

of course the influencer (or whoever is paying/controlling them)is in control of their own content, actions, behavior–and yes the entire machine is designed to manipulate behavior
but are you looking at influencers, giving them traffic? i can tell you i’m not. so what happened?
we go back to my first comment-- herd mentality, FOMO, whatever it is that drives people to eat shit.
influencers are a symptom of a problem. taking them away doesn’t solve the problem, which is societal. before influencers it was reality tv. before reality tv it was jerry springer. before that–shitty daytime soap operas. and on and on, all the way back to ancient greek drama. sorry, i don’t have the solution, other than to say maybe the people perpetuating this shit deserve a little of that criticism, ridicule, mockery too
if drug traffickers (aka corporations) were the only ones in control of anything, then we would ALL be addicted. we’re not.
you can’t escape the fact that at some point decisions are made by the people who then become victims. the question is what drives people to make that poor initial decision?
again (and again and again)–herd mentality, FOMO, whatever it is that drives people to eat shit
take away the addictive thing, people will find something else to become dependent on