Dangerous Influences
Copying Online “Heroes” Can Cost You Money — or Worse
For Others Who Are New to This:
Being easily influenced used to be considered a weakness. People who influenced others were mean, scheming, people who took advantage of the gullibility of others. Some typical examples of influencers are religious cults and advertisers. Charles Manson, often described as a “serial killer,” actually killed nobody himself. He influenced others to commit murders for him.
It surprised me there are people lurking on the internet who want to be “influencers,” or to find someone to influence them. You´d think they would keep it quiet.
Copying people you don´t know is likely to result in, at best, buying stuff you don´t need or being scammed. The internet is a great hiding place for petty criminals, and a stage for those who want to attract attention or cash by doing things that can even kill you.
Some Basic Info
According to Google: an influencer “is an individual who has the power to affect purchase decisions of others because of his/her authority.” They do this by endorsements and product placements on social media.
Wikipedia says influencers are: “people and organisations who have a purported level of knowledge or social influence in their field.” They are sorted into groups (something people love to do) by how many followers they have. From what I read a while ago on Medium, it´s easy to fake those numbers.
You don´t even need to earn your fame and influence. To become an influencer you just announce you are one. That sounds suspiciously easy. Once set up as “expert”, you post about your topic.
Thousands of young people will prick up their ears every time, and buy whatever useless crap you are promoting. I don´t think it would work for me. I only had one child, but had little influence over her. Her room was always a mess.
One site had pictures of influencers, without giving their names. None of the faces was familiar to me. They all looked eerily similar and had insincere, constipated-looking grins. A Medium writer who met an influencer they admired was disappointed to find an obnoxious person with a completely dishonest bio. I suspect there are plenty more like that.
Google gives a list of questions people want answered. My favourite was: “What is another word for an influencer?” I can think of quite a few, but am not sure which ones are acceptable on Medium. “Self-promoting assholes” is probably okay.
Here are two of the many online “heroes” you really shouldn´t copy:
1) How Not to be Influential in Moscow
There is far worse lurking, as is often the case, in Russia. Ekaterina Didenko has, allegedly, over a million followers on Instagram. She claims expertise on saving money and cosmetics, but you wouldn´t want her advice on anything related to chemistry. On 28 February 2020 Ekaterina held her 29th birthday party at a swimming pool in South Moscow.
To make the festivities photograph well, she and her husband Valentin had 55lbs (30kg) of dry ice poured into the pool. Dry ice is carbon dioxide, heavier than air; in poorly ventilated areas it displaces oxygen. Basic science for first year secondary pupils may not be prioritised on the Russian school curriculum. Either that or the Didenkos thought it wouldn´t apply to influencers. People have strange ideas about immunity these days.
The thing ended badly as you´ve probably guessed. Three people, including Valentin, died and seven others ended up in hospital. Physical effort, such as swimming or trying to get the hell out of a bad situation, speeds up symptoms of CO2 poisoning. The symptoms include fatigue, vomiting, convulsions and death. Not a happy birthday.
Ekatarina married again only a year later. For his own safety, her new husband needs a crash course in chemistry.
2) Further East and Very High Up…
Wu Yongning was not officially an influencer, but did stunts for fame and money, and had many fans. Going by some definitions, he might have been (note past tense) a “lifestyle influencer.” They post about their daily life, activities, interests and attitudes. The sort of thing that is only mildly interesting even if you know the person.
Wu did stunts on the tops of high buildings and filmed them. Like the pool party people, his activities were sure to go wrong eventually. It´s called probability.
On 8 November 2017, he was promised 80,000 yuan ($12,000) to climb up the 62-storey Huayuan International Centre in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province in China, and mess about up there. He did pull-ups at the top but couldn´t get back up and fell 45 feet (13.72metres) to his death on a nearby rooftop.
Conclusion
It is not a good idea to be influenced by someone who announces they are influential or talented. Try making your own decisions; it works better. A Special Darwin Award awaits those who copy people they admire without thinking through the likely consequences.
Sources
Wikipedia
Three Die in Dry-Ice Incident at Moscow Pool Party https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51680049e