It seems to me that both things can be true: these young influencers can be in real emotional distress over the pressure to produce mediated widgets and the cruelty they continually face from those they have invited into their lives, and they can simultaneously be figuring out how to monetize that pain. Because that is what they have been told they must do if they are to avoid becoming attention-economy roadkill. And, like so much else, it’s a vicious cycle. If you successfully thing-ify yourself, then other people will begin to believe you are a thing and will throw all kinds of hard objects
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