I don't agree with you. I have seen it first hand. Girls find makeup artists they like on youtube that do looks they like and then they follow their recommendations. There are so many options out there. How do you choose? Follow the advice of an influencer. It repeats across the entire market, across all demographics. Building a relationship and then leveraging it. Doing (buying, in this case) something based on the recommendation of another person is basic human behavior. I don't think you should write it off as a boomer thing so easily.

> There are so many options out there. How do you choose? Follow the advice of an influencer.

That's the boomer perspective that I wanted to point out. Where's the internet in this flow? Where's the community? Where's google? I know the above statement is simplified, but what matter is the linking logic, which can be radically different b/w generations.

One thing boomers don't recognize is that, unlike the celebrities from the last generation, influencers are contributors, not rulers or leaders. They make practical contributions to their communities, and, in return, they earn trust, which then can be utilized for monetization. It's not like someone great bam comes in and become a star (which is the exact strategy of this artificial influencer. So boomer, eh?)

Also it's worth noting that the internet community is that it offers more information and raw data than the sum of influencers can ever offer. Follow the recommendation of an influencer? Pf, it's just mere a drop in the vast ocean. A proper digital-literate - and MZs are the first digital native generation - will search other sources, cross check the information, and, naturally, expand it even further. As more effort goes in to these steps, the significance of influencers drops rapidly.

So, I want to say that the influencer marketing can't be a key strategy these days. Rather, it's just an element in the usual advertisement campaign. The most critical part is the community engagement.