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There is no deal, nobody wants to hire them to promote anything.
The deal is that the "influencer" is an actor not an influencer. They are also an employee so you have a ton of control over the messaging. TV has been doing "paid actors" for a long time and hopefully this garbage will require similar disclaimers online too.
One safe approach is to assume everyone is a fake until proven otherwise.

As a Navy veteran, I can suss out a "stolen valor" account almost immediately. Just a vibe. When it comes to social topics, the current day is just too weird to guess.

Fictional special forces people: Ask them "What colour is the boat house at Hereford?"
What’s the expected answer to pass verification?
"How the fuck should I know"

Edit: The dangers of not refreshing your tab before posting is that someone will have posted an answer before you that then makes your reply superflous. (I didn't need the video clip for the answer though. Just love that movie)

You actually posted the answer.
Yeah but it's not as impressive when you post your answer the same number of minutes apart as the video clip's duration, and what's the point if it's not impressive
or "What… is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?".
"tiktok fictional finance fuckboy" isn't something I was expecting to read today
Whether they're fictional, "real", or "fake" is a meaningless distinction in this age, Baudrillard explained this to us a few decades ago. All the virtual influencer stuff is happening at a solely symbolic level, there's no 'real' underneath. You can have a meme and satire of a thing that never really existed, or maybe it did, or maybe the fake thing existed before the real thing, and so on. It's been the condition of modern communiciation for a while and in that sense it now happening openly and people creating jobs around virtual influencers really just makes sense.
+1 for relatively obscure philosophy reference.
Also news at 11: reality tv shows are scripted

And cats don’t actually exist

Tom Scott talks about how he is fictional - https://youtu.be/L-x8DYTOv7w?t=987 I think the secret is out.

I don't get it?

Do people think Taylor Swift, Joe Biden, Ōsaka Naomi are real still?

Or are we just projecting other people are that stupid to think 'media personalities' are real to make ourselves look smart?

We've had fictional characters in movies for decades, in literature for centuries, and in myths and legends for millennia. And people have made their living (and occasionally made fortunes) telling those stories.

How is this different?

That’s lonelygirl15 all over again! we’ve come full circle!

The successful vlogger started as a scripted actress, then was taken over by real people, who took it from vlogging to influencer, and now we are back to scripted actors!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonelygirl15

So "she" is fictional, but is it an actress or is this some kind of CGI? at this stage i dont even know anymore ...
I have a friend that is an actor, good looking, charismatic. And I've occasionally tossed around the idea of working with him to create a coding or otherwise tech social media channel where he would be the voice and face of the channel. With me creating the content. I sometimes wonder if some of the more niche, expert influencers are doing that as well.