After the relatively positive image of influencers that I got in Swipe Up For More, I decided to take a turn towards the dark side of influencing. Just joking, I had Get Rich Or Lie Trying on my TBR for a while and the idea that it would be a contrast to Swipe Up For More didn’t even occur to me when I picked it up.

Get Rich Or Lie Trying covers the lengths that people will go to be influencers, or at least look like they are influencers. Symeon Brown covers models/fashion influencers, sex workers, MLMs, financial influencers, livestreamers, and even race relations in this comprehensive takedown of the influencer industry. From the start, I was both riveted and horrified by what I was learning – sweatshop workers (though the company is Fashion Nova rather than Shein), botched plastic surgery, people losing serious money to MLMs, people making a living by being racially abused, all and more of that is in here.

Which makes this a rather heavy read. While Swipe Up For More left me feeling like there might have been merit to influencers as a general group, Get Rich Or Lie Trying had me convinced that the influencer industry is fundamentally flawed. There might be some good in it for a select group of people, but I can’t see a justification for an industry built on exploiting and producing such pain in most of its workers (let alone its consumers).

Some less general points:

• The chapter on fast fashion pointed out the sustainable model of hyper-production and consumption, which actually reminded me of how a fashion influencer in Swipe Up For More mentioned not wearing an outfit more than a few times! Definitely unsustainable for the environment.
• This quote hit me hard: “Sex work is just one way that influencer culture can be understood as the consumption of people. In all influencer work there is no real retreat into anonymity, something that is afforded to most other workers, and the only way to clock off is to log off, an impossible task as social media is both our place of work and where our social life is.” – I never thought of that analogy before but it captures my feelings about the exploitative nature of the industry so well.
• The gig economy is making our financial situations even more precarious, which may explain why people want to be influencers. Someone interviewed in the book said this: “I was searching for something that would give me that lifestyle but also give me [free] time and that’s when I fell into trading”. I think that makes a point about how we all want a balanced life but feel like we can’t get it as long as we are not our own bosses, and I’m wondering if this discontent stems from the fact that jobs are now more unstable than what they were before (where you could get a job for life, trade jobs would pay decently, etc).
• The assessment of movements like Black Lives Matter was one that I’ve talked about offline with friends. I think the author did a good job acknowledging why the movement was needed in America but also was clear-eyed enough to see that there have been people who have taken a movement for racial equality and turned it into a way for them to make money.
• Another quote that struck me: “Workers once rallied around the call for ‘an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work’. It is open for debate what this represents in the influencer economy. What counts as fair pay, especially when the price paid includes a loss of dignity from the dehumanising and dishonest ways attention demands to be monetised?”

This book gave me a lot of food for thought. Though it covers many different industries (and Brown really delves into the topic by talking to people within each influencer sphere), it’s all tied together by the argument that deceit is fundamental to the influencer industry and this is hurting many people.

As someone who was already sceptical of influencers, this book confirmed a lot of my worries. However, I think that people who are positive about what influencers can do may feel quite differently about this book – if that’s you, I’d like to hear your thoughts!

Featured Image: Photo from Canva