Episode 26: Influencers

Hey everyone, and welcome to the GenX Dad and his GenZ Teens podcast. Hey, we're a program that takes a lighthearted look at generational differences about all sorts of topics. We try and explore all sorts of interesting things that we think will be fun to talk about, but we don't aim to be controversial or, you know, at the end of the day, we're not the authoritative voice certainly on any topic. It is also my opportunity to publicly and on the record, as always, prove that I am right and my teens are wrong in all cases, and that the 80s and the 90s were absolutely the best time to grow up. Hey, today our topic is going to be about teen influencers, or just influencers on teens. And so there are certainly big differences. And again, as we see in most cases, it boils down to the internet and how the internet has changed a lot of things. When I was growing up in the 80s and the 90s, I mean, it was, you know, the people who had platforms were singers, actors, sports people. Those were the main ones that would have, you know, your teen idol singers, your teen actors. And then if there was any kind of sports type heroes, young people in college maybe, you know, guys who were going for the Heisman Trophy or things. But what I remember, you know, there were different, Brooke Shields was still relatively young in the 80s doing movies. You know, Michael Jackson, just coming out of the Jackson 5, but he was solo, I think he was 18 or 19. Obviously he had a big platform, a lot of influence. You know, obviously in the 90s you started getting into the boy bands and things like that. And so, I mean, they were influencing magazine, I remember, being a thing, I think mostly for girls. But there wasn't the level of even gaming magazines that I remember my younger siblings having or things like that. And so, you know, your influences definitely came from mainstream media and, you know, the stuff that we thought about back then. Nowadays, I mean, the internet has just exploded. I mean, there's influencers at all ages, all the way down to little tiny kids that talk about toys. We were watching a program yesterday which kind of got me thinking on this topic, which was something about Mr. Beast. Now, I didn't know much about Mr. Beast until really probably six, eight, nine months ago. But did not realize he's the number one YouTuber influencer out there. And what caught my attention was the statistic that he has a bigger audience alone than most mainstream media companies out there. And so with that, I want to do maybe a little bit more where my teens are talking about the influencers that they're exposed to going forward. So why don't you talk a little bit about Mr. Beast, whether you follow him or at least kind of what you know about him? Yeah, no, actually, I started watching Mr. Beast actually a long time ago before, you know, way back before he kind of became what he is now. And I mean, he's definitely changed a lot over the years. But, you know, kind of the formula he's settled on now, you know, for a while, I mean, it works. It's entertaining. It works especially for younger audiences. And I followed him for a long time. I don't anymore. But yeah, I mean, he's a huge influence. And I think just in general, you know, the internet has kind of blown open the door to a lot more opportunities for people to kind of become their own influencers and make money off it through, you know, sponsorships and stuff like that. So I think, you know, we still have the traditional, you know, musicians, sports people, and, you know, your traditional movie star celebrities like that. But now, you know, there's a new kind of class of like internet celebrities, you know, people who are, you know, whether they got popular on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, whatever, if people who have blown up there and kind of have found their own audience. And in some ways are just as big or even bigger than some of these traditional, you know, your traditional movie stars, musicians or athletes. So yeah, I mean, I think it's really changed a lot. Okay, what do you think about that? I think about influencers, they can be very good in some cases and also be very bad in the way they, you know, influence people and all that. Like for example, they could promote things that could help us like Mr. Beastie with Team Trees and Team C's, or they could be negative with scams and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, you bring up a good point with the scams and everything. But I mean, I would say you guys pretty quickly went into the whole influencer model. I mean, I remember, because it was one of the strangest things. You guys started watching the videos, particularly about Minecraft, but the challenges are different things that people would come up for. And I always thought it was strange that you guys would watch people playing video games. And one of the guys was, what, DanTV or something like that? I mean, what do you remember about your first exposure to some of that and about how old you were? Yeah, I mean, when I was like really, you know, watching a lot of, you know, especially like the Minecraft videos and stuff. And also kind of back in that time, that was a huge part of YouTube was the kind of the gaming stuff and stuff like that. And those kind of types of people were the first to blow up and kind of get the huge followings on YouTube. You know, again, like you said, DanTV or PewDiePie was a huge one. People like that who, like I said, started out with they were playing video games. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of, I would almost consider it, you know, in the same line of watching, you know, someone play a sport. You know, it's sort of the same, you know, type of thing, obviously it's different, but that would be like the closest, I guess, thing I could match it to. Like, you know, the pre-internet era. Okay, now we talked about this in a previous episode about television, but would you say that you watch more traditional media or more internet media right now? Definitely more stuff on the internet, just because I don't know, it's more interesting, more entertaining, in my opinion. It's not really much on television that I really care for at this point, so yeah, most of it's on the internet. Okay, so then logically that means most of anything that could influence you would come from the internet. Have you ever bought or done anything based on a recommendation from somebody from the internet? Oh yeah, I mean, tons of times, and I think at this point most people do. Nowadays, because I mean, again, it's a place where you can go and get a bunch of different opinions on something, you know, within the span of a couple minutes. So I think it's really helpful with that, and it definitely has influenced a lot of my decisions and what I've bought or spent money on. Alright, what about you? Not really that much, only if whatever is being advertised or something is interesting enough and if it's free. And if I think it's interesting, I'll do a little bit of research and then maybe I'll try it out. If I like it, then I'll keep it, but if I don't really care about it, then I'll just delete it or something. Okay, I mean, that's fair. Now look, celebrities have always hawked products of various forms. On traditional media, you see it a lot. I mean, that's why they're all on all the commercials. And recently, I mean, actually the Olympics are ending today. I mean, we've watched a bunch of the Olympics. How many commercials have had Olympians in there? I mean, I would say the majority of them going forward. Now, I am interested, again, as part of influencer type stuff. A lot of the ways influencers become influencers is by subscriptions. The bit that I do on YouTube, I don't know that I'm actually subscribed to many or channels at all. What would you say? Are you subscribed to any channels? No, not really. I don't really care about that. I am, if there's a channel I'm particularly interested in, but I think I probably don't do it as much as an average person. I just kind of rely on my feed and just kind of the recommendations. Okay, now it's interesting that obviously we're doing a podcast hoping for subscribers. And we're actually pushing this onto YouTube too, hoping for subscribers. So maybe we should do a better job of trying to support other channels going forward. No, I'm getting a shake of the head. So anyway, to those of you out there, I think that is a pretty decent way to reciprocate back because we have a certain number of subscribers for our own channel. And obviously we'd like people to pay attention to our content. That being said, let's get some final thoughts on what do you think the impact on influencers on you. I mean, obviously these folks get paid quite a bit once you reach a certain level of success. Is there any begrudging of anything of that by them? I mean, just any thoughts. Is there, they looked up to, you know, what do you think? I mean, I think the biggest thing is it's sort of created a whole another, you know, category of advertisement, you know, along with, you know, traditional like commercials or billboards or stuff like that, where, you know, you do a sponsorship with, you know, in whatever influence or something you choose. So it's just kind of a new way of doing things and a new thing. I mean, it's just kind of how it is now. I totally agree with that. It's a new wave of a platform for something. Okay. Any last thoughts? Nope. Succinct as always, my young one. Okay. Well, again, for those of you out there, we certainly appreciate you listening. We'd love any comments about, you know, channels or influencers that you think are worth people paying attention to. And any thoughts you might have on the differences. In this particular case, I got to chalk this one up to the kids in the Internet, because one, that's what we're doing right here right now, trying to in some way influence you to listen to us. But also understand that this really has given a platform to so many more people all over the world. And it's been an opportunity for a lot. And I certainly don't begrudge those folks who are working hard and doing their best to do this. So with that, again, thank you for listening. We appreciate you. This has been the Gen X Dad and his Gen Z teens. Till next time. Bye.