Why people tend to buy stories financial influencers peddle
My feed of Instagram reels and YouTube shorts is full of videos featuring financial influencers(finfluencer) telling the world at large that it is easy make quick money from the stock market. Recently, I came across a video in which a 13-year old claimed to be the world’s youngest successful options trader on an influencer’s YouTube channel, saying that she earned “36-40%" annually from options trading.
The projection of this teenager’s success feeds into the overall story of how easy it is to make money of the stock market, something that many finfluencers quietly backed by stock brokerages, have been saying over the last few years.
But the question is why do people buy these stories without the availability of any data to back them. While the supply of such content is explainable, what explains the demand?
Before answering this question, let’s take a slight deviation and get into the story of an Australian called Belle Gibson. As Alex Edmans writes in May Contain Lies—How Stories, Statistics and Studies Exploit Our Biases—And What We Can Do About It: “In 2009, Belle suffered a stroke. Tests to find the cause uncovered devastating news: Belle had an advanced brain tumour and only four months to live." She would die before turning 21.
Conventional treatments were no good with chemotherapy making her sicker. But Belle fought back using natural methods. “Weak from the chemotherapy, she forced herself to exercise. She started meditation. She ditched meat for fruit and vegetables," writes Edmans. And she had a miraculous recovery.
Having discovered this secret, she now wanted to tell the world at large about it. In August 2013, she launched an app called The Whole Pantry, which had delicious recipes, wellness guides and
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