Inside Baseball Look at Why Social Media 'Influencers' Line Their Pockets w/ Clickbait

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To those of you who do not participate in X "Creator Revenue Sharing," allow me to shed some light, because I think it's important everybody understand how this works.

First of all, please know that I do not do this for money, as it has always been a hobby and I would do what I do even if X paid me nothing. But I’m not going to lie, the money is nice and I’ll always take free money. But I don’t let it control me.

I have a little less than 230,000 followers, and on any given month X will pay me somewhere between $2,200 and $6,000.

So I got that going for me, which is nice. But if I got $0, I’d be OK as I have a well-paying IRL job.

Now consider X “influencers” with millions of followers. Do the math. There is a reason they do it full-time.

Hold that thought.

New set of facts: I only post on stuff I know about, which is mostly politics, military/war, legal issues in my practice area and rando pop culture commentary. When there is big news in those areas, I make more money. When the news cycle is slow, the money dries up. For me at least. For example, at the height of the Presidential campaign I was raking in the dough. When big news happens, I get a bump—the Iran bombing for example saw a spike in my payouts.

But when the news cycle is slow, I get bupkis.

Now consider those “influencers”who do this full-time and have millions of followers instead of just 230,000. When the news cycle is slow, their income goes way down by a very significant amount.

So what do they do? They use that massive follower base to CREATE news stories and controversies. They cannot allow the news cycle to ever get sedate, so when things get slow they fabricate controversy, and they don’t care who gets hurt by it—they need the clicks like a junkie needs heroin.

Please consider these facts the next time one of your beloved “MAGA Influencers” ragebaits you.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

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