Influencer

There seem to be an astonishing number of new “twinkle toe” jobs that did not exist in my youth. People paid to paint fingernails, walk dogs, blow leaves, document their every meal with photographs. I’m a cranky old man, of course, but I still think of real jobs as growing food, making steel, or at worst maintaining the paperwork organization of a business.

The well-paying field of influencers has me baffled. There have always been a few wealthy, or loud, or well connected who could leverage their positions to inform others what they think was proper. Like Emily post, I suppose. And many others, like sheep, would follow _it’s easier to go with the flow than to rebel against every minor little thing. 

But the rise of our slush cash society now leads to a few people who can determine what to wear, where to be, how to dress. Their internet dictates determine pricing and availability: is a given handbag or sneaker worth $10 or $1,000? That too has always been with us from the days of ancient aristocracy.

My guess is that it is pure distraction, a form of meditation. Paying attention to how the silverware is placed or what kind of hat you are wearing on what kind of hairstyle lets one ignore the usual, nasty, meaningful, everyday decisions that are always with us, not to mention blanking out the apocalyptic predictions hitting us from all sides.