Empowered or Exploited?

Hi and welcome back!

Social media, who hasn’t heard about it? It is everywhere around us. Follows us everywhere we go.  But are these websites helping us with anything, or simply using us as puppets in the plans of the great industries and advertising companies?  

After watching the Generation Like documentary I have reached a conclusion related to one specific ‘phenomenon’ of social media and the internet that is highly popular between most of the teens. You Tube stars. Also known as You Tubers, these people have become one of the greatest attractions of the Internet, reaching millions of views and subscribers. But let’s take a moment to think about these You Tube stars and how they are exposing their lives in front of people just to be liked, to be seen and known by others. Of course, it is their choice, they are having fun, and yes they can make money if they get popular enough. But is it worth it? Are they empowered by the advertising companies or are they being exploited in order for others to make profit? At the first sight, they are simply talking about what they like or what they don’t like, however, by simply doing this they are advertising willingly or unintentionally a specific product bringing huge amounts of money to the producers. We can be tempted to believe that by doing this they are getting a fair part of the deal and that the companies are empowering them to continue what they are doing by giving items or money in exchange. Well, unfortunately I believe this is not always true. I think that the companies are sometimes taking advantage of the unintended advertising that some of these millionaires in views are generating, because they don’t have to spend extra money for them, and let’s face it, who doesn’t like free things?
You Tubers can promote each other by making collaborative videos, meaning that the viewers of one You Tuber can get to know and like another one very easily. And what could this lead to? Exactly! More advertising. This means that companies could be able now not only take advantage of one You Tuber, but two, having access to both their audiences. Of course, this can go on and on, and the incomes of the producers whose products are being advertised can increase drastically. So is this not exploitation? Personally I think it is. However, I am aware that the number of different opinions and views towards this subject can be as varied as the number of people reading this blog and I respect that.