Becoming Product

Every student athlete has a path to becoming an influencer. Possibly a good thing if earnings from being on social media is how that is measured. It takes both a ton of natural talent and perseverance to get to this level so it makes sense there is some form of reward for extraordinary achievement. It would motivate others to excel. 

Yet the way the monies are made does not sound particularly appealing. The person needs to turn themselves into a non-stop spectacle to earn and maintain their influencer status. As the field gets crowded and competitive, the demand to perform non-stop will only grow. Getting turned into a product and being fed into a greedy marketing machine that will stop at nothing to sell more does not sound like a great outcome even if there are financial rewards for it

Athleta’s chief digital officer, said it was testing ads with the students in part to help “build a bridge to our next generation of consumers,” and to see if the exposure could eventually exceed that of traditional college sponsorships.

What seems to be missing entirely is education itself - the reason students would be college to begin. By the time they are done fulfilling their obligations as collegiate athletes and working on being a viable influencer, its unlikely there would be any capacity left to learn. Maybe there is no need to anymore if you know how to correctly prompt your AI of choice.