We Need To Talk About "Influencer Scam Culture"

[Music] Hi friends. Hello. Hi, how are you? I hope you guys are having an amazing day today. Hello. Hi, long time no see. Um, hello. Candle of the day today is white pumpkin oak wood. You can't see it, but it's burning also.

fun fact bought this little pumpkin decor for my background for all the videos i was gonna film in august it's just been sitting here but i do have this little pumpkin here i got it at home goods so super cute it's my

Fun fact, I bought this little pumpkin decor for my background for all the videos I was gonna film in August. It's just been sitting here, but I do have this little pumpkin here. I got it at HomeGoods, so super cute. It's my little ode to fall. Oh my God, it's fall. I'm in a sweater. I've literally never been happier. Anyway, hi. Hello.

you guys will be interested in it i'm not sure if you will but as you know if you've been a follower for a little while i do this series called evolution of i haven't done one in a while because

Today's video, I'm really excited about today's video concept and kind of where we're going to go with this, and I hope that you guys will be interested in it. I'm not sure if you will, but as you know, if you've been a follower for a little while, I do this series called Evolution Of. I haven't done one in a while because I've kind of been lacking inspiration for them, but I kind of had this idea for Evolution Of.

to just sort of see where that concept took me and i was really what sparked this was i was scrolling through instagram and i saw that tana mojo was coming out with a new x-toy i'm probably gonna have to believe

Normally, I focused them on like a person or brand. I kind of had this idea to focus on like a concept and to just sort of see where that concept took me. And I was really, what sparked this was I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw that Tana Mojo was coming out with a new X-toy. I'm probably gonna have to believe that. And I realized that from her, this is like probably the fourth or fifth just on its own product launch that she's done in the last year. And honestly, of all of those product launches, most of them have been somewhat scams. Um, and it got me thinking, like, how did we get here? How did we get to a point where people like Tana Mojo and Trisha Paytas and all of these people are just like low-key scamming their followers? Like, how did we get to this point? What sort of evolution of influence or marketing led us to this place where all of these influencers are doing these sort of shady marketing techniques for the sake of making money? Like, even think about the fact that we've had influencers start to abuse the stock market as a way to make money is like bananas to me. So this isn't exactly an Evolution Of, but it's definitely sort of, I can't decide what to call this video. You'll see the title and you'll know, but definitely more sort of just like walking through the timeline of events that got us here to where we are currently with the way that influencers market products and put out products and also talking about the effect that that has on being an influencer as a job in general and also the effect that it has on the consumer. So if you're interested in that, let's jump in after hearing from sponsor.

got me thinking like how did we get here how did we get to a point where people like tana mojo and trisha paytas and all of these people are just like low-key scamming their followers like how did we

Hi friends, editing me here, and today's video is sponsored by Wayn. I feel like oftentimes when life gets really busy and stressful, one of the first things I start to neglect heavily is my hair. It's so easy to just throw it up in a messy bun all the time or not take extra time in the shower to take care of it, not do any treatments. But there's nothing better than hitting the reset button on all of that and trying some new and fun hair care products. I wanted to tell you guys some of my favorite products that I've been using lately from Way.

the fact that we've had influencers start to abuse the stock market as a way to make money is like bananas to me so this isn't exactly an evolution of but it's definitely sort of i can't decide what to call this video you'll see the

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effect that that has on being an influencer as a job in general and also the effect that it has on the consumer so if you're interested in that let's jump in after hearing from sponsor hi friends editing me here and today's video is

Additionally, something I've been using is the Way volume spray. So you guys know that I like to curl my hair a lot, especially when I'm filming videos. I find it really fun to do a little curled look. A lot of times when I do curls, sometimes they just kind of like sit and they don't do anything. I find that using just a little bit of this, I do like a couple of squirts in my hand, rub it into my hands, and then apply it to my hair like this because I have more thin hair. If you use too much, it can sometimes give you this like weird texture. So absolutely don't use a ton of this, but if you spray just a little bit in your hands, rub it together, and then rub it into your hair, it gives your hair just that little bit of extra vavoom, especially when you're trying to style it like curling it or crimping it or straightening it. It just gives your hair that little extra boost and volume, which I love.

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this stuff so much i used to use a ton of different leave-in conditioners because after a shower my hair can sometimes be ridiculously snarly so in order to get a brush through it i need a leave-in conditioner i used to use like

So it's no secret that the job of influencer has grown exponentially in the past few years. What used to be sort of this like made fun of and mocked idea has now become something that most kids who are like between the ages of 10 to 14 want to do when they grow up. I would argue that especially in the last couple of years, the term influencer has taken a little bit more validity than it used to. I still think a lot of people still make fun of it as a job and kind of rightfully so, but I also think more and more people are starting to see the value in influencers. And not only that, I think influencers more and more are starting to see the value in themselves. And honestly, the way that influencers have now kind of seemed more like celebrities, I'm still hesitant because I still think we're a few years away from that before influencers are seen as like genuine celebrities. I think some people are still really hesitant to say that. But when you have the audience of tens of millions of people at your like beck and call, I would go ahead and call you famous. Like, you're a celebrity at that point. I think personally that it's really cool that the job and role of social media influencer has been being taken more seriously. But I do think there are some major downfalls to that happening that should be talked about as well.

like glides through any tangles or snarls this stuff is so good i cannot recommend it enough additionally something i've been using is the way volume spray so you guys know that i like to curl my hair a lot especially

There's been this new wave of influencers who came from particularly YouTube and Twitch and TikTok who are now starting to become even more than influencers. Influencers in today's world have basically gone from being purely just content creators to being like business moguls. While I think a lot of influencers who start these sort of business-y projects, start wanting to sell a product, do take it very seriously, I think there's a lot of others that do not take that seriously or are simply trying to make some money and capitalize off of their fan bases. And honestly, when you're doing something like that, when you're putting out a product for the sole reason of making money and capitalizing off of your audience and your kind of quality of production doesn't really matter to you, that is when you're going to start selling products that I would consider a scam. It's something that isn't representative of what people thought they were goi...

bit of this i do like a couple of squirts in my hand rub it into my hands and then apply it to my hair like this because i have more thin hair if you use too much it can sometimes give you this

like weird texture so absolutely don't use a ton of this but if you spray just a little bit in your hands rub it together and then rub it into your hair it gives your hair just that little bit

of extra vavoom especially when you're trying to style it like curling it or crimping it or straightening it just gives your hair that little extra boost and volume which i love finally this is a newer product i've been using i use

this once a week and it is the best way to just have like a total refresh on your hair it helps get out any sort of natural oils or dirt and just sort of neutralizes any buildup in my hair

without stripping it so i find sometimes with these shampoos my hair can feel really dry and frizzy after this makes my hair less frizzy and shinier and it also just gives this amazing sort of exfoliating experience on the scalp i

really have been loving this product as well so definitely check this out if you want you can go to their website and you can check out their full collection they have tons of haircare stuff body care like they have it all um if you're

interested in drawing anything from whey you can go to t h e o u a i dot com and use code smokey to get 15 off your entire purchase that is t-h-e-o-u-a-i dot com and use code smoky for 15 off your purchase thank you so

much to wei for sponsoring this video and making my hair feel incredible and let's jump right into the video so it's no secret that the job of influencer has grown exponentially in the past few years what used to be sort of this like

made fun of and mocked idea has now become something that most kids who are like between the ages of 10 to 14 want to do when they grow up i would argue that especially in the last couple of

years the term influencer has taken a little bit more validity than it used to i still think a lot of people still make fun of it as a job and kind of rightfully so but i also think more and

more people are starting to see the value in influencers and not only that i think influencers more and more are starting to see the value in themselves and honestly the way that influencers have now kind of seemed more like

celebrities i'm still hesitant because i still think we're a few years away from that before influencers are seen as like genuine celebrities i think some people are still really hesitant to say that but when you have the audience of tens

of millions of people at your like beckon call i would go ahead and call you famous like you're a celebrity at that point i think personally that it's really cool that the job and role of social media influencer has been being

taken more seriously but i do think there are some major downfalls to that happening that should be talked about as well there's been this new wave of influencers who came from particularly youtube and twitch and tiktok who are

now starting to become even more than influencers influencers in today's world have basically gone from being purely just content creators to being like business moguls while i think a lot of influencers who start these sort of businessy projects start wanting to sell

a product do take it very seriously i think there's a lot of others that do not take that seriously are simply trying to make some money and capitalize off of their fan bases and honestly when you're doing something like that when

you're putting out a product for the sole reason of making money and capitalizing off of your audience and your kind of quality of production doesn't really matter to you that is when you're going to start selling products that i would consider a scam

it's something that isn't representative of what people thought they were going to get it's misleading to the audience who ends up buying it i would consider those things as scams i think some people might criticize the use of the

word scam because they're like well an influencer created a product they bought the product they got the product and therefore it's not a scam but i consider something a scam if you buy a product and it comes and it is not at the level

of quality that the influencers sold you on so that's where i'm coming from with the whole scam and here's the thing i called this part of the video the path to the scam i don't really think that you can talk about the way influencer

culture is now with buying and selling products and i don't think you can really talk about the scamming that sort of happens now without first just at a base level talking about sponsorships here's the thing about sponsorships there's one in this video i will never

sit here and say especially now in my life that i think sponsorships are a bad thing or a bad thing for influencers to do i don't i don't think they're bad and i think most people actually don't think

they're bad and i think the people who do think they are bad think they are bad because there have been certain influencers who have abused the sponsorship system and have made people lose trust in sponsorships as a whole

which makes perfect sense now most influencers once they start hitting like even just a couple of thousand followers like two to three thousand followers you'll start getting messages and requests to do sponsored posts and sponsored content and i will say when

you're a smaller influencer a lot of times that can be very hard to navigate it can be very difficult to know what is and is not a scam all you know is this company is offering to pay you like a

hundred dollars to talk about something and that seems like easy money now influencer marketing has been a thing since the term influencer was coined like this has always been a thing on the internet but it has definitely gotten

more prevalent in recent years and i think the problem started to arise when more and more influencers were taking more and more sponsorships and a lot of them were not being properly vetted as good sponsorships i think there were a

few scandals in particular that really made influencers especially aware that there were ramifications to taking sketchy sponsorships so for example you have the kenza cosmetics situation which was when gabby hannah tanimojo a few other people did this like swipe up

story post that included this company called kansa cosmetics and they were basically selling free makeup brushes and all you had to pay was twelve dollars for shipping some people never got their brushes some people got the brushes and they were terrible quality

and the influencers who pushed those products were called scammers because they were promoting a company that didn't deliver the quality of product that they were expecting or they just didn't get the brushes at all on top of that whole issue you had things like the

better help scandal which if you guys don't know better help is a service it's like an online counseling service i have a whole video talking about better help and my feelings on it personally i feel very strongly against better help as a

system but people like philip defranco got in a lot of heat for working and supporting better help when it came out that some of their practices were pretty shady that's putting it lightly they were like terrible and on top of that there was a

lot of drama surrounding better help and the people who took those sponsorships when it was found out that every person who signed up for better help through say philip defranco's code that made philip defranco money directly so every

individual person who signed up for better help was giving money to philip defranco which to be fair is how referral or affiliate links work but the problem was was that people who were using these better help links weren't

clearly disclosing that they were referral or affiliate links they were just saying that they were sponsored by the brand i think in the early days of sponsorships i'm just thinking about this now but i think it's really interesting how a lot of people simply

played the system just by like banking on the fact that people wouldn't know the difference because technically if you have a referral link and you only call it a sponsorship that's not like a lie because the brand is paying you but

it's also not being transparent and when you're trying to market something that is based on your own mental health struggles that you are trying to get other people to sign up for so you can profit off of their mental health

struggles i think ethically that's kind of a gray area and that's why so many people had so many issues with better help on top of those scandals you also had the morphe brushes scandal which was when people finally found out that

influencers who were pushing morphy promo codes were being paid directly every time somebody used that promo code i think now it's really easy to look at these situations particularly better help and morphy look and even kenza honestly look at those situations and be

like well duh obviously people were making money by giving their codes obviously people were making money through the affiliate link obviously if they're telling you to just pay shipping that means they're not great brushes but when all of those things were happening

at the time it was before i think general knowledge around sponsorships and affiliate links and referral codes i think it was before there was a lot of knowledge about that situation it almost felt like to navigate youtube in like

2016 2017 2018 especially in the beauty space it felt like you almost had to have a degree in marketing to understand all of the ploys and loopholes people were using to get around disclosing sponsorships and i think honestly that

all of those situations plus just general shadiness around sponsorships made people have a real distrust in sponsored content it made people have a distrust or is this person saying they like this product because they actually like it or is this person saying that

because they're going to make a hundred dollars off of me if i purchase the product as that criticism for sponsored content started to grow and as people started to sort of have this disdain for sponsorships and affiliate codes and

things like that i think a lot of influencers took sort of this natural next step which was that as of right now they are pushing products that they had no hand in creating and ultimately they don't really have a lot of control on

what happens after they promote the product as much as influencers should do research into brands to try and make sure that they are as ethical as possible or align with them ethically like as much as people should try to do

that and i think a lot of influencers do try to do that you're always going to have things that happen you're always going to have mistakes that were made at the end of the day you didn't create the

product and you have no control over customer experience past posting so i think what a lot of influencers started to realize was not only would they have more control over the situation if they were the ones creating the products

themselves but also that they would probably make more money just creating their own products with these brands how sponsorships work right now and if you want me to make a whole video on how sponsorships work i will because it's

actually something i've been thinking about doing i find the whole process to be really interesting especially given that i've been doing more this year than i ever have before i just think it's really interesting and i feel like i

would want to know but anyway for sponsorships typically you will get sort of this flat fee like you get a fee for doing this sometimes there's a views requirement sometimes there's not you get a flat fee you promote the product

done and done with a collaboration there's a lot more room to make money sometimes you make money up front sometimes you make money based on units that are sold and i think a lot of influencers pretty correctly especially

in like the makeup and lifestyle category started thinking to themselves why am i promoting this product from this brand when i could just make a product with the brand to begin with have more control over it and make more

money i also think counter to that brands started to realize after they were doing more influencer marketing like oh my god we're making so much money from these people recommending these products imagine how much money we would make if we slapped their name on

it too so i think it goes hand in hand like both both parties realized ways that they could benefit from one another and honestly i think if you look at a lot of early collaborations i mean yes there were some hiccups like the jaclyn

hill becca had some issues nikkietutorials and too faced had some issues there were obviously issues with these early makeup collaborations and lifestyle collaborations but ultimately i don't think the intention of any of those collections were money motivated or like bad i think most

people just saw it as a smart next step into being this like lifestyle influencer like the next thing to do would be to make your own products with a brand who already knows how to and has the means to make these products and

this led to a lot of great collaborations and also made collaborations even more mainstream so now it's not just makeup palettes or skin care or things like that you have to collaborate with caystify to make their own phone cases what's that

bobblehead company that's making bobbleheads of influencers i know d'angelo wallace had one a while ago you have brands that are making plushies you have influencers collabing with sunglass companies like the list goes on and on and on of how now instead of just

pushing random products influencers started to take things into their own hands and created the products themselves and i think you can guess the natural progression of that so all of these influencers are now doing collabs collabs are almost becoming over

saturated in the influencer market even if you do something kind of unique and different it's still becoming somewhat oversaturated because there's so many other influencers coming out with so many different products that you're competing with so i think the natural

next step for a lot of influencers was to cut out the middleman completely cut out the brands they were working with entirely cut all of that out and just start making their own products themselves and taking all of the

benefits i do think this was sort of this like trickle-down effect because i don't think influencers or even brands because i don't think influencers truly would have realized their value and worth without first working on these collaborations with these other brands i

think it would have been scary to invest all of your own money and like take this massive leap into starting your own brand if you didn't have some metric that you could be successful but because a lot of these influencers had already

done these collaborations and knew they could sell things knew they could sell products it didn't seem it's probably still scary but it didn't seem as scary to make that leap because they already had this sort of parameter of success

and i will say a lot of creators who made this decision came out with amazing products and had amazing launches you have jackie i know with forever mood um simply nail logical holo taco is phenomenal lunar beauty is like an

amazing brand that i love manny does a great job with it laura lee has her clothing line that seems to be doing really well and people seem to be really liking so there are influencers who did this in a way that wasn't scammy there

are influencers who made brands and made products that were cohesive that made sense that fell all under the same umbrella that were in line with their passions and made products that were amazing on top of that for consumers and

took making products that were amazing very seriously however i think there are some influencers who did not take that seriously and who did not care about the products they were putting out and i want to give some examples because i

think it's really important to talk about this stuff and talk about when influencers are now starting to have this reputation for putting out really subpar quality products that people are not liking i think number one you have to talk about influencers who are using

cryptocurrency and the stock market to make money i touched on this in a video a really long time ago but i think i did a bad job explaining it at the time it was all like just happening but

basically essentially what a lot of influencers are doing particularly i've noticed people who do a lot of gaming on twitch what they are currently doing is telling all of their followers to go buy some stock so say it's like gamestop telling

them to all go by gamestop and pushing up game stocks pricing mind you when they tell all their followers to do that they've already invested in gamestop while it's at its lowest so they invest in gamestop well it's at its lowest

price they have all of their followers push up the price of gamestop and then they sell when it hits a peak causing all of their followers who just put in that money to lose money as more and more people buy because it hits its peak

they're essentially using their audiences to inflate the market and is that coming up with some type of product no but it's definitely a [ __ ] scam if you're ever hearing from an influencer that you should be buying

dogecoin you're probably too late to get into dogecoin because that means they've already put all their money in and are just praying people will bring that price up on top of just like those types of scams that are just like generally

shitty scams i think also there's other influencers that have come out with products that you could definitely view as scammy i'm sorry to hype on this but i think that tana mojo has been really flying under the radar for how

absolutely trash the products she puts out is and she keeps putting them out like more and more i could do a whole comprehensive video just talking about the scams of tana mojo because it's insanity to me that she keeps getting

away with putting out these really terrible quality products and just sells them out in an hour and like nobody talks about it in the past like year and a half tana has come out with a perfume a sex toy a lingerie set a necklace and

is now also talking about that she's going to be coming out with a line of wheat i think honestly with tana in particular and i could say this about a lot of influencers and like influencer collabs and brands i think if they just

didn't talk so much it actually wouldn't be that big a deal if they just put out these like subpar products and they were like hey this is my product i don't think people would care as much but they

go into detail about how they like made this amazing component for it from scratch and how they worked for hours with a company in order to pick the perfect bead sizes for a necklace and like it's all [ __ ] when tana

launched her perfume tana by tana which was a little like skull shaped perfume bottle thingy it sold out in like an hour and a half i'm pretty sure and everybody was talking about it people were really excited for it but quickly

after launching it people found out that the component she used was literally private labeled for like two cents it wasn't anything special or unique and on top of that when people actually got the perfume they said it smelled bad and i

know smell is subjective but i do think that if that many people who bought your perfume are unsatisfied with it that does say something on top of that tana mojo follows a really interesting business model because they're it's not

a business model tana just does these one-off product releases doesn't really ever restock them or talk about them again and then just moves on to the next one which honestly to me is incredibly sketchy because that's the perfect way

to get your fans to keep buying your products they buy the perfume and they're like this wasn't that great i don't think i'd buy a perfume from tana again but then she's like oh you wouldn't buy a perfume but would you buy

this lingerie set and then they buy it because they're all excited they're like oh my god this is something new and different and then that's shitty too and it takes a few times before people realize all of the products are going to

be private labeled trash which is what all of these products are i can't really speak to the necklace because i didn't hear too much about that but i will say she claimed that she wore it every single day the second it sold out she

stopped wearing that [ __ ] so she obviously did not wear that every day not really a scam people got their necklace but just like annoying influencer tactics i'll put that under but her lingerie set was private labeled

from aliexpress and when people got it it had tons of issues snaps were broken on it the little heart-shaped cutouts it was supposed to have were just like gigantic holes the sizing was incredibly off so people who were even just plus size mid size any

size were ordering their normal sizes and it wasn't even covering a part of their body in any way shape or form and now with the coming out of her toy and also her line it's becoming more and more evident that this story that she's

marketing is again something that was private labeled and not actually made by her basically just has her name slapped on it and has a really high premium she's going down this very strange path of kind of trying to flex that she's

like a businesswoman and flex that she has all these projects in the work but all of her projects are things that are pretty unanimously disliked by her fan base another scam that comes to mind is trisha paytas's recent skincare line

which i know is kind of a collab but it was also marketed as like a subset of a brand it was very confusing how they marketed it because it wasn't necessarily a collaboration it was supposed to be like her own line of

skincare that she had that was like her subset of this already existing brand that she was gonna put more products out with and again like that product people had really negative things to say about it it burned their skin it didn't do

anything for their skin the packaging would come all messed up just a lower quality than what trisha paytas and the other owner of the skincare company was promising when people were buying it and i think the problem now is really it's

just there's so many influencers starting their own brands so people like trisha and tana to me it's very obvious and transparent that they're just in it for a quick cash grab like i genuinely think that they know that they're scamming their fans

and i also genuinely think they just don't care that's evident by the way they interact with fans who have a problem which is that they don't they ignore hundreds of tweets of people telling them they had a problem with

their product and just completely blow it off and pretend like it never happened so i think you have that level of influencer who's like the i don't care that i'm scamming people i know that's what i'm doing and like i sleep

fine at night you have those people but i think what's more sad with this sort of phenomenon of influencers starting more brands is the influencers who you can tell genuinely do care somehow the product still ends up being somewhat of

a scam because it's not what the customer was promised i think the biggest problem with influencers starting brands is that they don't have a comprehensive understanding of how business works i mean as an influencer you obviously have to be good at

influencer marketing you wouldn't be successful if you weren't good at that but running an actual business and influencer marketing are two very different things and i think something that's kind of sad is is that a lot of times what it really comes down to if

you're an influencer trying to start a brand is not even you it's the people that you hire to run your company for you i think someone like jacqueline hill is a good example of that where i genuinely don't believe she had bad

intentions with the whole lipstick debacle but i also think that she hired the wrong people there are some influencers recently zane and heath from the vlog squad they've sort of alluded to recently with their new company and they've alluded to the fact that it's

the people they signed on to do the project with that are essentially screwing them over on top of that a lot of influencers are not used to acting as the ceo of a company they're used to acting like influencers i think some

really good examples of that are like alicia marie she recently started a clothing line and it got a lot of criticism for a lot of different reasons uh being non-super inclusive being very overpriced for what the products actually were there was a lot of

backlash about this launch from her and she didn't really respond to it she made a video saying she was going to respond and then she just didn't didn't really address any of the main concerns same thing with skincare by hiram he recently

came out with his own line of skincare sold at sephora and a lot of people had some problems with the pricing of it they had problems with the size they had problems with some of the ingredients some things they were just confused

about of like why that is the way it is and hyrum didn't really address any of that criticism or talk about it and i think the problem is is that most ceos of most companies if there's a problem

they are not the ones directly dealing with that if your consumer base has a problem with your pricing you're gonna have somebody else deal with that figure out what's a better pricing figure out if there's something you can do figure

out a way to deal with it when you're the ceo of a company that is an influencer-based brand everything falls to you and you alone to explain and i think honestly that's just kind of the pros and cons i'm sure that a lot of

small business owners who are trying to get their start right now would absolutely kill to be in a position where they had a built-in audience of like six million people like i'm sure that would be a dream to be able to put

your product in front of that many eyes but on the flip side of that that means that everybody knows it's your brand and you have to answer and be held accountable for everything that happens with that brand which i think is

somewhat of a double-edged sword it's not really a position or problem that most indie brand ceos have to deal with in the same way that these influencers do and i think on top of all of that what it really comes down to is a lot of

influencers don't know how to handle business a lot of them hire the wrong people but also i think a lot of influencers just don't have the time like in theory it sounds great to do this project it sounds great to make a

product to make a profit to make something that you think people are gonna love so they sign on to do these things and then they simply don't have the time to put into them to micromanage and make sure that they're up to their

standards and that leads to a lot of problems i think zoella would be one of the biggest people who falls into that category because a lot of her products i think the advent calendars were that was like huge a few years ago she had these

advent calendars that were like absolutely terrible they had like hair ties and they were crazy expensive i think the advent calendar thing is a great example of like i'm sure that her team told her advent calendar and she

was like that sounds great do it up and just didn't have the time to oversee it properly and then it turned into something that was a scam honestly i think it's kind of sad to see all of this happen and i think it's sad for a

couple of reasons number one i've always been the type of person who has been in the corner of legitimizing youtubers i love when other youtubers shine i love when i see youtubers at the met gala i love when i see youtubers on tv shows

late night talk shows i love when i can see youtubers shine because i do think that this job lacks so much legitimacy and whenever you can get it that mainstream attention i will always think that that is incredible that that is

wonderful because i think youtubers for the most part genuinely deserve that kind of credibility so it's sad to me when we have these sort of scams or scandals happen or bad products put out because all of this is so new it gives a

lot of other influencers a bad name and a bad rap my biggest fear in seeing the way that sort of scam culture is evolving i hated that my biggest fear with it though is that it's gonna be similar to sponsorships i think so many

people are gonna get screwed over one too many times by influencers making shitty products and that's gonna cause a really strong distrust of influencer products in general and it's going to hurt influencers who are trying to start businesses for legitimate reasons and

who are trying to use their platform to make something they actually love and believe in essentially worried about history repeating itself on that one because it makes me sad to think about people i know that work really really

hard for their brand and to hear that that might be delegitimized because they will be lumped into this like influencer brand thing as a whole i think when we're considering if whether something an influencer is putting out is like a

scam or not i think it's really important to consider the source as any other brand same way if a makeup brand did something wrong you wouldn't lump all of the makeup brands together and be like makeup brands as a whole suck you

would be mad at that one brand and i think that's how people need to treat influencer brands as well additionally i think what's sad and this is kind of i don't know if other people will think this but for me i think it's just kind

of sad that like being an influencer do not take a shot every i hate that i have to say this in every video don't take a shot every time i say influencer only a shot of water um i think now even

the fact that the term influencer is used so much more than content creator makes me kind of sad because i feel like people used to start doing youtube because they loved content creation they loved making content they loved doing

all of this stuff and now so much of what goes into being an influencer or content creator is really heavily just revolved around making money and pushing products or making products or doing all of those things the big motivation

people have for getting into it in the first place is how can i make the most money and i think that's good because i think influencers deserve to be paid but i also think it's kind of sad because

now a lot of these influencers i mentioned don't really make content anymore they just promote products and push products and that's like their whole gig and that's how they make money and i think that's just kind of sad

because i do at the risk of sounding like annoying i do low-key miss the days when it was just content like i loved those days i think the more and more creators view youtube as a springboard for bigger and

better things the sort of less quality of content we're actually going to be getting on youtube it's going to be more geared towards how do i make money versus how do i put out dope content that people are going to really enjoy i

think a lot of youtubers right now are making this very key mistake where they're just banking on the fact that a lot of people are going to love their product just because it has their name on it i call it the kardashian effect

and honestly even the kardashians are starting to see that's not true kylie i don't know if anybody's on kylie swim tick tock but i am all of my tick tocks lately have been about just how absolutely terrible kylie swims new

launch was how all the bathing suits are essentially see-through they're unwearable they cover nothing how people are returning them and previously kylie jenner whenever she put out something it sold out in seconds it got rave reviews even if it wasn't very good still got

rave reviews now consumers are starting to say i'm not just gonna buy useless crap that i won't wear just because it has kylie jenner's name on it and i think a lot of influencers are gonna start seeing that hard truth soon as

well you can only push consumers so far before they put their foot down and they're like enough is enough and i think a lot of these influencers who are again and again and again scamming their fans are going to have problems having

returning customers at the end of the day i don't think we are at the end of seeing shady influencer launches or influencer brands or scams like we're definitely not at the end of seeing that but i do think that it's really

important if you do see a scam or you see someone doing something shady in the influencer realm to talk about it and call it out or report it or do something i've seen a lot of videos and i'll link them down below

that talk about influencer scams kind of similar to this video and i think they're really really important to see and hear about and just be aware like if this video taught you one thing it's like don't buy a product tanimo

shop but so be really mindful of influencer products maybe wait until there's reviews to make sure that these products are actually legitimate and going to be worth your money there's enough corporate scams in the world without adding on top of that

influencers that are trying to scam you and use your parasocial relationship with them for their benefit so just like keep an eye out anyway that's gonna be it for me um i hope you guys like this video i'm really curious to know your

thoughts about influencer scams companies all of that down below um i love you guys if you like this video please like and subscribe or just like or just subscribe or do neither i'm honestly just so happy you're watching

me thank you so much for being here my merch my social media and everything i'm wearing on my face will be linked down below along with my social justice spotlight you can go check that out there's some new links in there and yeah

i love you guys so much and i will see you in the next one bye [Music] [Applause] [Music] hmm [Music]