Robert Downey Jr. has little patience for the idea that social media influencers are the stars of the future. In a recent appearance on the "Conversations for our Daughters" podcast, Downey said that notion is "absolute horseshit," arguing that people can now create celebrity by doing little more than rolling a phone on themselves.
He said he does not see that as a negative so much as a tougher test for individuality, and he hopes more young people in America decide to make, build and educate themselves instead of turning every post into self-promotion. Downey went further, saying his 14-year-old son got pulled into the influencer world and that asking viewers to donate for watching someone play a video game can make the whole thing feel like a religion.
Downey’s comments land in the middle of a media culture he clearly sees as both new and unsettled. He said he does not have a hard judgment on influencers because the space is still frontier territory, and he noted that many of them are grounded, accomplished and cool people. Still, he described some of today’s online personalities as close to the Evangelical hucksters of the information age, while also saying he tries not to go too far down that rabbit hole because he does not want to be consumed.
The irony is hard to miss. Downey has 58.1 million followers on Instagram, and he has spent years as one of the most recognizable figures in modern entertainment. He is also returning to the Marvel franchise as Doctor Doom in "Avengers: Doomsday," which is set for theaters on Dec. 18.
That comeback gives his criticism extra weight, because Downey has lived through the shift from movie-star culture to social-first fame and watched audiences become part of the machinery. He said that was already true when Jon Favreau tweeted on stage during the teaser presentation for "Iron Man" at Comic Con, and he saw the crowd react as if it were on the steering committee of the project. That, to him, is the new landscape: audiences are involved, celebrity is easier to manufacture and the real question is whether young people choose something bigger than the feed.
For Downey, the answer is not whether influencers exist. It is whether the next generation lets that become the whole point.