one of the core pathologies right now is that nearly every entrepreneur wants to be an influencer & vice verse. distribution brain has eaten everyone, especially because everyone thinks all they need to be successful is to go viral on social media (look at the kids trying to make money on the app store etc right now & even selling courses to make money). in nyc especially, it’s almost impossible to tell which founder is cosplaying as an influencer & which influencer is cosplaying as a founder. this leads to a lot of illegal shit like this.