I am exceptionally grateful that I did not grow up in a world of social media. And in regards to ‘social media influencers’, quite honestly, I find the concept more than a little bizarre. – I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but for those lucky few who seem to make a career out of it, it seems that you can make a pretty decent living by having no marketable talents or skills beyond maybe looking good and having a bit of charisma.
Like it or not though, social media influencer is a legitimate career these days.
Following a report via TheHill, however, a somewhat disturbing new study has found that 1 in 4 people between the ages of 16 and 25 currently plan for this to be their career! Yes, a quarter of young people are seemingly setting their sights and career plans on being social media influencers!
Social Media Influencer – The New Career Choice For Young People?
The survey was conducted among 1,000 people between the ages of 16 and 25 across America and the responses, quite frankly, are more than a little concerning. – The results showed that 1 in 4 said that they planned to have a career as a social media influencer. And just to clarify, this isn’t them saying that they’d like to be one. They said that this is their key primary career goal. In other words, this is categorically what they wanted to do with their professional life.
What about those who would simply ‘like’ to be an influencer though? Well, it’s not exactly surprising to see that this figure, among those surveyed, was a pretty hefty 92%. – At this point though, I think a solid dose of reality is probably necessary.
Let me make it clear that I’m not trying to be the metaphorical grinch here. There is absolutely nothing wrong with aspiring for a job regardless of what field it’s in. In regards to influencers though, it’s almost akin to saying you want to be a premier league footballer. Millions want it, but only hundreds actually achieve it and at least in football talent has something to do with it!
And this is not to mention the fact that the average ‘career’ of a social media influencer, for those few who do make a success/living of it, is typically only 2-4 years. And even for them, only a handful earn the money you see splattered all over the media that effectively sees them, all going well, set for the rest of their life regardless of if their career continues to progress or dies out in a flash of a poorly worded or thought out Twitter post.
Put simply though, if 25% of young people want to be influencers, then I suspect at least 24.9% of them are going to have to be set for some disappointment!
What do you think though? – Let us know in the comments!
