I really feel for young people coming straight out of school. People ask them, “What do you want to do?” Many of them have no idea of a career path, no particular calling, apart from becoming an influencer, which wasn’t even an option when I was that age. If someone had told me as a teenager that you could upload some pictures of interesting things you did during the day, like making a smoothie or boiling an egg or playing with a kitten, then people would start ‘following’ you and make smoothies and boil eggs and play with kittens just like you, and, as a result, you could get paid to make smoothies with protein powders and boil branded eggs and promote kitten products, I don’t think I would have believed it. 

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Photo by Prateek Katyal from Pexels

The problem with making a living this way is that you have to use your own life for material. I feel sorry for YouTubers and Instagrammers constantly feeding the beast, cannibalising their friends and family, and seeing every moment as a photo opportunity. I felt a little of that pressure during my three...