Over the years Social Media has caused a big impact on our generation. It made a big impact when Instagram was published in 2010, everyone wanted to post themselves just for fun, then it was Snapchat published in 2011, then Vine in 2012, where people would post memes and people still quote most vines to this day. Then it was the Musical.ly era from 2014 to 2018, during this time the trend was to post the famous lip-sync slow motion videos with multiple transitions. Furthermore, now we have Tik Tok published in 2016 becoming more popular in 2018 when Musical.ly was officially shut down, and now Tik Tok is the App where people post daily vlogs, get ready with me (GRWM), tutorials, story times, etc…
Throughout the years these apps have been accumulating content creators (Influencers) that have now taken a big toll on our generation. Influencers now get paid for the content they post on their social media and they also have the opportunity to get sponsored by companies, these influencers eventually post the promotion videos and then based on how the viewers interact with the videos they eventually get paid. A lot of influencers live by just posting videos, they get paid by how much they post and how the viewers interact with their videos.
By the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025 the U.S. government wanted to ban Tik Tok because it is owned by a chinese company, but this took a big scare in the U.S, specially the content creators (Influencers) because that’s where they get their money from, but then the U.S. president extended the ban deadline to June 19, 2025, to give ByeDance the Tik Tok chinese company to sell the company so that Tik Tok doesn’t have to be permanently banned in the U.S. However this possible Ban still doesn’t and won’t stop all these content creators (Influencers) from doing their Job, they still find a way to post on other social media platforms.
In our generation we have my content creators (Influencers) around the world. First is Mr. Beast (James Stephen Donaldson) who has the most followers on the YouTube Platform, with over 340 million followers, Mr. Beast is known for his huge giveaway videos and bringing many content creators (Influences) from other Social Media Platforms together on many of his videos, to compete for big prices. Mr. Beast is also very known for his acts of kindness, which he uses almost all the money he earns from his videos to help people from all around the world with basic and big necessities, including food assistance, medical initiatives, and building houses for people in need. People like to watch his videos because Mr. Beast is constantly helping people in need from all over the world, people watch his videos and interact with all of his videos so that way he can get more profit from his videos to help more people from all over the world. Mr. Beast is also the 3rd most followed person on the Tik Tok platform with over 115 million followers.
However the most followed person on Tik Tok is Khaby Lame with over 162 million followers, and he is known for his silent reacting and mocking “complicated” life hack videos. Khaby Lame followers and viewers like his videos because they find them funny and relatable, what his viewers also like is that he is very simple and doesn’t try too much on his videos, he is always calm and this leads him to having a lot of views, likes, comments and reactions on all of his videos. Therefore the top 25 most liked videos on the Tik Tok platform are his videos. Khaby Lame popularity led him to sell useful kitchen products, and collectable toy figures. Moving on, the most followed person on Instagram is Cristiano Ronaldo, with over 630 million flowers, even though he is not a content creator a lot of people are influenced by his professional soccer career.
Therefore a lot of people are amazed that he came from nothing and did something to change his life for the better. Moving on people get influenced by these Influencers by their actions, which builds trust to the people watching their content. People like to see content creators (Influencers) be real, honest and transparent to their followers or just anyone.
Viewers like to see them use their platforms in positive ways, sharing any personal experiences that may relate to their audience brings more people to be influenced by these content creators. Influencers that Influence in positive ways and do things to help those in need, gives an example to the audience to do good things and put a positive impact on the world. Gen Z Influencers find micro-influencers to be more credible and relatable, which enhances their audience to be more engaged.
