How You Like That

I think it’s safe to say that humans are easily influenced.
I know I am.
I saw a World Cup commercial featuring Neymar (Brazilian soccer player) hocking the Beats. I don’t know what it was about that commercial, but I had to get me a pair of Beats.
I also spent the 90’s wanting to be like Mike.

We now have people whose job title is “influencer.”
There are those who genuinely are influencers than you have people who annoy the living hell out of business owners:

It’s like… if you have to tell people that you’re actually funny, are you really funny?
Or if you have to insist on telling people that you’re smart; that you have one of the best brains; that you can easily recall PERSON. WOMAN. MAN. CAMERA. TV… are you really smart?

If you have to tell people that you’re an influencer… are you really an influencer?
Shouldn’t people be coming to you rather than you trying barter your “fame” for free things?

For instance, Blackpink member Jennie became the face of a snack line called Air Baked. Apparently the company (Lotte Confectionary) spent a year in trying to perfect this healthier snack, said to have 60% less fat than your average fried snack. Then they hired Jennie to be their spokesperson.

Well due to Jennie’s marketing power, the company made over 2.5 Billion Won (2.1 million in USD) in a month and their commercial on YouTube has over 2.7 million views. Apparently, Jennie has the ability to influence sales.

While majority of us may not have the ability to sell 2.1 million dollars worth of merchandise (or try to ask for free stuff in exchange for exposure), the truth is we all wield influence. The important thing is what we do with the influence we wield.

Too many times, I think we lazily rely on the do as I say not as I do tactic, fully knowing that our actions speak louder than words.
I don’t really know where else to take this post — I was writing for the sake of writing because I haven’t written anything in a long time and it’s getting harder and harder to write anything.

This post came to mind because of some of the rhetoric that’s being used since the start of the pandemic. It’s often mind bogglingly frustrating.
People who have the power; who have the platform to influence others for the good of humanity have settled into pushing… I don’t even know if I can call it personal agendas — like a Florida senator pushing schools to be open but acknowledging that he’s not sending his grandkids to school. I don’t even know if that’s even related to anything I’ve written.

Irregardless. (Ha!).
Let’s be mindful of how our words and actions may influence those around us, as a wise philosopher once said, with great power comes great responsibility.
We’re responsible to one another.