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OPINION

If you’re a huge fan of pop culture - something I’ve never been - it must be hard to keep up. Things change too fast today for most folks to stay abreast of what’s happening…what’s hot and what’s not.

Maybe if you’re a top “influencer”…and have a team of less influential “influencers” working for you…you might stay ahead of most people. If so, I pity your life…or what passes for a life. The fact that an “influencer” is even a thing is mildly disturbing…though I must confess I don’t waste much of my day dreading or even thinking about it.

It is fodder for this column…a critical, less-than-complementary opinion about how too many people follow too few people…to help them decide what’s worthy or not.

Oh, I suppose Boomers - we of long tooth - had influencers. We just didn’t call them that…and there weren’t that many. Most were famous people…Elvis Presley…Bob Dylan…Walter Cronkite…television.

(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

Even as a teenager, I never needed someone I didn’t really know to tell me what to wear…what to do…who to worship…or what to buy. Most of the fun in life was discovering things on your own…rather than being led to what’s behind door number two. The adventure was the trip…not always the destination.

Influencers - then and now - want you to trust them…rather than yourself. Sorry. It just doesn’t seem right. Back in the day, influencers were paid…but not like today. Radio disc jockeys, for example, were paid illegally to play certain records…without acknowledging that fact. It was called payola.

Influencers are paid today…mostly in the open…so much so that the disc jockeys of the ’50s and ’60s look like penny-ante players. What was once a ten-dollar bill for a record spin on radio to a waiting teenage audience…has become tens of thousands of dollars simply for posting something on TikTok…seen by millions in moments. It’s good to be king…or more aptly…king-maker.

The problem with this business model is that one post never does it…no matter how many see it. Next. Yes, there’s always an influencer moment behind the last influencer…with something or someone…you simply have to know more about…or so you’re told.

Maybe that’s why everyone today walks around with a device in their hands…fearing that they might possibly miss something crucial to their lives. I take delight in ignoring the never-ending notifications…and actually use my device mostly to make phone calls. You know, wirelessly connecting with another person and talking with them…where they can hear your voice…your tone…and not guess what one of thousands of emojis might mean.

The near-obsession-like behaviours of some makes me wonder. Why? Yes, why does anyone know or want to know more about "Vanderpump Rules" than what the government is doing or not doing to, say, make housing more affordable? 

Stop and ask someone on the street - young or less so - who wants to own a home about the issues of getting into the housing market…and they’re likely to give you a shrug and a “that’s the way it is” response. I’ve done it.

But ask about Lisa Vanderpump…and you’ll likely get a dissertation on a woman running three restaurants and bars in Southern California and how her friends and enemies are variously making life easy or hard. I’ve done that, too.

Such findings don’t make me overly optimistic about where we’re headed as the planet hurtles through space. But, as I wrote earlier…I try not to fret too much…too long.

“That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.” Adlai Stevenson said it. Go ahead, unless you’re grey around the temples or possibly bald, you’ll have to Google him.

By the way, Stevenson never made it far into pop culture…he couldn’t win over voters much less “influencers”.

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

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