Some people will tell you that “Influencers” are a new thing but we had them back at St. Patrick’s grammar school. Every so often, Gerald McDonald and a few pals would form a chorus line, arms around one another’s necks, and move forward high-stepping and singing “Get out of my way or I’ll kick ya.” And if you didn’t, they did. Gerald McDonald was a major influencer in our schoolyard.
Kathleen Carroll, the prettiest girl in the neighborhood, always looked like she’d just stepped out of a commercial for hygienic living. Clean as a whistle, crisp as a cucumber, smart as a whip and always wearing matching socks, she’d march down the street, draw a hopscotch box on the pavement with a piece of chalk and even the female-dissing boys in the nabe would line up to jump around like fools. Kathleen Carroll was a major influencer in the neighborhood.
Brother Robert Eugene, a handsome young stud in the Marist Brothers religious gang, was my freshman home room teacher in high school. Brother Eugene was tough, didn’t like wise guys. One day, big Victor Nastasia, the fullback on the freshman football team, took issue with Brother R.E. and stood up in an aisle to confront him. The Marist Mauler slapped him alternately on both sides of his face until Victor was all the way back to the lockers and crying. Brother Robert Eugene was a major influencer at Central Catholic High School.
Now, we have a different kind of Influencer, defined by Wikipedia as “an individual who builds a grassroots online presence through engaging content such as photos, videos and updates.” It’s important than an Influencer have no particular talent at anything else, otherwise he or she would be a singer, ballplayer or alligator rassler with influence, but not a pure Influencer. So where did they come from, where will they go---tell us about it, Cotton Eyed Joe.
The First Influencer
Journalist Taylor Lorenz claims that Julia Allison was the first true Influencer. In her book “Extremely Online,” Lorenz details how Allison invented the concept of being a content creator a decade before the art caught on. Allison started her career in 2002 writing a dating column in the Georgetown University student newspaper under her actual name, Julia Baugher and soon attracted the attention of magazines such as Seventeen and Cosmopolitan, which published her articles. After graduation, she moved to Manhattan, became a columnist for AM New York and auditioned for parts in pilots and reality TV shows.
Rebranding herself as Julia Allison in 2005, she started a blog in which she posted details of her daily life and dating, along with pictures of her outfits. She promoted herself with links to her blog in comments on Gawker stories and on its tip line, then in 2006 attended a Halloween party thrown by its founder and editor Nick Denton, wearing a “condom fairy” costume, a dress made of condom packages. Gawker ran a harshly critical article about her and refused her requests to take it down. Allison retaliated with a blog photo of her butt captioned “Dearest Gawker, Kiss my ass.”
Allison carefully crafted her online identity, including staged photos intended to appear candid. In 2010, she moved to L.A. and co-starred in Miss Advised, a reality show which ran for one season on Bravo. In 2018, she moved to San Francisco, worked on a book called Experiments in Happiness and became a change activist. Unfortunately for Julia, when she began her influencing business, no one recognized it as an occupation. There was no language to talk about what she was doing. Back then, many people, including some media, resorted to misogyny. Allison was often villainized and brutalized by journalists, pundits and online trolls who couldn’t imagine the imminent rise of the Kardashians. “I was born 20 years too soon,” she sighs.
Early Influencers like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian on MySpace, Twitter and Instagram are often cited as pioneers of the Influencer marketing phenomenon, leveraging their celebrity and personal brands to build massive followings, demonstrating the potential for social media to shape consumer behavior. Allison was the exception which proves the rule “The Early Bird Gets The Worm.”
“But I’m not whining,” she swears. “It’s happened to plenty of other people. Look at Emiliano Zapata. Nobody rocked the mustache like Zapata--- extremely bushy and full and always expertly groomed. Zapata’s mustache became the symbol of the Mexican revolution for Christ’s sake, but does he get any credit? No! I guess I can live with my fifteen seconds of fame.”
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| Lyle: "It isn't easy being green." |
The Wacky World Of TikTok
If you’re looking for advice from Influencers, there’s a nest of them over on TikTok. Stephanie Baker, aka Mermaid Serenity will feed you content about her life as a mermaid in Hawaii. Lyle the Therapy Gecko dispenses all manner and make of life coaching while dressed in a gecko onesie. Bumble Pree is an avid promoter of adult diapers, Laura Jenkinson creates chin makeup, Sister H will discuss life at the nunnery and Captain Cream (who we sort of like) will show you innumerable ways of using whipped cream for fun and profit.
Creepy Razy is a musical artist bent on creating spooky and eerie ambient music, sometimes with a Halloween theme. The music is designed to evoke a sense of unease, making it suitable for such things as horror movies, haunted houses and Bill Killeen’s 85th birthday party.
Seniors might enjoy 92-year-old Dolly Broadway, also known as Dolores Paolino of south Philly, who will regale sympathetic oldsters with curse-laden videos of Dolly enjoying alcoholic libations. Dolores is famous in the City of Brotherly Love as the ultimate nightowl, spending every night out prowling the streets until all hours and indulging in various risky shenanigans while almost never getting arrested. In her daytime life, she has been a hotdog wrapper at sporting events and an Avon lady for 47 years.
The most famous influencer on TikTok is Khaby Lame, with 162.1 million followers as of June 29. Khaby is a Senegalese-Italian fellow known for his humorous reactions to overly complicated “life hack” videos, using his signature facial expressions and simple, relatable solutions. His silent, often comedic videos have resonated with audiences, leading to a massive following and turning him into a global sensation, even though you never heard of him.
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| Glenn Terry casts his pearls before swine. |
Local Color
You might not at first think of them that way, but there are significant influencers in your very own bailiwick. Chuck LeMasters, the creator of “Jonestown Chic,” is one of ours. LeMasters personifies the term grumpy aloofness while keeping an arms-length distance from nosy sycophants, defining what art is not on Facebook, cultivating the best weed in five states and pissing in the open windows of automobiles belonging to people who procure their pets at any location that is not a rescue.
Glenn Terry, though a latecomer to the local scene is an influencer and avid rabble-rouser. Terry conceived and executed Gainesville’s annual post-Christmas Flying Pig Parade, a humorous cacophony of marching left-wing fanatics of every stripe banging on pans and promoting their causes while decked out in scandalous costumes. When the parade is over, Glenn retires to his War Room to plan weekly demonstrations against tyrants, Teslas and Town Hall absentees. Terry gave lie to the expression “You can’t argue with an empty chair,” when he did just that after Representative Kat Cammack failed to show up for a back-and-forth.
Wild man Will Thacker is an absolute influencer, first from his flying machine which soared over Gainesville when he plied his trade as DJ #1 on Hogtown radio back in the sixties and seventies, then as an animal advocate and snake hunter who travelled the world trying in vain to kill himself. Once, during a hunt in some Asian backwater, Will’s snakemobile was ambushed by bandits looking for loot in all the wrong places. Thacker tossed one pissed-off cobra out of the car, routed the villains and went merrily on his way. One of the chastened thieves freely admitted “Influencer? No doubt about it. I was influenced to take up a new career as an Adidas rep.”
‘Twas Ever Thus.
In Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love, there is a nondescript small man named Leopoldo Pisanello, a middle-class clerk on a visit to Italy who suddenly finds himself the center of media attention for no apparent reason. Pisanello is stunned at the unexpected fame, hounded by paparazzi, interviewed about the most mundane details of his life. The public is star-struck, crowding around him, following him everywhere, instantly adopting anything approved by Leopoldo. He becomes an unwilling influencer, thrust into the sometimes nonsensical nature of celebrity culture. At first, Pisanello is terrified, but then grows into the role, accepting its accompanying perks and pleasures, but eventually grows weary of the unrelenting storm, avidly searching for a way out.
Then, out of nowhere, the media’s fancy is distracted by a new man. They flock to him, abandoning Pisanello in the process. The once-swooning public no longer cares what Leopoldo eats or wears or thinks. Amazed at his good fortune, Leonardo bounces down the street to his wife, thrilled to be free. But not for too long. Eventually, he pines for his recent glory days, starts glomming onto passers-by to announce to them a few of his favorite things. Nobody cares. Pisanello is yesterday’s newspaper, gone with the wind. Woody’s storyline highlights the wonderful contrast between the man’s previously unremarkable existence and the sudden unexplained phenomenon of his celebrity, only slightly exaggerating the path of the influencers we see in today’s society.
Madeleine L’Engle’s priceless phrase, “Show them a light and they’ll follow it anywhere” has never been truer than it is today, when that beam has to be no stronger than a blinking flashlight. The masses still avidly await The Second Coming and they’ve obviously lost their patience.
That’s all, folks….
