Social media life has become a vivid and an essential part of everyday experience. Many people have their accounts on several networks and platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, to name a few. This stream has produced people who make their social media activity to be their occupation and main business, attracting thousands of subscribers (Min). Such online celebrities are now called influencers because their sharing of opinions and attitudes exerts an impact on the audience.
In the USA, influencers are a notable part of society, and it is important to analyze their role. Some people believe that influencers cause positive changes in America, while others argue that the activity of online celebrities does more harm than good. The current paper argues that influencers’ culture has a positive impact on people in America.
Influencer activity is a fruitful way of making people listen and be attentive, and online celebrities broadcast critical social messages to the audience. They show and discuss the importance of awareness of individual diversity in psychological state, body appearance, and lifestyle.
Consequently, online personalities promote tolerance and show people that everybody is worth being appreciated, inspiring people to achieve their desires and live the life they want. Such a multicultural society, as the American one, should benefit from a tolerant society. Moreover, people in America spend most of their time on smartphones. Therefore, it is more likely that they will perceive a message if they see it on the Internet. Thus, influencers have the power to transmit messages relevant to current social issues.
Moreover, online activity has a positive effect on bloggers as well. They become aware of their influence through the process of building their social media identity (Johnson 26). This realization probably leads to acquiring control to adjust the impact on other people to take responsibility for their actions. For example, they can help to find sponsors for a welfare center or to establish humanitarian help for refugees. Besides, the influencers will have to face the problem of time-management of social media life and to learn to spend their time wisely (Nagu). Therefore, being an influencer teaches consciousness and forms a mature outlook on life.
Furthermore, social media activity is an additional efficient source of created jobs. There is a crisis of occupation positions in the USA, and the online job is an opportunity for self-realization. Telling about their online course on something they are professional in, advertising brand goods, writing reviews on cultural spots can bring them recognition and a decent income. Besides, they can reach a professional community they belong to and get a promotion or find collaborators to start a new business (Nagu). To sum up, becoming an influencer is a great chance to find an occupation and to earn a living.
On the other hand, there are notions that influencers show only a luxurious side of their life and therefore promote jealousy among the audience and affect subscribers’ self-confidence negatively. Some people claim that the only thing online celebrities rely on is money and wealth which most of people do not possess. The audience of these social media stars does not believe they can achieve it in their life because their self-efficacy lowers.
Such an attitude among the online community may facilitate social stratification and social tension. Notwithstanding, boasting exists in the offline world, and it is not a product of online social media. Also, many influencers concentrate on environmental problems, on education facilitation, on equality, and they do not give publicity to their income or the quality of their life. Overall, showing-off in social media exists withing the behavioral model of general society, and online celebrities who are famous for their wealth is only one type of influencers.
Nevertheless, some people believe that social media celebrities mostly make money on advertisements for products the bloggers have never tried. These products are usually useless and sometimes even dangerous, but people will not be able to find out about that until they spend their money to buy the good. However, according to Smith et al., brand ambassadors are not viewless regarding what they take for advertising, and they are aware that wrong information can affect their reputation dramatically (20).
Moreover, this is usually the only source of money for them because donations are not frequent or sufficient. Besides, lying advertisements are not the problem of influencer activity per se because untruthful advertising has been existing for a long time, and bloggers can be victims of fraud in the same way. Thus, although sometimes influencers plug an advertisement, they know little about, they mostly tend to make sure that the product is not harmful because they value their respect.
In conclusion, influencers affect American society positively because social media celebrities address vital social issues and can make a difference in the community’s attitudes and actions. Online life reflects several aspects of life beyond social media and can be a source of changes in people’s reality. Social media activity has become an effective way to communicate and to speak up, and influencers use this feature to make a change in social attitude towards vital topics.
Online celebrities inspire people to achieve their goals and to contribute to individual development, promoting social progress. Besides, for many people working online is the only opportunity to earn a living, and becoming an influencer can match their personality. Although there are claims that influencers are only showing off their richness, promote people’s self-dissatisfaction, and advertise suspicious products, these actions are nor inherent in influences only. However, they exist in society in general, and likewise, there are a lot on social media celebrities who do not lead such accounts.
Works Cited
Johnson, Katryna M. “The Importance of Personal Branding in Social Media: Educating Students to Create and Manage Their Personal Brand.” International Journal of Education and Social Science, vol. 4, no. 1, 2017, pp. 21-27.
Smith, Brian G., et al. “Rise of the Brand Ambassador: Social Stake, Corporate Social Responsibility and Influence Among the Social Media Influencers.” Communication Management Review, vol. 3, no. 1, 2018, pp. 6–29.
Min, Sarah. “86% of Young Americans Want to Become a Social Media Influencer.” CBS News, 2019. Web.
Nagu, Gayatri. “Social Media Influencers and the Vulnerability of Youth to such Influences.” Young Bhartiya, 2019. Web.