I got to spend some time visiting with a friend who’s working as a middle school guidance counselor. He “retired,” got bored and went back to work. His wife has years to work yet so that part of the issue. Schools are having a hard time filling that position. My buddy was hired by a private company to do the job on a contract basis.
He works in a fairly wealthy school district in southern New Hampshire. The kids have plenty of opportunities open to them. Money is not an issue. With all the opportunities and options in the world they all want to be Social Media Influencers. That’s the number one career option they want to follow.
First of all, I didn’t even know that was a career. Apparently there are people making a living being personalities on social media. Go figure.
These kids think they can just make videos on their phone of them doing nothing special and get a million followers. I suppose that can happen but I wouldn’t count on it.
A little research revealed some things the successful ones have in common. First of all it doesn’t hurt to be incredibly photogenic. They have interesting personalities. They have a solid grasp of video making. It can take many hours of editing to get a few good minutes of video. A lot of them have whole teams of people to do the technical stuff and the marketing.
The pace can be relentless. You are only as good as your last video. The pressure of “always being on” takes its toll. Quite a few people burn out.
So I guess Influencer can be a job. The thing is, the kids figure the seconds to minutes they see on the screen is all the work there is to it.
Nobody wants to be a doctor, nurse, dentist, engineer, scientist, EMT, firefighter, construction worker, butcher, baker or candle stick maker. I hope we have someone around to keep the lights of civilization on.
-Sixbears
The odds of a kid growing up to be a successful "influencer" is about the same as growing up and getting rich playing pro sportsball. It can and does happen but to less than 1% of those who try. Better have a plan B...or C or D. Because reality gets a vote...often the deciding vote.
ReplyDeleteGood job of the schools keeping the kids based in reality. Haha
ReplyDeleteI work with the great youth of our city for a living. The kids in these woods want to be, Welders, Builders, Automechs, and even a few want to get into education. There is a wide gap between the "realities" of the social elite vs. the "realities" of us'un hillbillies. I call myself an influencer, but I guess that's just another word for teacher. Hey maybe I can get rich? Nah, I'll just keep influencing and hope that one day one of my students will become famous and decide to adopt an old fart. 80)
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