It seems the latest aspiration for (mostly) female teens and young women is to be an “influencer.” For those of you too sane to know what an influencer is, think of it this way: You have a magic box where you, without a staff and fancy equipment, can push a button and the entire world will see videos of her telling you what to think, how to dress, demonstrating your proficiency at profanity, selling products to make money, hanging out acting silly with friends, swearing, and generally opening your life (and other things) for the world to see. Why? Because you want the attention, the money, or both. Narcissism reigns over the internet.

Some influencers sell products to make a commission, like trans[vesitite] Dylan Mulvaney of Bud Light infamy. Now, Versace made the dubiously inane decision that Dylan would be a good DEI hire for their products. Yikes.

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Other influencers are after the ego gratification or adulation. Still others want the world to admire them. Above all, they want the attention, the “likes,” the “retweets,” and the spotlight. This is what the real “pride” looks like.

Why is this a problem? Because there is no “there” there. A person for whom the sole gratification, the sole joy, the raison d’être is attention from others is a person who lacks genuine depth, genuine accomplishment, and mature grounding. An influencer’s accomplishment is their ratings, the very air they breathe. There’s no real talent much of the time; there is only outrageousness or bombast. If you can be outrageous, you’re three-quarters of the way toward being an influencer. Maybe all the way there.

Through their videos, influencers want to control the actions and the emotions of others. This is different from the kind of influence that, say, a Joe Rogan show or a Tom Bileu’s “Impact Theory,” or Eric Metaxas’s “Socrates in the City” have. These “influencers” interview others with a genuine pursuit of the truth and valuable information, whether you agree with their opinions or not.

By contrast, you have scammers and people who deliberately want to be as obnoxious and provocative as possible for the “likes” and for the sheer joy of wanting you to bleach your eyeballs after watching their videos. (It’s the first five seconds that will make you gulp. The remaining 40-some minutes in the linked video are how she scammed her viewers.)

You have (mostly) young women who shoot videos of themselves throwing temper tantrums or getting semi-naked, usually dancing around for sheer titillation. You have the same women, sometimes in their cars, bellowing about how Donald Trump is “literally” a Nazi and a fascist, while chewing gum and earnestly leaning into the camera lens. There are a lot of grossly obese, blue-haired, profane, ignorant women aspiring to be influencers. Traipse through YouTube some day when you’re curious.

Where once young people aspired to serious accomplishments, all they now want is to be seen. The real women of “old” (20 years ago) wanted to be prosperous, to be well educated, to be good people, and to help others, and their own families. Today’s influencers demonstrate it’s all about them and only them. They personify the hedonistic me generation, the generation of toxic narcissism that wants attention at all costs. Many of them make a lot of money, but at what price?

The soul is a difficult thing to put a dollar value on. When it’s all about you, it shows. When you genuinely want to learn and teach others valuable information, that shows, too. Watch Joe Rogan, Tom Bilyeu, Eric Metaxas, Jordan Peterson, and others who are there to sniff out truth, for their own sakes and ours. God bless them and may God have mercy on the Influencers when they outgrow this infantile stage.