The Influencer

This is my 1000th post. 

I have a soundtrack song that skirts around the topic of this post. It is called #Addicted by my current favourite band Riverside, so listen along while you read (only if you want to of course). 

I want everybody to be like me. I want you all to listen to the same music as me, read the same books as me and base your fashion choices on my own. I want you all to have the same beliefs as me and basically use my ideas as a philosophy for your future choices. 

I want to influence you all. 

Okay, let me tell you one thing about the words I wrote above: they are complete and utter bollocks.

My own belief is that everybody should be as individual as they can be. People are unique in this world and that’s exactly what makes humanity so brilliant on the whole. You never know what you are going to get when you meet a new person.

Having said that, it is perfectly fine to get ideas from people to enhance your own life. I do this all the time. However, I am not a good role model at all. 

When it comes to fashion, I am totally inept. I have written about this before and if it wasn’t for Mrs PM I would wander around the streets of Manchester dressed like a sack of potatoes with legs, arms and a head. When I go shopping for clothes I am utterly clueless about what to buy. When Mrs PM and I first got together, one of the first things she did was to tell me (in no uncertain terms) what was wrong with my clothing choices. 

My musical taste, while it skirts around various genres, is a little bit niche. I like popular music like rock and pop of course but the music that I really love has been described to me as “an acquired taste”. I have also been described as a “musical dinosaur” and I didn’t like that one little bit (as you can probably tell since I mentioned it in the first place). 

The books I read are also very niche. I love anything really weird (the weirder the better), which means that I gravitate towards science fiction, horror and anything that is just – well – strange. The same goes for TV and movies. 

Why would anybody be influenced by that?

About a year before I retired, I started looking at potential hobbies to keep myself busy and one of the suggestions made me laugh out loud. That idea was: 

“Become an influencer”

What? At my age? Have you ever met me?

I have seen influencers in action in the flesh. I have seen people (mainly women) photographing themselves when they have bought new clothes, pouting in a way that would attract any fish with large lips. I have heard others (mainly men) bleating on about sports products and things to make them look like the latest Adonis and showing off their muscles in a way that makes resemble a very poor man’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

The idea of being an Influencer is that you end up with an army of followers who hang on to your every word, your every image (no matter how bizarre) and all of your lifestyle choices, which includes things like the restaurants and bars that you got to, the meals you have every day and all of your amazing ideas, no matter how crazy they are. When you have this following, you reap the rewards with advertising and in extreme cases, companies giving you things to try in the hope that you will praise them allowing the companyto get sales indirectly from you. 

I don’t want any of that. 

I would hate to see a Plastic Mancunian clone following me to a restaurant dressed exactly like me and telling me how influential I am. 

I am not influential at all. I use this blog to basically tell people what a weirdo I am, how incompetent I am and what an idiot I can be. And I welcome people laughing at my antics. 

But to follow me and try to be like me?

You have to be kidding. 

Equally I have no desire to obsessively base my lifestyle choices on a person I’ve only ever seen pictures of, who is really nothing but a gigantic show-off. For example I love rock music but I have never had the desire to pursue the hedonistic and debauched life style of some of my past favourite artists. 

You can rest assured that on the list of potential retirement hobbies that I have compiled, “become an influencer” is not on there at all. Mind you, I am a self-confessed weirdo so perhaps there are older people out there who may be tempted to listen to my advice, wear the same clothes that Mrs PM tries to get me to wear, read the same weird books and listen to the same weird music. However, I like to think that anybody who is my age is so set in their ways that the very thought of being influenced by me is as hilarious as the concept of Plastic Mancunian himself trying to become an influencer. 

Influencers just want fame and money for doing bugger all and I would never want to be one.

I say make your own choices. Don’t follow people – just be yourself. 

Life is too precious to live it vicariously.