Gen Z mostly doesn't care if influencers are actual humans, new study shows (mashable.com)
from return2ozma@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 05 May 2024 08:56
https://lemmy.world/post/15043182

#technology

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_edge@discuss.tchncs.de on 05 May 2024 09:16 next collapse

What a non-story.

They basically asked: In an ad, do you prefer an actor reading out the marketing script or a computer-rendered face?

gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works on 05 May 2024 10:05 next collapse

I just… don’t watch ads.

Firefox, ublock origin, NextDNS when mobile, pfBlockerNG at home.

I’ve gotten to the point where it’s genuinely jarring if I see an ad on one of my own devices.

xePBMg9@lemmynsfw.com on 05 May 2024 11:07 next collapse

How does that affect you instagram influencer browsing experience?

gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works on 05 May 2024 12:20 collapse

What’s instagram?

More seriously: I haven’t had any Meta service or app on any EDC/daily use device I own in roughly 8 years. The only device thar explicitly touches meta stuff is an old android phone I have on a separate DMZ network (yes, I know the internet is rife with Meta (et al) tracking vomit these days, but I think this is close to the best a reasonable, technically inclined person can do).

TimeSquirrel@kbin.social on 05 May 2024 11:10 collapse

Ever watch somebody who doesn't know about all that use the rawdog Internet? It's amazing how people can just sit there, deal with all that, and not go apeshit. The population has been conditioned.

gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works on 05 May 2024 12:24 next collapse

It is pretty insane and depressing that pervasive, jaw-droppingly targeted ads have more or less been completely normalized with the vast majority of the population. I sometimes feel like I have a tin foil hat on when I try to educate people about it these days. Everyone just seems to mostly not care.

loobkoob@kbin.social on 05 May 2024 14:20 collapse

I installed uBlock for someone recently. They complained about all the empty space where the ads used to be. So I removed the empty space by blocking that element with uBlock, which increased the width of the main body of the website, and they then complained that the website was too wide...

Some people are beyond help.

acockworkorange@mander.xyz on 07 May 2024 21:57 collapse

You’re way too patient. “Nothing I can do about it” would have been my answer to the first complaint.

acockworkorange@mander.xyz on 07 May 2024 21:59 collapse

It’s a harrowing experience I don’t intend to repeat any time soon.

eronth@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 21:08 collapse

It feels like a weird study. I can’t tell if the study, or just the article, was trying to make GenZ look like fools yet again, when the actual results found are “GenZ is like a lot of other people in yet another way”.

kakes@sh.itjust.works on 05 May 2024 09:27 next collapse

I’m a millennial, but I don’t necessarily care if the person I’m watching exists or not.

That’s not to say there aren’t a bunch of other factors involved that would generally steer me away from artificial people (general corporate BS being the obvious one), but all else being equal, I’m totally fine with it.

Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee on 05 May 2024 11:30 collapse

If it’s someone I’m never going to meet either way then it doesn’t matter if they’re real or not. What matters is the quality of content.

RobotToaster@mander.xyz on 05 May 2024 10:01 next collapse

They aren’t “real” people either way, even the human ones are just drones reading a script that someone paid them to read.

CorrodedCranium@leminal.space on 05 May 2024 11:21 next collapse

Are you telling me all the podcasters I listen to didn’t naturally have the same experience with HelloFresh?

Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee on 05 May 2024 11:26 collapse

This is how I think about social media in general. It’s a spectrum from mostly fake to all fake. Even the least fake profiles still only show the good parts of their life and unedited photos are still hand-picked from a bunch of other ones they don’t want people to see.

Hell even my own Pixelfed feed which is 100% landscape photography is all more or less fake. I take hundreds of photos and only publish one or two of the best ones and even those are heavily edited. It gives a totally false impression of how good of an photographer I really am.

return2ozma@lemmy.world on 05 May 2024 18:01 collapse

Even with people knowing social media is fake or highly edited, It’s really doing a number on people’s mental health.

TimeSquirrel@kbin.social on 05 May 2024 11:16 next collapse

Does anyody really look at anyone in an ad and say, "Yes, that's a fellow human, I connect with them on a personal level"?

I've been perceiving them as robots since 1986. Because even as a child I knew people in an ad don't act or talk like everybody I knew in real life and what they were portraying was completely made up, unrealistic dialog and scenarios.

Carrolade@lemmy.world on 05 May 2024 12:51 collapse

Exactly. Marketing generally doesn’t try to speak to your rational forebrain. It’s going for your subconscious, by design. It’s why ads can be so random and still retain efficacy.

Zier@fedia.io on 05 May 2024 12:35 next collapse

Stop calling them "influencers", they are Sales People. They influence nothing, they sell you the same crap any ad does.
Sales people, advertisers, spam, all the same thing.

SupraMario@lemmy.world on 05 May 2024 13:49 next collapse

I never understood how people like this got that title. They don’t influence shit, except maybe consumerism and the dumbing down of society.

Takumidesh@lemmy.world on 05 May 2024 13:53 next collapse

They influence the people watching them.

capital@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 03:00 next collapse

So they have no influence except for the ways that they do?

Zier@fedia.io on 06 May 2024 11:04 next collapse

They pander to the less informed, shove confirmation bias into everything, and pretend to sound like an 'expert" on what they spew. Basically a con artist.
And they really want to be famous, but have zero talent. Again, con artist.

funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works on 06 May 2024 15:24 collapse

it’s actually already a sales term in ABM - you have the decision maker, blocker, influencer, end user/stakeholder etc

the term has been around longer than the internet

possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip on 07 May 2024 00:10 collapse

You sound smart I guess you must be an influencer

Usernameblankface@lemmy.world on 05 May 2024 13:57 next collapse

They influence the buying decisions of their audience.

admin@lemmy.my-box.dev on 06 May 2024 05:51 collapse

Not even sales people, just marketing people without a fixed affiliation. The only people they influence are the people for whom the name influencer is not a red flag that they’re being lied to.

Having said that, “influencer” is a lot shorter than that, and at least everyone will know what you mean.

[deleted] on 05 May 2024 13:57 next collapse

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c0c0c0@lemmy.world on 05 May 2024 14:56 next collapse

My Gen Z son says these are Alphas and he doesn’t want to be associated with them.

cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de on 05 May 2024 18:53 next collapse

I don’t care if it’s a human or a bot trying to sell me something because my ad blocker will make sure I don’t even see it.

sebinspace@lemmy.world on 05 May 2024 19:30 next collapse

Probably because we didn’t care about them in the first place

velvetThunder@lemmy.zip on 06 May 2024 11:10 collapse

They have too many followers for that to be true. But I don’t understand why.

eronth@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 21:06 collapse

I suspect a lot of the influencer numbers are pretty inflated.

Pantherina@feddit.de on 05 May 2024 20:39 next collapse

I dont get why people would care for influencers

filister@lemmy.world on 05 May 2024 22:23 next collapse

I don’t get how people can watch reality shows but apparently they do.

Plus entertainment is a great control tool. Give people enough entertainment and they will never revolt.

deafboy@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 06:53 collapse

If the only way to a revolution is making lives more miserable, is the revolution even worthy? Something, something, accelerationism…

Land_Strider@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 10:45 collapse

One is temporary, the other is perpetuated for eternity through atrocities.

funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works on 06 May 2024 15:23 collapse

why do people care for Shrek? Or Walter White? Or Antigone?

The concept of caring for fictional narratives is ages old.

AA5B@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 15:59 next collapse

Wheel is excellent entertainment, and far more human than most of these pretenders.

I make the distinction among “streamer” who is doing a play by play similar to sportscasting, “presenter” is showing facts or teach a lesson like online learning, “op ed” to explain an opinion or parody, and “influencer” as someone trying to be center of attention but usually brings no value and has no reason to be famous except from being famous.

Maybe it’s just my own biases, but

  • I can listen when my kids watch e-sports, recognize it as sportscasting
  • I appreciate how “Everyday Astronaut” explains things
  • I’ll go with Jon Stewart for presenting news topics with a sense of the absurd because I don’t have the patience to find a streamer equivalent
  • somehow people like the Jenners, Lindsay Lohan, Kardashians, are famous for being famous, and supposedly “influence” people? Some of these really seem like the worst of humanity and ought to just be ignored.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip on 07 May 2024 00:07 collapse

And that makes it right?

Anyway the difference now is that peoples opinions are amplified and spread quickly. Combine that with sponsorships and uninformed takes and you are in trouble. It Aldo doesn’t help that people these days are lazy and dopamine junkies.

billwashere@lemmy.world on 05 May 2024 23:31 next collapse

Personally I despise everything about the idea of influencers. I have yet to see one who wasn’t an outright attention whore or just trying to get free shit.

kofe@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 09:52 next collapse

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to be paid for being the center of attention. There’s pathological levels to it for sure, but we’re communal, creative creatures. Maybe it depends on how we define influencer, idk. I was gonna comment that younger generations aren’t fully developed physiologically, so the appreciation for fully human influence could be chalked up to that

skulblaka@startrek.website on 06 May 2024 11:23 collapse

Right. There have been folks getting paid for (and enjoying) being the center of attention since culture has existed. The entire concept of cinema comes from this. I wouldn’t call Rowan Atkinson or Penn & Teller “attention whores or people who only want free shit” but they are the “influencers” of their time.

The dynamic has shifted, but I don’t see it as some inherently bad thing, this just reads as a “kids bad!” kind of statement.

billwashere@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 12:43 collapse

I can definitely see your point. Celebrities are the center of attention and can influence people. But the two you mentioned, well three actually, are entertainers first and foremost. They had a skillset that was interesting to watch and people would pay to do so. So it gets back to the definition of “influencer”… it’s always the nuance of definition isn’t it 😀

So I guess my definition would include some no talent YouTube or Instagram C-rated “celebrity” that is essentially famous for being famous. They expect special treatment and recognition when it isn’t deserved or warranted. They are often pretentious and obnoxious. When I think of “influencer” this is the image in my mind.

abhibeckert@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 20:55 collapse

When I think of “influencer” this is the image in my mind.

… OK. But that’s not what the term “Influencer” actually means. The actual definition is basically just “anyone with a lot of followers”.

And there are plenty of people with a lot of followers who produce great content. For example this one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuX-5E7xoU

Aggravationstation@feddit.uk on 06 May 2024 17:06 next collapse

But isn’t that the whole point of them?

[deleted] on 06 May 2024 20:52 collapse

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Blackmist@feddit.uk on 06 May 2024 09:46 next collapse

I’m ten years you’ll have people identifying as an AI, and grafting on extra fingers.

TheDarksteel94@sopuli.xyz on 06 May 2024 10:29 collapse

Extra fingers just sound very useful.

Honytawk@lemmy.zip on 06 May 2024 10:49 collapse

It allows you to count to 12!

schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de on 06 May 2024 10:55 next collapse

12! is a really high number tho

desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 06 May 2024 11:29 next collapse

what kind of inefficient counting method are you using? 12 fingers allows you to count to 8096 with only two states per finger!

TheDarksteel94@sopuli.xyz on 06 May 2024 11:31 collapse

And just imagine all of the shortcuts I could press at the same time while gaming!

I can just imagine it being a competition amongst speedrunners to find out the optimal amount of fingers to any% a certain game the fastest lol

tearsintherain@leminal.space on 06 May 2024 10:14 next collapse

How the internet created ever more hucksters. Went from door-to-door to screen-to-screen salespeople. Topping things off, if they’re growing up okay being influenced by a bot, well aren’t we all screwed.

pastermil@sh.itjust.works on 06 May 2024 11:34 next collapse

I mean, who does? They don’t act like one.

slurpinderpin@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 21:03 next collapse

I know every generation says this, but I actually think Gen Z is doomed. They have like 50% support for Hamas lmao, brain rotted by social media and echo chambers

Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world on 06 May 2024 23:26 collapse

If you think that’s what’s happening, you’ve been in an echo chamber yourself.

slurpinderpin@lemmy.world on 07 May 2024 12:07 collapse

Sorry, “only” 37%: newsweek.com/pro-palestinian-protest-hamas-colleg….

That’s so fuckin depressing lmaoooo what a bunch of idiots

Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world on 08 May 2024 12:43 collapse

From a shit survey misquoted by a failed Republican sycophant. Echo chamber.

www.statesman.com/story/news/…/71436111007/

slurpinderpin@lemmy.world on 08 May 2024 13:07 collapse

I didn’t even know that dipshit said 50%, but whatever. The Newsweek article I posted says 37%, my apologies. It’s still alarmingly high support for a literal terrorist organization. Brain rotted

Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world on 08 May 2024 13:28 collapse

Did you read the whole article? Newsweek misrepresented the results by leaving out other answers that clearly demonstrate the vast majority think Hamas is a terrorist organization and the Oct 7th attacks were terroristic and genocidal in intent. The sample size was far too small. You’ll notice they didn’t even tell you what the actual question asked was. There’s a big difference between “do you support Hamas” and “do you support the Palestinian government” or “do you support Palestinian efforts to defend against Israeli attacks?” Surveys in general, and especially ones on politically decisive ideas, are notoriously easy to skew based on subtle differences in how you word questions. I’d recommend you be very suspicious of any report on a survey that doesn’t tell you what was actually asked.

acockworkorange@mander.xyz on 06 May 2024 21:04 collapse

Newsflash: adolescents don’t care who is pushing consumerism to them.