Le sigh… According to a recently aired 60 minutes episode I had the pleasure of watching, there are some individuals out there making millions simply by using the phone in their hands. And all the while, here I sit my proverbial “mom’s basement” scowling at these “social media influencers”. The staggering figures are that some of of these people have more followers than Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton and some even get more views than both combined! These numbers have caught the attention of major companies to use these folks to promote their brands through their YouTube, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and snapchat channels and they are cleaning up!

Kim Kardashian is worth several hundred million. But is she really “worth” that? She obviously has a wildly successful TV show and a clothing/jewelry line but she attributes her career success to social media. It’s situations such as her recent Mexican vacation where she took over 6000 selfies that have her winning the depth game. I simply just do not like myself enough to be able to do that. Others are making several hundred thousand bucks on Vine, because they wore a t-shirt that one of these companies promoted – and these videos only last 6 seconds! I hate looking at selfies, but more importantly posting them, yet I can comb through some of the photos on my phone and see my mug looking right into that camera. So what am I trying to say here?

It’s not news that the people of my generation are self obsessed and will promote themselves in almost anyway. I am no different. Here I am blogging in the hopes that my writing will promote me as a distinguished author and expert on all things (Daily Show – I am available for interviews by the way). So there is Hemingway, Steinbeck, Salinger, and Meeker??  Methinks, however, that many of my generation are equally as disgusted by this self worship and desperate need for attention, yet we can’t seem to stay away.

Perhaps I have the mindset of a “get off my lawn” type because I am not finding that niche for myself and my eyes are glazing over with the over-saturation of content we see on youtube on how we can improve our lives. We say that we hate it when people post pictures of the dinner they cooked or what they had at the night they went out to a highly rated (with the assistance of yelp) restaurant but yet we yearn for the likes, hearts, wow looks, and whatever other emoji Facebook can think of. Of course nowadays it’s peoples disdain for the right or left and whoever’s fault based on the outcome of the recent election. We all want to get on our soapbox. For $100,000 a year, who wouldn’t want to make a snapchat video of me buying dunkin donuts

The unfortunate truth is that until we have a better way, we all have to do this dance if you want to have any kind of online presence. The silver lining to all of this is we have a much bigger voice due to these many different social media platforms. All you need is the smart phone in your pocket and a little creativity. Now the chances of someone making it big on social media as opposed to the one person that is trying to land that book deal or that audition on that TV show are one in the same. So despite the over-saturation, we choose to make ourselves feel better. While we may not be in same ballpark as Hemingway or De Niro, we can at least be along the same parallel. This is because we are able to publish something with the ability to reach thousands if not millions of views, who have just as many people who have read their books or seen their movies.

So in the end, would I choose to be a sell out? The answer is a resounding HELL YES. I know I have to play the game and part of me quietly hates myself for it but we’re venturing into new territory and influencers are popping up all the time. This blog was brought to you by Snacky S’mores

And just to be clear, I do live in an apartment with my amazing girlfriend.