There is a 23-year-old housewife influencer called Nara Smith who has had 25 million hits on TikTok for making a peanut butter sandwich.
Clearly, this is bonkers but her 9.9 million followers can’t get enough of her food-based mini-vlogs.
What is more bonkers than this is that there are other so-called influencers who dwarf Nara Smith’s following for posting content that is similarly mind-numbing.
Many document their very ordinary lives or endorse products and make eye-watering amounts of money.
But this isn’t ground-breaking stuff or thought leadership where expertise and knowledge are being celebrated.
We mustn’t confuse influence with audience or number of clicks. Many influencers encourage “shallowness, materialism, misinformation and ignorance; none of which is conducive to creating a well-functioning society.” (Miller, 2020).
The TikTokers aren’t actually influential people in the sense of making a meaningful contribution to the world i.e. saving lives. They are not key opinion leaders but entertainers. And that’s great, there is a space for them.
But, here is the really bonkers thing: when someone making a peanut butter sandwich gets more hits than the latest innovation in cancer research, then “Houston, we have a problem.”
How can sandwich making beat cancer busting?
Where are the ‘cancer influencers’ and why isn’t their content going viral?
The reason is simple: cancer-related content isn’t relevant to the lives of most people until they are affected by it personally otherwise it’s just not on their radar.
We do have ‘cancer influencers’ though and many of these are patients who are living the nightmare but also raising awareness, being fabulous role models and and inspiring others. Many have a significant following and they do amazing work.
Who are missing from the mix?
It’s the cancer researchers, pioneers, leaders, innovators, catalysts, titans, big thinkers and key conversation drivers, the very people at the cutting-edge of research and those making massive medical leaps. Their work needs broadcasting to the world and getting the hits achieved by TikTokers.
It’s time TIME magazine devoted a whole issue to the real deal people who are life-savers.
There are some influencers, people like Ellie Hurer, a bioscience PhD student and visiting lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire who researches potential treatments for pancreatic cancer. She has thousands of followers and inspires other young women to take their first steps into STEM careers.
Cancer innovations do get published on social media but not in the numbers achieved by the sandwich makers and make-up artists and that’s just criminal.
There are a lot of great people worth knowing about and you do have to search for them.
For example, take a look at Nature’s 10, a science journal which publishes a yearly run-down of the ten people who have most shaped scientific understanding.
Last year, Tom Powles (director of the Barts Cancer Centre and a Professor of Genitourinary Oncology at Queen Mary University of London) was recognised for leading a transformative clinical trial for the treatment of severe bladder cancer. His research identified a treatment that can double the life expectancy of patients with this type of cancer.
Ground-breaking: Yes!
Number of hits: not many
Verdict: sandwich
And Tom is one of many brilliant people out there who need to be more widely recognised and known.
I mean shouldn’t we all know about Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun being awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine? Their work deserves to go viral!
Who else and where do I find them?
For a “daily dose of hope, inspiration, and information in the fight against cancer” then I’d recommend OncoDaily where they regularly post the top influencers.
There are amazing cancer discoveries being made all the time but they just aren’t getting the traction they deserve.