I think basically they try to influence you, whether that's through buying things from certain companies (like this person trying to get a free cake "I'll share with a million people so they want to buy from you"who also use "subtle" product placement) OR influence an idea or approach to life (like trad wife influencers or political influencers, usually also selling something) At the end of the day, they're basically just ads and what is so horrific is that they are ads people go out of their way to watch and support. It's like laughing at the Geico commercial and then being like "you know what, I'm going to send them a donation because they made me laugh!" Some serious late stage capitalism at play. We use to joke that one day TV would just be never ending ads and we were so close, it just turned out to be the internet. It feels like we live in the Truman show