Self-employment has created such a huge buzz in young generation people that children are choosing to become YouTubers rather than astronauts according to a 2019 global poll. Today, being a content creator or a social media influencer has become the top career preference for young generation, despite knowing the career path and journey is associated with extra effort, pay gaps, work burnout, unpredictability and so on. The reason why today’s generation and young population is choosing this career path is the lifestyles that we are seeing in advertisements on social media which are undoubtedly enticing. However, the fact is these social media influencers and their lifestyles are significantly influencing a feasible career path which has more stability and predictability. Beneath the shimmering exterior lies dangerous and risky income, pay inequity based on race, sex, physical disability, and mental health issues. There are several types of social media influencers such as fashion bloggers, travel influencers, comedy influencers, lifestyle influencers. And the impacts of these influencers and content creators on young people is so huge that they aren’t paying attention to the disadvantages of this career path. And the biggest hope for these young people to stick to this career path is all successful influencers strongly claiming that anyone can make it in this industry which is partially true.
Let’s have a brief look on the dark facts about content creators and social media influencers:
1. Risk of undervaluing creative labour
There are risks associated with self-employment that are aggravated in the social media influencing industry caused due to the unavailability of industry standards and poor pay transparency. Social media influencers are often compelled to evaluate their own value and determine their fees for the work. This leads the content creators to undervalue their own creative labour often ending up working for free.
2. Power in the hand of platforms
Social media influencers undoubtedly who achieve success it is just not because all of their effort and hard work as some power and success lies in the hands of platform algorithms which means these influencers are at the mercy of algorithms which is the behind-the-scenes computer programs and codes that evaluate which posts are to be highlighted, run, shown, in which order, to the platform users.
3. Huge toll on mental health
Social media influencers may flaunt their amazing work and success to their followers and users which impact the user’s lives to a great level but a dark fact about content creators and social media influencers that we still don’t know is their extreme hard work, continuous work on screen and endless editing which needs immense time and focus that burns them out physically and mentally that takes a huge toll on their mental and overall health.
4. Vulnerability to negative criticism
Trending on the social media platform, achieving success, being the best social media influencer might look all glossy from a fair distance for the users but, on the other side of the game, we don’t really know, the influencers have to experience and face the negative comments, feedbacks, criticism and even threats which affects their self-confidence, self-respect, and talent skills. Some influencers even get scared and start self-doubting their abilities and even decide to end their lives.
5. Social media addiction for users
There is no surprise that given social media influencers upload approximately 500+ hours of social content every minute. And these contents are enough to keep the users glued to their screen which is exactly what the influencers and marketers need. So, this becomes a vicious cycle where the more the attention paid by the users the more addiction it becomes for the influencers. They become so invested in this career path that they try all possible heights and risks to achieve more and more fame and followers.
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6. Insufficient income
According to the marketing experts a social media influencer according to the category they cater to, the deliverables, and the niche earns from Rs 15,000-5 lakh from one deal collaborated with a brand. Micro influencers who have 1K to 10K followers earn Rs 40,000-60,000, depending on the category of influencers which is on an average is Rs. 1.17 lakhs approx) per month and the mega-influencers who have more than one million followers make approx. Rs 12 lakhs per month. But, to reach this level the influencers have to go through many ups and downs as garnering followers initially is not a cake walk. Thus, being an influencer with fewer followers can be a massive drawback with insufficient income with challenging work which is another dark fact about content creators and social media influencers.
