I’m just practicing. I’ve decided to be an influencer. A marketing influencer!

My friend Margie is the one who got me started. She talks about nothing else. Her all-time influencer favorite is a young woman named Aahoo. Here are some important words to know if you are going to be an influencer: niche. Monetization. Branding. Meme. Content creator.

“Listen to this!” Margie says, reading from a screen. “‘Aahoo garners lots of followers with her interest in makeup, fashion and travel …'”

I am getting tired of hearing about Aahoo. Every time Margie mentions her name, I say, “Bless you!” Next time she’ll probably swat me.

A marketing influencer uses various kinds of media to advertise products to a fan base. Martha Stewart may be the top marketing influencer of all time, marketing mainly her own brand. Most influencers must find sponsors to represent.

My old friend Biff liked the idea of being an influencer. In fact, Biff figures that he already IS an influencer within his own circle, and he thought he’d expand that circle, and get paid for it. He read that influencers are most successful when they endorse their own favorite brands. Why not endorse cool products like motorcycles and fast cars and tractors and riding lawn mowers? His problem is that, although he knows how to use Facebook, and also YouTube (kind of), there’s also Instagram, blogging and vlogging, whatever that is. And podcasts!

So never mind.

Biff was briefly inspired by a young Swede called KewDiePie who has made roughly $56 million at last count from sponsors including Coca Cola and Doritos.

The influencer that influences Margie’s daughter MacCrimmon is a young woman she went to school with who calls herself Isha and looks like a Barbie doll that came alive. Which Barbie? You ask, because there are so many Barbie looks. Isha has that recognizable basic Barbie figure and long yellow hair that looks like plastic. It falls in loose waves, just like the hair of all the stars on the Hallmark Channel, only Hallmark must set a length limit for their hair styles. Isha’s hairdo is almost Rapunzelar, and hangs in heavy tresses over her shoulders.

She has regular, doll-like facial features and wears extreme, exciting eye makeup. She seems so utterly artificial, while at the same time confident to the point of brazenness. She has a lot of followers.

MacCrimmon follows her, but I don’t know that she buys anything. To get sponsors, as I understand it, a would-be influencer must show that he or she has plenty of followers, but to keep the sponsors, and ultimately attract more, an influencer must rack up sales.

By the way, that last sentence was really difficult to write. In the old days, in case of ambiguity or doubt one reverted to the masculine pronoun. One would have written “a would-be influencer must show that he has plenty of followers.” Yes, yes, sexist, patriarchal, all of that, but so simple! A writer knew what to do; there was no dithering around. Then, in the interests of gender equality, it went to “he or she,” the construction I just used above. Clumsy, but OK. Now it is considered correct to use the plural “them,” even when one is referring to a single person, which is clearly ungrammatical and which irritates me. Next thing you know journalists will be forced to call the president of China “Them Jinping” instead of “Xi.”

That last paragraph just gave me a great idea! Not every influencer has to be a young Swede or a Barbie look-alike. What about a curmudgeon influencer blog? There are plenty of curmudgeons out there with money to spend on curmudgeonly merchandise.

For example: those alarmed video cameras to show what goes on outside your front door at all hours of the day and night. I’ve seen everything from a porcupine to a pair of mountain lions to a couple of catalytic converter thieves in posts to Facebook from my friends. Or how about a dictionary, equipped with a powerful magnifying glass attached by means of a sturdy chain so that no one can make off with it, to be used to prove that other people are guilty of incorrect English usage?

Not all influencers rely on glamor or grammar. Some represent themselves as moms, travel guides or gourmets. What about farming? Or mountaineering? It’s something to think about.

Have a good week.

(Martha Allen lives in Keene Valley. She has been writing for the Lake Placid News for more than 20 years.)