Is 'influencer' a legitimate career?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is 'influencer' a legitimate career?". Your opponent's style: Bo Burnham

legitimate in for itself stands as a big defination for influencer where some societies look at it as ajoke or simply for fun

You're confusing legitimacy with *perception*. Just because some societies dismiss influencing doesn't make it illegitimate—it makes those societies wrong. By that logic, comedy wasn't legitimate until it paid bills, and acting was a joke for centuries. Legitimacy isn't a popularity contest determined by cultural attitude. It's about economic value, sustainable income, and measurable output. Influencers generate revenue through advertising, sponsorships, and brand partnerships. That's demonstrable economic activity. The real question you're dodging: if influencing produces real money and real outcomes, why does anyone's dismissive opinion matter? What metric besides "some people think it's fun" actually determines legitimacy for you?

the legitimacy from your percepective looks like sustainability with income and funds but we should be ignoring the sort of business and demand to make your influencing career more desirable and be able to get something out of it

You've just admitted influencing *requires* business acumen and market demand to succeed—which proves my point, not yours. You can't separate "legitimacy" from the economic realities that sustain any career. A surgeon needs medical knowledge. A plumber needs market demand for pipes. An influencer needs audience engagement and brand partnerships. Ignoring these fundamentals doesn't make influencing more legitimate; it makes it fantasy. You're arguing influencers should be valued *despite* lacking the business infrastructure that defines legitimate work. That's backwards. Either influencing operates as a real business with real metrics and competition, or it's a hobby with delusions of grandeur. Which is it?