Influencer is a Verb

my name is chris thompson

and the game dance dance revolution

changed my life which is a phrase

i never thought that i would say and for

those of you who are not familiar with

dance dance revolution

it is a game where you step on arrows on

the ground

that correspond with arrows on a screen

to music and it makes me look like i can

dance for

two to three minutes at a time and

anyone who has

watched me dance understands that’s

quite the accomplishment

this was 2006.

i was at an arcade with my dad and my

friend tessa and i had just

bought a camera that had the ability to

shoot video

which is something that wasn’t as common

back then

and i asked tessa to take a picture of

us dancing but instead

she takes a video clip that will go

on to launch my career

now when i saw this video how brilliant

it was i knew that my myspace page

needed to see this video but back then

you didn’t have the ability to upload

video onto myspace so i found a private

hosting site

put it over there linked it to my

myspace page got rave reviews my top 8

loved it

but then i started getting comments

i started getting emails from this

private hosting site

i got my first hater comment almost

immediately and in their defense i am a

bad dancer

but i was more concerned with how they

were finding this video if it was

private

turns out this is not a private site

it’s a very public social media

it’s a six month old website called

youtube and i was at the beginning

stages

of what would go on to become a huge

industry

now back then there wasn’t a name for

what it is that i do

but now i am called an influencer

which is a title i reluctantly accept

at times because there’s a lot of

negative stigma surrounding this term i

hear we

are vapid and self-centered and

disruptive

and there are examples of this for sure

but as someone who’s been there from the

beginning i really want to challenge

this idea

and the main reason i want to challenge

it is because when you ask

elementary school age kids and middle

school age kids about what they want to

be

when they grow up the number one answer

is now

influencer and we have the ability

to shape the way that they will use

their influence in the future with our

current actions

so how do we do that i think the first

step is

changing the definition of influencer

usually when you ask someone what is an

influencer they’ll say

something along the lines of someone

with a large social media following

who creates content on the internet

but what’s the threshold how many

followers do you need to be considered

an influencer is it 5000 is it

half a million is it a million

i want you to take a moment and i want

you to think about the person who had

the most

influence over you in your life

and now i want you to ask yourself this

question

how many social media followers did they

have at the height of their influence

over you and if you’re anything like me

you are thinking the exact same number

zero you do not need a large a small

any media following to be an influencer

my parents are influencers teachers

friends and at the height of their

influence over me not one of them

had social media to me

influencer is much more a verb

than a title it is less i am an

influencer

and more how do i use my influence

the follower count denotes nothing but

how far your reach can go not how you

use it

this next section i lovingly call my

10-year overnight success story

a lot of people see top content creators

but they don’t know

how much work goes into getting to that

level

and to give you guys an idea of exactly

how early on in the game i was

when i started on youtube you needed

about 10 000

subscribers to be in the top 100 most

subscribed of the entire website

and now that number is 27 million

so the game has expanded quite a bit

my first lesson was in failure

and not regular failure it’s public

failure you could put your heart and

soul into a piece of content and it

flops right in front of everybody

and it hurts it still hurts to this day

but i started to look at it as a process

of growth

instead of failure on my part like the

end of the road for me

the next lesson i had was in

perseverance

and patience perseverance and patience

and the fact that when i first started

on youtube i didn’t even know how to

transfer

footage from a camera to a computer

and then within three or four years i

was producing

full-length music videos

but there was a lengthy process for that

i remember

this video that i was just showing

essentially

i wanted to edit a video and i didn’t

know how and i locked myself in a room

for 12 hours until i finished that video

but i got it done

also perseverance in the fact that

there’s a lot of changes that happen

that are so out of your control

changes of algorithm disappearance of

platforms

me personally i was homeless twice in

the pursuit of being a full-time content

creator

i was broke way more than i was

successful but i

loved what i was doing you have to have

the love

to make it as long as i had a roof over

my head and food in my belly i was good

and that love is what’s going to lead

you to your why

your purpose for posting that’s what you

launch your career off of

and i would discover my why in 2008

a proposition passed in california

taking the rights away from lgbtq plus

people to be able to marry

and i knew there was going to be some

sort of gathering of people

and i figured i’d just grab my camera

and

see if i could get some footage and when

i showed up

there was maybe a few dozen people and

they were upset

and there were some speakers but pretty

soon that few dozen people turned into

thousands of people

those speeches turned into marches down

some of the largest streets in los

angeles

helicopters above us riot police

surrounding us

filling the square in front of the cnn

building demanding attention for what

had just happened

and for the first time instead of

turning the camera to myself

and saying how i felt about it i turned

the camera to them

and then when i uploaded their story i

watched how it elevated their voices and

educated people

and created civil discourse you guys

remember civil discourse

those were the days i saw that my

purpose was to use this big

beautiful platform that i had to elevate

and motivate other people

and that is something that i have done

for the rest of my career

and it didn’t always lead to the biggest

numbers but it created

impact and i prioritize impact over

numbers any day of the week

but none of this matters and i mean none

of this without this final element

and that’s authenticity which is

admittedly a word that people throw

around maybe a little too much so let me

break down exactly what i mean

by authentic you have to authentically

love and believe in what you post

or if you have any success at all it

will be short-lived

let’s compare it to dating you first

start dating someone you put your best

foot

forward you smile a lot more you

probably

ignore some things that would normally

annoy you

because you want to get into a

relationship with that person

then the honeymoon phase kind of fades

out

things start getting a little bit more

real and you start to see a lot of

tension in your relationship or the

relationship ends all together

and the reason is the person who had

invested in you now no longer recognizes

the person that they invested in

who is this person and that is the

relationship that you’ll have

with your audience so keep it real

now someone who i really look up to when

it comes to authenticity

is brene brown i love brene brown

she’s an author she’s a professor she

studies shame and vulnerability

and she was always successful i

discovered her like a lot of people did

through her ted talk and i know exactly

why her ted talk was so successful

it’s because she took a risk she started

sharing stories about herself that maybe

didn’t put her in the best light

but it humanized her it gave people

someone to connect to and we are all in

the business

of human connection we all live in fear

of

speaking our truth out loud even me

right now i’m nervous how you’re going

to judge what i’m

saying but i have to lean into that fear

so that the people who are listening

feel less alone in a world where that is

so needed

connection

i’ll leave you guys with the proudest

achievement of my career

i was in chicago visiting my family

and i had a viewer of mine who had known

for a long time who was passing through

chicago

and he said hey let’s meet up and i said

sure and he said let’s get pizza and i

said yes

and by the way if you’re ever trying to

seduce me into a conversation

pizza is a really good start especially

lou malnati’s pizza it’s the best pizza

don’t at me

he asked me if i remembered a video

called there’s nothing wrong with you

and i didn’t remember this video because

i made a video every single day for six

years

and some of these videos were pretty

much

just to keep the streak alive

and this was an example of that one take

to my iphone

no editing poor lighting but i still

wanted to make sure

that i was putting out a good message

there’s nothing wrong with you

he told me that was the first video of

mine that he had ever seen i was like

cool

then he said he was in a hotel room when

he saw it i was like

okay then he told me he was in the

bathroom

when he watched it i was like tmi

he had his clothes laid out

he had notes written to his loved ones

and he was in the final moments of a six

month plan to end his life

and somehow in that moment he found my

video

and the title alone spoke to him

and in that moment he decided he wanted

to live

his life is my proudest achievement

he is now engaged he just moved into a

beautiful new house

he’s got a great job i get to officiate

his wedding next year which is a

humongous honor

but because i took my influence

seriously

he lives and that’s the whole point

everybody who’s watching right now you

are all influencers

does not matter how many followers you

have your words

have power use that power for good

put good messages out into the world

you never know at what moment in

somebody’s life

they’re gonna need that message

thank you