The number of prefixes one can affix to "-fluencer" knows no bounds. Among the "side hustle" hyphenates making headlines in recent weeks: pharma-influencers, ag-influencers, doctor-TikTokers, and fin-fluencers (a portmanteau of financial advisor and influencer). By some accounts, these professionals-turned-internet personalities are fulfilling a laudable public service mission. More often, they are denigrated as shallow, performative, and — at times — unscrupulous.
Such narratives confirm the wider public's contempt for social media self-promotion and the career exemplars it has born: YouTubers, TikTokers, Instagrammers, and the like. Influencers are especially vulnerable to "stars-behaving-badly-esque" fame-shaming, replete with barely concealed gender bias. It's not incidental that pop culture's caricature of the influencer—the one shilling products at Coachella, demanding comped meals, and preening for her Instagram boyfriend—is unequivocally feminine. But instead of mocking those with the pluck and luck to fashion a career on social media, we might fruitfully turn the critical focus on our own activities.
