An Influenza Of Influencers (Naked City)

The word ‘influencer’, with its current significance, might seem a recent addition to the contemporary lexicon. Yet in reality it’s been with us for hundreds of years, albeit with a variety of different names – like propagandist, tastemaker, shiller and the very Australian ‘bullshitter’.

You can go right back to the mid-1600s when the writings of the noted philosopher and theologian Henry More were seen as having the power to affect popular beliefs, arguing that moral truths were eternal and independent of divine will.

In recent years, metaphysics has gone out the window when it comes to so many called modern influencers. It’s all about consumerism, shameless self-promotion and the ideologies of fandom.

At the very top end, you’re not a real celebrity influencer unless you have millions of followers. For the record, Cristiano Ronaldo is currently head of that heap with some 650 million devotees closely followed by Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift and Kylie Jenner.

Apart from this pantheon of super stars, there are thousands, if not millions of self-appointed influencers promoting everything from beauty products and holiday destinations to political allegiances and blatant hate speech.

There have been numerous studies and PhDs written on their effectiveness, defined in categories like thought leaders, thinkfluencers, microinfluencers, and even nanoinfluencers. Let’s not go there, as it’s the high profile political influencers that deserve the most scrutiny.

When it comes to the evils of political propaganda in the last century or so, one name always stands out – Paul Joseph Goebbels. Whilst many of the modern day political influencers would feign horror at the mention of his name, the techniques he initiated as Hitler’s proselytiser, are the very same they employ today. Fear, paranoia and unbridled hatred are well to the forefront. Repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes a kind of neo-truth.

For Goebbels, it was the Jews he targeted with all his evil lies. For today’s ultra right-wing influencers it’s immigrants, the LGBTQIA+ community, and in the case of America, the 48 million residents who identify as African-American. The latter of course have faced a litany of ridicule, mistruths and false accusations ever since the early days of slavery.

The late Charlie Kirk certainly continued that tradition with statements like:

“If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?”

“Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.”

“If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”

Charlie’s comments on African-Americans were not the brand of in your face racism associated with the KKK or neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell. Like his hero Donald Trump, his was more a constant and at times subtle affirmation of white superiority and a reinforcement of all the negative stereotypes associated with the Black population.

Trump of course is a past master at repeating lies ad infinitum, to the point where many find them totally believable. A classic example was the Obama birther conspiracy, which alleged that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. He picked up on a rumour that began during Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and ran with it for years, at one stage offering to donate $5m to charity if anyone could convince him Obama was born on US soil. Whilst he finally acknowledged Obama was born in the USA, even today he makes no apology for promoting the lie.

These days you can go to your local doctor and get a jab in the arm to ward off COVID, mpox and a variety of other viruses. As yet, there’s not a vaccination in the world that will keep you safe from the influenza of influencers. It’s up to you to be naturally suspicious of anybody invading your social media, TV or radio to endorse some overpriced product, let alone an ideology that’s racist, fascist and riddled with mistruths.

I won’t comment on the circumstances of the demise of Charlie Kirk, but surely one less preacher of hate in the world is a good thing. It’s no secret Kirk was always keen to back up his ideology with quotes from the bible. Maybe he overlooked this particular passage from Proverbs 26: 24-26:

“He who hates, disguises it with his lips, and lays up deceit within himself; when he speaks kindly, do not believe him, for there are seven abominations in his heart; though his hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness will be revealed before the assembly.”