I really hope I’m not alone in feeling utterly fed up with influencer culture. I honestly think it has had a detrimental impact on society — politics, social standards, even basic morals.
I’m currently seeing a trend of various ‘experts’, including Gladiator and fitness influencer Matt Morsia, criticising the education system. He was apparently misquoted as saying he would rather his children were taught about health and fitness than learn to read. He has since posted a fairly aggressive video clarifying what he meant, but the underlying message still seems to be that responsibility for children’s health should sit with teachers, schools and the wider education system.
He even gave an example of a 16-stone child he used to teach. Then you look at the comments — full of clapping emojis and agreement, much of it from other influencers jumping on the bandwagon and besotted fans telling him he’s a hero and schools should ditch drama and music.
At what point do we stop shifting parental responsibility on to schools? If a child reaches 16 stone before adulthood, that is not a failure of the education system. Schools already do an enormous amount.
I’m not a teacher, but even I feel browbeaten by this rhetoric. I can’t imagine what it must be like actually working in a school and constantly being told you’re not doing enough.
My daughter’s school is amazing. I feel incredibly lucky that she gets to experience such an exciting and broad curriculum, including PE, sport and even wellness walks. Schools are already trying.
At this rate, will we expect teachers to breastfeed, wean and teach children to walk too?
I genuinely worry about the impact of influencer culture. The resurgence of measles and the amount of misinformation being spread online should concern all of us and I believe this happened due to misinformation spread online When did having a large following become a substitute for expertise? Hopefully we’ll all get sick of them!