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this is what i imagined being a porn star is like

The thing that makes the platforms unhealthy also concentrates attention with a small number of influencers, so though they're suffering, they're also unlikely to want to support new platforms that would disrupt the status-quo.

Uyen Ninh seems pretty happy but she has some strict boundaries (she never, ever shows her husband's face or those of most of her relatives).

Al Gore rhythms pushing for people to constantly make content has the added "benefit" of making AI slop more appealing to content creators. "Well if you don't want to starve, just subscribe to this AI slop creation service (that we also own) so that you can make us more content to profit from."

I've hit burnout 3 times over. Please help.

There’s actually very little reason to churn out a piece within hours of The Thing you’re covering happening, unless the news happens to be breaking and thus a quick turnaround is necessary as a public good. Most times, you don’t need to say something that fast!

I’m so tired

Literally like drinking from a firehose. Good reminder Twitter's backbone was called "the firehose". Built years before Elon Musk took over, when they ported from Python to Java after 1st Super Bowl disaster.

And there might only be a small increase in the amount of work but days are consumed with the confusion of rush jobs.

It seems so sad and soulless to document every part of your day for public consumption, and having to make every part of your day an ad.

*Chinese ofc 🙄

Ngl I think a lot of people also really underestimate the financial side and try to make it their day job way too early. You really need a Patreon that pays all of your bills at minimum to not work yourself to the bone in the content mines

Yeah, frankly it seemed like a miserable life. Like it would be a hell of a lot easier to just work a minimum wage job for 35-37.5 hours a week (so long as your country actually sets a minimum wage that is livable). To be fair this kid (20s or so, I'm twice that) was from the US, so yeah :/

The count of content makers goes up constantly but time is still limited. So now the pressure is to constantly make content so that something hits and keeps you relevant in a rising tide.

The algorithms are opaque but everyone feels they aggressively reward people who constantly put out content, so everyone feels compelled to do it. Worse for the creators, worse for the viewers, but easier for the platforms to cut rates because they can replace any specific creator without issue

To be fair, the people working blue collar jobs are either putting in twice the hours or working two/three jobs to make ends meet, so they, too, are exhausted.

Only the most enthusiastic of psychopaths survive. As intended.

"It beats getting a real job" I would invite them to read the testimony of everyone who was ever a slave. Because that's what they are now. Well paid, but a slave. The algorithm cares even less than Calvin Candie.

The market became insanely over saturated while a lot of influencer money dried up. But man talking to my friends teenage kids and nearly all of them genuinely believed that they would become influencers or streamers and school was mostly useless

The "Clever Boy Talks at Screen" format has become Tiresome for (at least some of) the audience, too, IMO. I've gone from casual YT BACKGROUND-watcher to "OH JFC WHAT TOPIC IS HANK GREEN AN EXPERT ON TODAY, FFS😂🙄" But yeah, from a distance most do look like flies trapped in their own amber.

here was this aggressive series of posts that boiled down to “none of you actually feel feelings about all the stuff you say you do“. Thus, I unfollow but don’t name them, because I think their profession ate part of their soul. I don’t want their brain in my life anymore but I do feel sympathy

I quit because it was less work to do IT than to chase the content grind

It isn't unique to influencers, but it also seems incredibly precarious. If you end up in a dispute or do something that turns off your audience, you've lost your income. If the social media platforms change their algorithm, or de-monetize, or de-emphasize your content, you've lost your income.

The common English term for "influencer" is "shill"

meanwhile, being gainlessly employed had never been easier

In 1975 when Carl Reiner hosted a Peanuts 25th anniversary tv special, he observed to Schulz that it takes only about half a minute to read a comic strip while tv shows have to clamor for people to carve out half an hour or more from their increasingly busy days. "Good for you, bad for us."

I'm in the early stages of getting a self-published book out there, I'm writing out the marketing plan which is heavy on socials because they're cheap/relatively easy to run for visibility, and while it's going to go on for a while, there is an end point for exactly this reason.

The sea change happened when I stopped seeing people talking on tiktok about their niche hobby as something they *get* to do vs something they *have* to do. It's clearly a job now, and it's one that sucks.

I don't know why anyone wants to be a Tik-tok style influencer as a job. Your entire life should not belong to viewers, but to you.

My nuke silicon valley metaphorically through policy isn't looking so bad now.

Not to mention how arbitrary and fickle places like Twitch, Youtube, etc are even without algorithms factoring in! Just abominable to have to rely on them to eat.