Celebrities & Fame2w ago · 71 comments
Are influencers a real job, or the death of ambition?
Building a business and a brand from nothing, or a generation aspiring to be famous for existing? Genuine work, or a culture-wide red flag?
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Add your comment- Avery2w ago
my cousin dropped out of nursing school to do tiktok full time. she's 23. she has 11k followers. i don't know how to tell her.
- Ravi _x6d ago
The structural problem nobody mentions: the algorithm is the actual employer, and it has no HR department, no contract, no labor protections, and it can eliminate your entire income overnight with a policy change you didn't agree to. That's not entrepreneurship. That's sharecropping with better lighting.
- Riley6d ago
Sharecropping with better lighting might be the most accurate description of the creator economy I've ever read. Tenure here.
- Marco _x2w ago
I taught high school for 19 years. The 'I want to be an influencer' kids weren't lazy — they were often the most creative, most driven students in the room. What scared me was that they'd been convinced their worth was entirely tied to visibility. That's the actual problem.
- Liam1d ago
I'm a high school teacher. Last week a student told me that studying was pointless because he was going to be famous. Not famous for anything specific. Just famous. And that was his entire plan. I'm not anti-influencer but something in the culture is genuinely broken and I see it every single day.
- Casey B.1d ago
Kids have always had unrealistic career plans at 15. You probably had students who wanted to be pro athletes or movie stars. Did you tell them the culture was broken then? Or is 'famous online' uniquely alarming because it's new?
- Taylor T.1d ago
The athlete or movie star answer has always been 'you need to practice, train, audition, develop your skills.' When a kid says they want to be an influencer and you ask what they'll create, they often genuinely don't know. That's the difference the teacher is pointing at.
- Nina _x1w ago
Death of ambition is when a society decides that caring for elderly people, teaching children, and keeping lights on is worth poverty wages but someone unboxing makeup is worth millions. Fix your priorities before you blame the kids for responding rationally to your incentives.
- Omar S.1w ago
okay this is going to sound defensive but I AM an influencer (travel, 180k followers) and this job is 60+ hours a week, I've missed family events for content deadlines, I've had partnerships fall through taking half my income with them, and I've dealt with harassment that would make most people quit on day one. if that's not a 'real job' then the word 'real' has lost all meaning.
- Alex1w ago
Value extraction vs. value creation is the actual question and nobody in this thread is seriously engaging with it. A creator who teaches you how to fix your plumbing, understand your taxes, or cook a real meal — that is undeniably value creation. A creator whose entire proposition is 'watch me be pretty and aspirational' is closer to a billboard that learned to talk.
- Elena1d ago
The actual death of ambition is a generation that defines success as 'being known' rather than 'doing something worth knowing about.' Influence used to be a byproduct of achievement. Now it's the goal. That inversion matters.
- Diego1w ago
I spent three years trying to 'make it' as a lifestyle creator. I learned video production, SEO, brand negotiation, social psychology, email marketing, and graphic design. Then I quit because the mental health cost was destroying me. I now use every single one of those skills in my actual career. The influencer path taught me more than my degree did. Make of that what you will.
- Alex T.2w ago
genuine question: if someone films themselves doing literally nothing interesting for 15 seconds and gets 4 million views, did they do a job? asking for my brain which has stopped functioning after thinking about this
- Sam4d ago
Genuine question for the room: would we be having this conversation if influencers were predominantly men? Because the careers we dismiss as 'not real work' tend to be the ones women dominate. Fashion, beauty, lifestyle. Think about it.
- Reese S.4d ago
Gaming and sports content is dominated by men and gets PLENTY of 'not a real job' criticism so I don't think this holds up as cleanly as you want it to.
- Leo4d ago
The gaming/sports content criticism is significantly softer and less culturally pervasive than what lifestyle influencers face. The intensity is different even if both exist.
- Quinn1w ago
i dont care if its a real job or not. i care that my 10 year old nephew wants to be 'famous' and when i asked what he wants to be famous for he said 'i dont know just famous.' that broke my heart a little.
- Quinn2w ago
Running a one-person media company — filming, editing, negotiating, marketing — is more entrepreneurial than most office jobs. Boomers called rock stars lazy too. Same energy.
- Jordan2w ago
The parasocial economy is real and it's enormous. When someone builds an audience of 2 million people who trust their product recommendations, that's literally more marketing power than most mid-sized corporations. Call it whatever you want — the market has already decided it's valuable.
- Noah1w ago
my daughter told me she wants to be an influencer and i sat with that for a week before i realized i was upset because i was scared for her, not because it's stupid. that fear is worth examining.
- Jamie S.1w ago
The survivorship bias in this conversation is staggering. We see the 0.1% who made it and use them to evaluate the career path that the other 99.9% are on. That's like saying 'basketball is a viable career' and pointing at LeBron James.
- Alex5d ago
i got laid off from my 'real job' in finance after 11 years. started making videos about personal finance on youtube as therapy almost. two years later it's replaced my salary. tell me again which one was the stable career.
- Priya S.5d ago
Good for you genuinely but your story proves the survivorship bias point that was already made. For every you there are ten thousand people who got laid off, started a youtube channel as therapy, and now have no job AND no channel.
- Yuki5d ago
The survivorship bias argument is starting to feel like a way to dismiss any positive outcome. Yes, most people fail. Most people also fail at restaurants, novels, startups, and acting. We don't call those not-real-jobs.
- Leo2w ago
My sister-in-law is a micro-influencer in the gardening niche. She has 40k followers, partners with three seed companies, and makes about $28k a year doing it part time while raising two kids. Is that the death of ambition or is that a woman carving out flexibility in a system that wasn't built for her? I'll wait.
- Liam R.1w ago
Every person who has ever called influencing 'not a real job' has absolutely been influenced to buy something. That cognitive dissonance is fascinating.
- Riley2d ago
ok but there's a massive difference between influencers who DO have a craft (cooking, teaching, comedy, whatever) and the ones whose entire content is literally just being attractive and going to places. both exist. we're conflating them in this debate and it's making the conversation pointless.
- Taylor2d ago
This is the comment. You've just cut through like six arguments at once. The debate isn't 'are influencers real jobs' — it's 'which kinds of influencers are we actually talking about' and nobody wants to specify because vagueness is more satisfying to argue about.
- Alex1w ago
I work in brand marketing. I've paid influencers. The ROI data is genuinely complicated and most brands can't actually measure it properly. We're spending real money based on vibes and vanity metrics. That's not the influencer's fault but it's a house of cards underneath a lot of these 'careers.'
- Diego1w ago
Counterpoint to the ROI argument: traditional advertising has always been mostly vibes and unmeasurable. 'Half my advertising spend is wasted, I just don't know which half' — that quote is from 1885. Influencer marketing is no worse than a magazine spread.
- Kofi1w ago
What I find fascinating is that we never asked if being a professional golfer was 'a real job' or if acting was legitimate work. The moment it becomes accessible to ordinary people without gatekeepers, suddenly it's suspicious. That tells you more about the gatekeepers than the job.
- Reese 921w ago
The mental health piece you mentioned is being criminally underreported. The constant performance, the engagement anxiety, the parasocial contracts that followers impose on creators — it's a genuinely brutal psychological environment that people romanticize because they only see the highlight reel.
- Jamie L.2w ago
The 'death of ambition' framing is so classist it's almost impressive. Rich kids have always had the luxury of pursuing fame and leisure. The difference now is that a working class kid with a phone can actually compete. That's MORE democratized ambition, not less.
- Sam2w ago
So by that logic, what does a TV commercial create? What does a billboard create? The discomfort is with the PERSON being the product, not with the function.
- Yuki R.5d ago
I've been a freelance graphic designer for 12 years. No one asks if MY job is real. I also depend on platforms, face income instability, work alone, and hustle for every client. The only difference between me and a content creator is aesthetics and who finds us annoying.
- Liam L.5d ago
There's a meaningful difference though — your clients pay you for a deliverable that has value independent of how many people see it. An influencer's deliverable IS the audience. Lose the audience and there's nothing to sell. It's more precarious in a structurally different way.
- Noah1w ago
The difference is that law school gives you transferable credentials even if you fail. Spending six years building a YouTube channel that goes nowhere leaves you with... a YouTube channel that went nowhere.
- Feli3d ago
Spent three years as an MCN account manager. I have watched talented, hardworking creators destroy their mental health chasing CPM fluctuations and brand deal rejection while being told they were 'living the dream.' The industry has no duty of care whatsoever. Zero.
- Zara R.3d ago
The mental health angle is so underreported. Imagine a job where your performance review is conducted by millions of strangers simultaneously and published publicly in real time. The creator economy has industrialized social rejection at scale.
- Liam R.1w ago
There's a meaningful distinction between creators — people who make films, write essays, teach skills, document experiences — and influencers whose primary output is the performance of a desirable life to sell adjacent products. Both exist under the same label and that's causing a lot of confusion in this debate.
- Reese 921w ago
"Real businesses own their means of production" — mate, have you seen how many small businesses rent their storefronts, use AWS, and live or die by Google search rankings? The dependency argument applies to almost every modern business.
- Sam1w ago
The 'death of ambition' framing is so lazy. Ambition toward WHAT, exactly? A 40-year career at a company that will lay you off the moment the quarterly numbers dip? At least influencers own their own platform.
- Morgan1w ago
This is the correct take but survivorship bias exists in traditional careers too. How many law graduates struggle? How many small business owners fail? We only see the partners and the CEOs.
- Ravi2w ago
I spent six years as a marketing director. The influencers who consistently convert — not the mega-famous ones, the mid-tier niche creators — work harder at understanding their audience than most of my entire department combined. The dismissiveness from business professionals is honestly embarrassing.
- Elena1w ago
Hot take that I'm prepared to die on: the 'influencer' label is doing more damage to legitimate digital creators than any corporate criticism ever could. Call yourself a media producer, a content strategist, a brand publisher — fine. But 'influencer' as an identity is asking people to judge you by your effect on others rather than the quality of your work.
- Reese2w ago
The algorithm worship is what gets me. These aren't independent businesses — they're tenant farmers on land owned by Mark Zuckerberg. One policy change, one shadowban, one platform dying (RIP vine, RIP) and the whole thing evaporates. Real businesses own their means of production.
- Quinn1d ago
Everyone in this thread is acting like 'ambition' means climbing a predefined ladder someone else built. Some of us are ambitious about building something that didn't exist before. That's more ambition, not less.
- Yuki1w ago
That's less about influencer culture and more about how fame has been packaged and sold to children for fifty years. Reality TV, tabloids, Disney Channel — this didn't start with Instagram.
- Marco2w ago
Counterpoint: wanting to be a rock star was always a thing. Wanting to be an actor was always a thing. We've always had industries built around personality and charisma. Influencing is just the current version of that. Why is THIS generation's version the red flag?
- Feli S.2w ago
Because rock stars actually had to MAKE something. A song. An album. A performance. 'Content' is increasingly just... existing while sponsored.
- Reese L.3d ago
what kills me is that teenagers who want to be influencers are just teenagers who want to be famous, which teenagers have always wanted. we didn't pathologize wanting to be a rockstar or an actor. the delivery mechanism changed, the underlying human need is ancient.
- Jamie3d ago
The difference is rockstars had to develop a craft — playing guitar, writing songs — that existed independently of fame. Wanting to be an influencer without specifying what you'll influence people ABOUT is wanting the fame without the craft. That's the part that should concern us.
- Reese L.3d ago
Hard disagree with the 'no craft' framing. Watch a top-tier food creator's lighting, composition, pacing, voice work, recipe development, and audience psychology. That's craft. You're just not trained to see it because it's new.
- Leo1w ago
By that logic, all of advertising is illegitimate. Which, honestly, fair — but then your argument is about capitalism again, not influencers specifically.
- Ravi1w ago
This is the most useful distinction I've seen in this whole thread and it's getting ignored because people want a simple answer
- Jordan6d ago
ngl the people who hate on influencers the hardest are usually people who tried and didn't make it or people who are deeply aware they never would. not saying the criticism is wrong but know where your feelings are coming from
- Drew L.6d ago
This is a silencing tactic. 'You're only criticizing it because you're jealous' could be used to shut down criticism of anything. I have zero desire to be an influencer and I still think the career category has serious structural problems that hurt young people.
- Riley2w ago
When a classroom of kids says their dream job is 'famous online' and not a single thing they want to be famous FOR, that's not ambition, that's a symptom.
- Quinn 212w ago
The real problem isn't influencers. It's that we've built an economic system where a kid can reasonably look at a hedge fund manager, look at a YouTuber, and the YouTuber seems more attainable AND more fun. That's a systemic failure, not a generational one.
- Hana M.1w ago
The framing of this whole debate assumes that 'ambition' means climbing a corporate hierarchy or building a conventional business. But ambition has always been about wanting MORE than what you were given. You can argue influencing is shallow but you can't honestly argue it isn't motivated by ambition.
- Alex2w ago
Most 'influencers' make less than minimum wage chasing an algorithm that owes them nothing. We're watching millions gamble their twenties on a slot machine.
- Elena1w ago
The question isn't whether it's hard. Gambling is hard. Pyramid schemes are hard. The question is whether the activity creates genuine value or primarily extracts it from participants who mistake visibility for success.
- Maya2w ago
Hard disagree with the 'it's just entrepreneurship' crowd. Entrepreneurship creates something — a product, a service, a solution. Ninety percent of influencer content creates nothing except a desire in the viewer to buy something they don't need or become someone they're not.
- Riley1w ago
Being manipulated into buying something is not proof that manipulation is legitimate work lol
- Leo2w ago
I make more 'playing on my phone' than my parents did in careers they hated, and they still won't call it a real job. The money is real. The work is real.
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