'social influencer' sounds so much better than 'celebrity', 'front man', 'personality', 'trend setter', or 'pitchman'.
This is like the 3rd or 4th oldest profession. An outgoing person has a conversational style that, combined with a media delivery platform, people actively seek them out. Think Oprah Winfrey here. She "connects" with people and she had a talk show that delivered that connection. People tune in and listen to what she says. Groups of people start adding "did you see what happened on Oprah?" to their conversations and that creates a bit of a tertiary effect where third parties listen/follow in order to having something they can relate with. Sort of "Everyone gets their arrowheads from zog, not only does he knap a mean flint that won't break hitting even the hardest bison, he knows everything that is going on around the campfire and has great stories."
Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube have considerably lowered the barrier to entry. Before, you had to sign a contract with a media company. Now, anyone can sign up and push their personal brand.
While I wouldn't equate the two in what I perceive as value, I think conceptually the two are the same. Oprah has been around much longer and reached people through TV. For young people now it's social media. That they may not carry any relevant interviews, social discussions, philantropy, etc is unfortunately secondary.
Yeah in retrospect I'm not so sure I want to bet that influencers are any better. I just want to point out some of the issues where I think Oprah did a disservice to her viewers rather than educating them.
This is like the 3rd or 4th oldest profession. An outgoing person has a conversational style that, combined with a media delivery platform, people actively seek them out. Think Oprah Winfrey here. She "connects" with people and she had a talk show that delivered that connection. People tune in and listen to what she says. Groups of people start adding "did you see what happened on Oprah?" to their conversations and that creates a bit of a tertiary effect where third parties listen/follow in order to having something they can relate with. Sort of "Everyone gets their arrowheads from zog, not only does he knap a mean flint that won't break hitting even the hardest bison, he knows everything that is going on around the campfire and has great stories."