Tootfinder

A look at Wired's efforts to turn its journalists into recognizable figures across platforms; over the past year it has launched six new talent-led video series (Mark Stenberg/Adweek)
https://www.adweek.com/media/wired-journalists-influencers-subscriptions/

As Wired Turns Its Journalists Into Influencers, Subscriptions Surge
To capitalize on the momentum, the Condé Nast title is launching a sweeping out-of-home campaign to promote its upcoming issue

Tesla influencers just tried Elon Musk’s coast-to-coast self-driving challenge from 2017, crashed before 60 miles | Electrek https://electrek.co/2025/09/21/tesla-influencers-tried-elon-musk-coast-to-coast-self-driving-crashed-be…

Sounds about right.
"Two of these Tesla shareholders and online influencers attempted to undertake a coast-to-coast drive between San Diego, CA, and Jacksonville, FL, in a Tesla Model Y equipped with the latest FSD software update.
They didn’t make it out of California without crashing into easily avoidable road debris that badly damaged the Tesla Model Y."
#Tesla #TeslaFSD

Here's my latest Prairie Voice post about the world of influencers:
https://open.substack.com/pub/boles/p/end-of-the-influencer-era?r=17i29e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelc…

Dynamics of temporal influence in polarised networks
Caroline B. Pena, David J. P. O'Sullivan, P\'adraig MacCarron, Akrati Saxena
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.17177 https:…

Dynamics of temporal influence in polarised networks
In social networks, it is often of interest to identify the most influential users who can successfully spread information to others. This is particularly important for marketing (e.g., targeting influencers for a marketing campaign) and to understand the dynamics of information diffusion (e.g., who is the most central user in the spreading of a certain type of information). However, different opinions often split the audience and make the network polarised. In polarised networks, information b…

These Women Are My Musical Influencers #musician https://muz4now.com/2022/these-women-are-my-musical-influencers

These Women Are My Musical Influencers
Stan Stewart - @muz4now

When the career-influencers (most of whom should be yeeted into the sun) go around telling people, unbidden, what one should major in in college, they never seem to mention *math(s)*. I have several theories for why. What are your theories?

A look at Neon Coat, an app that offers models and influencers free restaurant meals, fitness classes, and other experiences in exchange for social media posts (Lane Florsheim/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/style/neon-coat-app-in

In a censored society everyone needs debates about harmless topics
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/21/fascism-women-homemaker-trad-wife?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok: Implications for understanding influence(rs) and expertise on social media
Tianliang Xu, Ariel Hasell, Sabina Tomkins
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16453

Anti-establishment sentiment on TikTok: Implications for understanding influence(rs) and expertise on social media
Distrust of public serving institutions and anti-establishment views are on the rise (especially in the U.S.). As people turn to social media for information, it is imperative to understand whether and how social media environments may be contributing to distrust of institutions. In social media, content creators, influencers, and other opinion leaders often position themselves as having expertise and authority on a range of topics from health to politics, and in many cases devalue and dismiss …

Conservative influencers accuse each other of not being racist enough
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5441767-conservative-influencers-accuse-each-other-of-not-being-racist-enough/

Telkens weer vallen jongens voor bewegingen die autoriteit combineren met kameraadschap en een heldere visie op mannelijkheid. Opinie van mij over de manosphere en het idee dat het allemaal aan de media ligt https://www.

Opinie: ‘Als jongens radicaliseren door influencers, is dat vaak tijdelijk: als ze ouder worden, gaat hun beeld botsen met de realiteit’
Niemand beweert meer dat je gaat moorden door films of suïcide pleegt vanwege metal. Maar het beeld dat jongens radicaliseren door sociale media alleen is volgens mediawetenschapper Linda Duits nog hardnekkig. Goed nieuws: hun radicalisering is vaak tijdelijk.

'De Amerikaanse minister van Volksgezondheid en Sociale Zaken, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., noemt het zelfs 'gif'.'
Sja ... Die heeft zeker liever aardolie.. 🙈🙈
Nou kun je (diesel)auto's prima op zonnebloemolie laten rijden, maar ik denk dat we 'Tiktok' en de Amerikaanse overheid voorlopig maar niet meer serieus moeten nemen.
(Kop maar even weggejonast🫣)

Google removed 20 YouTube channels, 4 Ads accounts, and 1 Blogger blog linked to RT in May, and thousands more channels tied to state propaganda campaigns in Q2 (Zach Vallese/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/21/youtube-channels-propaganda-china-russia.html

YouTube wipes out thousands of propaganda channels linked to China, Russia, others
Google removed YouTube channels and other accounts linked to RT, the Russian state-controlled media outlet accused of paying prominent conservative influencers.

🪞 Beyond the field: New research highlights how name, image and likeness is reshaping college athlete identity
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-field-highlights-image-reshaping-college.html

Beyond the field: New research highlights how name, image and likeness is reshaping college athlete identity
In an era of name, image and likeness, or NIL, many college athletes are thinking differently about who they are—seeing themselves not just as competitors or students, but also as influencers with distinct voices and causes, according to a new study from the University of Florida.

An initiative aimed at boosting Democrats online offers influencers up to $8,000 a month to push the party line.
All they have to do is keep it secret
—and agree to restrictions on their content.
https://www.wired.com/story/dark-money-group-secre…

A Dark Money Group Is Secretly Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers
An initiative aimed at boosting Democrats online offers influencers up to $8,000 a month to push the party line. All they have to do is keep it secret—and agree to restrictions on their content.

Soooo bored of "influencers." Seriously. Make it stop. This is not the way. 🥱

Ganska bra genomgång av hur folk kan gå från att ta till sig tips om hur de gör en bättre frukost till att luras in i större konspirationsteorier och sen tar besluta som verkligen kan skada deras hälsa.
Vi har en stor mängd influensers här i Sverige idag som jobbar på samma vis som de här personerna. De kopierar stora delar av deras påståenden och "trender".
You Might Have Already Fallen for MAHA’s Conspiracy Theories

Video: Opinion | You Might Have Already Fallen for MAHA’s Conspiracy Theories
How does MAHA turn some health-conscious people against all health care? We found out.

I'm not sure if "Schadenfreude" is the right word but the FBI not being able to function at the level needed to find someone who shot someone else because the Federal Government gutted the department and fire people who knew what they were doing is... something.
I think the news story I heard said it was "inexperience people and influencers" at the FBI now. 😂

Bei jeder meiner Reaktionen auf eine von Trumps absurden Aussagen oder demokratie- und wirtschaftsgefährdenden Aktionen, habe ich die Befürchtung, dass ich wieder einmal über sein Stöckchen springe, genau das tue, was #Trump will: Aufmerksamkeit. Er inszeniert eine Reality TV Show, Great Television, dass ihm, seinen Clan und seinen Unterstützern in die Hände spielt. Was also tun?

"And now Kirk has become the pretext he was so dutifully searching for. More content for his fellow influencers to share and comment on and monetize and fuel their endless culture war. A war that has just become a lot more literal."
https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-logical

The logical endpoint of 21st-century America
Charlie Kirk and what comes next

Influencers in the wild

Sources: a secretive project offering influencers $250-$8,000 a month to boost Democrats kicked off in July; creators were told 90 influencers were taking part (Taylor Lorenz/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/dark-money-group-secret-funding-democrat-influe…

A Dark Money Group Is Secretly Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers
An initiative aimed at boosting Democrats online offers influencers up to $8,000 a month to push the party line. All they have to do is keep it secret—and agree to restrictions on their content.

"So in summary: it appears that this was a shooting where the victim, an influencer, was answering a question from another influencer when he was shot by a third influencer, after which a fourth influencer documented the ensuing chaos and a host of other influencers registered their takes, before the director of the FBI (an influencer) and the deputy director of the FBI (another influencer) announced the alleged shooter’s apprehension with a quote from Mad Max."

Groyper War 2 Turns Hot
Let's take a deep calming breath before we confront the following.

Burn baby burn!
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/entertainment/english/trumps-own-supporters-are-burning-maga-hats-epstein-list-is-the-reason-why/videoshow/122370627…

Trump's Own Supporters Are Burning MAGA Hats & 'Epstein List' Is The Reason Why
U.S. President Donald Trump comes under fire amid Epstein case backlash. MAGA loyalists call for burning iconic 'Make America Great Again' caps. Trump's own support base turns against him as anger over 'Epstein Files' grows. Department of Justice (DOJ) has claimed Epstein did not maintain a 'client list'. This was despite promises from Attorney General Pam Bondi about 'a list on my table'. Bondi raised expectations of conservative influencers and conspiracy theorists. But then came DOJ's findin…

I just watched a youtube video by Taylor Lorenz and some dude about how "nobody's posting anymore" and it was cringeworthy. It's how about social media is just professional influencers, "hyper-curated", with slop and ads ruining things. Nobody's doing casual posting anymore.
It's almost comical how they suggest newsletters and substack as alternatives (or "do your own blog") when the

De beste manier om de wereld te veranderen is om kinderen te indoctrineren, dat werkt veel beter dan te proberen hun ouders te overtuigen, dus...
Mocht je de komende jaren nog een leuk cadeau voor je nichtjes en neefjes zoeken, hier is het: De klimaatatlas!
Kinderen zijn de beste influencers van hun ouders, leert de grimmige klimaatatlas ons ook - NRC
https://

🎻 Young MAGA influencers say their income is 'tanking' due to Trump - Alternet.org
https://www.alternet.org/trump-maga-influencers-2673961340/

Once prided as the ‘people’s slam’, New York’s major tennis tournament now doubles as a lifestyle carnival
where attending is no longer just about watching, but about being seen watching
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/sep

WTF is this "Who to follow" crap doing in my timeline? This is Fedi, not corporate social media. We don't need or want "influencers".
I'm seriously beginning to wonder about the development priorities here.

An ode to internal cable routing - Liam Mercer at road.cc
#cycling

I saw an advert for an AI influencer generator. So, I checked it out. Here's the current list of actors/influencers they can create. If you see an ad from these faces, it's AI bullshittery. #ai

"The trick is knowing which tape to use, and young influencers on the social media platform are quick to enter into paid partnerships to sell the one brand of mouth tape you really need."
The Paper-Thin Evidence for Mouth Taping https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critical

VideoConviction: A Multimodal Benchmark for Human Conviction and Stock Market Recommendations
Michael Galarnyk, Veer Kejriwal, Agam Shah, Yash Bhardwaj, Nicholas Meyer, Anand Krishnan, Sudheer Chava
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.08104

VideoConviction: A Multimodal Benchmark for Human Conviction and Stock Market Recommendations
Social media has amplified the reach of financial influencers known as "finfluencers," who share stock recommendations on platforms like YouTube. Understanding their influence requires analyzing multimodal signals like tone, delivery style, and facial expressions, which extend beyond text-based financial analysis. We introduce VideoConviction, a multimodal dataset with 6,000+ expert annotations, produced through 457 hours of human effort, to benchmark multimodal large language models (MLLMs) an…

Especially with service businesses, there’s a sweet spot between “not busy enough to survive” and “the line is too long.”
Went to order a pick-up pizza from the best local place, which happens to be run by a family out of a half-apartment-half-household-paint-store, and was previously only open on Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons. They’ve been hit by the influencers lately, and started offering Uber Eats.
They were sold out for the day when I got the urge, a couple hours a…

A US Treasury Department document says "digital content creators", including podcasters, social media influencers, and streamers, are eligible for tax-free tips (Alex Weprin/The Hollywood Reporter)
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business

“No Tax On Tips” Includes Digital Creators, Too
A U.S. Treasury Department document includes podcasters, social media influencers and streamers among occupations eligible for tax-free tips.

IShowSpeed to join NFL's YouTube debut for Week 1 Chiefs-Chargers matchup https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6576266/2025/08/26/ishowspeed-nfl-youtube-chiefs-chargers/

Sources: a secretive project offering influencers $250-$8,000 a month to boost Democrats kicked off in July; creators were told 90 influencers were taking part (Taylor Lorenz/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/dark-money-group-secret-funding-democrat-influe…

Right-wing media has embraced Trump’s violation of local control in Washington,
dismissing constitutional concerns about creeping authoritarianism
and embracing exaggerated depictions of the level of crime in the nation’s capital
(Washington’s violent crime rate fell sharply last year, though it remains higher than that of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.)
MAGA influencers like Charlie Kirk have called for a “full military occupation” of other major cities.
Ms…

Rollout of Trump’s D.C. Crackdown Included Fox News Stars and Charts
Jeanine Pirro had a starring role in promoting the president’s federal takeover on TV, and Will Cain’s charts made a cameo.

Content creators are among the professions covered under the "no tax on tips" policy passed as part of Trump's spending bill signed in July (Alison Durkee/Forbes)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurke…

No Tax On Tips: Here’s Who’s Eligible For Trump’s New Policy
Workers in nearly 70 occupations are set to be included in the new policy, according to reports.

Agent-Based Exploration of Recommendation Systems in Misinformation Propagation
Lise Jakobsen, Anna Johanne Holden, \"Onder G\"urcan, \"Ozlem \"Ozg\"obek
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21724

Agent-Based Exploration of Recommendation Systems in Misinformation Propagation
This study uses agent-based modeling to examine the impact of various recommendation algorithms on the propagation of misinformation on online social networks. We simulate a synthetic environment consisting of heterogeneous agents, including regular users, bots, and influencers, interacting through a social network with recommendation systems. We evaluate four recommendation strategies: popularity-based, collaborative filtering, and content-based filtering, along with a random baseline. Our res…

'Conservative influencers appear to be testing out rationales for Trump to pardon Maxwell in exchange for damaging testimony against his enemies. Charlie Kirk recently said pardoning Maxwell is "something worthy of praise & worthy of our encouragement."
"If embracing a toxic international sex trafficker is now necessary to protect the cult, MAGA is ready," Sykes argued.'
MAGA was 'groomed for this moment' as Trump seeks to shed Epstein: analyst - Raw Story
https://www.rawstory.com/maga-was-groomed-for-this-moment-as-trump-seeks-to-shed-epstein-analyst/

Dominance or Fair Play in Social Networks? A Model of Influencer Popularity Dynamic
Franco Galante, Chiara Ravazzi, Luca Vassio, Michele Garetto, Emilio Leonardi
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03448

Dominance or Fair Play in Social Networks? A Model of Influencer Popularity Dynamic
This paper presents a data-driven mean-field approach to model the popularity dynamics of users seeking public attention, i.e., influencers. We propose a novel analytical model that integrates individual activity patterns, expertise in producing viral content, exogenous events, and the platform's role in visibility enhancement, ultimately determining each influencer's success. We analytically derive sufficient conditions for system ergodicity, enabling predictions of popularity distributions. A…

YouTube's NFL debut will include influencer IShowSpeed, who has 43M subscribers, and three others doing "Watch With" streams, which enable live reactions (Dan Shanoff/The Athletic)
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6576266/2025/08/26/i…

IShowSpeed to join NFL’s YouTube debut for Week 1 Chiefs-Chargers matchup
The streaming megastar will join three other influencers available to fans through YouTube's "Watch With" alternate broadcast feed.