By Kate Roush
How have influencers gained enough value to earn as much, if not more than, a school teacher in a single week? A single sponsored post can earn an Instagram influencer up to £738 a week, nearly matching the weekly income of a school teacher. The term ‘influencer’ has been around since the 2010’s, though the meaning has significantly shifted. We used to claim traditional celebrities who became famous through film, TV shows, and art as the original ‘influencers.’ Now, being an influencer is an accessible career for the average person by creating short-form content of their everyday lives, and yet somehow they still make quite the profit. These influencers and content creators are found in nearly every industry, whether micro or macro. The outrage may not be about influencers at all, it may be what the market now rewards and how much is being rewarded. The idea of the influencer has turned from a satisfying way to live vicariously through others to selling your attention span to strangers on the internet for simply promoting a yoga mat. Influencer salaries are not an anomaly; they expose a structural flaw in modern capitalism with an economy that equates profitability with value, regardless of social contribution.
Influencers have transformed our attention into their currency. Since entering an economy where engagement can be measured, sold, and converted into profit, what we pay attention to can become capital within a system that increasingly monetises visibility itself. Those who capture our attention efficiently on platforms like Instagram or TikTok are then compensated, meaning the logic behind this process is internally consistent, meaning visibility generates engagement, and engagement generates revenue. Separating that market value from social value, how could we look into equating teaching, nursing and other forms of care work with a “Day In My Life” content creator? Influencing generates immense profit but ambiguous social necessity. When these two types of industries are rewarded so differently, the economy signals its priorities with unsettling clarity.
Influencers’ worth is entirely dependent on social media algorithms, being the true determiners of success in the attention economy. What we as users see is not by chance, but curated to maximise engagement and profit. Platforms such as Meta are the invisible employers, structuring who is and isn’t worth seeing. These influencers and content creators’ success is not solely based on effort or skill, but on algorithmic favour. They have become embedded in a system of algorithmic capitalism, where platforms function as market-makers, determining whose attention is valuable and whose is invisible. In addition to the algorithm factor, influencers heavily rely on our views, likes and comments, meaning engagement levels are yet another deciding factor in salary. The people you see on social media are stuck in a paradox, having a profession that appears lucrative but remains structurally unstable.
How can social media still be enjoyable when viewers know influencers get paid for their scrolling? The percentage of people who now use these platforms for business is growing at an alarming rate. As more users turn to these platforms for income, any participation becomes a form of labor, turning social media into a pure economic transaction. The consequence of this is subtle; users are no longer just audiences, they too are active components in this system which extracts value from their attention. In this model of capitalism, even passive participation is absorbed into production.
Part of our discomfort stems from the vast amount of influence that is truly occurring on a daily basis. These influencers and content creators sell relatability, vulnerability, and personality, always feeding us new trends to follow, telling us things we are doing wrong, and convincing us we must buy this product or that one. Even culture becomes shaped by market logic, as all social media content is circulated based on its potential to generate engagement and profit. TikTok dances are remembered by the distinct year they were created, Pinterest boards are showing us what our most significant cultural events look like in real life, and even words and phrases coined by these influencers have ended up in the dictionary. Not only has authenticity become a product online, but the lines between private and public life are significantly blurred. This development reflects a broader shift in contemporary capitalism. As markets expand into new areas of life, identity itself becomes an economic resource. We are starting to lean into the fact that the most valuable commodity online is no longer simply a product, but the individual who can attract and sustain attention. Influencers are not just participants in the attention economy; they represent its logical endpoint.
Even culture becomes shaped by market logic, as all social media content is circulated based on its potential to generate engagement and profit.
But influencers are becoming uncomfortable, too. As people continue to quit their jobs or drop out of college to join the idyllic influencer life, the foundation of this profession becomes more and more fragile. Creator burnout grows as more aspects are brought into the process of actually making a living off this lifestyle. As algorithms never stop evolving, constant content needs to be posted, trends dissolve as new ones grow, and the idea of a job based on validation loses its charm. This reveals a contradiction at the heart of the system: a form of labor that appears privileged, yet is defined by instability, constant performance, and dependence on external validation. When their aesthetic ability allows them to quit their 9-5 and is compensated at comparable salaries to those of essential workers, the economic system is malfunctioning. An economy that systematically and disproportionately rewards attention-based work exposes a hierarchy of value, where capitalism and consumption are prioritized over contribution.
The question is not whether influencers deserve their income. It is what their income reveals about a system that rewards attention more than necessity. Influencers are not an exception to capitalism, they are its clearest expressions. The misalignment embedded in the influencer title reflects an unease with an economic system that prioritizes consumption over contribution. In a world where attention functions as capital, the rise of the influencer is not irrational, but rather inevitable.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own, and may not reflect the opinions of The St Andrews Economist.
Image via pexels.