When media studies student Wyne Swishens graduated and decided to become an influencer the future looked rosy. He’d been watching many of his peers over the years and been influenced by what they spoke about, suggested or sold.
We visited Wyne in his bedsit in Swansea, Wales
MIRACLE CURE
3 years after his first live stream Wyne sits in a creaky chair speaking into the camera, he’s explaining the benefits he gets from a Chinese medicinal teabag, he doesn’t know what the teabag contains other than it’s ‘a traditional cure for almost all diseases and ailments’, at least that what the email told him to say. Since getting the opportunity to promote the £24.99 miracle cure from a little known Chinese company 6 months ago he has so far generated 2 orders in total, it’s commission only, no money up front and he receives 0.75p for each sale.
“I just don’t get it” he told us. “I was so enthusiastic when I started, I was doing live streams out on the street, just the usual stuff you know, snatching strangers’ hats, tripping up OAP’s, vomiting on toddlers but nobody copied me? All I did when I was younger was copy what I was watching and share their clips, nobody did the same for me.”
I GOT FED UP
We suggested maybe people had come to realise that being annoying wasn’t the best way to grow a long term career. “Maybe, I did that for 2 years but I got fed up with being punched in the mouth so that’s when I started looking for products to promote from home. So far I’ve tried selling, headbands that stop you getting fat, coffee that cures baldness, an AI spoon and now these teabags”
Should he consider getting an actual job? “I might have to, my moms gone blind and my sister is incontinent after they each ordered some teabags to help me out.”
