Every so often I realize that I’ve predicted the future in one of my stories, which is what SF writers are ideally supposed to do, for all that we do it accidentally. (If we actually try to predict the future, we end up looking stupid when we fail.)
I was signing The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories for a friend, and found myself idly turning pages to remind myself what stories were in it. I lit upon a story called “Pinocchio,” originally published in Jonathan Strahan’s The Starry Rift in 2007 (though written a few years earlier). The story is about the rise and fall of a teenage social media star who, like his namesake, is eventually faced with the prospect of becoming a real boy.
What I noticed was that the narrator was what is now called a “social media influencer,” though the term had not yet arisen. He hangs with a “pack” of friends who do various fashionable activities on camera, wearing trendy clothing and using consumer products donated by manufacturers in return for the exposure. This is all stuff that real-life influencers do.
Where I went wrong was misjudging how the cash flow would be perceived. My protagonist essentially does all this stuff for free (which was true for the early 2000s), and his downfall begins when it’s revealed that he accepted money for one of his endorsements, and his followers accuse him of selling out.
Real-life influencers want nothing so much as to sell out, preferably for big money. Their audience somehow accepts these paid advertisements as being somehow more honest and reliable (and relatable) than traditional advertising. It’s big money, so big my protagonist’s jaw would probably drop open on hearing the numbers.
I’m not sure whether inventing influencer schtick in a story is something I should be particularly proud of— I mean, it’s nothing like predicting the Arab Spring in one of my novels— but I guess it’s an accomplishment of sorts.
I’ll take what credit I can, I guess.
