Welcome to my show. I know that's right. It's your girl, man, and you're listening to exactly I'm a Amia Motor production of iHeart. Thank you so much for tuning in. They ko much could ask us, and don't forget to give us those five stars. Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. I check out my music shows and interviews, everything I've been doing lately. Because you know, a girl
keeps baby on today's episode. You know what, this is such a juicy topic and we could talk about it all day because we won't be talking about influencers. Influencers, the evolution of influencers. How the hell did we get here?
How do we get from like when we first came up with like MySpace, your top five friends and all this great stuff to all the way now where we have TikTokers and you know, little kids doing YouTube videos and making millions and millions of dollars, and just the way that the Internet and social media has evolved into the way than now people are creating careers and all that type of crazy stuff out of it. Arlene is
my girl. She's in here today. Arlene, my love. How are you and what do you think about the whole social media influencer thing.
This is a wild topic because, according to the Data Bridge Market Research, by twenty twenty nine, the influencer industry is gonna be worth sixty nine billion dollars.
Way, why I better get myself in some of that. So we have a very special guest.
Y'all may recognize his sexy voice. His name is Kelvin Davis. He's gonna be hopping on to help us out with his topic. He's a renowned social media expert an influencer himself. Y'all may know him from notoriously dapper Kelvin. You bring a wealth of knowledge and unique insights for this particular topic. Join us, bring on your energy and tell us how you feel about this topic.
Right, let's get it. Thank you for having me again. I'm going to go ahead and start off by giving myself my old flowers. Okay, I am one of the I'm one of the ogs. I'm wanted the originators, like I'm talking to them like back twenty twelve. You know what I'm saying. We're talking about eleven years in the game. Okay, everybody wants to show the highlights, don't nobody want to talk about the realness of what they go through in life. There's a lot of non transparency.
People be lying Yeah, I know, that's right.
Yeah, they be lying saying they got this and that and how they.
Got it, And it's bologney. It's a fake perfection of a lifestyle that you really don't have. Why don't you talk about when you ain't got no money, you ain't got no gas money. Why don't you talk about you can't pay your bills? Why can't we because I know you when I discussed it in the past episode, Why can't you be vulnerable publicly without feeling like you're judging people to actually come and comfort you and just be part of a community, of a society where we're here
for each other. Why can't we do that? You know? Why don't you say to that outfit that sauty you got on, you're gonna go back and return and get your money back. Why aren't we speaking the truth about it? And let me tell you Once upon a time I learned from an influencer. She was like, I was like, damn, bitch, you be eating real good. Like where do you be going? She's like, I'd be going to Google And I'm like how do you do that? She's like, oh, yeah, yeah,
I just go to Google. I search whatever restaurant or like really nice and you can actually look for it like Instagram highlight food and the food whoever else took the picture she would just screenshot and putting her into story and it makes it look like she was eating it. And I was like, you really weren't there. She's like, no,
I was home. So now you can't trust it. You cannot trust it may be showcasing this bougie life that they really aren't living they you know, And I think that that's fine to a certain extent because coming from an artist, coming from an influencer myself, a celebrity of whatever, the kids may be a public figure. I've done it, you know, I've done it because part of this is really what an artist is, besides the talent, because I think that back in the day it was more about
the talent than it is now. It's about the illusion. The fantasy. It's a fantasy. I am going to showcase you the lifestyle that you wish you could live, but you can't, right because the financial because of whatever the caids may be. So the artist gives you the illusion. All the luxury, the jewelry, the bags, the cars, the food. This that's why we follow these women, That's why we
follow these artists. They are here throwing money up in the air, but when the camera's off, they're right there picking it up, right, But you don't see that part. So it's kind of good because it's like, Wow, I love this lifestyle when you perceive it, when you see it. But it's bad because it also makes people feel as if they have to live that same lifestyle, you know. But at the same time, not necessarily all of it
is fake. I've seen a lot of people that made a lot of money from social media and they are creating a lifestyle for themselves.
There's so much money to be made up for brand deals, especially when you market yourself like you know, for me, you know, I make it a decent amount of money being an influencer, and you know, I'm very marketable to like brands that are like Target Gap all those kind of brands, right, you know, I'm very marketable to those brands because of the way I present my image, you know, And this is really who I am, you know what I mean, Like this is cut dry children Conrad Davis
the second. So I've always worn the hats, I've always you know, dressed really fly, I've always you know, said what's on my mind. I've always been very adamant about equal rights for everybody. It just so happened that I was able to make money from it. And why not?
But in your case? In your case, because at the minute, I don't know exactly how it works, right, But there's so many people that are listening to you or looking at you and like, you know what, I kind of look like him, or I want to look like him. I want to do what he's doing. How do you make money as an influencer? How does that even start? Do you approach the companies, the companies approach you, Do you have an agency the agency? Do they get a
commit because that's another thing. You may see that there's a lot of money coming in, but do they get a commission from it? How does the life of an influencer for man work.
I didn't get an agency until twenty seventeen, So prior to that, from twenty twelve to twenty seventeen, I was doing everything on my own. I was running my blog,
my Instagram, taking content, doing all this stuff. And honestly, you know, I didn't even realize that I could get paid off of doing the stuff I was doing until I went to New York Men's Fashion Week in twenty and sixteen and I met some of the men that I idolized or like followed from, like you know the same you know the same place that we're in, and they were telling me, you know, like you must make so much money. I'll say, I don't make anybody. I was like, I'm still a I'm still a middle school
art teacher. I do this for fun. And all these guys are making like hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. They put me on gain. They were like, no, you need to tell this brand that you're not going to do it unless they pay you X amount of dollars. I said, but what if they But like, what if they say no? And he was like, well, did do it?
I was like, but I kind of want to free clothes, right, And he basically was like, you got to stop doing stuff for free clothing because that's the way that the brand gets free marketing, and all they do is write off the clothing that they gave to you as a gift.
Now we're also seeing a lot of the younger generation, meaning like the little ones under fifteen or even under eighteen, who are creating this content and making millions of dollars. Like, for example, I saw these little I think that they're from Australia, some little boys that are opening you know, toys on YouTube and they're paying them millions of dollars to showcase what the toys do. When all these other things.
It's great because you can create a brand for your children or for themselves, and a bank account and you can do all those things. But I also am starting to see a lot of younger people, or a lot of the girls and men now that don't I don't want to work anymore. I don't want to go to college. I don't care for an education, I don't care for anything else. I want to be an influencer. I want to be an influencer. I want to make money, and that's all I'm going to do. And this is my life.
If tomorrow social media were to disappear, which I truly doubt it, but if it were to disappeared, then what happened to you? Now? Because I saw that back then during COVID, I think there was a point where Instagram kind of got frozen, you know, for like I don't know,
maybe forty eight hours. It was just having a lot of issues, and there was a girl who almost committed suicide because she was so sick, she was sick to her stomach to know that she couldn't go into her social media to make money, because that's a way of making money. This is really a lot of people's job. It's just social media. So I find how interesting it's become how this device has completely changed the world and the society that we live in from we are financially
dependent on it. We are consistently looking for validation based off how many lights or comments you get. Marriages are falling apart in many occasions because of this social media platform we're now so Instagram, for example, has become a menu of women. You could just pick whoever you want, slid up in their gear and buy them a little flight in many occasional little spirit right for sixty dollars,
and now you can have whoever you want. Like, it's such a it's a child, It's a gift that occurs, don't you think.
One hundred Yeah, it definitely is. It is definitely a gift and occurs. I think it's especially with this younger generation, it's more of a curse for them because you know, we grew up in a time where we had you know, the MySpace, and then you know, we also grew up with CDs. We you know, we we we saw the evolution of how technology. We you know, are know how
to live without it to a certain extent, right. But this newer generation, it's a curse for them because not only do they think that this is what reality is number one. Number two is when you take it away from them, they don't know how to exist. And that to me is detrimental because when I, like, when I take my cell phone away from both of my kids, I'm like, you know, you can't have your cell phone, Like, no more watching on the TV. We're gonna play scrabble.
You would have think that I took everything away from them. You want to scrabble, I don't want to play scamp Like what the heck? Y'all don't want to like spell words together and have family time, and well, you don't have this vibe you A lot of.
People don't even know how to spell words anymore because you have spell check, and.
I am waste.
I'm not even like sometimes I have to think really hard because the phone has become so accessible that sometimes I don't even have to write it out. As a matter of fact, I could just talk to it and it'll rate the whole paragraph sirih got my back. So I feel like, yeah, it makes you smart in a way. It also makes you dumb in a way, but it
is true. We're so caught up doing tiktoks, especially now, all day everybody's out here being an influenced You're doing tiktoks where you're no longer spending time with your family, you're no longer doing physical activities. And I just feel like, you know, like I said before, we were creating this fantasy world that in many occasions is not true. But when it financially has become so rewarding for so many people,
everybody wants to do the same. I am one of those that social media, for example, kept me alive during Covida. You know, there were so many brands and so many other things that I was doing that it was like, you know what, I'm just gonna do this, and that was paying my bills and then some do you ever think social media is going to disappear. The evolution of Instagram and Twitter and TikTok. Do you think is ever going to die away or is it going to evolve?
Like once upon a time we were in MySpace when we thought that was the shit, and then we got Instagram. It's like, so, do you think there'll be anything else that is going to top this't.
Know if anything else will top it. I do think that there is going to be an awakening, and I think the awakening is going to come whenever this generation gets older and they have kids, okay, And I think whatever they have their kids, I think what they're going to implement in their households and how they raise their kids is going to take away from what social media is because they are going to see how much trauma they had to go through from all of the you know,
trying to keep up with you know, body image, from bullying, from all these different things, and they're going to want to protect their children from it. It's the same way I feel as though, you know, when children used to get spankings and now you know, people don't beat their kids anymore.
And I've also seen how like you know, a lot of them, I think that the younger generation really gets it because they're like the TikTokers. I'm not really the TikToker. I know there's a lot of people trying to get hip and still be part of that, and that's fine too. And now I feel like there's so many The involvement of it was great when it was just one, but then now we have Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok this, you know, they got the There's so many different ones. It's hard
to keep up. And I don't know if visit that I'm getting older. I can't manage all of them because it's like, I'm posting this video here, but I gotta go talk about it on Twitter here. But then my other videos, my exclusive is on my Snapchat. But then at the same time, I want to make sure that my TikTok, my TikTok dancers over here see me dance. It's like gom okays too much? Is it me? Or what?
No, it's not you. There's so many different platforms. Then there's this new thing called be Real. Have you ever heard of that?
Oh my gosh, no, what is that?
Okay? So be Real is like a social media app and they market they're saying by saying we're not a social media app. It basically it triggers you to take a photo in real time. And what it does is it takes a photo of you face the camera in whatever is facing the camera simultaneously, and it's like you add like a location to where you are, and it's
like be real. It's like be your authentic self. So it's kind of like if you're like somewhere shopping for flowers and you get like a notification on your phone it's time to be real. You take it and you step a photo of you buying flowers and you're like, I'm getting flowers at Trader Joe's. Like you just post like nobody.
Pas soccer ish. It sounds very like you know what I'm going to let you know government exactly where I am, which they're doing it regardless. But I just feel like that may be too much information at Like, if you pay attention to let's talk about this too, if you pay attention to social media and the evolution of it, let's also think that the government, which are you know, strongly fighting about this TikTok thing, The government has a
big influence on what you're watching. When you're watching it, and you know all this, you know, all around when Instagram came, when they came up with the with the filter. Let's be clear on the fact that you're literally showcasing right face identification. You thought originally we thought it was a little flowers, you know, a little flowers in the
head on Snapchat when the first came out. Maam, Right, Now, as you'll get older, they're capturing every single detail of your face as you get older, and you are just giving it to them. So you have that, you know, now with this new app, you're giving them your location consistently. They can track you consistently visually of where you're I'm hoping you're not planning on doing anything crazy, but you just never know who else also has access to that information.
So for security purposes, we also have to be a little bit careful on the way that we use this, don't we.
Of course, Yeah, you know, I've only used be real like a couple of times, and it's usually it's usually when I'm traveling. I don't do it when I'm here in my home city because you know, I just you know, I just don't know, like somebody could be like, oh well, Covil was just said whole foods. I'm about to run up on them, you know, saying God forbid if they did.
Now, talking about the evolution of social media, I also want to get into something that has also become very trendy and very popular. And as for example, only fans,
only fans. Originally, to my understanding, came about just being able to have exclusive content for the people that really wanted to see your business, your art, what you were into, exclusive content musically, whatever one thing led to the other, and during the pandemic during COVID, it became a really like, you know thing to you know what, let me just not give you exclusive content of my music, my art or what else I'm doing or business. Let me start
off with a little you know, bathing suit. That bathing suit being sexy evolved into now it's a porn site to me, right, shout out to everybody who's out there making their money, because I know, I know a guest that I had once upon a time who made over like six hundred thousand dollars a month, right right, creating
OnlyFans content and people are there paying. And also when you subscribe, unless you unsubscribe, your little you know, tenhty nine and twenty dollars a month is coming out every month, whether you watch or don't watch, or you forgot that you follow this person that is consistently coming out, and if you can find the correct marketing a company to promote your brand, your page or whatever, you're making thousands of dollars. And they were, by the way, reinvesting it
in real estate just to watch you naked. But it went from you can be sexy, be who you are to now it's all the way out here because this is coming from your regular you know, employee, your regular teacher, your regular uber driver who financially can't stay to float
and also wants to become an influencer. So being an influencer now is not just you didn't educate yourself, or you didn't study, you didn't prepare your there's no school for just go out there and be funny, sing a song, create a dance, show your ass, I don't know, do something and then now you yeah, and now you become an influencer. Ken that's true, though, Should it just be that easy?
No, it shouldn't. I mean I come from a time where you know, I really had to put a digital footprint in the ground to become no Torstda, or to become Kelvin Davis, to have this notoriety, to have this kind of popularity, like to be able to become an author, all these things. I had to put a digital footprint down that did not require me, you know, doing the things that people have to do. Now now I will say, Omar, I'm not a gonna cap I'm gonna be one hundred
percent with you. In October, I almost made it only fans. I was hey, hey, hey, I'm gonna keep it a buck. And the only reason why I did it was because my lawyer was like, look, you're still in the middle of your divorce litigation. That's not the best idea for you to go on only fans and show you did I said, okay.
Listen, I thought about it too. Listen. At the end of the day, everybody wants to financially be afloat. And that's why social media has become such a thing, not only because we have to think about influencer. You influence the way that our culture moves. You know, your community perceives you what's trendy, what's not financially is doing great things for many people, not for all like, it keeps growing and it keeps changing in different ways. And I don't judge you if you do only fans. I thought
about it too. Shoot, I would have gotten me some coins if I would. You know what I'm saying, Make this booty come, you know. But then I also think about how the internet keeps this information and maybe later on in my lifetime when I you know, now, when I have children and this and that, or if I want to run for president no, no, get into the job. How will the things that you do in your past, how will the things that you do on social media
affect your future at the long run. And many times you think like, oh, it doesn't matter sometimes haven't you seen how they be Like oh, back in twenty fourteen, you posted this and people can track it.
Yeah.
I think we have to be a little bit careful too, with what type of content, what type of information we're putting out there. But I do say social media is growing, is evalding. It is becoming better for some, worse for others. We become quo dependent on it in many ways. I hope it never dies out because I need this shoe. I'm making some coins right there too, snap. But yeah, I mean, but we have to be careful though, we have to be careful Andy. You know what, how about
this covin? What can the people take home with this conversation? What would be your advice or the wrap up for you for this conversation today?
I would say for them, you know, to take a social media break. It's like it is okay for you to sometimes put the phone down or put the tablet away and go live your old life. I mean, I took a social media break a couple months ago, and it was very liberating for me. It was very liberating, you know, because you forget of about how sometimes people forget how to interact with the outside world because they're
too consumed on the inside world on their phone. Because half the things that you would say on this phone, you would never say to somebody face to face. Ain't nobody that damn brave. Ain't no man in the world that brave to go to go up to a woman and send what you said in a DM face to face You ain't you? Ain't that cold? Brother? You ain't that cold?
Yeah?
Yeah. And it gives people this false sense of confidence too, because it's like, in the real world, you not about that you're not about to go up to her and say that. You're not going to go to him and say that. But behind these little fingers you'll say and do whatever you want to because the chances that you
running into them in public unplanned is highly unlikely. Right, So I really encourage people to find confidence within themselves and not through social media, and really don't look at social media as the end all be all to how everybody lives, because that's the everybody living.
You know what. I love that you said that, and you know what, that's where you can take home. Take that home. Okay. By the way, if anybody wants to follow you, check you out where and they go think.
Can you find me on Instagram at Kelvin Davis, Facebook at no Torsi Dapper, no torsideper dot com.
Thank you so much for being part of exactly a matter you know. I can't thank you enough. Also, go follow me and my social media platforms at Amada lat A l N. And remember that this has been a production of Iheart's microcod podcast network, and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This has been exactly a matter