The Influencer

I am going to tell you a story of what I observed on the flight today.  I don't want this to feel like in any way involves any judgement at all, because that is not my intent.  I am always fascinated with the work that people do and how it works and what is involved. So here is my story.  I had the window seat, Kathy the middle seat and this woman the aisle seat.  As the airplane pushed back from the gate this woman plugged her phone into an auxiliary battery but I was not sure why.  Then holding the phone in two hands she started typing with both thumbs at a really fast pace.  Then after a while she began swiping her fingers across the phone, I am assuming she was visiting websites.  Then back to typing, and typing and typing.  The short version is that for the entire flight, from before takeoff until after landing in Los Angeles, a period of 5 hours and 30 minutes, she continued typing and swiping.  I was stunned at how hard she was working with her phone.  I have never seen anything like this in my life, the concentration and the intensity!  I guessed that perhaps she was in "influencer" who probably has a large audience and so keeps needing to feed her followers.  I asked Amy about this and she said that a really good influencer will take the time to personally answer some of her follower's questions, and who will also take the time to visit other influencer's sites and compliment them on something they posted, and usually that person will return the favor by visiting her site and leaving a compliment.  So clearly being an influencer is a LOT of work.  I mean, this young woman had to have been the hardest working person on this flight!  It was an amazing thing to see.  I was hoping that I would have time to talk to her for just a bit, but she was out of her seat and down the aisle to the exit before we got out of our seats.