I don’t know about what pops into your feed, on the various social media platforms, but I get at least a certain amount of young, very pretty girls, discussing all the things that young pretty girls discuss. And, they each seem to have grown a large following. I believe the reason why, in the all of this, is all pretty obvious. They are young pretty girls, and they send that desire of the possibility of hope into the minds of all the young (and old) men out there.
 
I guess the first wave of this happened with MySpace. The first true, highly embraced, social media platform. I know I’ve spoken about this in the past, but it was a great platform. Rarely a night would go by that I was wasn’t asked to attend some band’s performance and I was put on their guest list. Celebrity/friends would invite me to meet them at the Rainbow or the Troubadour or the Viper Room or the… via MySpace. It was great!!! And remember, I was in my forties by that point in history.
 
There were girls making it big back then, as well. Some were actually my friends. They would have a ton of people all about them, like many of the Influencers have today.
 
The thing is, that whole MySpace era, was like two decades ago. Sure, MySpace is still a thing, but they killed what it once was. Why, I guess I will never understand???
 
The thing is, and I guess the point to all of this, with time, people age. And, now when I look to some of those one-time famous MySpace people, time has gone past/their time has gone past. The once young women have become older. Many have grayed. Some have put on the pounds. All have aged. Like the great lyric from the Aerosmith song states, “Every time that I look in the mirror. All these lines on my face getting clearer. The past is gone.” Some have even passed away.
 
I doubt that the whole Influencer Culture, of the back then, made the kind of money as they women seem to do now. But me, I always question, how are these people getting paid? And, who is paying them?
 
I think we would all love to make a grand living simply by doing a content bit like one that came into my feed today of this girl, eating at a restaurant, and then ranking the food she was eating. I mean really, who pays her for doing that?
 
I know as this whole Influencer Culture began to take hold, a lot of the girls would broadcast from their bedroom, with their bed behind them. I mean, come on… What a ploy. What a feed for the fantasy of the viewers. It always made me smile.
 
One the other side of this issue, at least just a little bit, there was this great television personality, Cheslie Kryst. Not only was she a beauty pageant winner but she had a degree in law and was on the bar of two separate states. Plus, she was a correspondent for the TV Entertainment News Show, Extra. She was gorgeous.
 
When the pandemic hit, and as we were all in isolation, she had to do some of her reporting from her apartment. There, she would broadcast from her bedroom. During one interview, the actor, Oma Epps, made some jokes about this fact and her bed being behind her. She stated, it was due to the WiFi reception being the best in her bedroom. Maybe that was true??? But, he read into it what most fantasy-seeking men would.
 
Sadly, soon after that, she took her own life. I think everyone asked the question, how could she do that? She had so much going on? But, she did.
 
Afterwords, her mother said she suffered from what is now termed, High-Functioning Depression. I’ve been suffering from that most of my life. Long before it had a title. So, though each case is somewhat different, I can understand what she was feeling. In my case, add in Chronic Anxiety Disorder, most probably based upon a supremely fucked-up childhood, and, need I say it, I’ve been a mess most of my life. But, for her, it caused her to end her own life. Very Sad! She could have owned the world. For me, I can realize she was at the pinnacle of an ideal example of a person presented and exhibited to the world, which takes us back to the this of all that we are discussing here.
 
Like I say, of those who rose to the top of this game, way back in the way back when, there is a shelf-life. Then what? Where do they go from there/here?
 
I believe most people watch the content they watch and maybe enjoy what the person has to say or to present or to whatever… Certainly, there are some podcasters who aren’t pretty young ladies, who shake the world with their platform. For them, then, they maybe can ride it out to a better degree, as they are not basing their appeal on their looks.  But, as I have watched, some of those from that earlier era/some of those that I have personally known, are eventually left to the lost.
 
I believe we all need to think about this. Contemplate the what comes next. I mean, life changes, trends go away, platforms lose their favor, then what? If you don’t have a plan for your next step in life, when everything becomes different, what are you going to do when it does?