Influencer Culture Has its Issues, but Pete Davidson Just Missed the Point

Do I think influencers should make millions while teacher struggle to pay their bills? No. I don't.

Let's not pretend this is a problem that started with influencers, though...or that it's unique to them. In our society, we pay a lot of people gobs of money for jobs that don't require the most work, or do the most good. Unfortunately, our collective value system doesn't always get it right.

But, as we've discussed before, influencers get an unfair amount of hate for making the money they make, and some of this does feel like it's rooted in misogyny. And, as people are clocking, Pete Davidson recently contributed to that.

The comedian is going viral for his comments about how it "makes [him] sad" that influencers can make as much money as they do. "Girls are just talking to themselves on there," he said. "And they're like 'okay, come get ready with me'".

Pointedly, Davidson repeatedly mentions "girls" and female pronouns in his rant. The influencer market is full of women, and women tend to run the show in the world of content creation, so I suppose this stands to reason. But his Davidson really angry at the value system that rewards influencers for selling products and a lifestyle...or is he angry that women have found a way to make great money? Because from the way his comments are phrased, it seems like it might be the latter.

Like I said, influencer culture deserves some criticism. But doesn't every industry? Influencing can certainly contribute to the problem of overconsumption, but it can also bring about a lot of positives. Women have found spaces to talk about the realities of their bodies online. They've found ways to challenge exclusive beauty standards. They've initiated important conversations via these platforms.

It's easy to dismiss the influencer industry, or to reduce it to vapid consumer-driven clips from women who don't have much to say. But that's not all there is to social media...and when we pretend that it's just a vanity project for women with nothing better to do, or a valueless money suck...well, we fully miss the point.