I read it, it’s dull and lazy. The writer seems to believe that anyone using a forum like Tattle once believed themselves to be an influencer’s friend, which is an incredibly naive way of looking at it and is quite patronising. I don’t think many people believe themselves to be an influencer’s ‘friend’ - the relationship, such as it is, is more sophisticated in that I think that most people are aware any influencer/audience relationship is transactional. Most people know they are being sold something by influencers, whatever that is, but there’s a delicate balance and it’s when that balance shifts that people get annoyed.
Having said that, there are people who don’t associate cold, hard marketing strategy with the cheerful mummy-vlogger dancing round the kitchen and telling everyone how great the new banana-flavoured cereal from Nestle is, but that’s part of the problem with the way the influencer market has developed. Companies rather cynically engage influencers because of the parasocial relationships they encourage. I might not respond well to Barclays telling me how great their new bank account app is, but if ’Kate’ the young, trendy fashion—blogger tells me about it then I’m more likely to listen. Some influencers are savvy and quite cynical, but I suspect there are a fair few that are being exploited just as much as their audiences.
they’ve chosen public life with everything that entails, the press are paid to tear down celebs/ royalty/ politicians…Only difference is we’re not being paid ( contrary to what many influencers believe 
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, but this whole influencer bubble carries on. Where's the netflix or disney show to explore such an interesting topic?
