Kylie Jenner, 20 yrs old, has 24.5 million followers on SnapChat. When she posted, on Twitter, she doesn’t open the SnapChat application anymore because they changed it up, a lot of her followers agreed. And the company’s stock plummeted. According to Bloomberg, Snap Inc. lost 1.3 Billion in market value the same day Ms. Jenner’s tweet was posted.
A 20 yr old, so adept at hawking products over social media that companies pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars to say she just used their face cream, and take a picture of herself to prove it. It’s no different than when mass marketing first began. Movie stars and athletes hawked cigarettes, coffee, beer, make-up, and cars. Mickey Mantle and Marilyn Monroe help sell plenty of inventory. The real difference is in the immediacy of the message, and the lack of control of big corporations. In the past, Snapchat Inc. could have gotten a legal injunction, saying that Ms. Jenner was defaming them, or whatever. Not these days. A good number of people lost a bunch of money very quickly, and the company is scrambling to adjust, as companies sometimes have to do. That lack of control by the corporations, social media immediacy, is the reason they are willing to pay the Kardashian’s.
Most of Ms. Jenner’s family is also so adept. They have “documented” their lives since Kylie was 9 yrs old on a reality TV series. Most have made millions, in a number of different ways; through marketing themselves for sure, but also from clothing stores, health and beauty products, modeling and books. Good for them. I’m sure there is plenty of work involved to get to that point.
Although not on my radar of life, I’m very aware of the Kardashians. Why is our society so celebrity crazed, so willing to believe fake and shallow ideals?
Why do we let corporations, celebrities, athletes and politicians lead us around by the nose? Why are we so willing to give up our freedom of choice, and let them decided what we like and don’t like? Is Twitter in cahoots? What about Instagram? That’s where her followers said they’ve gone. This young lady knows, and her whole family for that matter, how to make money in today’s social media arena. How much do you think that one tweet is worth to Kylie, Instagram, and Twitter; because we know what it was worth to SnapChat.
Mike Ramer Photo 