Influence in Crisis

Here are a few questions I’ve been asking myself since at least 2016:

• Why do certain people amass large followings by tweeting, blogging, or gramming through a crisis?

• When does this behavior do more harm than good?

• And is it ever healthy or sustainable to build one’s platform on crisis response?

When Lehman Brothers failed on September 15, 2008, I was nursing an 8-week-old baby and trying to figure out what the next chapter of my life would look like. The global financial system and I were both in the midst of existential crises. A few months later, I started my first website and took my initial steps toward self-employment.

In retrospect, I see the Great Recession’s role in my early choices and initial success. When I started to write more overtly about the politics and economics of craft and independent work, my audience grew. People wanted narratives that supplied meaning in the face of confusion and uncertainty. No doubt, my (relatively) early use of Twitter and Facebook as networking and marketing tools helped me generate attention. But I can see now that my content and presentation were a welcome focus amidst the ongoing crisis.

Since that time, we’ve navigated multiple crises while using social media. If you’re like me, social media have provided both a place of encouragement and a source of enragement. Social media simultaneously produce a feeling of connectedness and a sense of disconnectedness. We’re drawn to social media platforms in a crisis, and at the same time, we’re repulsed by them.

Scholars, journalists, and armchair theorists have devoted millions of words to describing the role social media and their host platforms play in a crisis. I’ll leave those broader investigations to them. Today, I want to examine a particular phenomenon that occurs via social media during a crisis:

The Rise of the Crisis Influencer

As I’ve become slightly more aware of my own tendency to over-function in a crisis and much more aware of the limits of my capacity for the kind of labor required to do so, I’ve become increasingly interested in the people who lean in when the shit hits the proverbial fan. Or rather, I’m less interested in the people and more in the crisis influencer as a sort of phenomenon of opportunity.

I’m also fascinated by the consistent form of this phenomenon despite its wide variety of manifestations. For example, some crisis influencers provide (at least initially) valuable explanations and narration, while others peddle conspiracy theories and rage bait. Some seek out the vacuum of meaning that forms in a crisis as an opportunity they can exploit. Others stumble into growing influence and new followers through the work they’d do without the promise of greater fame or fortune.

Becoming a crisis influencer doesn’t mean one has exploited a crisis for personal gain. It also doesn’t mean that one has provided a community, meaning, or sense of belonging in any sort of healthy way. The crisis influencer phenomenon defies binary social or moral analyses. It’s neither good nor bad, right nor wrong.

In this piece, I’ll share what I mean by a crisis influencer, outline the predictable series of events that create a crisis influencer, and describe the internal logic that makes growing an audience in a crisis seem like a golden opportunity. On Thursday, I’ll address the mechanics of crisis influencers through an algorithmic and economic lens. My intent with these two pieces isn’t to call out, shame, or question anyone’s motivations. My intent is to make sense of this phenomenon so that we can be more informed creators and consumers of media within communities of people who are also creators and consumers of media.

One more thing, this is something I’ve thought a lot about for a long time. But I don’t want to hold up my analysis as the definitive take or the ‘right’ way to think about the phenomenon I describe. My observation and analysis is an ongoing process.

First, I better back up: What do I mean by a “crisis influencer?”

A crisis influencer is a person who, by accident or design, becomes a vector for emotional and moral sensemaking in a crisis and, as a result, gains influence with a growing audience, primarily via social media.

In my very unscientific observation, a crisis influencer tends to emerge through a predictable series of events. Early in the crisis, they make a post that goes viral, attracting new followers and attention. These new followers and attention motivate the person to post more and more frequently. As their audience grows, the person starts to feel a sense of responsibility to that audience. As a result, they take on an identity as a truth-teller, spokesperson, or clarion caller, which reinforces that sense of responsibility and demands an ‘authentic’ expression in the form of further posts.

FOMO in Crisis

The relatively predictable series of events that lead to the emergence of a crisis influencer offers a playbook to those who—consciously or not—sense opportunity in a crisis. In Part II, I’ll describe the incentive structure that leads to this series of events. Formulating the right take at the right time on the right platform can generate a tidal wave of attention. Failing to do so is a missed opportunity. In other words, the FOMO is real.

And so the risk of thrashing is real, too.

A crisis influencer is a kind of first responder. They’re on the frontlines of reporting, sensemaking, and analysis. But that doesn’t mean they’re suited for the role.

To be clear, we need first responders in a crisis. We need people who can quickly intervene to stabilize bodies, communities, and movements. First responders play a critical role—not only in physical crises but in moral, psychological, and emotional ones, too.

Becoming a first responder is a great choice for the right person willing to do the necessary training. But there’s a reason you learn CPR before you need to use it, right? You don’t become a first responder in a crisis. It’s a role you train for before the acute conditions of a crisis occur.

Some crisis influencers are trained first responders. But most have been deputized by likes and shares without the capacities they need to fulfill the job. That’s hard to remember in the midst of FOMO and the (often self-imposed) pressure to Say Something.

The opportunity we fear missing out on seems to supersede the dangers of becoming a first responder. The opportunity to be gained by thrashing outweighs the consequences of wading into an emergency without the necessary skills. The opportunity to Say Something and insert yourself into the way people process events overcomes your own trepidation, anxiety, and uncertainty. Those trade-offs can be harmful for the unwitting crisis influencer, and they are almost always harmful to the people on the receiving end.

Yes, some find their calling in the immediate aftermath of a crisis. But most who seize the opportunity end up in a harmful cycle they can’t escape.

Know Your Role (And Your Place)

Knowing your role in a crisis is the best way to avoid thrashing and confront FOMO. While the first responder role is essential, it’s not the only role available—not hardly.

Writer and advocate describes an ‘ecosystem’ of roles required to create social change. This framework is a valuable reminder of what my work is when I feel drawn to over-function in a crisis. I’m not a first responder, even if I have hot takes at the ready.

In Iyer’s ecosystem, I most closely identify with the roles of Weaver and Guide. My job isn’t to offer hot takes, even if some segment of my audience might appreciate (or even look for) them. My job is to weave our current experience into the fabric of history, culture, and theory while offering guidance (or provocation) based on what I learn in the process.

As we’ll discuss in Part II, these roles don’t align with economic or algorithmic incentives, so there’s always the temptation to take on the roles that do. However, every time I’ve tried to take on a role that wasn’t mine, I end up burned out and unable to contribute to my community.

In addition to knowing your role, it’s important to know your place. Not place in terms of where you fit in a social order, of course. But place in terms of where you do your work. The work of crisis response and social change occurs everywhere, from the dining room table to the social media feed to the classroom to the factory floor to the halls of Congress. I want to ensure that where I do my work and fulfill my role is where that work makes sense and is needed.

I no longer see social media platforms as places where my work can happen. They too often draw me into the FOMO of crisis and activate my impulse to thrash. The temptation to abandon my work to peddle hot takes and vie for attention is too great. I need to stick to where my work makes sense.

I’m genuinely happy for those who gain influence and attention because they provide valuable insight in the wake of a crisis. As long as they’re happy. As long as their chosen role is first responder. As long as they have the training and capacity to fulfill that role.

And I’m happy for everyone who takes a beat, remembers their role, and goes to work where they’re most needed.

If you feel the temptation to seize the opportunity of this current crisis or any of the crises to come in the name of serving an audience, I hope you’ll pause before wading in. Remember your role and go where you’re needed. I’ll wait.