Is "Influencer” the New Unpaid Intern?
“[Y]ou have probably never heard of the women featured in (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love, a book by Cornell researcher Brooke Erin Duffy that examines the myth that working hard on a personal brand will pay off in the long run. She compares this premise to that of unpaid internships. ‘The expectation is, if you invest yourself now, this will pay off in the future with this glamorous, fantastic job,’ Duffy says. ‘But the reality is much less auspicious in terms of how often these actually do turn into full-time employment.’”
“Just as not everyone can make it based on unpaid internships, which inherently favor those with connections and families who will pay for their living expenses, not everyone can build a huge online presence and find enough advertisers to make a living. ... Social influencers with 1,000 to 100,000 followers can be paid between $50 to $1,000 to advertise for a brand, according to influencer marketing firm Hireinfluence, which works with brands such as Oreo and Microsoft to place products in the social feeds of popular personalities. Most of the dozens of women who Duffy interviewed, despite many hours of unpaid work, have little to show for their efforts.”
“Meanwhile, companies are benefiting from the free labor, which Duffy calls ‘aspirational work,’ by running ‘influencer marketing’ campaigns that sometimes only pay in free swag.”
QZ, August 10, 2017: “Becoming a social media ‘influencer’ is the new unpaid internship, and just as exploitative,” by Sarah Kessler
Media International Australia, August 29, 2016: “Visibility labour: Engaging with Influencers’ fashion brands and #OOTD advertorial campaigns on Instagram,” by Crystal Abidin
Celebrity Studies, 25 August, 2016: “Self-branding, ‘micro-celebrity’ and the rise of Social Media Influencers,” by Susie Khamis, Lawrence Ang & Raymond Welling