Some days I feel like I’m out of it — that I’m just not with it, not with what’s happening in the world today.
Such was the case when I was listening to the nightly news recently and heard a story about “influencers.”
The story was about one influencer suing another influencer for stealing her vibe. For a minute I thought I was on another planet or hearing a language spoken in a country I had never heard of.
As I continued to listen to and watch the story, I discovered “influencers” are a big deal today—in social media. That could explain my ignorance, since I do everything I can to avoid social media. Usually that media is not very social, and as media it’s not very dependable.
The news reporter explained that “influencers” are people, usually young people, who regularly appear on social media like Instagram and TikTok, who influence others, usually in purchasing stuff.
The reporter presented an example of a young woman showing her viewers a particularly fancy jacket, which she modeled and praised, and then encouraged her viewers to buy it.
As I watched, I asked myself, “So what’s the big deal?” I soon found out the big deal is money. As reported on the news show, “The influence industry is worth approximately $250 billion and could grow to $480 billion by 2027.”
Huh? What? Where have I been to not realize this before? $250 billion is nothing to sneeze at.
Getting back to the lawsuit, it turns out that Sydney, a young woman influencer is suing Alyssa, another young woman influencer, for illegally copying her “vibe.”
Huh? What? What’s a vibe and how can you copy it?
The PBS reporter, Sandra Garcia, a young woman herself but much more articulate than either influencer, took her time to explain it. Only someone young like Garcia could “get” this, could understand it, someone much more familiar with TikTok than I am.
A vibe, Garcia said, is also called an “aesthetic.” Hearing this, I recoiled. “Aesthetic” is a work I highly value, because the study of aesthetics includes art, music and literature. Here it’s being used, almost profanely, to describe how a chick displays herself on the internet.
Apparently, Garcia explained, Sydney claimed that Alyssa was stealing her poses as she was showing off a jacket in the same way Sydney had and later sitting in a car with the same slouchy posture that Sydney had used.
To borrow a phrase from social media, “OMG!”
Can this be possible?
It turns out it is, because it means money. As Garcia explained, “Sydney is saying that Alyssa has infringed on her profit, because they both use their social media accounts to promote Amazon Marketplace, where they can influence people to buy things off of Amazon and Amazon pays them a commission to do so.”
Once again, I said to myself, “OMG!” Is this the world I’m living in? Well, it turns out, it is. Today many young people, I learned, yearn to have a career in “influencing.” Which sounds appealing because it doesn’t take a lot of manual labor or any real work. You just create an account on YouTube, set up a camera to video yourself and pose with stuff that people don’t need but you try to convince them to buy.
As I continued to look into the “influence industry,” I discovered that often, once an influencer has enough viewers, corporations will hire them to be a shill for their goods, while the influencer pretends she’s an independent reviewer.
Oh, Lord, how far we have fallen. I’m familiar with the term “influence,” often used in years past with a positive connotation. A wife influences her husband, a husband influences his wife, parents influence their children, people who write editorials hope to influence others to consider their perspective.
Now people “influence” others primarily for the sake of money, fame and glamour.
Lord, help us. If this is the world today, I want to seclude myself from it.
While reflecting on the news story about influencers, the person I was most influenced by was Garcia. She explained things thoroughly, point by point. She influenced me to continue to have considerable faith in news reporters. She did not try to influence us to side with Sydney or Alyssa. She presented the facts the best she could and let the viewers come to their own conclusions.
This, in turn, reinforced my belief in newspapers, especially small hometown papers like The Westside Express, that try their best to present information objectively, and do it without fanfare.
For example, you won’t find this paper’s columnists—Diana, Janet or me—getting our own YouTube channel and creating our own “vibe” to influence you to agree with us. Moreover, none of us have an Amazon Marketplace account.
Getting back to the story, Sydney’s case against Alyssa (who, by the way, claims she’s not copying Sydney’s vibe) will go to court and some judge will be burdened with making a decision. This may seem trivial to some (like me), but it actually opens up Pandora’s box of copyright issues.
Sydney is claiming that Alyssa is guilty of the same piracy that musicians and creative writers worry about when nefarious folks steal their melodies or rhythms or literary plots or styles. These pirates are guilty of copyright infringement.
But judges will have to look at tedious videos of folks displaying their vibes and aesthetics.
And since influencing is such a big business that involves lots of money, these cases will be heard and adjudicated. Stand by later for breaking news on this, but don’t look for it in this column. I don’t have much influence.
John Spevak’s email is john.spevak@gmail.com
