Bad influences

I don't understand the outrage that has descended on Italy's most famous influencer over the whole panettone affair. I don't understand it for the simple reason that anyone with even the most basic common sense should see that the aim is simply and solely to sell. "Influencers", a terrifying term in itself, are for the most part salesmen and advertisers who couldn't care less about charity or the wellbeing of their followers.

But I want my argument to go further. The post-modern capitalism of our age has given itself a facelift, and now it sells and promotes itself through a grubby moralism. It advertises its products through its troop of influencer-salesmen, no longer trying to promote quality, usefulness or good value for money. No, now turbo-capitalism has become "green", "charitable", "feminist", "inclusive", "resilient" and a whole heap of other trinkets of terminology, to make the contemporary zombie believe that it is interested not in profit and power but in the good of humanity.

I urge you to stop being taken in. Don't give a fig for "fair trade" messages and indirect "charity". Buy what you find useful, with the basic common sense of someone weighing up costs and benefits. And if you feel like giving to charity, do it yourself, directly, without advertising it, and perhaps choose people or causes close to you.

m.m.