5 Questions To Ask When Viewing Instagram “Rich Marketers”
A closer look at lifestyle flexors so that you too don’t fall for their marketing schemes.
Thanks to the pandemic, there’s a new breed of pest online: Young “rich” wanna-be fake online influencers, and I feel like there are so many of them these days when I opened my Instagram. Like, I spent less time there and these people just keep popping up in my feed because there are many people faking their way to look ‘rich’ on Instagram.
As the result, kids today are flexing their styles a lot and if you see what they are teaching, I find that what they taught is something to do with stocks or cryptocurrency. They’d put a lot of content about financial freedom and getting rich quick, wanting to become a billionaire, and nothing about problem-solving, which is what entrepreneurs tend to go.
However, some of these so-called influencers are close to becoming scammers as they built followers to make them pay them up to become their mentors, etc. Thus, the rise of fake gurus and wanna-be influencers.
The reality is:
Entrepreneurs hate competition.
Disney and Louis Vuitton bought a lot of businesses so that they can stay up the powerhouse and the monopoly of their industry. I don’t even think Mark Cuban wants to tell you his blueprints on how he became a billionaire. Most of his advice is basically ‘work hard work smart’.
So the fact that these financial influencers are giving you courses on their ‘secret’ to success…..I think it’s best you run for the hills. Because they tend to fake it ‘till they make it.
But it’s sometimes hard to see what’s right and what’s fake when things are curated, I was in a tough spot until I followed the Coffeezilla show. And after various observations from his deductions and what I found myself from my observations seeing internet influencers, I come up with 5 questions to ask ourselves when we encounter these people:
1) What is really their business?
The trend of today’s generations is entrepreneurship, stocks, and cryptocurrency. And sadly, these are the three hot stuff that influencers picked up as well.
Let’s clear things up about these three things first, let’s start with the things that involved candlesticks.
Stocks and cryptocurrencies are based on market trends, like anyone can say, you can’t predict what will happen to the market tomorrow. No one can predict that, that’s why it’s quite questionable when I follow stocks and crypto influencers because no one can predict which will rise, or what Elon Musk will tweet next.
Remember when Elon said that he’s not going to accept bitcoin for Tesla again? Did anyone ever figure that out? No, people who invest in bitcoin lost the revenue after that crash.
So beware of investing in things that said that they’ll ‘manage’ your money. Otherwise, you’ll end up falling a victim to people like Stephen Qin, the young ‘Cryptocurrency Hedge Fund’ who’s going to jail for Securities Fraud And Pleads.
If you want to invest in such things, it’s best to follow certain groups like “Wallstreet bets” when they “hold the line” on Gamestop.
As for businesses, there’s nothing wrong with them. However, if these influencers are offering you products that have to do with psychological mindsets to switch, it’s best you run. Because most of the contents in the courses are basically materials you can find in book stores and it’ll cost you way less than the video packages. In the end, their source of income is basically creating a video package on how to be rich.
So the point is, this is the true question to actually ask:
“If you are rich, why are you making video packages on how to be rich?”
It’s quite a red flag already because most entrepreneurs I know don’t want to share their blueprints. Remember, entrepreneurs hate competition.
2) Are their stuff of luxuries really ‘theirs’?
Check this out, I got this from CNBC:
“The photo shoots also included renting an entire mansion for the afternoon for around $600, and even a fake private jet studio for $49.99 an hour.”
Yes, you see this right. You can take a picture in luxurious mansions and private jets by paying less than $1000. You don’t even have to own them so that your Instagram pictures will look cool.
There’s a comment section I saw from Coffeezilla, but sadly, I don’t remember which video that I found it from, but I read where a pilot commented at one of the fake guru advertisements and it said something like this:
“You can tell the plane is not theirs because if they are really taking off, the lights of the plane should be on when they are boarding the plane.”
This got me thinking because when we board planes, the engines and lights are on even before we were allowed to enter.
Here’s another example, Dan Lok, another guru who claimed to be rich, turned out to fail to pay his rent on his mansion.
Even social media today has bots to make fake fans, so check thoroughly when you view these so-called influencers. Are the ‘possessions’ in the posts really belong to them? Because even billionaires don’t flex their Ferraris, they pretty much behave like average citizens.
3) Do they spend more time posting on social media or actually doing their work?
As a content creator, reading and making video editing, these things take a lot of effort. Even photoshoots!!!
When I watched about Youtubers that I subscribed to, most would say that they pay someone to edit their videos or would edit by themselves but at the cost of rare uploads.
For example, I really like this Youtuber called Internet Historian. And if you see his upload behaviors, you’ll find that he doesn’t upload daily or weekly, but monthly.
So as you can see here, even uploading videos take a long time, lest they go for Tiktok. Then again, Tiktok doesn’t give enough time to cover the information you want, kinda like Twitter, and that’s why a lot of misunderstanding occurred in that social media to the point the mobs and trolls appeared there, and rarely on platforms.
So check thoroughly on that ‘influencer’, are they doing their actual work to generate money or generating money from views?
4) Do they keep flexing?
Most people who finally made it the big break through are very humble. They don’t flex anything on Instagram, merely showing people what they love to do and prefer to inspire others.
In other words, the people who are really successful acted like any average people you see everyday. They prefer to interact with everyone no matter the status.
For example, when Richard Branson went to space, he said it genuinely to everyone on what an amazing opportunity he was given in his life to be able to go to space and he encouraged the young people to keep improving. It’s why his inspirational video was so viral that day because he was being very genuine.
However, if you see most influencers today, most would often flex their style. You see a lot of them on Instagram where they would act like celebrities, curating their pictures just for likes, comments, and follows. Often times, I always see those kind of stuff as show off, and I’d have a hunch that they are doing it for attention.
So, when you find these people flexing a lot, usually it’s a sign that you may want to high narcissism and trust me, you don’t want to stick around a lot with these people lest they repent or something.
5) What is their financial history?
If you’re gonna make a will claim on your financial history, you’re going to have big proof on that. You can’t just say you were able to make something out of nothing in just a year, that’s too good to be true.
Even big billionaires were in their 40s when they were finally big in their wallets.
This is actually one of the reasons why I don't follow things like 30 under 30 because most of the people who made it to that list already have connections from their parent’s businesses.
Now, I’m not dissing these people who made it to the list. In fact, great job for them that they took action and built a company at that age. I’d like their management advice instead of start up though.
Here’s the deal.
To be a coach, you really need all the experience you can get. It’s why Harvard Business Review found that The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45. This makes sense because the more experience you got, the more skills you develop.
And Jack Ma gave this advice for young people:
“When you are 20–30 years old, you should follow a good boss. Join a good company to learn how to do things properly. When you are 30–40 years old, if you want to do somethign yourself just do it. You still can afford to lose, to fail. But when you are 40–50 years old, my suggestion is that you should do things that you are good at.”
Let’s take those big guys as an example when they finally made it in their lives, found by the Harvard Business Review as well. Steve Jobs was 52 when he created the most successful product, the iPhone, and that made him a huge deal back then. Jeff Bezos was 45 when Amazon was beginning to gain a lot of attention about his huge website. As for Mark Zuckerberg, yea sure, he’s a young billionaire, but seeing how Facebook is losing users and rebranding to Meta and people shared their skepticism that Black Mirror is becoming a reality, well, I’ll let you decide what you think about him. Mark is a good and brilliant guy, it’s just perhaps his moral compass needs a little work.
So for the people out there who feel like you’re dumb that you don’t start a company right away after college, don’t feel that way. You can take your time because entrepreneurship is a long long journey. Develop your skills to be better so that you are more prepared once you start one.
Conclusion
Instagram is basically like ads. The ad looks great but sometimes, the end product isn’t what you might expect once you get it. Most people would fall for the ad and that’s why ‘influencers’ think that this business of being an influencer is a great trend to be in.
But it’s not. It’s being dishonest to people, and this bragging culture needs to stop.
So, to recap everything, if you began seeing these ‘rich influencers’ on social media, ask yourself these questions before getting hooked up in them:
- What is their real business?
- Are their stuff of luxuries really ‘theirs’?
- Do they spend more time posting on social media or actually doing their work?
- Do they keep flexing?
- What is their financial history?
I hope this will help you when you encounter these influencers so that you don’t fall into their rabbid hole of ‘rich’ lives the way I did. It made me miserable at first until I did my research.
I’ll leave you all this: You all are doing great :) don’t compare yourself to others. Everyone has their own battles to face.
Have a great day!!
