The Importance of Reward Style in the Influencer Industry

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The 2008 recession and the economic precarity that followed it are key factors in how influencer industry grew. The other major emergence from that period is obviously the gig economy, where you have a ton of people lose their jobs and then they start doing work for like Uber and things like that. And all of these apps are also based on the fact that many people now have mobile phones. So I wonder if you see any kind of comparisons between the growth of the influencer industry alongside kind of the gig economy?

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.

Also mentioned in this episode:

An excerpt of Emily’s book was published in Wired.
After Elon Musk took over Twitter, a menswear account was suddenly in everyone’s feeds.
Instagram is offering a paid subscription service that includes customer service.
Countries have begun regulating the influencer industry. For example, Norway requires retouched photos to be labeled, while France has an even stricter law that regulates the types of products that can be promoted along with other requirements.

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