1 in 4 Gen Z-ers plan to become social media influencers
thehill.com
thehill.com
How bad do things have to get in your life for you to feel that "become a TikTok star" is your only option. It's one thing to think you want a fun and exciting career when you become rich and famous (I mean, who doesn't?), but another thing entirely to feel that you have no options for a fulfilling life except internet fame.
If a lot of people genuinely feel this way then that is truly terrible, and society needs to start making other careers viable and attainable possibilities.
Same thing is going to be said about how we had it online during the early 2000s. Kids these days go to war for followers and the social media companies have caught up to the new meta and have started just directly paying them. Only going to get more fierce from here.
Social media is civically poisonous in a lot of unique ways. But the desire for fame it induces in people, especially young ones, is not one of them.
For me, it's not the desire for fame that's concerning, it's how everyone is equipped to become an influencer and the lengths people will go through to achieve their goals.
The scary thing to me (and this isn't unique to children) is how many people are willing to lie and put out disinformation in order to generate a following, and I'm not just talking politics here. People were sharing their own baby formula recipes when that shortage spiked, regardless of whether or not it was actually safe for babies to consume. If young people feel that the best way for them to succeed financially is to become an influencer, they're gonna prioritize the fame and money above putting out high-quality content if they're serious about reaching their goals.
I just want the rich part, thank you very much
At least now they can give it a go for free.
But it does seem like fewer people want to do metalwork or be a mechanic or do electr-ic/onic repairs of some kind.
Many of my peers became welders and they're the ones raking in cash all the time, stable as hell.
Incidentally work that is being outpriced by mass production, proprietary solutions, planned obsolescence and to a lesser degree, automation.
Think about the fact that some of these "stars" now has so much money they start doing charity, while the righteous salary men are still saving for their investment property or whatever.
It’s social media influencer over Amazon warehouse, hospitality house keeping, home health aid, and shit like that.
Careers are the result of luck. Usually the ordinary luck of birth into social status.
Most people in the world have to take whatever job is available. And a job harvesting melons is only available if they are lucky.
US Boomers had literally the world handed to them in the shadow of WW2 and therefore have no conception of the privilege into which they were born.
US Zoomers have assumed they're screwed and have given up all consideration that working hard has any sort of payoff.
In the middle, you find those who understand that success is borne of a combination of hard work, talent, privilege, and luck. Not any single one of the above.
Good fortune is why “back” was an option.
I am not saying that lucky people never work hard.
Or that success is entirely a matter of luck.
Even software devs, despite (proclaimed) massive shortages, have to deal with a lot of BS worldwide. Some places, you can't even afford a family home without a long commute (remote? Just kidding, culture insists hybrid at best). Now extrapolate that to other careers. It ain't pretty.
So is it really a surprise, in a world that makes it easy to play the 'famous person' lottery, where people are increasingly more individualistic, where society continues to disincentivise traditional careers, young people opt to try the lottery?
It's not all roses:
From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2780168/
> Hemorrhoids are a common source of complaint among fighter pilots, who are subjected to G forces. Colorectal disease continues to this day to be a very common and often debilitating complaint, and colorectal surgery clinics in the military generally are well frequented by patients.
> And once [African-Americans] do [join organized sports as children], their parents’ motivation to keep them in the game is significantly more driven by the possibility of playing beyond high school. Parents of African-American youth rated the pursuit of a college scholarship as 23% more important and a pro sports opportunity as 26% more important than White parents, according to the survey.
As a Gen-Xer, I don't know how many times I read similar things growing up about my own generation, except it was metal or hair bands or glam rockers that garnered the worry.
> Just 7.13% of Gen Z responded that they would not want to be a social media Influencer.
I'd also love to see an age distribution, though they did list the range at the bottom of the article. ("The research was conducted by Censuswide with 1,000 general consumers (nat rep) aged 16-25 in the USA between 26.07.22 to 28.07.22.")
[1] Unrelated, Bill Burr has a hilarious rant about hair bands that anyone who grew up listening to would relate with. It's really striking how bad it was -- akin to seeing the graphics of old Atari 2600 games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0KXrESpAn4
And of course, most people are terrible at estimating probabilities, so these dreams seem vaguely realistic for awhile.
For the record, I wanted to be a dinosaur.
There is no economical scheme in which 25% of all Gen-Z-ers actually become social media influencers, so I'm not going to spend my time actually worrying about that. For the ones who do, the content they produce matters much more to me than their mere job description.
It’s just that the kid who wants to be an astronaut or involved in the space program in the late 60s early 70s grows up to be a tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley in the 80’s and 90’s. We got that generation to thank for this website and websites in general.
I don’t know what the profound effect of Gen Z or Gen A will be, but I suspect a future in which they are inspired by a revived Moon and Mars exploration program will be better than one where they mostly aspire to be “influencers.”
It's of course good to have good role models. But I don't think those role models need to be technical experts or "heroic" in some socially beneficial way to be good. They can also be good public speakers, or educators, or just plain entertaining.
I’d love my child to long being an astronaut, and all the studying and life choices it will impose on them. Can’t say the same about becoming a TikToker.
If the two were the same, we'd have a lot of firefighters and astronauts.
Social media stars are an extension of fame, a basic human desire. It's not surprising (or even particularly civically harmful) that fame is now associated with TikTok influencers rather than movie stars. Your child is about as likely to become either.
As a 16 year old, I wouldn't give a damn that Jonny Kim has an MD from Harvard. I did, however, find myself impressed by the fact that Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier while lying about his broken ribs[1]. I have no idea which (if any) college he went to.
[1]: https://medium.com/knowledge-stew/when-chuck-yeager-broke-th...
They don't magically become logical/rational brains upon turning 16.
But your movie star comparison is pretty spot on.
Entertainment is valuable.
While I think they are productive at the moment in that they really push the economy by proxy through big budget movies and surrounding merch, I also feel that if the movie and TV industry disappeared that role would be easily filled by other things.
What's the use of having a million washed up D-list actors?
Whereas if you fail on the journey to becoming an astronaut, you've at least got an engineering degree of something. Maybe you'll contribute by designing a machine to manufacture bearings for desks at a hospital or something.
[1]: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2022/6/27/23181232/old-acto...
I’m sure if we sent someone to Mars and back, a lot more children (and adults!) would want to be astronauts.
1. Be a U.S. citizen
2. Possess a master's degree in a STEM field, including engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science or mathematics, from an accredited institution.
3. Have at least two years of related professional experience obtained after degree completion or at least 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time on jet aircraft.
4. Be able to pass the NASA long-duration flight astronaut physical.
Effort towards those goals is not wasted even if one does not become an astronaut.
"Planning to become" something when you're 16 years old has very little connection in reality with what you actually end up doing. When I was 16, I wanted to be a biologist (definitely a step down from my original plan to be a dinosaur). I ended up being a computer programmer with a completely unrelated degree.
Sounds familiar?
In any case, more transparency from the platforms is warranted.
My dad had long hair in the 80s and all his friends were into metal and goth. They certainly chose to be like that for some reason too.
My grandad likes his rock n roll and folk and... surprise, he was the height of fashion back in the day too.
Who cares? Gen Z are fine doing them. If anything, they need us (now uncool) millennials to empathize with them: talk through the destructive parts of social media, while encouraging them to use the good parts to thrive.
Just like a software engineer can benefit from having a popular blog, a doctor can benefit from having a successful TikTok account, and a lawyer can benefit from having a highly rated podcast.
For some careers like journalism, it's hard to see how someone can become successful without becoming some kind of social media influencer in the process.
almost no one plans to be a truck driver or cashier but they're the most common jobs in the country, and thats fine.
These people are much more interesting than traditional celebrities because they usually have a few good stories or insider tips they can give you. Like "Mr Rice" giving you cleaning tips from his 20 years of experience running a dry cleaning business, "Mechanic Link" doing showing you how involved some car repair tasks are, or the clinical pathologist that tells you about different kinds of carcinomas.
A niche I follow people in, woodworking, there are several that have quit day jobs and produce content. One in particular has reached over 100k in revenue from making content about building workshop stuff. These are people that are creating things though - plans for sale, funny merch, and instructional content that is helpful. In some ways the content is timeless.
To me I think the corollary to software is devs (like me) that wanted to pursue becoming a solo or indie software shop. So I say go for it to the Gen-Zers but have alternate plans or a fallback as well if it doesn't pan out.
- It's still ubiquitous, like a hologram accosting you in the street.
- It's still surprising through targeted ads, the machine understands you.
- Unclear privacy concerns, your scream of fear makes it a discussion piece.
- It's short and sweet.
...but the form isn't terribly artful. It's like a surrogate video call mixed with lowest-common-denominator talent show. This may be part of the effect as well to produce the -- apparently -- rather-effective drive to engage.
This rut, and the congestion may cause things to quickly stagnate.
Plus, a horror movie with some 4-dimensional monster that views reality, places, and human connection as some sort of twisted bubblewrap ought to sort these Gen Z-ers out.
Okay, so they're going to group 16 year olds opinions in with people who are over 20.
Nah, not buying it as being a remotely realistic portrayal of Gen Z.
The sample size gives you the "random error" in your estimate, and that scales roughly as 1/sqrt(sample size). So 1000 is plenty. But it is reasonable to worry whether the sample was actually random, or biased in some way (e.g. sampling only Gen Z-ers that use a certain website) -- that would lead to a systematic error. However, for a systematic error a bigger sample size would not help much.
1000 is plenty of individuals, the real concern is how they were chosen.
Being a social media influencer translates to influencer. Which seems to be either a leader, or some sub variant of leader.
Is it a surprise people want to make a difference and be the decider of that difference?
The economics gets touched on in "decade eight, third millennium".
In the world of Accelerando... well... I suspect that the new and rehashed ideas of social media would be a gold mine.