In your book, you write that authenticity is not a social construction, but an industrial one. Can you expand on that and explain to us why authenticity is so important to the influencer industry? It's already something that people have leveraged for a long time to sort of bolster themselves. So it's weird to see the celebrities kind of positioned as they're just like you and me instead of like it's kind of unattainable thing we just need to pay attention to and kind of gawk at.
Paris Marx is joined by Emily Hund to discuss the creation of the influencer industry, how it’s been formalized by companies who profit from it, and what can be done to make it fairer for the people who work in it.
Emily Hund is the author of The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media. She’s also a research affiliate at the Center on Digital Culture and Society at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. Follow Emily on Twitter at @emilyadh.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.
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