“Authenticity” has become an economic token on social media. And, not in a metaphorical way. This has led to people becoming brands. The so-called “influencer” is an icon of an industry not yet recognized or respected by society at large.
This new industry is composed of a digital labor force whose livelihoods are at the whims of all-powerful, ever-changing algorithms. In this episode, Dr. Emily Hund, the author of The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media (Princeton University Press, 2023), explains the rise of this new economy and why it should be recognized and legitimized by the public.
Topics:
- How did this “branded” culture develop?
- What is an “influencer?”
- The Narrative of Self-sufficiency: Are you really self-sufficient if you are an influencer?
- "Authenticity" on Social Media - is it really authentic?
- Legitimizing the "Influencer Industry"
- "What books have had an impact on you?"
- "What advice do you have for teenagers?"
Bio:
Emily Hund, PhD, is the author of the book, The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media (Princeton University Press, 2023). She writes, speaks, and consults on topics related to influencers, the reshaping of cultural industries, and the digital labor force. Early in her career, she worked as a magazine writer and social media editor, and earned degrees in journalism and sociology from Penn State University.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
The so-called influencer is an icon of an
industry not yet recognized orrespected by society at large.
This new industry is composedof a digital labor force whose
livelihoods are at the whims ofall-powerful and ever-changing
algorithms.
This is the Aiming for the Moonpodcast and I'm your host,
taylor Bledsoe.
(00:31):
On this podcast, I interviewinteresting people from a
teenage perspective.
In this episode, dr Emily Hund,the author of the Influencer
Industry the Quest forAuthenticity in Social Media,
princeton University Press 2023,explains the rise of this new
economy and why it should berecognized and legitimized by
the public.
If you like what you hear today, please rate the podcast and
(00:54):
subscribe.
You can follow us at aiming thenumber for moon on all the
socials to stay up to date onpodcast news and episodes.
To date on podcast news andepisodes.
Check out the episode notes forDr Hun's full bio, as well as
links to the influencer industry, our website
AimingForTheMooncom and ourpodcast sub-stag.
Lessons From Interesting Peoplewhich, as of this recording
(01:15):
date, should have a new post outsoon about the dangers of
abstracting individuals in adivided society.
A conversation connectingsocial media and Russian
novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky, whoproposed a pathway forward when
similar times hit 1800s Russia.
All right with that sit back,relax and listen in.
Thanks again to Paxton Page forthis incredible music.
(01:37):
Well, thank you so much, drHund, for coming on the podcast.
It's great to have you here.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, so you're the author ofthe book the Influencer Industry
the Quest for Authenticity onSocial Media, and it's a huge
topic, as, of course, everyonehas social media for the most
(01:57):
part, so they're constantlyseeing these feeds.
We get a lot of our politicalnews, we get a lot of our
cultural news, we get a lot ofour movie news all from social
media.
And of course, we have allthese people there who we look
to and we're like huh, they seemto have a very idealized life.
They're always posting about X,y and Z, whether it's travel,
whether it's shopping, juststuff like that.
They're these very brandedpeople.
(02:19):
So could you talk a bit aboutwhat we see and how that
industry kind of developed?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Sure.
So, yeah, something that I thinkis it's kind of a basic fact,
but it bears repeating, is thatthe influencers that we
encounter on social media arethere strategically and there is
(02:49):
a whole world behind what theyare posting.
And so I think there's atendency for followers myself
included sometimes, you know,when you're just scrolling
through your feeds, you kind oftake what you see at face value
sometimes and just sort ofassume like, oh, you know, this
person is on this trip andthey're having a blast, or you
know, this person you know hasall these new clothes or makeup
(03:11):
or whatever, and you just kindof take it and keep scrolling.
But the reality is that thereis a large and sophisticated
industry behind these posts thatwe see in our feeds, and while
there is like a popularnarrative that influencers are
(03:32):
like doing what they love andthey're there because they're
really passionate about theirtopics and it's just kind of
like, you know, fun and all ofthat, the reality is, you know,
couldn't really be further fromthe truth there is a lot of
strategy and planning that goesbehind it.
There's a ton of work requiredto become an influencer that you
(03:57):
know has a large and engagedaudience, and so the world is a
lot more complicated than itappears.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So kind of to define our terms off the bat here, when
you say influencer, whatexactly do you mean, cause there
are a variety of different, um,I guess, people of influence on
the internet.
But when you say the wordinfluencer, specifically, what
do you mean?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I am talking about people who are creating content,
uh, for social media with theexpress goal of building an
audience and making money orgetting some sort of material
gain from doing so.
A few years ago, I think mydefinition was a little bit more
(04:40):
straightforward.
It was people who are creatingpersonal brands on social media
and working with other brands tomake money.
But in the last 4 or 5 yearsthe landscape has gotten a lot
more complex and there has alsobeen.
It just continues to grow.
There are more and more peoplewho are aspiring to be
(05:03):
influencers, or are kind of onthat bottom rung, if you will,
of maybe getting some freeproduct but they're not actually
getting paid in cash.
Or maybe they're getting alittle bit of material,
something, in return.
It's not an income by any means, and I think there there are a
(05:27):
lot of people who are at thatsort of bottom of the pyramid,
um, and so I've sort of loosenedup my definition of it to
encapsulate these people who areum, who are doing the work of
influencing but maybe notgetting the returns yet.
Um and um, and also the peoplewho are, you know, taking
(05:50):
advantage of newer platformslike TikTok and things like that
, which you know, work a littlebit differently, and so it's
kind of more likely that peopleare sort of again doing this
work of branding themselves andcreating content, seeking an
audience but not necessarilygetting the returns.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, throughout my generation.
Of course, I have a lot offriends and other people who are
trying to build their careerson social media, and then
blogging and, of course,podcasting with myself and some
of my other friends, and so,yeah, there's this idea of you
talk about this in your bookkind of wanting to individualize
your career, not tie it to aninstitution or other people.
You want to be self-sufficient.
I am curious, though are youreally self-sufficient if you
(06:33):
have an internet platform ofsome sort, because it seems to
me that you're tied to these bigalgorithms You're tied to if
your website is set up bySquarespace, squarespace may be
in there the way they changetheir systems.
So is this fake individualism?
Is this fake autonomy?
What exactly are we seeing here?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It is sort of false autonomy.
So that is something that youknow.
Going back to, how did thisindustry even come about?
So it began about 15 or soyears ago, against a really
particular historical backdrop.
So we had the rise of these newsocial media platforms, which
(07:19):
were really novel at the timeFacebook and Twitter, youtube,
tumblr they were all new.
We as a society hadn't becomecynical about them yet as many
of us have at this point.
It was really exciting and theywere, you know, claiming.
These platforms were saying youknow, we're gonna, we offer a
voice to everyone, we're goingto democratize culture.
(07:40):
You can take control of youknow your identity, your job,
all of these things.
There was a lot of like just bigoptimism about these platforms
and at the same time, there wasthe, the economic crisis, you
know, the great recession of2008, 2009,.
(08:02):
Millions of people were losingtheir jobs.
People were just losing faithin the establishment because of
these historic job losses, andthis sort of lack of faith in
institutions had already sort ofbeen growing for years.
(08:23):
You know people sort of, youknow rising levels of distrust
in, you know, government, media,religion, these sort of pillars
of society, and so in thismoment it's there.
It's like, you know, sort of aperfect storm of events where
it's like, oh, let's all rush tothese platforms and like we can
(08:45):
rely on ourselves, we're goingto, you know, rebuild culture
and, you know, connect to, youknow, the world and all of this
stuff.
And so there has always beenthat sort of narrative of
relying on yourself, takingcontrol of yourself and your
career and that sort of thingwhen we're talking about
(09:06):
influencers.
But that has really always beenfalse and is only becoming more
false as the years go on.
Influencers are definitely sothey.
They are people who essentiallyhave to start their own
(09:27):
business.
And so, in that regard, youknow, you can say, you know, you
are kind of in charge, you have, you know you have a level of
control that you might not as,like, an entry level employee at
a major corporation orsomething like that.
But you are not beholden toyourself, you are beholden to
(09:48):
your audiences, the advertisers,the brands that you're hoping
to work with or that you alreadywork with, because none of
those relationships areguaranteed.
And even if you've had one gooddeal, that doesn't mean that
the deal is going to continue orthat you're going to continue
getting new deals with newbrands, and so you're beholden
(10:11):
to the advertisers, and then, ofcourse, you're at the mercy of
these major platforms that youare using to carry out your work
.
So whenever there is a change tothe algorithm, a new feature
rolls out, um, some sort ofcontroversy.
(10:32):
You know what, whatever you getkind of pulled along, and you
have to.
You know, influencers have tospend a lot of time and energy
kind of trying to stay abreastof these changes, and it's a lot
of work because the platformsaren't transparent, you know,
(10:54):
they don't give you a warning.
Usually when they are changing,you know the type of content
that they're privileging inpeople's feeds and you, you know
you influencers wake up and seethat their engagement has
tanked or whatever, and thenthey have to try to figure out
why.
And and then, and sometimesit's like these sort of
(11:15):
wholesale, like changes to tothe industry, like when, you
know, instagram startedprivileging video because they
were trying to compete withTikTok.
That was like a massive changefor influencers who had, you
know, built their followings onInstagram largely through static
(11:36):
images.
And now it's like, oh, I haveto be like a video director and
I have to like star in videosnow, and that's like a huge.
It's like, okay, you have tolearn an entirely new skill set
and you have to completelyreorient your workday.
So yeah, as an influencer, youare very much beholden to other
(11:57):
people.
But and this kind of goes alongwith, you know, in, I think, in
American society especially, wekind of love the myth of like
this solo creative genius or,you know, solo entrepreneur who
you know did it on their own andcharted a path and, and you
(12:20):
know, grabbed life by the hornsor whatever, and was really
successful.
But that is rarely the truth.
You know.
There is almost always peoplebehind the scenes who helped
that person and that is, orshaped what that person was
doing.
And that is very much the casewith influencers as well.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Another aspect of this that we often talk about,
or at least we often see, is thepersonal branding aspect, and
so it's this idea of beingauthentic, but it's authentic to
the point that people want tosee.
So you don't want to be tooauthentic because that might not
sell or you want to just kindof measure it and dial it to
your demographics and stuff likethat.
So it almost is this weird.
(13:03):
Is it really authentic toactually strive for authenticity
on social media as it's defined?
Could you discuss kind of, whyis that so important to people?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Why is that so important to people?
Yeah, authenticity has alwaysbeen like the juice that keeps
this industry going.
Again, there are a lot of likeintersecting reasons for this
that I get into in the book.
But first is authenticity hasalways been like a really
salient concept, especially inWestern cultures.
Really salient concept, andespecially in Western, you know,
cultures, it's something thatpeople, you know, philosophers
(13:39):
and regular people have like,have talked about for centuries,
and it's also something thathas been leveraged strategically
by government and media, youknow, who are trying to persuade
people of a message.
It's been, it's been leveragedin this way for at least 100,
(13:59):
150 years.
So people working in the sortof media industries have always
known that cultivating a senseof authenticity around your
message, you know, can make yourmessage more impactful, more
powerful.
And so there's that piece of it, there's that sort of
(14:20):
historical media piece.
There's also this, the piece ofthe story of how the industry,
the influencer industry, came tobe, which was this, this sort
of first generation ofinfluencers who were, you know,
taking up these platforms andbuilding these major audiences.
You know, in the first decadeof the 2000s, call it, a lot of
(14:45):
them did kind of fall into itbecause it wasn't an established
career already.
And so when they were tellingtheir audiences like, oh my gosh
, like like I, you know, I justgot approached by um, you know,
dove and I'm going to do thissponsored content, uh, about
soap, like how cool is that, Ican, I'm actually able to, um,
(15:06):
you know, fund my, my work, thatI'm doing here.
And you know that that sort ofum, that sort of surprised
energy around these earlysponsored posts that bolstered
the sort of authenticity of thefield, of all of these early
influencers, kind of saying,look, I didn't go into this for
(15:28):
the money, but now the money'scoming, isn't that exciting.
And that really sort of uh,helped authenticity sort of
entrench itself further and likein this industry as being like
the thing that people talkedabout and cultivated and the
thing that sort of um, thebetter they could perform
(15:50):
authenticity, the the more theywere able to sort of rationalize
earning money for it.
And so even though now, youknow, in the over the last 10,
15 years, people are going intothe influencer industry with a
strategic mindset, you knowthey're not just falling into it
(16:11):
and saying, oh, wow, howamazing is this.
That narrative has been reallyconsistent of that these are
people who are just like beingthemselves and over the years it
has become, you know what I,what I argue in the book is like
(16:32):
an industrial construction orit's an industrial production.
Authenticity is something thatinfluencers now have to perform,
because once advertisers gotinvolved, which was pretty early
on, they got involved becauseinfluencers had this seemingly
authentic connection with theiraudiences and they were people
(16:53):
who were sort of talking aboutthings in a way that, you know,
more traditional media andadvertising did not.
That was their appeal, um, butonce it, once that becomes the
commodity, then you have tocommodify it, um, you have to
make it something that'spredictable, something that can
(17:16):
be assigned financial value, andit is also something that is
shaped by, you know, thechanging technologies that
govern the influencer space.
And so, while many influencersthat I interview have
(17:37):
interviewed over the years, youknow, expressed like, expressed
a genuine desire to like, notlie necessarily and I should say
this certainly isn't true forall influencers.
You know some people are lying,but as far as my, my
interviewees, like they, youknow most of them say like, I
(18:00):
didn't go into this to to lieLike I, really I don't want to
lie, I want to be myself, but atthe same time, I can't just
like say whatever I want, youknow, and I can't just partner
with whatever brand I want orjust do whatever occurs to me on
any given day.
(18:22):
I have to remain brand safe,which means I have to post
content that doesn't offendbrands and makes me look
appealing to them.
As a know I'm not going toshare personal things that I
don't want to share, and I haveto also create the types of
content you know, like the videoversus the image, versus using
(18:46):
a filter, do it.
You know all of these thingsparticipating in you know
various trends, all these thingsyou know.
They say, like I have to do allthese things to perform my
authenticity in a way that keepsthe audiences coming and thus
keeps the advertisers interested.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
It's interesting because it's not like in some
cultures this idea is kind oflike not demonized, but it's
like look down upon, like, oh,you're just shifting in the
sways of whatever's popular orsomething like that.
But I know, it's like down upon, like oh, you're just shifting
in the sways of whatever'spopular or something like that.
But you know, it's like, it's alegitimate career.
They're making money and theyhave a lifestyle off of it.
In like in another realm oftheir lives.
They might have been an officeworker or someone who's been a
(19:26):
part of a big corporation, butno, these people have their own
streams of income from thesevarious brands and things.
So it is a legitimate career.
They are really entrepreneurs.
But it is interesting that it'slike it's this weird place that
they're caught in.
It's like this how do you putyourself on a platform but still
be yourself and make money fromit?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
And it's yeah, yeah, I mean I would.
I would respond to that bysaying it is a career and I want
to.
It needs to be more legitimized.
So right now the industry iskind of um, kind of wide open,
and so anyone can.
(20:08):
Can, you know, start, you know,posting to their platform of
choice and try to make it as aninfluencer, and you know, most
of these people will fail, ofcourse, but but anyone can try
and also anyone can sort ofexploit these features of the
industrialized performance, ofauthenticity.
(20:30):
You know you can kind of seewhat other people are doing kind
of authenticity.
You know you can kind of seewhat other people are doing kind
of, you know, copy, copy theirsort of modes of expressing
themselves.
You can even, you know thereare people out there who will
like pretend to have brand dealswhen they don't, or, you know,
pretend to be going on a trip tothis location or going to this
(20:55):
restaurant or whatever, orhaving this behind the scenes
access in some way that they,that they don't actually have,
and and.
So that is one issue.
And then, on the flip side,within these major influencer
(21:17):
marketing agencies, within theinfluencer teams at major brands
, there is discrimination thathappens.
There are a lot of differentissues that also sort of shape,
(21:40):
you know, lead the industry inparticular directions.
On the financial side of things, there are these, you know,
these influencer marketplaceswhere you know you can like sign
up, say, like I'm, I'm so andso I'm, these are my, you know
I'm, these are the things thatI'm interested in, here's my
accounts, blah, blah, blah.
(22:01):
And then brands use thesemarketplaces to, like, you know,
search and turn up influencersthat they might want to work
with and and that sort of thing.
Um, and these marketplaces arealso, like, really open for,
like X, for exploitation, youknow, both by um brands or by
other groups who are trying toget their messages out there and
(22:23):
looking to, um, you know, sortof mobilize, like people to to
spread their messages, and by uminfluencers who may maybe, like
aren't actually, don't actuallyhave an audience or aren't
actually, you know, doing theirwork in a, in an above board way
, um, to sort of exploit thesebrand opportunities.
(22:47):
So there are a lot of, uh, weakspots in this industry and
there's also not a lot of publicunderstanding about the
industry and about, like, aboutwhat goes on behind the scenes,
what really is the goal of, youknow influencer marketing, of
(23:08):
influencer marketing, that sortof thing.
And so I think we are at a placewhere the people working in the
industry, people working atbrands, at marketing firms and
established influencers, reallyhave a responsibility to further
professionalize the space andturn it into a more legitimate
(23:33):
industry, develop, you know,internal codes of conduct and
ethics and oversight and youknow all of these things to get
it to a place where there isless A fraud I suppose it would
(23:59):
be the word and exploitation inthe space and where the public
is also a little bit bettereducated about this content, so
that so that you know people whoare encountering this content,
you know can, can evaluate it.
You know, like we have gottento a place with other things you
(24:22):
know, like ads on television.
You know we understand whatwe're encountering when we see
those now, but we didn't ahundred, or not a hundred, but
you know we didn't 75 years ago,and so we need to get to a
place where there's betterunderstanding and better
consistency with the, with theindustry.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
In some ways making it more authentic by showing
behind the scenes what's reallyhappening and then like not
allowing outright fraud, forinstance, or stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, I mean, authenticity is a slippery
concept and it's like in onehand you could say, like if that
makes it more authentic.
On the other hand, you mightsay like that we have to just
accept that it will never beauthentic.
But I guess that's a matter ofopinion.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, Depending on the way it goes.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, Well, kind of wrapping up with our last two
questions, definitely go checkout the book for more
(25:33):
explorations of this, of thesetopics.
They're fascinating, they'revery relevant Funny to use that
term in a influencerconversation.
But what books have had animpact on you?
This is a hard question toanswer because so many books
have left an imprint on me orshaped me in some way.
Letters to a Young Poet, whichI read as an older teenager, and
it's just something that reallyresonated with me at the time
(25:58):
because of, even if you don'taspire to uh, you know a
creative life, it has stillreally important messages about
(26:20):
trying to chart a path that isas free from the judgment of
others as it can be.
Um and um can be and sort ofadhering to what you know to be
true and the importance ofhaving solitude and time to
(26:40):
reflect and things like that.
And that's a book that has juststayed with me and I still
return to it once in a while andthere's always something sort
of new to discover in that.
More practically speaking, onthe professional side of things,
alice Marwick's book StatusUpdate was an important book for
(27:03):
me professionally because itcame out at a time when I was
just starting to apply tograduate school programs and I
knew that I was interested instudying social media.
This was over 10 years ago andso this was a time where social
media was still, you know,considered sort of a new
(27:25):
frontier and I had been lookingat sociology programs initially
and finding that sociology as adiscipline was not really that
excited about media at that timeand I was kind of wondering
like where I know there's a pathhere, but I don't know where it
(27:47):
is or what it's going to looklike.
And when I read that book, thatreally helped me feel confident
that there was a path for meprofessionally pursuing research
of social media, and that youcould write, you know, a book
that was interesting andaccessible and um helped people
(28:10):
understand, you know, the innerworkings of technology.
Um, in some way, um.
And then another book, uh, orseries of books that came to
mind um is um again sort ofgoing back to the personal end
of thing is Elena Ferrante'sNeapolitan Quartet, which has
(28:34):
developed such a rabid globalfan base over the years, and I
kind of just fell into the booksthough several years ago and
was just totally sucked intothem and they just really
touched me, and in a really deepway.
(28:57):
I have an early memory of mygreat grandmother telling me in
her kitchen I'm a Napolitan andyou're a Napolitan, and that
really stuck with me as a youngchild, when you are still, you
know, really just developing whoyou are, and my family always
sort of cultivated a connectionbetween us, who were, you know,
(29:23):
born and raised in the UnitedStates, and the world that they
left behind.
And reading those books wasjust, they just really moved me
because they're so beautifullydetailed and just so beautifully
written and they feel theydescribe a world that is, it
(29:44):
feels familiar to me in someways, but it's also very, very
distant from my reality and fromthe time period that I'm living
in, and it just was a beautiful, heartbreaking story to get
lost in and also really made mefeel sort of connected to my own
family's journey in a new way,and the TV show that they have
(30:07):
made out of it is actually verygood as well.
But read the books first.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, those are all really interesting.
I love when people tie likebooks that had a personal impact
on them and in their career.
Then also with the last book,how it kind of ties you into
your family history and givingyou perspective on where your
family went from there.
Yeah it's really unique.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
The last one Well, I was going to say, I think, as
you get older.
I mean, there's so much talkabout work-life balance and
work-life separation and allthese things, and you know, like
you are yourself, you know whenyou're working or when you're
not, and so all these things dotie together and make you who
(30:49):
you are.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
So yeah, yeah.
What advice do you have forteenagers?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
kind of off of that Hang out with your friends,
listen to music and get to knowyourself.
That is the greatest gift thatthat you can give yourself is
taking the time to listen toyour instincts, listen to the
(31:17):
things that go off in your head,or something that you really
like or you don't like, or youwant to do or you are not
comfortable doing.
Listen to yourself and honorand honor that and, um, and yeah
, don't be afraid to just stand.
You know, develop your beliefsand and stand firm in them well.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Thank you so much, dr hund, for coming on the podcast
.
I really enjoyed ourconversation.
We talked about the influencerindustry, of course, how it's
become an industry, and thenauthenticity, as well as how did
it get started and, yeah, allthese other nooks and crannies
that we explored throughout theinterview.
Again, thanks so much forcoming on Thank you.
The so-called influencer is an icon of an
industry not yet recognized orrespected by society at large.
This new industry is composedof a digital labor force whose
livelihoods are at the whims ofall-powerful and ever-changing
algorithms.
This is the Aiming for the Moonpodcast and I'm your host,
taylor Bledsoe.
(00:31):
On this podcast, I interviewinteresting people from a
teenage perspective.
In this episode, dr Emily Hund,the author of the Influencer
Industry the Quest forAuthenticity in Social Media,
princeton University Press 2023,explains the rise of this new
economy and why it should berecognized and legitimized by
the public.
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Lessons From Interesting Peoplewhich, as of this recording
(01:15):
date, should have a new post outsoon about the dangers of
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similar times hit 1800s Russia.
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(01:37):
Well, thank you so much, drHund, for coming on the podcast.
It's great to have you here.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, so you're the author ofthe book the Influencer Industry
the Quest for Authenticity onSocial Media, and it's a huge
topic, as, of course, everyonehas social media for the most
(01:57):
part, so they're constantlyseeing these feeds.
We get a lot of our politicalnews, we get a lot of our
cultural news, we get a lot ofour movie news all from social
media.
And of course, we have allthese people there who we look
to and we're like huh, they seemto have a very idealized life.
They're always posting about X,y and Z, whether it's travel,
whether it's shopping, juststuff like that.
They're these very brandedpeople.
(02:19):
So could you talk a bit aboutwhat we see and how that
industry kind of developed?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Sure.
So, yeah, something that I thinkis it's kind of a basic fact,
but it bears repeating, is thatthe influencers that we
encounter on social media arethere strategically and there is
(02:49):
a whole world behind what theyare posting.
And so I think there's atendency for followers myself
included sometimes, you know,when you're just scrolling
through your feeds, you kind oftake what you see at face value
sometimes and just sort ofassume like, oh, you know, this
person is on this trip andthey're having a blast, or you
know, this person you know hasall these new clothes or makeup
(03:11):
or whatever, and you just kindof take it and keep scrolling.
But the reality is that thereis a large and sophisticated
industry behind these posts thatwe see in our feeds, and while
there is like a popularnarrative that influencers are
(03:32):
like doing what they love andthey're there because they're
really passionate about theirtopics and it's just kind of
like, you know, fun and all ofthat, the reality is, you know,
couldn't really be further fromthe truth there is a lot of
strategy and planning that goesbehind it.
There's a ton of work requiredto become an influencer that you
(03:57):
know has a large and engagedaudience, and so the world is a
lot more complicated than itappears.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So kind of to define our terms off the bat here, when
you say influencer, whatexactly do you mean, cause there
are a variety of different, um,I guess, people of influence on
the internet.
But when you say the wordinfluencer, specifically, what
do you mean?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I am talking about people who are creating content,
uh, for social media with theexpress goal of building an
audience and making money orgetting some sort of material
gain from doing so.
A few years ago, I think mydefinition was a little bit more
(04:40):
straightforward.
It was people who are creatingpersonal brands on social media
and working with other brands tomake money.
But in the last 4 or 5 yearsthe landscape has gotten a lot
more complex and there has alsobeen.
It just continues to grow.
There are more and more peoplewho are aspiring to be
(05:03):
influencers, or are kind of onthat bottom rung, if you will,
of maybe getting some freeproduct but they're not actually
getting paid in cash.
Or maybe they're getting alittle bit of material,
something, in return.
It's not an income by any means, and I think there there are a
(05:27):
lot of people who are at thatsort of bottom of the pyramid,
um, and so I've sort of loosenedup my definition of it to
encapsulate these people who areum, who are doing the work of
influencing but maybe notgetting the returns yet.
Um and um, and also the peoplewho are, you know, taking
(05:50):
advantage of newer platformslike TikTok and things like that
, which you know, work a littlebit differently, and so it's
kind of more likely that peopleare sort of again doing this
work of branding themselves andcreating content, seeking an
audience but not necessarilygetting the returns.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Yeah, throughout my generation.
Of course, I have a lot offriends and other people who are
trying to build their careerson social media, and then
blogging and, of course,podcasting with myself and some
of my other friends, and so,yeah, there's this idea of you
talk about this in your bookkind of wanting to individualize
your career, not tie it to aninstitution or other people.
You want to be self-sufficient.
I am curious, though are youreally self-sufficient if you
(06:33):
have an internet platform ofsome sort, because it seems to
me that you're tied to these bigalgorithms You're tied to if
your website is set up bySquarespace, squarespace may be
in there the way they changetheir systems.
So is this fake individualism?
Is this fake autonomy?
What exactly are we seeing here?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It is sort of false autonomy.
So that is something that youknow.
Going back to, how did thisindustry even come about?
So it began about 15 or soyears ago, against a really
particular historical backdrop.
So we had the rise of these newsocial media platforms, which
(07:19):
were really novel at the timeFacebook and Twitter, youtube,
tumblr they were all new.
We as a society hadn't becomecynical about them yet as many
of us have at this point.
It was really exciting and theywere, you know, claiming.
These platforms were saying youknow, we're gonna, we offer a
voice to everyone, we're goingto democratize culture.
(07:40):
You can take control of youknow your identity, your job,
all of these things.
There was a lot of like just bigoptimism about these platforms
and at the same time, there wasthe, the economic crisis, you
know, the great recession of2008, 2009,.
(08:02):
Millions of people were losingtheir jobs.
People were just losing faithin the establishment because of
these historic job losses, andthis sort of lack of faith in
institutions had already sort ofbeen growing for years.
(08:23):
You know people sort of, youknow rising levels of distrust
in, you know, government, media,religion, these sort of pillars
of society, and so in thismoment it's there.
It's like, you know, sort of aperfect storm of events where
it's like, oh, let's all rush tothese platforms and like we can
(08:45):
rely on ourselves, we're goingto, you know, rebuild culture
and, you know, connect to, youknow, the world and all of this
stuff.
And so there has always beenthat sort of narrative of
relying on yourself, takingcontrol of yourself and your
career and that sort of thingwhen we're talking about
(09:06):
influencers.
But that has really always beenfalse and is only becoming more
false as the years go on.
Influencers are definitely sothey.
They are people who essentiallyhave to start their own
(09:27):
business.
And so, in that regard, youknow, you can say, you know, you
are kind of in charge, you have, you know you have a level of
control that you might not as,like, an entry level employee at
a major corporation orsomething like that.
But you are not beholden toyourself, you are beholden to
(09:48):
your audiences, the advertisers,the brands that you're hoping
to work with or that you alreadywork with, because none of
those relationships areguaranteed.
And even if you've had one gooddeal, that doesn't mean that
the deal is going to continue orthat you're going to continue
getting new deals with newbrands, and so you're beholden
(10:11):
to the advertisers, and then, ofcourse, you're at the mercy of
these major platforms that youare using to carry out your work
.
So whenever there is a change tothe algorithm, a new feature
rolls out, um, some sort ofcontroversy.
(10:32):
You know what, whatever you getkind of pulled along, and you
have to.
You know, influencers have tospend a lot of time and energy
kind of trying to stay abreastof these changes, and it's a lot
of work because the platformsaren't transparent, you know,
(10:54):
they don't give you a warning.
Usually when they are changing,you know the type of content
that they're privileging inpeople's feeds and you, you know
you influencers wake up and seethat their engagement has
tanked or whatever, and thenthey have to try to figure out
why.
And and then, and sometimesit's like these sort of
(11:15):
wholesale, like changes to tothe industry, like when, you
know, instagram startedprivileging video because they
were trying to compete withTikTok.
That was like a massive changefor influencers who had, you
know, built their followings onInstagram largely through static
(11:36):
images.
And now it's like, oh, I haveto be like a video director and
I have to like star in videosnow, and that's like a huge.
It's like, okay, you have tolearn an entirely new skill set
and you have to completelyreorient your workday.
So yeah, as an influencer, youare very much beholden to other
(11:57):
people.
But and this kind of goes alongwith, you know, in, I think, in
American society especially, wekind of love the myth of like
this solo creative genius or,you know, solo entrepreneur who
you know did it on their own andcharted a path and, and you
(12:20):
know, grabbed life by the hornsor whatever, and was really
successful.
But that is rarely the truth.
You know.
There is almost always peoplebehind the scenes who helped
that person and that is, orshaped what that person was
doing.
And that is very much the casewith influencers as well.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Another aspect of this that we often talk about,
or at least we often see, is thepersonal branding aspect, and
so it's this idea of beingauthentic, but it's authentic to
the point that people want tosee.
So you don't want to be tooauthentic because that might not
sell or you want to just kindof measure it and dial it to
your demographics and stuff likethat.
So it almost is this weird.
(13:03):
Is it really authentic toactually strive for authenticity
on social media as it's defined?
Could you discuss kind of, whyis that so important to people?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Why is that so important to people?
Yeah, authenticity has alwaysbeen like the juice that keeps
this industry going.
Again, there are a lot of likeintersecting reasons for this
that I get into in the book.
But first is authenticity hasalways been like a really
salient concept, especially inWestern cultures.
Really salient concept, andespecially in Western, you know,
cultures, it's something thatpeople, you know, philosophers
(13:39):
and regular people have like,have talked about for centuries,
and it's also something thathas been leveraged strategically
by government and media, youknow, who are trying to persuade
people of a message.
It's been, it's been leveragedin this way for at least 100,
(13:59):
150 years.
So people working in the sortof media industries have always
known that cultivating a senseof authenticity around your
message, you know, can make yourmessage more impactful, more
powerful.
And so there's that piece of it, there's that sort of
(14:20):
historical media piece.
There's also this, the piece ofthe story of how the industry,
the influencer industry, came tobe, which was this, this sort
of first generation ofinfluencers who were, you know,
taking up these platforms andbuilding these major audiences.
You know, in the first decadeof the 2000s, call it, a lot of
(14:45):
them did kind of fall into itbecause it wasn't an established
career already.
And so when they were tellingtheir audiences like, oh my gosh
, like like I, you know, I justgot approached by um, you know,
dove and I'm going to do thissponsored content, uh, about
soap, like how cool is that, Ican, I'm actually able to, um,
(15:06):
you know, fund my, my work, thatI'm doing here.
And you know that that sort ofum, that sort of surprised
energy around these earlysponsored posts that bolstered
the sort of authenticity of thefield, of all of these early
influencers, kind of saying,look, I didn't go into this for
(15:28):
the money, but now the money'scoming, isn't that exciting.
And that really sort of uh,helped authenticity sort of
entrench itself further and likein this industry as being like
the thing that people talkedabout and cultivated and the
thing that sort of um, thebetter they could perform
(15:50):
authenticity, the the more theywere able to sort of rationalize
earning money for it.
And so even though now, youknow, in the over the last 10,
15 years, people are going intothe influencer industry with a
strategic mindset, you knowthey're not just falling into it
(16:11):
and saying, oh, wow, howamazing is this.
That narrative has been reallyconsistent of that these are
people who are just like beingthemselves and over the years it
has become, you know what I,what I argue in the book is like
(16:32):
an industrial construction orit's an industrial production.
Authenticity is something thatinfluencers now have to perform,
because once advertisers gotinvolved, which was pretty early
on, they got involved becauseinfluencers had this seemingly
authentic connection with theiraudiences and they were people
(16:53):
who were sort of talking aboutthings in a way that, you know,
more traditional media andadvertising did not.
That was their appeal, um, butonce it, once that becomes the
commodity, then you have tocommodify it, um, you have to
make it something that'spredictable, something that can
(17:16):
be assigned financial value, andit is also something that is
shaped by, you know, thechanging technologies that
govern the influencer space.
And so, while many influencersthat I interview have
(17:37):
interviewed over the years, youknow, expressed like, expressed
a genuine desire to like, notlie necessarily and I should say
this certainly isn't true forall influencers.
You know some people are lying,but as far as my, my
interviewees, like they, youknow most of them say like, I
(18:00):
didn't go into this to to lieLike I, really I don't want to
lie, I want to be myself, but atthe same time, I can't just
like say whatever I want, youknow, and I can't just partner
with whatever brand I want orjust do whatever occurs to me on
any given day.
(18:22):
I have to remain brand safe,which means I have to post
content that doesn't offendbrands and makes me look
appealing to them.
As a know I'm not going toshare personal things that I
don't want to share, and I haveto also create the types of
content you know, like the videoversus the image, versus using
(18:46):
a filter, do it.
You know all of these thingsparticipating in you know
various trends, all these thingsyou know.
They say, like I have to do allthese things to perform my
authenticity in a way that keepsthe audiences coming and thus
keeps the advertisers interested.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
It's interesting because it's not like in some
cultures this idea is kind oflike not demonized, but it's
like look down upon, like, oh,you're just shifting in the
sways of whatever's popular orsomething like that.
But I know, it's like down upon, like oh, you're just shifting
in the sways of whatever'spopular or something like that.
But you know, it's like, it's alegitimate career.
They're making money and theyhave a lifestyle off of it.
In like in another realm oftheir lives.
They might have been an officeworker or someone who's been a
(19:26):
part of a big corporation, butno, these people have their own
streams of income from thesevarious brands and things.
So it is a legitimate career.
They are really entrepreneurs.
But it is interesting that it'slike it's this weird place that
they're caught in.
It's like this how do you putyourself on a platform but still
be yourself and make money fromit?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
And it's yeah, yeah, I mean I would.
I would respond to that bysaying it is a career and I want
to.
It needs to be more legitimized.
So right now the industry iskind of um, kind of wide open,
and so anyone can.
(20:08):
Can, you know, start, you know,posting to their platform of
choice and try to make it as aninfluencer, and you know, most
of these people will fail, ofcourse, but but anyone can try
and also anyone can sort ofexploit these features of the
industrialized performance, ofauthenticity.
(20:30):
You know you can kind of seewhat other people are doing kind
of authenticity.
You know you can kind of seewhat other people are doing kind
of, you know, copy, copy theirsort of modes of expressing
themselves.
You can even, you know thereare people out there who will
like pretend to have brand dealswhen they don't, or, you know,
pretend to be going on a trip tothis location or going to this
(20:55):
restaurant or whatever, orhaving this behind the scenes
access in some way that they,that they don't actually have,
and and.
So that is one issue.
And then, on the flip side,within these major influencer
(21:17):
marketing agencies, within theinfluencer teams at major brands
, there is discrimination thathappens.
There are a lot of differentissues that also sort of shape,
(21:40):
you know, lead the industry inparticular directions.
On the financial side of things, there are these, you know,
these influencer marketplaceswhere you know you can like sign
up, say, like I'm, I'm so andso I'm, these are my, you know
I'm, these are the things thatI'm interested in, here's my
accounts, blah, blah, blah.
(22:01):
And then brands use thesemarketplaces to, like, you know,
search and turn up influencersthat they might want to work
with and and that sort of thing.
Um, and these marketplaces arealso, like, really open for,
like X, for exploitation, youknow, both by um brands or by
other groups who are trying toget their messages out there and
(22:23):
looking to, um, you know, sortof mobilize, like people to to
spread their messages, and by uminfluencers who may maybe, like
aren't actually, don't actuallyhave an audience or aren't
actually, you know, doing theirwork in a, in an above board way
, um, to sort of exploit thesebrand opportunities.
(22:47):
So there are a lot of, uh, weakspots in this industry and
there's also not a lot of publicunderstanding about the
industry and about, like, aboutwhat goes on behind the scenes,
what really is the goal of, youknow influencer marketing, of
(23:08):
influencer marketing, that sortof thing.
And so I think we are at a placewhere the people working in the
industry, people working atbrands, at marketing firms and
established influencers, reallyhave a responsibility to further
professionalize the space andturn it into a more legitimate
(23:33):
industry, develop, you know,internal codes of conduct and
ethics and oversight and youknow all of these things to get
it to a place where there isless A fraud I suppose it would
(23:59):
be the word and exploitation inthe space and where the public
is also a little bit bettereducated about this content, so
that so that you know people whoare encountering this content,
you know can, can evaluate it.
You know, like we have gottento a place with other things you
(24:22):
know, like ads on television.
You know we understand whatwe're encountering when we see
those now, but we didn't ahundred, or not a hundred, but
you know we didn't 75 years ago,and so we need to get to a
place where there's betterunderstanding and better
consistency with the, with theindustry.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
In some ways making it more authentic by showing
behind the scenes what's reallyhappening and then like not
allowing outright fraud, forinstance, or stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, I mean, authenticity is a slippery
concept and it's like in onehand you could say, like if that
makes it more authentic.
On the other hand, you mightsay like that we have to just
accept that it will never beauthentic.
But I guess that's a matter ofopinion.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, Depending on the way it goes.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, Well, kind of wrapping up with our last two
questions, definitely go checkout the book for more
(25:33):
explorations of this, of thesetopics.
They're fascinating, they'revery relevant Funny to use that
term in a influencerconversation.
But what books have had animpact on you?
This is a hard question toanswer because so many books
have left an imprint on me orshaped me in some way.
Letters to a Young Poet, whichI read as an older teenager, and
it's just something that reallyresonated with me at the time
(25:58):
because of, even if you don'taspire to uh, you know a
creative life, it has stillreally important messages about
(26:20):
trying to chart a path that isas free from the judgment of
others as it can be.
Um and um can be and sort ofadhering to what you know to be
true and the importance ofhaving solitude and time to
(26:40):
reflect and things like that.
And that's a book that has juststayed with me and I still
return to it once in a while andthere's always something sort
of new to discover in that.
More practically speaking, onthe professional side of things,
alice Marwick's book StatusUpdate was an important book for
(27:03):
me professionally because itcame out at a time when I was
just starting to apply tograduate school programs and I
knew that I was interested instudying social media.
This was over 10 years ago andso this was a time where social
media was still, you know,considered sort of a new
(27:25):
frontier and I had been lookingat sociology programs initially
and finding that sociology as adiscipline was not really that
excited about media at that timeand I was kind of wondering
like where I know there's a pathhere, but I don't know where it
(27:47):
is or what it's going to looklike.
And when I read that book, thatreally helped me feel confident
that there was a path for meprofessionally pursuing research
of social media, and that youcould write, you know, a book
that was interesting andaccessible and um helped people
(28:10):
understand, you know, the innerworkings of technology.
Um, in some way, um.
And then another book, uh, orseries of books that came to
mind um is um again sort ofgoing back to the personal end
of thing is Elena Ferrante'sNeapolitan Quartet, which has
(28:34):
developed such a rabid globalfan base over the years, and I
kind of just fell into the booksthough several years ago and
was just totally sucked intothem and they just really
touched me, and in a really deepway.
(28:57):
I have an early memory of mygreat grandmother telling me in
her kitchen I'm a Napolitan andyou're a Napolitan, and that
really stuck with me as a youngchild, when you are still, you
know, really just developing whoyou are, and my family always
sort of cultivated a connectionbetween us, who were, you know,
(29:23):
born and raised in the UnitedStates, and the world that they
left behind.
And reading those books wasjust, they just really moved me
because they're so beautifullydetailed and just so beautifully
written and they feel theydescribe a world that is, it
(29:44):
feels familiar to me in someways, but it's also very, very
distant from my reality and fromthe time period that I'm living
in, and it just was a beautiful, heartbreaking story to get
lost in and also really made mefeel sort of connected to my own
family's journey in a new way,and the TV show that they have
(30:07):
made out of it is actually verygood as well.
But read the books first.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, those are all really interesting.
I love when people tie likebooks that had a personal impact
on them and in their career.
Then also with the last book,how it kind of ties you into
your family history and givingyou perspective on where your
family went from there.
Yeah it's really unique.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
The last one Well, I was going to say, I think, as
you get older.
I mean, there's so much talkabout work-life balance and
work-life separation and allthese things, and you know, like
you are yourself, you know whenyou're working or when you're
not, and so all these things dotie together and make you who
(30:49):
you are.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
So yeah, yeah.
What advice do you have forteenagers?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
kind of off of that Hang out with your friends,
listen to music and get to knowyourself.
That is the greatest gift thatthat you can give yourself is
taking the time to listen toyour instincts, listen to the
(31:17):
things that go off in your head,or something that you really
like or you don't like, or youwant to do or you are not
comfortable doing.
Listen to yourself and honorand honor that and, um, and yeah
, don't be afraid to just stand.
You know, develop your beliefsand and stand firm in them well.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Thank you so much, dr hund, for coming on the podcast
.
I really enjoyed ourconversation.
We talked about the influencerindustry, of course, how it's
become an industry, and thenauthenticity, as well as how did
it get started and, yeah, allthese other nooks and crannies
that we explored throughout theinterview.
Again, thanks so much forcoming on Thank you.
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