The people who most shape our Self Esteem are those who influence us the most.
Nowadays, many of us are influenced not only by friends, family, and the mass media, but also by online influencers. The people who most shape our Self Esteem are those who influence us the most, so it is increasingly important to exercise due care about who we allow to affect us. Influencers attempt to persuade us to adopt their narrative, beliefs, or worldview. To do so, they often play on our need to belong and be part of something. Whether this is a help or a hindrance to our path to greater Self Esteem depends on what we choose to be part of and what it is based on. Suppose it is a positive view of human nature and human potential, or an objective and well-considered commentary about issues, that is well and good. However, if it is a hate festival targeting some politician, thought leader, political party, or social group, then giving this too much attention will erode our Self Esteem. In particular, it will do so by eroding Self Respect, which depends on us living up to our values. Hating, loathing, despising, and looking down on others are not qualities that foster Self Respect.
When the internet first emerged, I was hopeful about the way it ostensibly allowed a much wider range of people to have a voice. While this has occurred to some extent, the same underlying distortions in how the mass media report events also affect how social media influencers report events. Social influencers are under the same pressures as mass media to distort, sensationalize, exaggerate, and even outright lie, telling their audience what they want to hear to generate revenue. Most influencers earn income from advertisements that appear while viewers watch their videos. The more viewers the influencer has, the more they earn. This can cause them to sensationalize and exaggerate to generate more income. This is important to keep in mind because influencers have an impact on how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Influencers can, therefore, influence our Self Esteem.
We all know that the mass media hype up stories to sell newspapers, or to get us to watch TV compulsively. The newspaper and TV station owners know what types of stories to run, which will ultimately help them generate advertising revenue. They also learn, over the years, what kinds of stories do not attract “eyeballs,” so they generate less advertising revenue. Scare stories, crime reports, and stories that incite anger and indignation about the actions of politicians (especially those from the opposing political party to the one the channel or newspaper supports) capture readers’ attention.
Some online influencers are working from the same playbook as the mass media. They shape their content to get the maximum reaction from their intended audience. They exaggerate, distort facts, and quote people out of context to elicit a reaction and generate more advertising revenue.
It is a rare influencer who will stick with topics they feel are worthy and notable, despite a reduction in income.
An influencer active on, say, YouTube will notice that the revenue they get from adverts will often increase when they sensationalise a topic and will frequently decrease if they don’t. The more sensational the presentation style, the more likely viewers will be engaged and watch the video to the end. Therefore, a more sensationalist style will earn an influencer more advertising revenue and a better chance of getting sponsors for their channel. Then some go even further, such as those who fabricate or share fake stories or selectively highlight extreme behavior. They contribute to the polarization of public opinion. If we allow our opinions to be polarized, it can take us out of alignment with our core values and therefore weaken our Self Respect.
Influencers will also notice an increase in revenue when they create a video on a particularly popular topic. Some keep an eye on new trends and jump on the bandwagon for that trend. It will be a brave influencer indeed, and one with high integrity, who would stick with topics they feel are worthy and notable, even if it means having less income. There are, of course, some who do so. Some influencers dedicate themselves to a calm and considered view of the topics they cover. Such people are the hope of the world because they refuse to yield to commercial pressure and offer one-sided and distorted information.
Influential Drift
If an influencer becomes more extreme, their followers may unwittingly be pulled along with them.
One of the ways influencers affect our Self Esteem has to do with the values they emphasize, versus the values they dismiss or don’t cover at all. Often, the values that an influencer emphasizes in their content are not explicitly stated, but are inherent to their style of presentation and attitude. For example, they may start with a mild viewpoint on one side of the political spectrum or the other, or they might cover topics such as “women,” “men,” “gender issues,” and related subjects. If they start making money off this, then this is when the temptations arise. They may feel pressured to become more dramatic and extreme to increase their audience. Continuing to follow them means we risk our attitude drifting towards an extreme. The service’s algorithm will pick up on what we are watching and suggest similar content from other influencers. We then have more voices presenting us with increasingly one-sided points of view. A point of view that previously we would have rejected as too extreme may become familiar and “normal” to us.
If this happens, we have been caught by an “influential drift”. This could be good or bad, depending on whether we have become better people or more bitter, angry, and fearful towards others. We tend to emulate the behaviours and attitudes of those we admire. To avoid going off track, we must follow influencers who maintain a positive perspective on human nature and human potential.
Even some otherwise well-intentioned influencers use “clickbait” titles, and when you watch their content, you wonder what the title has to do with the actual content of their video. They use titles that say, “They don’t want me to tell you this!“, “Watch before this is taken down!”, or titles that include, in bold letters, “SECRET”, “TRUTH”, “WEALTH”, and so on. Some of these can still be worth following, while others are not.
“Algorithm karma is going to get you.”
What is beneficial about these online algorithms that “decide” what to show us is that they teach us a great deal about karma. Give your attention to something, in this case by clicking on it, and you will soon get more of it, till you stop giving your attention to such things. I have fallen foul of this algorithm karma, as we might call it, a few times when I clicked on something I wish I hadn’t. Only to get offered similar things, at sporadic intervals, for a long time after.