upvote
>And in totality, it's not a bad thing - people that would probably have a boring job all their lives otherwise have built their wealth and connections, and the audience has been entertained. But money sucked the fun out of it.

It absolutely is, because everything is adversarial. Every piece of advice is a hidden ad, every friendly person an attempt to lure you into parasocial relations, every teacher a course seller.

We went from a community to normalizing psychopathy.

reply
We simply exist as vessels to be advertised to.
reply
Hear hear.

It seems so innocent. “Just an ad” but the whole influencing industry is kind of a nice word for “manipulation”

When the cost of manipulation is so low, and the repercussions for lying and cheating are not there, everything gets skewed.

reply