There is something very fishy about the current influencer-based social media. It promotes superficial, repetitive content. It’s driven by commercial interests rather than meaningful engagement. It creates an illusion of participation.
This is not just a fad. This is the culture we’re creating. Let’s look at social media from a mythological perspective.
Why Mythology?
Human culture is a form of mythology. Don’t necessarily think about the Greek gods. For instance, the European Football Championship just ended with players, teams, nations, rules, games, fans, and uniforms. We have passion, victories, and losses. This is a full-blown mythology.
We live in many other mythologies, some dictated by brands, such as the cult of Apple, and others by the times, such as the California gold rush or the idea of the Internet as the digital frontier.
Understanding culture as mythology helps us see the underlying narratives and values shaping our behaviors and beliefs. It provides insight into how social media influences our modern identities.
The Influencer Mythology
The influencer craze is a curious mythology. The rules are set by the market, which is primarily selling advertising. Influencers play a game set by algorithms and platforms that don’t share the rules transparently. Influencers latch onto the system and find ways of feeding the algo what it wants.
If they run out of ideas, they react by collaborating with each other and brands to generate interest and tell new stories.
However, this mythology is not very deep. It centers around a single person rather than an ecosystem of people, limiting the quantity and quality of stories.
Social media demands repetition: if you publish a meme, you must continue publishing memes; if you publish a selfie, you must continue publishing selfies. This lack of evolution in influencer content is a big limitation.
The Illusion of Participation
Another interesting point is that in the mythology of influencers, the public has the illusion of participation but is completely passive. The fan is free to scroll, click, like and buy. The audience makes the influencer, but followers are isolated and might even dislike each other because everyone wants a piece of the star. Meet-and-greets and fan clubs exist, but they are virtuous byproducts in an otherwise artificial and isolating world.
Fandom has always existed, but now stars seem more approachable yet more distant than ever. Fame and talent have also never been more disconnected.
Personal Brands That Don’t Influence
Influencer mythologies can inform our vision of personal branding. When building a brand or personal brand, avoiding shallowness, lack of depth, and lack of relationships is essential. Personal branding should be predicated on values.
For instance, my personal brand values are openness, diversity, abundance, humanism, and empathy. Other values would apply to your personal brand.
Personal branding should also be based on first principles.
In my case, I believe in the law of analogy, the effectiveness of activating our mirror neurons, the power of stories, the concept of leverage, and opportunity cost.
Values and principles give depth to a personal brand, distinguishing it from the shallow brand of an influencer. A personal brand’s intention and posture should differ from that of an influencer. Instead of saying, “Look at me,” a personal brand should encourage others to think independently. It should promote a positive message that followers can adopt for themselves.
From Influencing to Connecting
We are transitioning from influencing to connecting, helping, supporting, mentoring, and coaching. This transition is beautiful. Social media mythology aims to keep everyone captive and transform behavior into repetition through algorithms. In contrast, culture, society, and mythology aim to set people free.
Culture and mythology provide the rules and context needed to succeed in society, but true success comes from thinking for oneself.
Social media doesn’t want independent thinkers; it wants repeated behaviors that generate profit.
The mythology of social media is overstaying its welcome.
A good mythology should help us grow into fully formed beings and then disappear. Instead, this dark mythology continuously enslaves us into clicking, liking, and scrolling.
Food for Thought
Understanding how shallow influencer content can be and how it gives us the illusion of involvement can help us create personal brands focused on deep, meaningful engagement and real connections.
It is important to move from just influencing to truly connecting, supporting, and mentoring. This shift helps us avoid the repetitive, profit-focused actions that social media algorithms promote and moves us toward a culture that values thinking for ourselves, growing personally, and building community. Embracing these concepts can make our interactions online richer and more genuine.
The dark age is ending; a better one is beginning.