Hart District Spring 11th Grade Performance Task: Argument (2024)

Source #1
This is a video that criticizes influencers who take trendy vacation pictures.
#Shorts- “The Power of Influencers-Positive or Negative?"
Link: https://bit.ly/PTinfluencer
YouTube IgniteVisibility October 26, 2023

Anyone who thinks that millennials are lazy hasn't met an influencer.

They're out there hustling all day, everyday.

Ok, they’re not saving lives but it’s actually a tougher gig than you’d expect. They've got to write, shoot, build brand partnerships, handle social media, supervise their team, and constantly sell. Let's not forget that they are also entrepreneurs and are running their own businesses.

They are the future of advertising.

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So what exactly is an influencer and what do they do?

Agnes Kozera, co-founder of FameBit, an influencer-marketing platform, states that, "An influencer is someone who has a substantial following and can command an audience. They have specialized knowledge about a certain subject. They are all experts at building a brand." Influencers have unique ways of advertising a product that doesn't feel like advertising.

So where can you find these influencers?

According to Kozera, "YouTube is the most popular channel for influencers and is where they are financially rewarded the most. Video is the most intimate way to connect with viewers. They use YouTube, and other social channels, to make strong connections."

How the heck do they become influencers anyway?

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Usually it starts with a passion for something: makeup, cooking, gaming, etc. The truly successful influencers start because they have a desire to share what they're into. They're like your cool, older cousin telling you what kind of sneakers to buy. Influencers get a following by finding their niche, focusing on a couple of channels, and by producing quality content, consistently.

YouTuber Brandon Skeie explains, "I started putting myself on the Internet when I was in high school. I started posting covers of my favorite Top 40 hits and things just started to build up. I kept at it, until I was making enough money to stop working. It was a lot of consistency that really got me to an 'influencer' level."

What do they do all day?

According to Shanna Lisa, Marissa Rachel's business partner, “Our schedule changes depending on the day! We usually film 2-3 days per week. On filming days, we get up early to catch the natural light, put on makeup, set up the background, camera, tripod, lights, and spend a few hours filming multiple segments at once. Sometimes we'll travel to a different location to film. The rest of our time is spent either editing, making thumbnails, preparing future videos (pre-production takes a lot longer than most people realize) as well as general administrative work (answering business emails, communicating with brands, attending meetings, etc). Being self-employed means that although we have some flexibility with our schedules, we also have to be highly self-motivated."

Are they afraid that they'll have to grow up and get a real job someday?

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If YouTube were to end tomorrow, most influencers that I spoke with have a backup plan, like going back to school or pursuing another career in the media.

Brandon Skeie told me that, “I was terrified that one day all of my followers would just be bored with me; After a while that fear went away and I focused on just being the truest form of myself and working hard. So if one day I had to get a ‘real job’ I would be OK with it, even though I don't see that happening! Haha.”

After speaking with several influencers for this article, my main takeaway is that they are good kids.

Influencers sometimes get a bad rap as being narcissistic and unprofessional. Sure, they have a desire to be famous (who doesn’t) but they are going about it in a very organic way: They are growing their following by providing something that their audience wants.

They are also authentic, which is why they’re such a great advertising platform. Everyone I spoke with mentioned that when working with a brand, the first thing they ask themselves is if it’s consistent with who they are. It’s not all about the money. They are looking for products that they use or will benefit their audience.

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There’s a human element that’s not found in other forms of advertising. When done well, there’s no better way to connect brands and people.

That’s why they are the future of advertising.

There’s a lot of money to be made (and spent) in influencer marketing. Nearly 19% of marketers spent up to $5k in 2020 on influencer campaigns. And another 18% spent between $100k and $500k, with a whopping 7% spending over $1M.Brands are shelling out the big bucks left and right to partner with the right influencer. But what is the “right” influencer? This guide dives into the top nine most important characteristics to look for in an influencer — and breaks down what exactly makes a good influencer … well … good.

#1. Real influencers have real audiences

Marketers partner with influencers because of their authority on a shared target audience. More specifically, influencers provide marketers with reach and the ability to sway the purchasing decisions of real people.

But the truth is that influencer fraud is alive and well, and fake follower counts muddy the data. On average, 18 to 24 percent of an influencer’s audience is suspicious. This means up to nearly a quarter of followers are fake, inactive, and/or bots—in short, they’re not real people and they don’t have money to spend.

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Influencers with high suspicious activity could be purchasing fake followers to boost their stats. Or they’re simply not removing inactive accounts and bots from their followers. Either way, businesses don’t want a quarter of their marketing budget spent on people who don’t exist. Therefore, brands should invest in influencers with a “sweet spot” of 10 percent or less of suspicious followers, which ensures the influencer is most likely attempting to engage with only authentic audiences.

#2: Good influencers don’t call themselves influencers

When millions (if not billions) of dollars are spent each year on influencer marketing, word travels fast. And it attracts all the “wannabes” in swarms.

Many wannabe influencers employ a fake-it-til-you-make-it strategy, including:

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● Fake follower purchases

● Fraudulent sponsored posts

● Bios and profiles that self-label as “influencer”

To sum this up, there’s a correlation between not-so-great influencers and behaviors that force an influencer persona. Real influencers don’t need to force it because they show their influence, they don’t claim to have influence.

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#3: Real influencers regularly engage

Authentic engagement doesn’t happen overnight and it’s nearly impossible to accomplish with brute force. It’s organic, it’s real, and it’s cultivated through careful curation of valuable content that speaks directly to a community. So you’ll notice things like:

● Good influencers tag other people

● Good influencers comment on posts

● Good influencers engage with their audience

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Average and below-average influencers just don’t invest that kind of quality time. On the other hand, good influencers attribute their success to the community they’ve helped build.

#4: Powerful influence is highly focused

Influencers know their target audience inside and out, and they know why followers keep coming back for more content. The reason is because great influencer content is incredibly focused. No matter what category, interest, topic, or niche an influencer covers, it’s fine-tuned and valuable. This is what makes an influencer’s opinion trustworthy.

Alternatively, an influencer who genre-hops has too broad of an appeal. They’re a jack of all trades, but a master of none — and this breeds unfocused content with no clear opinion or perspective.

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#5: Good influencers don’t sell out their fans

Huge brand deals are tempting, and cash motivates people to do things they might not otherwise do.

The critical difference between an average influencer and a good influencer is that good influencers understand and respect the fact that their followers trust their opinion.

In practice, this means good influencers only work with brands and products they can honestly recommend — and they always disclose paid partnerships. When influencers deceive their followers, all trust is broken. And when those followers find out, the jig is up.

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#6: Good influencers tell good stories

Quality influencers know what makes their audiences tick. They know how to entertain, how to engage, and how to persuade. Good influencers also know how to tell a great story that captivates and convinces (plus, humans are generally predisposed to love a good narrative). 

This is where brands come into play. When brands partner with average or below-average influencers, the product’s story falls flat. It doesn’t inspire and it doesn’t demand attention. But a good influencer can and does bring a brand’s story to life. And they do so in a way that resonates with the shared audience.

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#7: Influencers have geographically targetable audiences

Some brands are international titans (think Coca-Cola, Google, Apple, and Amazon), but the majority of companies operate in certain geographic locations. For example, brands may only offer their products in South Africa while others only ship in and around the United Kingdom. In which case, it’s smart to partner with influencers who have an audience that the brand’s products can actually, physically reach. This is especially true for local businesses. It’s imperative to partner with an influencer who has a captive audience — and that captive audience must also have access to the brand and its products.

#8: Good influencers bring in brands organically

Native advertising makes paid content look and feel the same as organic content. Sponsored content is a special subtype of native advertising and it works well (if it’s done correctly) because it blends in with an influencer’s posts.

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After all, a seamless experience is usually a better experience. Good influencers know how to blur the lines between organic and sponsored content. Of course, influencers should still disclose whether a post is sponsored or not, but the point is that paid content shouldn’t feel sponsored. Content has to make sense and bring value to followers — regardless of how much it costs.

“I can’t; no matter how much I try, it’s like my brain won’t let me do it,” said a teen in a user-generated TikTok video, responding to a challenge to put her hand on a stove for $100.

When the teen said her brain was stopping her, the challenger (same teen) quickly drew a parallel to struggles with routine demands, such as to “start your homework" or “just get off the couch.”

Those afflicted with a “paralysis” that, according to the video, is a symptom of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have brains that prevent them from doing everyday

tasks.

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Welcome to the brave new world of teen influencers offering lessons in pop psychiatry.

Scrolling through other videos marked with the TikTok hashtag #ADHD yields a boundless list of ambiguous “symptoms”–withdrawn, talkative, distractible, spacey, forgetful, disorganized, procrastinating, competitive, clumsy, given to outbursts of anger, binge eating, sleeping in, and on and on it goes.

There are videos showing many variations of what ADHD looks or feels like. Some suggest that while ADHD differs from “normal” experience, sufferers may have special abilities or be hyper-productive. Throughout all of them, neuro talk prevails, with references to brains and dopamine and faux-clinical descriptions of the “ADHD type.”

The hashtag #ADHD on TikTok has 19.8 billion views. Depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, “trauma response,” and many other such problems have also drawn billions of views.

While no doubt intended to be helpful and empowering, these videos appear to be having unintended and even perverse consequences, including what may be called a social contagion effect. Perhaps the best evidence comes from reports of young people pursuing medical treatment for tics they developed only after watching videos of Tourette's syndrome sufferers displaying tics on social media.

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The TikTok algorithm keeps bringing viewers back to the sort of content that they have previously lingered over or viewed. “Every second you hesitate or rewatch, the app is tracking you,” the Wall Street Journal found in a study using bots to simulate human users to learn how the TikTok recommendation engine works. By being repeatedly exposed to the behavior modeled in the recommended videos, vulnerable kids may be drawn into unconscious imitation.

Videos on TikTok and other platforms also directly encourage viewers to identify with disorders and self-diagnose—and many do. The comments sections that accompany popular videos are filled with statements like “you just described me exactly” or “today I learned … I may have ADHD.” Something more than imitation is at work here. But what, exactly?

Recent conversations with some two dozen college students provided a chance to informally explore what they see going on with all this self-diagnosing. Medical literature defending popular mental health content usually cites two alleged benefits: It provides undiagnosed sufferers with valuable information they can use to get needed help and reduces the stigma around mental disorders.

Yet, while the students I talked with did mention picking up “symptom language they can take to a doctor to get medication,” as one put it, they made almost no reference to illness. Rather, they spoke of the value of a diagnosis for easing feelings of personal inadequacy and gaining peer acceptance and access to online communities.

Nearly every student mentioned the strong pressure that young people live under to be high achieving and to stand out as unique and special. One student offered that young people are expected to be “the best of the best in every aspect of their lives,” and when they don’t live up to those standards, “it is hard not to feel as if you are inadequate or have failed.” A diagnosis, she continued, can “take some of the pressure off.” It’s “okay to be imperfect,” stated another, “if you have the explanation of a diagnosis for your limitations.”

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Similarly, students observed that a diagnosis can deflect “criticism from other people based on aspects of your personality” or explain why you might have “certain undesirable qualities like shyness.”

Having come to think of any shortcomings as symptoms of a “biological condition that you can’t control,” some conclude that it is an “easier pill to swallow.” It is far more difficult, many said, to acknowledge “painful experiences” or accept that there is “something wrong with you” or your character. In the TikTok video I mentioned, the teen presents her behavior as being controlled by something in her brain to counter the idea that she might be “lazy.” A diagnosis, some remarked, can function almost like a “credential.” Many communities coalesce around diagnostic categories and mental health issues on social media. Finding one’s place and being accepted by peers often requires that one’s struggles be recognized as “real” and “validated” by a diagnostic label. The self-diagnosis serves as a “ticket” for entry. As community participants, young people can “fit in,” finding support and understanding from those they feel they can relate to.

Students also said that a diagnosis can help you “feel special” or stand out, especially if you are achieving a lot. Many TikTok videos I watched presented disorder in a positive light, portraying the ADHD sufferer, if somehow impaired, as able to accomplish all sorts of things. Adding a “layer of hardship,” as one student observed, “shows that you can overcome hurdles and reach your goals.”

At the same time, another student insisted, “It’s not enough or ‘cool’ to be ‘perfect’ anymore.”

Influencers have been criticized for presenting themselves as perfect, students explained, and are now required to show some vulnerability. Similarly, those from a “privileged background,” such as “being white or upper-class,” need an “offset.” In both cases, students said “having a disorder” can show that they also struggle. It provides an “identity” that allows even the privileged to “voice their thoughts and feel included.”

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These student reflections are, of course, neither representative nor exhaustive. But they suggest that diagnostic categories and brain talk are all too often being used in ways that have very little to do with mental illness.

On social media, this language helps its users explain and negotiate obstacles to the achievement of social ideals, but it finally ends up reinforcing the view that there is nothing flawed, amiss, or even unhealthy about the ideals themselves. Talk of symptoms and disorders never challenges whether trying to be “perfect,” “the best of the best,” or “special” might be a problem–even the main problem–because the ideals remain the standards against which the deficits are defined.

Far from freeing, social media pop-psych ends up drawing kids even further under the spell of social ideals that are contributing to the very sense of inadequacy they are seeking to escape.

In today’s social media landscape, it’s possible for anyone to become a fitness influencer. However, this status doesn’t require years of education in exercise science or nutrition; becoming a fitness influencer doesn’t even require a personal trainer certification. So how are these influencers qualified to provide health and fitness information? The simple answer is that many of them are not. There are those who have the education and knowledge and spread correct information to their followers.

However, a large number do more harm to the fitness industry than good.

Throughout my life, I have struggled in my relationships with exercise and food until about three years ago when I began lifting weights and finally found a healthy balance. Despite the progress I’ve made, sometimes I will scroll onto a video that transports me back to my middle school self sitting in my bedroom, overanalyzing my appearance in the mirror, googling “how to lose weight overnight” and going to bed hoping to wake up in a different body. Back then, I thought there was something wrong with me because I followed information from fitness influencers but never saw any changes.

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Before I educated myself about fitness and began lifting weights, I would constantly try to exercise because I wanted to lose weight. I would do random workouts I saw on the internet without actually knowing whether or not they were the best way to reach my goals. At that point in time, I didn’t have much knowledge about health and fitness and I would get frustrated by the lack of progress I was making, which always led to me giving up.

To lose weight, you have to burn more calories than you consume. This is a simple concept but not what people want to hear because it isn’t necessarily easy. Before I understood how weight loss worked, I believed the influencers whose videos promised weight loss after only a 10-minute workout.

While logically it doesn’t make sense that only 10 minutes of exercise will cause any significant changes to your body, I still did it because I wanted to believe it was true.

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The processes of losing fat and building muscle takes time and consistency, and there is no magical exercise or food that can change that. However, many fitness influencers claim to have found ways to hack health and fitness, which is misleading to people beginning their fitness journeys, as well as damaging to mental health.

Chloe Ting is a prime example of how misleading fitness influencers can be. With over 24 million subscribers on YouTube, 2.8 million on Instagram and over 600 thousand on TikTok, Ting is one of the biggest fitness influencers of all time. Ting has been making content for many years now, however, her popularity increased greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic when gyms were closed and people were doing at-home workouts. While the contents of Ting’s workouts are fine, the problem lies in her video titles. If you take a look at Ting’s YouTube channel, you will see videos like “Do this full body workout to get SHREDDED — No Planks No Equipment” and “Get a Flat Stomach and Abs — 10 min.” What these videos are advertising is not physically possible. For one, there is no way to spot-reduce fat and it is extremely hard to get shredded by doing only bodyweight workouts; if you pick any other Chloe Ting video, the title most likely contains similar lies. I believe any form of exercise that makes you happy and you can do consistently is worth doing.

However, when fitness influencers promote unrealistic goals and spread false information, it leads people to believe that a healthy lifestyle is too difficult or even impossible to obtain. This can contribute to problems, like body dysmorphia, anxiety and depression. I think it’s amazing that exposure to fitness content has motivated people to pursue healthier lifestyles; I just urge that before people follow advice from others on the internet, they do their own research to ensure the source is qualified and that the information is accurate.

Source #6