Professional influencing—put simply, making a living from creating and sharing content about one’s personal life—can seem like a bizarre career choice. In some ways it is. But taking the influencer economy seriously can help us better understand how the contours of the “American dream” are shifting for a new generation.
Love and Hate
Fifty-four percent of young Americans would become an influencer if given the chance. This statistic, from a 2019 Morning Consult report, has made the rounds and been profusely ridiculed by people online. But if you look a little deeper, this desire reflects a deep economic pessimism on the part of Gen Z. A 2022 survey found that 23 percent of the generation never expects to retire, while 59 percent does not own or expect to own a home in their lifetime, numbers that were higher than for any other generation surveyed. Gen Z was also more likely to work multiple jobs and do independent work, despite many of them wanting more permanent roles.
We haven’t yet seen how Gen Z’s financial prospects will shake out. But homeownership and retirement are much more distant goals than they were a few decades ago. Although Gen Z could make a financial comeback, like Millennials have, their current uncertainty is shaping how they approach traditional work norms, and how they might transform the labor system as they age further into the workforce.
Influencing, in the context of inflation and mass layoffs, can appear to be the new American dream for Gen Z. Watching someone film their own life and make a disproportionate amount of money from doing so, without being beholden to anyone, seems like an appealing way to avoid financial uncertainty. The payoff can be life-changing. Seeing the rise of successful influencers (or even your high-school friend who decided to start regularly posting on TikTok), you might be easily convinced that if you keep posting videos, follow other creators, and engage with your viewers, you, too, could pull in $20,000 for a single Instagram post.
But the dream is deceptive. Influencing may appear to be a different type of labor—or not be labor at all—but it still falls into the same traps as traditional work. Not everyone succeeds, for one. As Alice Marwick, an associate communication professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explains, most discussions around influencers focus on mega influencers (commonly defined as those with more than 1 million followers): the kind who can live in luxury based solely on their content. “But that’s the tiniest tip of the pyramid,” Marwick told me. “Beneath them, there’s thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are trying to do the same thing, but not succeeding.” For those people, she explains, it’s one of many stressful careers with long hours and no guarantee of success.
Although influencing is certainly a privileged form of labor, it is work. The social-media economy, whether society takes it seriously or not, is a crucial part of broader systems of American capital. As my colleague Kaitlyn Tiffany recently wrote, creators have become vital assets for social-media companies and advertisers, but they generally lack worker protections, despite having similar concerns as more traditional workers. As Kaitlyn explains, creators are concerned about pay transparency, discussing unionization, and even starting to strike when they feel they are being taken advantage of or discriminated against. Despite their freedom from an employer, they are also reliant on platforms and institutions that they may not agree with. As I wrote yesterday, some influencers have become skeptical of social-media platforms and their effects on people’s mental health, but will typically only go so far as to discuss these concerns on those same platforms—which are, unfortunately, the foundation of their livelihood.
Influencing also puts concerns about class in America into stark relief. Even for young Americans who don’t want to become an influencer, odds are that they at least follow one. Content can be merely a form of entertainment, but it’s also possible that the act of watching someone else vlog their beautiful, comfortable life is rooted in a deeper belief that you may never attain what they have. Instead of improving our own lives, we continue to watch, as their subscriber numbers grow and their houses get larger, and our circumstances remain the same.
Influencers occupy a space between traditional and nontraditional paths to success, between an alternative to 9-to-5 American capitalism and an embodiment of it. As Marwick explained to me, a number of people enjoy lifestyle vlogs because “if you have a really difficult life, sometimes you just want to sit and watch someone do something in a pretty house.” It’s a way to remove yourself from the stress of day-to-day life, or even long-term thoughts about your economic stability. But at the same time, Marwick notes, many viewers are holding on to “very real class resentment that is based on very real issues, and that can rear its head at any time.” Influencers are hated and loved for the same reasons—a double-edged sword of the worst kind.
Evening Read
Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Wikimedia
A History of Humanity in Which Humans Are Secondary
By Katherine J. Wu
Most accounts of humanity’s origins, and our evolution since, have understandably put Homo sapiens center stage. It was our ingenuity, our tools, our cultural savvy that enabled our species to survive long past others—that allowed wars to be won, religions to blossom, and empires to rise and expand while others crumbled and fell. But despite what the schoolbooks tell us, humans might not be the main protagonists in our own history. As Jonathan Kennedy argues in his new book, Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues, the microscopic agents behind our deadliest infectious diseases should be taking center stage instead. Germs and pestilence—and not merely the people who bore them—have shaped inflection point after inflection point in our species’ timeline, from our first major successful foray out of Africa to the rise of Christianity, to even the United States’ bloody bid for independence.
Culture Break
A24
Read. “Second Life,” a short story by Mona Simpson.
“For a long time, Donnie hadn’t talked about his mother at meetings. She was a box with a lid. But now he began to.”
Watch.Beau Is Afraid, in theaters, is your worst nightmare—and it’s wonderful.
I’ve been watching influencers for almost a decade now. Bethany Mota (formerly known as Macbarbie07) and Michelle Phan, for instance, have a deep grip on my psyche. As someone who thinks often about the delusions of the internet, I find it fascinating how much I enjoy watching lifestyle vlogs, where people go grocery shopping and organize their fridges in aesthetic, edited ways. I recently interviewed one of my favorite beauty influencers, Jenn Im, for my article about the phenomenon of “meta-content,” where influencers post on social media about the harms of social media. One of the first things I did to relax after the story published was to watch her most recent vlog about life as a mom—my brain melted into goo, which is exactly what I needed.
If you want to read more about influencers and the internet, I’d recommend starting with Trick Mirror, by Jia Tolentino, which I recommended to Jenn recently (and am secretly hoping she discusses on her YouTube channel). Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman is also a classic. Lastly, I’d recommend anything by Megan Garber, a staff writer here at The Atlantic. Megan has a talent for explaining everything that I’ve been noticing but can’t quite describe, and her recent cover story, “We’re Already Living in the Metaverse,” is no exception.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the country’s merchandise trade deficit narrowed to $1.3 billion in September as imports fell more than exports.
The result compared with a revised deficit of $1.5 billion for August. The initial estimate for August released last month had shown a deficit of $1.1 billion.
Statistics Canada says the results for September came as total exports edged down 0.1 per cent to $63.9 billion.
Exports of metal and non-metallic mineral products fell 5.4 per cent as exports of unwrought gold, silver, and platinum group metals, and their alloys, decreased 15.4 per cent. Exports of energy products dropped 2.6 per cent as lower prices weighed on crude oil exports.
Meanwhile, imports for September fell 0.4 per cent to $65.1 billion as imports of metal and non-metallic mineral products dropped 12.7 per cent.
In volume terms, total exports rose 1.4 per cent in September while total imports were essentially unchanged in September.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
