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A review by madeleinegeorge
Get Rich or Lie Trying: Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy by Symeon Brown
3.0
As someone who is ~not~ very online, I found Brown's searing exposure of the dark underbelly of influencer culture both captivating and repulsive. After being cited in a few notable video essays about social transformation via the unprecedented conduit of digital microcelebrity, I decided to pick it up.
While he focuses primarily on the desperation behind the idea of influence and social mobility-- moreso than its reality-- he also dives into the widely varied scams and empty valuation systems that seem to be plaguing our particular age. These include young, white men who sell ideas before they become realities, often to devastating financial ends, the evolution of pyramid schemes with the emersion of social media marketing, the exploitation and defraudation of society's historically most vulnerable sectors, and the cognitive dissonance that 'hustlers' and 'self-made moguls' engage with in order to continually deny the financial and social securities they have sacrificed in the name of money, influence, and power-- however fickle or imagined.
I'll be honest-- it's kind of a bummer to read. But fascinating nonetheless (not unlike a train wreck).
While he focuses primarily on the desperation behind the idea of influence and social mobility-- moreso than its reality-- he also dives into the widely varied scams and empty valuation systems that seem to be plaguing our particular age. These include young, white men who sell ideas before they become realities, often to devastating financial ends, the evolution of pyramid schemes with the emersion of social media marketing, the exploitation and defraudation of society's historically most vulnerable sectors, and the cognitive dissonance that 'hustlers' and 'self-made moguls' engage with in order to continually deny the financial and social securities they have sacrificed in the name of money, influence, and power-- however fickle or imagined.
I'll be honest-- it's kind of a bummer to read. But fascinating nonetheless (not unlike a train wreck).