What does the degeneration of the word ‘influencer’ say about our society?

A quiz for everyone – what's one thing that is abundantly available in our society now?  'Influencers.' According to a feature by The Business Standard, 'The rise of the 'influencer', more than half a million (around 5 lakhs) Bangladeshis have over 10,000 followers on social media. All of these people are potential influencers. 

It was a light-bulb moment for me when I came to realise that there is an evident dichotomy between what I knew to be an 'influencer' and what this means nowadays. After such an insightful (rather frightening for me) revelation, it was quite hard to come to terms with what the word 'influencer' actually means now in a world dominated by marketing gimmicks. 

So, what does an 'influencer' actually mean? According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an influencer is someone who affects or changes the way that other people behave. In broader terms (or at least what I used to think), someone whose words or actions leave a perennial and truly inspiring impact on others and influence them to make meaningful changes in society.  

The first name that hovers in my mind after hearing the word 'influencer' is Raja Ram Mohan Roy, a religious, social and educational reformer who challenged different stereotypical and misogynistic practices prevalent in the then Indian society. The practice of suttee (ritual burning of widows upon the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands) was abrogated from society owing to his long struggles against this inhuman custom, thus emancipating women of that time. Now this is what you call a true 'influence'.   

Unfortunately, nowadays the word 'influencer' means something totally antithetical to what it used to mean years or decades back. With the meteoric rise of social media, guerilla marketing and business shenanigans, this influencer culture has shaped into a full-fledged industry that has degenerated the proper implications of the word 'influencer' and undervalued the weight and responsibilities that come with such a serious epithet. 

For instance – there are hundreds of social media or Instagram influencers who are doing nothing but posting a handful of pictures in a single day or uploading videos of silly things. Some are trying to crack silly jokes, while others are posting cooking videos, dishing out advice or running entertaining celeb interviews. 

People are following these so-called influencers in great numbers, catapulting them into national stardom overnight while upending the gravity of being an influencer.   

Interestingly many of these influencers are neither contributing by any means to ameliorate people's lives nor doing anything that could bring about significant or meaningful changes in society.  

This clearly portrays the collective hollowness we are nurturing as a society. As a society, we have failed to underscore the need for things which bear more importance and demand our immediate attention. 

Say for example, how many of us actually know a youth activist who might be working to build climate-resilience or campaigning for animal rights. Very few such activists are known to us, but almost all of us know about Rafsan Sabab or other social media influencers with millions of followers. We tend to focus more on relatively silly issues instead of paying heed to graver concerns.   

In reality, we should not lionise these people, rather we need to put the limelight back on 'real-life influencers' who are actually making a real difference. If you are falling short of inspiration, people like Rikta Akhtar Banu might help you think otherwise and form different optics towards life. Rikta's story was published in the Daily Kaler Kantho a few days ago.    

Rikta Akhtar Banu, a senior staff nurse working for the local health complex in Kurigram's Chilmari upazila, has a daughter with speech difficulty. Back in 2008, her daughter was refused education at the local government primary school. Shattered by the school's decision, Rikta, driven by an afflatus to do good to other specially-abled children in her area, opened a school herself. 

Instead of counting on others to make a pathway for her daughter, she created a new path herself so that others could follow. Her hard work did not go up in smoke. At present, around 300 students with cognitive difficulties from adjacent areas are studying at Rikta Akhtar Banu Intellectual Disability School.  

Rikta's example dwarfs all other previous examples of being an influencer. She instantiates what it means to be an influencer. 

However, there is another meaning of an influencer - a person who is paid by a company to show and describe their products and services on social media and encourage other people to buy them. For ordinary people like us, we need to understand this whole influencer showboating is monetary. If you are looking for some socially-inspiring stuff here, you are probably in the wrong alley. 

These so-called influencers are a by-product of changing business dynamics and corporate chicanery. Businesses are now cashing in on the popularity of social media-based influencers to sell their products/services. Their influence simply increases based on your ignorance and silliness. 

No offence intended to anyone, but this 'influencer' tag is a bit fancy or parochial given the past and present contributions of hundreds of influencers we have/had in our society. It's up to you to decide which influencer to follow – Rikta Akhtar Banu or a social media influencer delivering a sales spiel. For a troglodyte like me, I have got issues with branding just anyone with this 'influencer' tag.       

Md Morshedul Alam Mohabat is a columnist who likes to delve deeper into the human psyche and social incongruities with a view to exploring the factors that influence these.    

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.