How Influencers Ruined Fitness
There’s nothing more disappointing than finding a new fitness coach to follow online — and you start to get into what they’re teaching, and their philosophy of working out — and then, they betray you with a “link in bio” or they’re next posing with a bottle of “poop tea” or they want to charge you for private coaching or they want you to buy the clothes they’re modelling.
The revelation of a Paid Influencer is like waking up from a warm nap with cold water.
Yes, I find that unmasked shill to be tasteless, rude, corrupting, and a bad influence on how people are supposed to treat each other in the real world. Sure, there’s an expectation that if you step into a store, you are there to purchase something. You are open to being persuaded, and convinced, to buy something of value.
It’s different with people online, people you come to trust and believe in, who then turn around, and stick out their greasy palm imploring you to “Pay Up Sucker!” — and there is no doubt that you do, indeed, believe you are a sucker for ever thinking that online trainer ever had your best interest at heart.
There are established, and safe, avenues to pay creators — and, again, I support that idea because people, We The Viewers, know exactly what’s happening when we click on a link to join a community for money. The internet, as a social media sharing vessel, was meant to be free, and uninfringed.
In this Boles Bells endeavor, I don’t make any money. There’s no advertising. There’s no upsell. I don’t charge you to read this. There’s nothing in your inbox asking to pry money from your pocket. In fact, this effort, and pretty much all of my online publishing projects, actually end up costing me money.
Some influencers may call me a dummy, or a fool, for publishing in the red; and to them, my answer is always this:
“What I do is all, and only, about trust, and reputation. You can believe what I am sharing with you because there’s no backend deal, or other motive for me to try to share what I know with you.”
Some people understand that argument; while others still try to figure out my endgame — even when there isn’t one that has anything to do with asking people for money — after, of course, successfully trapping them with my terrific personality!
It is, however, a true joy when you find an online instructor who is truly in the effort for the fun of it — they aren’t ever selling you anything, they just post excellent content, and they are content that the end result is in the experience, and not in the begging.
That revelation of character, of doing right by those who invest their time in you, means everything to both sides of the learning dyad; and to those special people, I want to give them money specifically because they do not expect to get paid!
It’s always a disappointment to stop following someone online you once trusted — but now can no longer abide — because the revelation of character is so rancid in the want for cold money over the pursuit of hard content.
Influence, this!
