Last week I asked for suggestions on topics to rant on. From the underwhelming response, it seems to me that most of you are quite content with everything and have nothing to rant about. What’s wrong with you? Isn’t there something you just can’t stand that needs some ranting directed at it? Or are you all as complacent as cows in a field chewing their cud? Maybe you just want me to do all the work…Ok, the offer is still open. I’m still taking suggestions. However, I want to note that the rant chosen for this week was the one suggestion given to me by a reader and boy, was it a good one! An old friend of mine suggested I write about influencers. What a stroke of genius! I hadn’t thought of exploring influencers for a topic to rant on yet, but she brought it to my attention and here we go!

First off, what is an influencer? They seem to be people who live on the web posting all kinds of crap to get attention. They build the number of their followers up and give them suggestions on how to live and what to buy. I suppose that behind the scenes, there is someone or some company who sells the products or services that the influencers are urging you to buy and they are giving them payment for their endorsements. Start Trek’s Ferengi would approve of this arrangement.

I actually looked up the word influencer in the dictionary and found that one of the meanings is “an occult ethereal fluid believed to flow from the stars and affect the fate of men.” The first meaning listed, however, is “One exercising the power to sway or affect based on prestige, wealth, ability or position.” Which definition do you think best describes influential folks?

If it were left up to me, I would describe them using a combination of the two definitions above with the exception that I would change “ethereal fluid” to “barnyard effluence,” and “flow from the stars,” to “flow from the lips of those who think they are stars.” What else can you call a walking, talking commercial that’s trying to get you to buy all this stuff you probably don’t need? So, my definition would read, “One exercising the power to sway easily influenced people using the barnyard effluence that flows from the lips of those who think they are stars.” What do you think of that?

In any case, I put “influencers who have died suddenly,” in my favorite (not Google) search engine and wow, did I come up with some surprising results that blew my socks off. A long, fully loaded, train load of influencers has died young. Who knew this would be a dangerous occupation? My thoughts were that it would be really cushy and laid back. You just sit in front of a camera doing and saying weird stuff that entertains and gets people interested in you. I was so wrong about that. What did these young people die of? Lots of crazy stuff.

A couple fell into ravines. One died of asthma in her sleep. Another choked at a family meal. A freak boating accident took another. One died after eating 10 kilos of food in a single sitting. One died of starvation while on a fruit only diet. Another plunged from high up on a skyscraper. Three were washed down a huge waterfall. A 10-car pile-up on the freeway took one influencer. A Brazilian influencer died after being sedated in preparation for a massive back tattoo. A health influencer died of an unmentioned health issue. A travel influencer died of severe liver malfunction and pneumonia. Man! These people know how to check out. Not only that, but they are checking out at a young age. The average seems to be about 28 years old with the youngest being only 16. WoW! I had no idea…

One must wonder if the death of these young influencers might be tied to their constantly upping their game to get more followers, more endorsements, etc. I mean, if a high jumper clears 8 feet, they just have to go for 8 feet 1 inch.

I did find an interesting fact about influencers that was a little unnerving. I searched for influencers who died of heart attacks and found a whole list of mostly young influencers who passed away suddenly from heart attacks. I did not dig deeper but I have suspicions since this is a trend we are seeing in the general population starting with the roll-out of the life-saving vaccine. I might add that I also searched for influencers who died of cancer and found many. Their ages were somewhat older than those who died of heart related problems, but still too young. Is anyone interested in looking into this?

One last word on influencers. I know I’ve been a little hard on them (Ward, you were a little hard on the Beaver last night, weren’t you?) but I would like to see some influencers prosper. I just don’t see many pushing a healthy lifestyle without pushing a pill to make it so and see absolutely none advocating for world peace and the end to wars. I suppose this would be too much as peace isn’t profitable at all and neither are healthy people.