Influencer

Last Tuesday I received a phone call from an unknown number. As I was expecting a call from an office whose number was not in my list of contacts, I took the call.

The caller turned out to be a woman who spoke English with a thick foreign accent. She introduced herself as an employee of a French company, and she said she wanted to recruit me for a job as an influencer.

All I had to do, she said, was “like” their product on social media, and I would get paid P2,000. I said I was not on social media, and she seemed flabbergasted. Didn’t I at least access TikTok, she asked? Their product is on the platform.

I said I was not interested and ended the call. I should have asked what the product was, but I was too dismayed to realize how unreliable reviews are on social media.

But come to think of it, if political lowlifes can invest in troll farms, why should it be surprising that people are paying to get those “likes” for a product? The technology is available, and there are influencers who do what they’re doing not for the fun but for the fund of it.

Still, it was disappointing to realize that I could no longer rely on the authenticity of product ratings online. I check out the ratings for restaurants, travel destinations, certain products that are hard to find in brick-and-mortar shops, and what’s good on Netflix.

My only consolation is the thought that with the exponential advances in artificial intelligence, human influencers for hire might soon become obsolete. And even if AI influencers become the norm, I’ve already lost trust in ratings and reviews by those with unverifiable identities.

*      *      *

Maybe if I wasn’t so tech-challenged, the realization would have come much earlier. This week while looking for a pet hair trimmer kit online, I did notice that positive reviews for certain products had the same wording.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who still believed those “likes” and star ratings on social media. There are many other people out there who continue to rely on those ratings for a wide range of goods and services being sold or advertised online.

Ratings and reviews are used even in job-hunting. And unfortunately, even young digital natives