PARENTING

My Friend is Financing His Daughter’s Influencer Lifestyle

How far should you support your kids’ dreams?

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash

If you’re over a certain age, you should probably sit down for this.

You can now major in social media.

When I went to college there was something called “mass communications”, which was a catch-all major for kids with middling grades who didn’t know what they wanted to do with their lives.

This was back when phones had cords and press releases went out by fax.

Now, you major in social media in hopes of running a company’s website and social media presence.

Nice work if you can get it.

The problem is that the kids who major in social media have very different goals in mind than just “getting a job”. They don’t want an actual J-O-B. They want to be:

(A) famous, and

(B) rich.

Not necessarily in that order.

The Mickey Mouse Club used to be the fast track to fame and fortune. Now it’s Instagram and TikTok.

My friend’s daughter is cute, but she’s not a model. She has a decent amount of followers, but she’s not getting sponsors any time soon.