I'm tired of being sold stuff.
Consumerism is rampant, ads are everywhere, the state of the economy only encourages people to promote questionable products- these are a couple reasons I think everything has changed in recent years.
Note: I know it’s the height of irony that this is a paid post, but that is only because the topic is not “on brand” enough for me to share with my entire audience. (And that’s how it works from back here: I can either share it as free and it goes to everyone [and I risk people going, “…what the heck, this isn’t professional development.”], or make it paid but with a really long preview so that both paid and those interested enough to click into the article can see it :) So, that’s how I chose to do this one since it dances the line of personal development and personal interest.
Now, let’s talk about being sold stuff :)
There has been a shift in selling things online over the past few years. When I began selling my coaching in 2019, there were far fewer ads and people promoting things in the online space. Since then, we have seen two critical things happen: the rise of influencers and the fall of old methods of advertising.
Most companies have large advertising budgets. Like, really large. And they should(!) because it doesn’t matter how good a product or service is if you’re not getting it in front of customers. Companies used to dedicate their budget to magazines, TV, websites, celebrity endorsement, and newspapers. Since most people now spend a majority of their time on media instead of reading print or watching TV with commercials, advertising budgets are now being directed towards the digital world, more specifically, social media and influencers.
Influencers have what advertisers could only dream of having: our attention daily and our trust. It is more advantageous for companies to partner with influencers who have a relationship with their audience than to post traditional advertisements. Seeing a product promoted by someone you like and trust versus seeing a random ad is the difference between getting a cold call versus getting a call from a friend.
Gone are the days of celebrity endorsements for this exact reason, very few celebrities actually have the trust of their audience. (For example, I do not for a second believe that Jennifer Aniston uses Aveeno lotion.) Before influencers, who are elevated by the public as models to look to for something or other, celebrities were who we looked to as examples, who we wanted to be like, whose word we took. Their endorsement of a product meant something. Nowadays, we know that it just means they were paid handsomely. (As a note: Celebrity endorsement will never go away entirely, in a lot of cases it actually makes senes for them to partner with brands they use constantly [like athletes endorsing Nike or Puma]).
So, because of this shift in advertising budgets and consumer attention over the past decade, social media has gone from being a social platform to being an entertainment and sales platform. Influencers we trust, who previously had no ulterior motive beyond sharing their lives, are now middle men between consumers and companies. It has made social media less of a social watering hole and more of a magazine. Pretty pictures, sprinkled with advertisements, trying to get as much engagement as possible- very much not 2011-Facebook-just-sharing-your-life-and-keeping-up-with-people vibes.
This shift in use of media has made it so most people can’t go online without being sold something.
“All of this is linked in my Amazon storefront.”
“This is a commissionable link.”
“This was gifted to me but you can buy it with my code.”
“Three things you need to buy from X brand.”
“The newest iPhone is now available.”
“The blush that everyone is buying.”
Like FUCK! Can we live?! Can I do anything without trying to be sold something? I saw someone say that reading books is one of the only ways you can be entertained nowadays without seeing an advertisement and I’m just waiting for the day I’m flipping through a book and there is an ad right smack in the middle. Nothing is sacred while capitalism is alive and well.
This picture was circulating for a while that I think captures a bit of the ick of capitalism.
This is a photo of the Cathedral of Barcelona with a Samsung Galaxy advertisement on it. The CATHEDRAL OF BARCELONA. This should be illegal in my opinion. The Cathedral was under construction so the advertisement was temporary, but still! It was evidence to many that nothing is sacred anymore. Nothing is impervious to advertising and making already rich companies richer.
When I talk about capitalism here, I’m talking about the commodification of every possible thing. A commodity is anything that can be bought and sold. Nowadays, if it can be packaged and sold, it is. If they could package air and sell it to you, they would.
When we are experiencing the type of economy we currently have in the United States (bad), it makes people turn to commodification. It makes us turn all of our hobbies into side-hustles, it makes us wonder how we can create new streams of income to stay afloat, it makes us consider promoting products for the promise of extra income.
You’ll see a lot of people criticize influencers for promoting so many brands and then in the same breath hear those people begrudgingly say, “but get your bag.” “Get your bag,” for anyone who doesn’t know, means make your money however you need to. We respect that people need money in this economy and if they need to promote brands to get it then so be it. If that brand’s advertisement budget doesn’t go to that influencer in particular then they’ll just find someone else to give that chunk of their budget to.
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