Fed up with over-glamorized lifestyles and fake realities? It’s time to put an end to the reign of social media influencers.
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The Career Crisis
70% of Gen Z have self-reported a desire to be an influencer when they grow up. No firefighters, no doctors, no astronauts. They want to create videos of themselves to post on the internet. This is a crisis. Many that go down this path find themselves unfulfilled as they become a fictionalized version of themselves that bends to trends and algorithms.
Celebrity
The world has enough celebrity. Not everyone needs to be an entertainer. Many young people now put fame and celebrity above all as their core desire for their life and career. Why do we celebrate celebrity? Why can’t our cultural heroes be scientists, volunteers, or every day people that accomplish miracles every single day?
Narcissism
Influencers have created a culture that breeds self-obsession and a need for validation from strangers. "Look at me", "I have X number of followers", "I'm more important than you". We're creating a culture of people who are overly obsessed with themselves, their physical appearance, and how they are perceived online.
Privacy
Nothing is sacred, nothing is private. Influencer culture has created a world where people share their most private moments online with considering the consequences. How will our future selves feel as we look back at our digital footprint?
Mental Health
Social media is inherently addicting and studies have shown it's bad for mental health. Many of us fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to fake realities. Fake and overly curated lifestyles from influencers make us feel bad about ourselves.
Live Life, Don't Post It
Doing it for the 'Gram, recording and documenting every dinner, vacation, and social interaction. These things diminish real-life interactions with each other. The very things that make us human. Let's get back to connecting in real life.
70% of Gen Z have self-reported a desire to be an influencer when they grow up. No firefighters, no doctors, no astronauts - they want to create videos of themselves to post on the internet.
Not everyone needs to be an entertainer.
Influencer culture is leading to the death of individualism, where everyone feels the need to fit in and mindlessly follow trends. We believe in the power of authenticity. We’re tired of picture-perfect feeds, filtered truths and sponsored lives. Most influencers add little value to society.
Instead they themselves are victims of social media algorithms, jumping on whatever trends is popular to get views, creating fictional versions of themselves to grow attract attention. Often the most outrageous viewpoints and content is what gets the most visibility. It has created a society where everyone craves attention and any attention - good or bad - is rewarded.
Why The Defund?
Social media was meant for connection, not deception. But influencers have turned it into a marketplace full of facades. We stand against the commodification of fake lives.
This is a call for better content. Social media algorithms don't reward truth. They don't reward the best content. They reward whichever content is the most ridiculous, causes the most outrage, and whatever keeps people watching longer (to sell more ads). Most people report that they feel worse after spending time on social media.
The endgame is to keep people sucked into their phone, endlessly scrolling and wasting their lives away watching videos.
Brands with advertising budgets are what fund this endless loop. We need to demand better from both influencers and brands that foster this environment that is leading to the degradation of society.
Our movement is inherently bad for social platforms, but we use it to spread our message. We are vulnerable to getting de-platformed, so sign up for our mailing list to never miss an update and support the movement.