Anonymous influencers?

which is why I think it's inevitable. We'll see the rise of the anonymous creator. Someone who takes you inside their life, their inner world, but while concealing core identifying features and their face. And this creator is absolutely spot on. That anonymity and privacy are about to become huge privileges in the creator economy. So let's talk about it. And if we're going to talk about this, we have to talk about Bon Skinny and Kate. Yup. If you're unfamiliar, in the early days of TikTok, Bon Skinny was the original TikTok horror lore in a creepy red clown mask engaging in very disturbing behavior. At the same time, Kate Yup was a very popular mukbang YouTuber who did not show her face from the eyes, basically. What both of these women had in common is that viewers were being held hostage, forced to make content against their will. Was this true? Of course not. But when creators did not show their face, people believed that these creators were sending secret codes, coded messages, Morse code, etcetera, in order to basically cry for help to their audiences. So anonymity as a content creator or influencer is not new. In past research on pet influencers or ASMR creators, oftentimes, the human face, the human face is not shown in order to protect the creator's identity. Of pet influencers, this is done to anthropomorphize or seem human, like they're running their own account. I know we're on the joke. And in the case of ASMR creators on YouTube, they would often just show their hands, since hands are a visual trigger for some people. This creator is spot on. I'm going to link the video down below. Go check out Miranda. She does great stuff. But I bring Bon Skinny and Kate Yup as examples in this conversation also in a moment of rampant conspiratorial thinking. Conspiracy theories have become so normalized in every single aspect of culture and society that if we turn to anonymous influencers, I see more theories of who are they in need help? Are they sending us secret messages? Absolutely. Being a thing. And I think the conspiracy of it all underscores the need for privacy and the need for anonymity, actually, because it shows that being online is a performance. Performance people may have to be a part of, but don't want to give every single thing about their internet. Having control of your online privacy is huge these days, especially in the United States, where we have almost no protection for this. Also, not being online is also a huge privilege. More and more, this is becoming a class and labor issue of who can afford to be online and who can afford to take a step back. While I am completely against social media bans for minors and age verification laws, I am absolutely for child social media labor laws, forgotten laws, and general data privacy regulation in the United States, because that would put us on an even playing field when having to opt out through anonymity and therefore inviting conspiracy of a situation. I also have other thoughts about anonymity and influencing, but I'll leave it here for now. So let me know what questions and comments you have down below.