How to Win (or Buy) Friends and Influence People
“Regina George is flawless. She has two Fendi purses and a silver Lexus. I hear her hair’s insured for US$10,000. I hear she does car commercials ... in Japan. Her favourite movie is Varsity Blues. One time, she met John Stamos on a plane and he told her she was pretty. One time, she punched me in the face. It was awesome.” — Mean Girls
Time was, before social media and our complicit acceptance of 21st-century jargon such as ‘content’ and engagement,’ influence could be gauged on good old-fashioned herd hierarchy and gut feelings, like fear—think: Michael Corleone in The Godfather or Regina George in Mean Girls. These days, in an interactive digital world, a newfangled, ever-evolving concept of ‘influencer’ has become a bona fide career path—a recent Harris Poll survey conducted on behalf of Lego Group found that American and British children aged 8 through 12 selected YouTube star as their dream job, way ahead of astronaut, musician, teacher and professional athlete. Now the strategic acquisition of influence can be both quantified and monetised, to the tune of US$8 billion last year alone.
Those kids, they’re onto something. Case studies abound. Beauty influencer Jeffree Star, who first found social-media fame on MySpace in the early
