Better than any soapbox, better than the daily newspaper, better than any previous platform, the internet has democratized media. Now anybody can step up to the microphone, video camera, keyboard, or all three, and present their message. The question then becomes: "Will it be received?"
     If it is, you have created an internet 'presence'. Building an internet presence can mean different things to different platforms. For example, if you are on the low key, super secret celebrity dating app Raya, you already are someone because with that app it's invitation only, and getting in means passing through numerous stringent filters, whereas with an app like Facebook you are only asked to join. 

     Facebook makes it easy to get on the internet and put out your stuff, which can POTENTIALLY be seen by any of Facebook's crazy numbers of followers, but if you've been on Facebook (who hasn't?) you can easily see that your content ain't got much staying power because Facebook's content scroll is like entering a black hole. It's endless, and down that rabbit hole can you go, along with your life. So why not limit yourself to what interests you and others like you, which is what the social media networks try to accomplish by giving you 'preference' filters, but even those are too broad. 
      Perhaps, to winnow the chaff from the wheat further, content can be evaluated and measured in real time against the current interest level, and that is what 'followers', 'likes', 'shares', and the term called 'influencer' is all about. You can be a superstar on the internet if you are deemed to be an influencer. Lots of traffic will flow your way.
      I don't think that that word used in that way is very old. It used to be just 'influence' or 'influencing' but now it is used in a way that denotes a singular entity that is making a big enough mark on the world that people sit up and take notice. 

      But there have always been 'influencers'. They may or may not have been currently known, or directly in the public eye, but the modern day and very popular internet influencers are very much so. They're here and now and are being followed intently, because what they are 'splaining, demonstrating, working towards, or actually doing is worthy of interest to their numerous followers, who could be anywhere on the globe and so this whole influencer thing is acting as a real time catalyst sparking so many developments that it just HAS to change The World and maybe it is but The World seems to be absorbing all this influencing yet it keeps on plodding along, and in a way not so very much different for the majority of people than things went the day before. 
     So maybe all this 'influencing' is overblown? Who is able to measure the amount of impact it is having? Surely with all the influencing going on we could have, would have, and should have solved all the worlds problems by now, or at least be fervently working on solutions to them, and we are, but it's taking an awfully long (in internet measured time units) to do this.

     In my estimation, we certainly HAVE sped things up, but what has also become glaringly apparent is that the human race is hobbled by many things as it struggles to find solutions to bigger issues. FORCES keep many of the nascent or proposed socially enlightened breakthroughs in check, but for how long? We don't live in a world of just ideas but also of facts, and fact is, we've a ways to go. I don't forsee the aliens landing anytime soon and blessing us directly with their technology, and if the great orange one that shook hands with the Korean leader is a symbolic start to something, that something is unclear. Perhaps it demonstrates that they have the ability to shake hands? I dunno. 
      Pundits on the internet might, by the sound of them, have the ability to solve thorny issues overnight but we have these forces standing in the way that have to be dealt with and so until then I will do what I can, which is blog about stuff, and influencers will do their thing, which will lead to something else, and maybe over time noticable differences in the quality of life we are experiencing will be real. Until then, we are highly focused and skillfully at work making various renditions of apps for dating, art networks, academic research, photo sharing, up and coming technologies, historic compilations, present videos of whatever from wherever (LOTS of fake stuff included), and are busy creating and playing super realistic games. Now I'm not criticizing any of this, these developments are the utterly amazing results of untold numbers of people's time and effort, so thanks for that, but until influencing gets coupled with real change on a block by city block level it's going to be pretty much the same old thing, only in a different package. 
      Society is complicated. I would like to see more spiritual understanding be coupled with all these innovations but it takes spiritual influencers to do that and following those cats ain't very exciting because they're not so much concerned with making bank, dating a hottie, and living the kind of life where you separate yourself from everything and everyone less desirable. 
      But things will play out as they will, and in my view, that has a lot to do with the hidden spiritual influencers that spur change to happen. These influencers are always here, always HAVE been here, they are the original ones, and although they're never directly on social media they might act through individuals that are on those sites. I believe that they play a big hand in all of this. It's something to think about. That might diminish some egos some, who want to think that they're gonna save the world solo, but to those I say "Chill, dude. It's all for the good that the influencers might be influenced themselves!".