Influencers are apparently people whose YouTube or Twitter accounts are followed by thousands and therefore the account holder has the ability to “influence” popular opinion and stuff. Have I got that about right?

Because, I never heard that word until last week when it seemed to be used solely for the ‘Tube and tweets.

Anyway there’s the article in the link. It’s fucked up. I don’t know what to make of it, except for the allegation that influential people fake illnesses for sympathy and to get followers.

This I don’t want to believe. Pretty sick stuff, really, when part of the conversation seems to involve feces and feeding tubes or some other tube. Are people hurting or infecting themselves?

I find it on one hand quite incredible.

On the other hand I can see it.

I’ll tell you what. I’ve got just over 70 followers. I was blown away when I hit ten. Then for a long time I stopped looking and turned notifications off. I didn’t need to know. But as time passed, I realized that every time a new follower came on board, a few others stopped reading. Of over 70 followers, a dozen or less are actually reading. I’m not an influencer. That’s good. I don’t want to be one of those and not being a celebrity is, as far as I can see, safe. I like being safe.

But a few years back, I read the most peculiar story. A schoolteacher had conned her students, her boss, and even friends into believing she had cancer. You can imagine what happened. I believe her students were in high school. They signed cards, they supported her, cried for her. She had people drop her off at an oncology clinic where radiation therapy was done. She’d go inside and spend time talking to real patients. Since she did this a lot, the staff at the facility may have taken her for one of those people who just visit hospital patients. Wanting to feel altruistic and needed, I suppose.

Since the first case I read about was quickly followed by another, I’m not certain of what happened when she finally got found out.

I remember that she had taken monetary donations. Shaved her head or worn a wig or both.

Her students understandably felt betrayed even though a couple seemed to realize that to fake cancer, their teacher really was in need of help because it’s a fucking crazy thing to do. Like sending a blimp to cover a college football game when the stadium has a dome and nobody in the blimp ever sees so much as a drummer in the marching band.

Actually, forget that. Faking cancer is way more nuts than sending a blimp to cover indoor sports.

But you know what I mean. The poor woman really was sick. There were even criminal charges. She wound up moving in with her parents and fading into a bad memory.

I wonder if that’s what they mean by fake influencers being “chronically ill.” But I think maybe that’s not it. Sick people do that shit but at least they really do need help, just in a different way than what they let on.

My real question started when a blogger I followed started a post with “Stop faking your life…” and it was about other bloggers.

I can’t understand how she determines whose posts are fake. Isn’t that judgmental, and if so, who made her God? If you don’t like what you’re reading, then stop reading. If you don’t want bad news, don’t watch the news. If you don’t like to be scared, then stay away from people, places or media that scare you. Fuck it. It’s not always that easy, but most often, it is. Be your own influencer and instead of blogging maybe write fiction or try your hand at poetry.

Drama is all over Twitter. We know that. We know how some celebrities behave like spoiled shitless brats, chopping the English language up because it’s okay when they be on vay kay. Whatever. I don’t have a problem with them except for the fact that even Queen’s English is being eroded like the rocks in a deep gully. You know, you can only go so far back in time and still recognize the English language; further than a certain time and you may be burned at the stake as a babbling, possessed heretic.

How far into the future would you be able to go and still understand English when we’re headed toward infantile sounds instead of words? Someone on Facebook once called me a “boi” and I fucking blocked them without hesitation or explanation. “Bois and gurls” need never get near me. I’ll do something that will surely make them head back to high school.

The celebrities and other “influencers” today are often problems for me. Not just in their employment of English. They say stupid shit, true; but it’s always so self-centered, all about themselves, and so fucking always full of complaints and selfies until you’re numb, or you hate them. You can still love them, but everything they do, everything they say will have you constantly following and unfollowing them. That’s okay. Maybe you’ll still be able to speak English two years from now.

I am aware that my blog may cause a person now and then to mistake me for an influencer. Holy shit, don’t do that. Don’t put me in with anyone else.

It’s true that some people find my posts fantastic and unbelievable. I’m not their cuppa, and I’m fine with that. I don’t blog for popularity or sensation. I’ve laid my life out the best way that I could because I believe that all those who are able, who got as fucked over and as fucked up as I was, and am now, has an obligation to try to educate others on mental illness. I’m looking for that one person who won’t listen to anyone else, who feels something is wrong but knows not what, who will read one post, one paragraph or one sentence that might make them realize what they’re troubled by and decide to take action. And hopefully get their life back. If I help just one person to do that, then none of my suffering has been in vain. I won’t know it when it happens. We don’t get to know when our words help any more than we do when our words hurt.

This is why I usually only call politicians dickheads. They deserve it.

I can decide for myself who I do or do not believe on social media. And the ones I can’t believe get most of my sympathy. Imagine being a celebrity and feeling so hollow and inadequate that you need to feign illness for attention. That’s so very sad, and indicates a bigger problem than you think you can see.

I’m sad to think of needing negative attention. I don’t want it no matter how you take me.

My life began in terror and pain. Neither one has ever left me. All I need do is tell the truth, and I’m humbled when someone reads my words, just as I have always been so surprised whenever someone liked me.

There are fakers of chronic illnesses out there. But I can’t see anyone faking mental illness. And unless I can tell without a doubt that they’re full of shit, they will get the benefit of the doubt.

They’re human, damn it. I think I should treat them like it. That’s what Christ told us to do.

And all those without sin can pick up stones. The rest should go fuck themselves.