On Influencers

Do you ever scroll through the sea of sponsored content in search of your friends, only to stumble upon a twenty-something with perfect five o’clock shadow and a full head of hair trying to sell you protein powder? You know the guys — the ones who have to adjust their own camera phones, stark white ring light reflections erasing their true eye color — you must have seen them. They are inexplicably shirtless and have pecs popping in the afterglow of a morning workout. Hunching over their kitchen countertop toward an iPhone with eight camera lenses, they flex their abdominals in preparation to spew their talking points as soon as…