Comment by Aurornis

Being likable and presenting yourself as an open-minded skeptic is the current winning formula for being an influencer grifter.

Some or most of what these people discuss might be true, often because it’s low stakes or obvious. This builds trust and leads people to believe that the person is a universally trustworthy source.

Then they drift into topics where they are incorrect, don’t understand the subject matter, or have been misled by other grifters but they deliver the message just the same as everything else. To the uninformed parts of the audience it feels every bit as accurate and genuine as all of their other content.

This is a very common pattern in the health and fitness world. Andrew Huberman is the current most famous example of someone who has some narrow scientific knowledge but has shared a lot of incorrect and misleading content outside of his domain. He’s the guy who claimed he had to stop wearing Bluetooth headphones because he believed the radio waves were hearing his skin up and he didn’t like it, for reference. He’s been caught out recently as his fan base has started to realize he’s not the genius about every topic that he presents himself as.