There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the rise of social media influencers in America and whether their emergence as forces to be reckoned with in the lives of the average person is a good or bad thing.
Though pretty much anyone on the Internet or in print media who expresses an opinion could technically be considered an "influencer," for purposes of this discussion, the type of influencer I'm talking about - generally speaking - is someone who is utilizing social media to make a name for themself in order to get famous and/or to make money by tapping into a niche market, by showcasing their areas of expertise, or by trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator to get clicks.
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Obviously, opinions on what constitutes a worthwhile social media influencer will vary. For me, I watch a lot of DIY/home improvement channels on YouTube where you can tell the content creators put a lot of effort and time into providing quality content, which is a (free) service to people like me who like to try do-it-yourself projects but who frequently fall short on doing a good job of it.
Other examples include cosmetics/fashion influencers on sites like YouTube and Instagram who put their hearts and souls into their channels and pages. Whether their content is sponsored or not, even if those subjects aren't someone's cup of tea props to them nevertheless for the work that goes into producing the videos they do.
Then there are the "Look at Meee!" social media influencers whose sole focus appears to be to see how quickly they can further dumb down the conversation. We've written about them here before, with one of the more recent incidents documented being a female influencer who walked into a gym wearing painted-on jeans and what looked to be skimpy bikini bottoms while accompanied by a man filming her, and then acting outraged and insinuating sexism when disgusted male gym members told her she probably should leave.
The latest instance that has gotten coverage from legacy media outlets comes courtesy of a YouTuber by the name of Chibu Dunga, who visited a Florida Atlantic University classroom last Wednesday and used a recycle bin and what appeared to be a small water reservoir to begin showering in the back of the room while wearing red shorts and utilizing soap and back scrubber:
SCRUB-A-DUB-DUB: Students were treated to an unexpected spectacle during a class at Florida Atlantic University when a man decided to take a shower right in the middle of the lecture. The professor allowed him to continue the antic as long as he remained “quiet.” pic.twitter.com/PVDcbdIsvR
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 28, 2024
Dunga was not a student, and in the fuller video clip below, he admitted that he was about to engage in a "prank" on the professor and students:
According to the Palm Beach Post, though the teacher told him he could stay there as long as he was quiet, she also urged people to call security. When interviewed for the piece, Dunga told them his goal had simply been "to put a smile on people's faces":
“The whole point of it was just to put a smile on people’s faces,” Dunga, who’s a Twitch streamer as well, told The Palm Beach Post.
[...]
[Professor] Waziry can be heard in videos taken by students, “I don’t have that much time and I have a lot to cover.”
Waziry is also heard asking somebody to call security.
“I just did the prank because I thought it was a funny idea,” he said. “Nobody ever did that before. I just thought of it and I just did it immediately. I didn’t mean to harm anyone.”
"Nobody ever did that before" - not true. His saying he just did it to "put a smile on people's faces" was also not true. It was to gain fame and notoriety by, as I suggested earlier, appealing to the lowest common denominator - people who get a rise out of stupidly obnoxious behavior, especially when it's shared on social media or television, entire shows of which - past and present - are devoted to this very thing.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be famous. There's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to make a good living. And I'm all for a good laugh, even for jokes and stunts that others might find offensive or just not funny. But this type of behavior is something else altogether and I just don't think it bodes well for society for people to either keep looking the other way or defending it as just someone trying to be funny and "artistic."
I don't know what the answers are to the problem of social media influencers behaving badly, their outsized prominence in American life, and what it means for the future of this country, but I do have a lot of questions, for starters, like didn't your mama teach you any better?
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