My neighbor Swamp Rabbit has a plan. “If I gotta go back to work, I want to be one of them social media influencers,” he said. “That’s where the money is these days.”

“Not really,” I replied. ” But it’s where the media’s attention is. Just look at all the publicity that influencer in Philly got last week.”

In case you were living in an ashram and just got back, a social media influencer is someone with a strong internet presence who directs his or her online followers to a product or activity about which he or she has special knowledge or expertise. Tech-savvy influencers are now delving into fields as diverse as fashion and cosmetics, food and restaurants, and real estate.

In Philadelphia, a 21-year-old influencer known as Meatball was arrested last week after she live-streamed the looting of retail stores in various parts of the city by gangs of young people, most of them Black. The looting took place shortly after charges were dismissed in the case of a white cop who, without provocation, shot and killed a young Black man in Philly in August.

Meatball, who is Black, was charged with six felonies, including criminal mischief and conspiracy. But was she conspiring with looters or merely documenting the looting incidents for her 185,000 Instagram followers? That’s for the courts to decide, but the recordings she made certainly don’t help her case.

Swamp Rabbit was impressed by Meatball’s social media skills, and now he wants to make his mark in the influencer racket. He has heard of people who work influencer-type jobs — marketing, public relations and sales positions that involve convincing consumers to buy things they don’t need and do things they’d be better off not doing. Bullshit jobs is what David Graeber called them.

“I can influence with the best of them,” Swamp Rabbit said. “And I can do it without working for some higher-ups who would take credit for what I done on my own.”

“Just don’t become a looting influencer,” I replied. “I’m not bailing you out if you do.”

Footnote: According to Morning Consult, 86 percent of young people would like to use their social media platforms to try to become influencers, even though most existing influencers make little or no money at it. The ones who make big money — “mega-influencers” — usually have already made a name for themselves in their chosen fields by the time they enter the racket.