My outburst was in response to her excitedly telling us about plans for making videos featuring herself which she hoped would go viral on social media.
"You can’t talk. What about you and that column?" was her swift retort. Ouch.
A few years on from this bruising encounter, I wonder if she just wanted to be famous for being famous or if she hoped to rise to the dizzy heights of being a social media influencer.
Such beings are not part of my daily smartphone-free life. Although, unfortunately, their spurious spoutings often stray into mainstream media coverage.
According to Werner Geyser, in an article on the Influencer Marketing Hub website, influencers on social media have built a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic.
"They make regular posts about that topic on their preferred social media channels and generate large followings of enthusiastic, engaged people who pay close attention to their views.
"Brands love social media influencers because they can create trends and encourage their followers to buy products they promote."
In other words, they talk about themselves a lot online, and people with too much time on their hands and too lazy to think for themselves are stupid enough to watch everything they do and buy the crap they are peddling.
Geyser says mega-influencers are the biggest influencers, with more than one million followers on at least one social platform. They might be movie or reality television stars, sportspeople, musicians, or people who have big followings simply from being online. If you are a company wanting to have a piece of the action, it could cost you as much as $US1million a post.
Next down the list are the macro-influencers, who have between 40,000 and a million followers. These are apparently either B-grade celebrities or successful online experts (possibly fitting my favourite definition of expert, which says that "x is the unknown quantity and spurt is a drip under pressure").
The New Zealand couple Topher Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray — who needed our Government’s help (and possibly some from rich lister daddy David Richwhite) to get out of Iran recently after falling foul of the authorities there — would fit the macro category.
Much has been said about the folly of their presence in that troubled country without me banging on about it. It does, however, highlight the self-entitlement and inflated idea of your own importance which can come with having a following of more than 300,000 people on social media.
These followers have been tuning in to postings about the couple’s Expedition Earth. It’s a trip in a Jeep which was to take in 90 countries on seven continents, but had to be paused when the couple scuttled home as the Covid-19 pandemic hit. The vague aim of this extravaganza was to promote environmental issues as well as the teams and organisations that work to resolve them.
They gushed that they wanted their findings to continue to educate and inspire others to fix, protect and celebrate the natural world in which we live.
Call me picky, but did it occur to them that perhaps anybody trekking about multiple countries in a gas-guzzling vehicle taking pretty pictures which might encourage others to do the same might not be the best way to fix, protect and celebrate the environment?
On the plus side, it does seem to be quite a good way to attract sponsorship from companies. Their macro-influencer status no doubt helped them get deals or partnerships to shamelessly flog products used in the tiny home they built in the sojourn after the pandemic struck (including appliances, roofing, fireplaces, furniture, a lawnmower, an outdoor bath and a benchtop).
Where were the companies lining up to replace my old push mower when it was officially declared dead soon after arrival at the blade sharpeners last week? And, come to think of it, part of my roof needs replacing, along with a few windows, some spouting, and a toilet whose cistern is so ancient I have had to learn to fix its inner workings myself because no YouTube video covers it.
If I truly am an attention-seeker as my young relative suggests, any of my "look at me" behaviour hasn’t got me very far financially.
P.S. Good news. My companion has arrived home from North Otago bearing the gift of a $30 second-hand push mower, complete with a canvas catcher. Looking in its mouth, I see it needs a sharpen, but that can be arranged. My modicum of morose moaning about the mower worked its magic. I’m not convinced any social media following I could attract could beat that.
- Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
