CCP128: On Social Media Influencers

In this week’s conversation between Dr. James Emery White and co-host Alexis Drye, they discuss the growing cultural force of social media influencers. Given what these influencers can make for simply sharing their opinions through their social media platform of choice, it’s led many young people from Gen Z and Gen Alpha to aspire to become influencers themselves - a goal that a very minuscule percentage will attain. It’s also interesting to note how willing people are to take the advice of influencers who, quite frankly, sometimes know very little about what they are even promoting.

Episode Links

Today’s discussion was prompted by a Pew Research article titled “Who U.S. Adults Follow on TikTok,” revealing that users in the United States follow pop culture and entertainment personalities at a far greater rate than politicians or news organizations. And as mentioned earlier, young people today are increasingly saying they want to follow in the footsteps of social media influencers to become internet stars themselves. We’d encourage you to check out these articles to read more about that:

Jacob Dirnhuber, “Children Turn Backs on Traditional Careers in Favour of Internet Fame, Study Finds,” The Sun.

Tanith Carey, “Can Social Media School Make Your 16-Year-Old a Star?” The Telegraph.

They also discussed how pastors and clergy are losing their influence on culture as more and more people have witnessed moral failings of pastors. This was discussed in CCP4: On Pastors and Moral Failings and CCP31: On Celebrity Pastors.

Finally, when Alexis asked what the church could do to increase its reach and influence, Dr. White stressed the urgency for churches to have a stronger presence online - meeting culture where they are at in the world in which they live. You can read more about this in his book Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age.

For those of you who are new to Church & Culture, we’d love to invite you to subscribe (for free of course) to the twice-weekly Church & Culture blog and check out the Daily Headline News - a collection of headlines from around the globe each weekday. We’d also love to hear from you if there is a topic that you’d like to see discussed on the Church & Culture Podcast in an upcoming episode. You can find the form to submit your questions at the bottom of the podcast page HERE.