The Lie of Influencers

It is everywhere, on the streets, and inside your home. You are constantly being bombarded by ads recommending this and that product. If you happen to spend some time on the internet(at this point everyone really does) then it is also likely that you have seen products being recommended by those self-proclaimed influencers. To be fair, there certainly are Influencers, and they tend to be the type of people who actively combat real-world problems, and in the process encourage most of us lay people to engage with this problem ourselves. Only such people are deserving of the name Influencers.  On the other side of the spectrum are the majority of those self-proclaimed influencers. Those influencers, if to be called such, are not Influencers in the aforementioned positive sense, they are ego-inflated child maniacs, who frankly above all else want a piece of everyone's fruits, and they employ deceptive methods to reach that goal. Frankly, they are deserving of the title “Deceivers” and that is what they will be called throughout the rest of this post. 

Their brilliant plan(which it honestly is because it works wonders) is to convince you to give out a piece of your own hard-won fruit by recommending utterly useless products. Everything about deceivers is deceptive, everything from their character to their looks. The most dishonest thing these deceivers do is recommend products they don't themselfs use. They proclaim to use these products themself by pointing to their deceptive flashy looks, which essentially says "if you want to look this good buy this product." Sadly, their brilliant plan works, and so they generate billions of dollars. Why does their mind numbingly simple plan work? It is because most people are gullible, they never dare to question those deceivers. Now, the deceivers actually put in the effort to deceive, they present themself in a manner which to the uncritical eye will have them thinking “Wow, this person seems nice and pretty, must be telling the truth” while in reality this is hardly the case. What's worse is that once some brave follow points to the deception, deceivers deflect by saying “well, you see I don't force anyone to do anything.”

The most depressing thing about deceivers is that they have their devoted fans, a sort of cult if you like, who encourage them to go about deceiving. Those cult members defend their leader by postulating bold and affirmative statements such as “we can do whatever we want”, “we are not harming anyone”, and “we are not forcing anyone to do anything.” Deceivers are everywhere on the internet, you can find them in all major social media, and not surprising is that deceivers come in kinds. There are the conventional deceivers, who you see on tv, and there are esoteric deceivers who you only find in some dark corner of social media. 

Like mentioned earlier, deceivers' only goal is to convince you to hand your straw, and perhaps you oblige thinking ''they are only taking a sip, and plus I am getting something”. Some hand their straw to strangers out of compassion, but most people hand their straw while thinking they're getting something useful in return, which is not the case. Deceivers are clever, they hijack the human condition for their benefit. They know that promoting some product that only requires a sip from your straw won't cause much trouble. After all, after a while you will forget giving out a mere sip, but this method generates billions.  Both conventional and esoteric deceivers employ the same methods, it's just that one is sanctioned by society and the other is shun upon.

How can you aviod deceivers?

First thing to realize is that most of the products out there are not worth giving a sip about, you tend to save sips and discourage deceivers from their goal by not purchasing products you do not need. What product do you need? If you have clothing, food, and water then you already have everything you need. You will realize the truth of this if you reflect upon it.