for exposing data to hackers, snooping by employers and strangers, time wasted debating nonsense, losing friends over dumb political opinions.
Then there’s everything you’ll never know about – jobs, dates or opportunities you didn’t get because people judged you based on your online persona.
Despite all that, if you happen to get a dream gig, the web is crawling with malicious losers trying to cancel anyone with a droplet of success – by battering them with their own content from years ago.
So the “personal branding” grifter’s advice to “be genuine”, “be your authentic self”, “bring your whole self to work” might just get you dragged out of that beautiful glass box on the 19th floor.
Conformity will be enforced, one way or another. Pick your poison.
And if you’re already famous or successful…get the hell off social media! Twitter is an infirmary for the damaged. Victimhood, rage mobs, firings of strangers over a misspoken word… This is externalized and weaponized self-resentment. It’s why no one can ‘win’ on these platforms. They’re a superficial tools, flailing against deep internal problems.
(Explored on my latest podcast about free speech online.)
Real Influence
Real influence still happens in the real world, not online. With actions, not words.
DOING something to improve someone’s life. Helping them live longer, be more comfortable, visit a loved one, stimulate their taste buds or any of their five senses. A sex worker, yes, a common everyday prostitute, does infinitely more good in this world than any podcaster. Definitely more than every Instagram influencer. All of them. COMBINED.
Most people with real influence don’t Tweet. Many don’t even have social media accounts or own phones, like rock star Jack White of the White Stripes.
Real influence is the difference between constantly spewing your opinion and others asking you for it.
I struggle with this. It takes so much time to create content, but content helps nobody. Not really. It might entertain, inform or instruct, but it’s the rawest of raw material. It leaves soooooo much real work to be done in meatspace.
If you’re capable of real work, doing something that physically, meaningfully improves people’s lives, DO IT!
I should do it more.
Against my better judgement…
Well, here we stand, in my puddle of hypocrisy.
I’m as susceptible to this temptation as others. I’ve been trying to have it both ways and paying the price. I try to create provocative, entertaining content – things that need to be said – and run my innovation company. It’s hard. You end up doing two things poorly or neglecting important people in your life. Don’t be me. But at least, I’m fortunate I can afford to try. Many aren’t as lucky. I worry about are young people who subsist on a trickle of likes and Top Ramen. They can’t generate escape velocity into fame and are set up for a lifetime of depression or disappointment.
I’ve decided to commit. I’ve gotten enough great feedback and listener growth on The McFuture podcast to keep do an episode a week, put subscriber-only episodes out and do live shows. There’s a live show this Sunday November 3rd in NYC – not-coincidentally titled The Dirty Secrets Lies & Future of Influencers with special guest trend-forecaster, designer and Instagram influencer extraordinaire Jerome Lamaar.
Honestly, have no clue how I’m gonna keep this up, but I have a lot to say – and your positive feedback and support is great fuel.
You can hear all my thoughts on this subject on The Rise & Fall of Influence on The McFuture Podcast, including the history of influence, the surprising role of platforms, and what to do if you insist on chasing this dragon.
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