As content creators and mainstream Hollywood continue to intersect in the age of social media, Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t think influencers should be declared the “stars of the future.”
The Oscar winner recently sat down for an interview on the Conversations for our Daughters podcast, where he compared modern-day influencers with creatives who actually “want to build something” meaningful.
“It was also a time when in the late ’70s, early ’80s, dangerous though it was, there was this sense that the competition wasn’t so stiff that you shouldn’t even bother trying,” Downey Jr. explained. “Whereas nowadays, people can create a celebrity without ever doing much besides rolling a phone on themselves. I don’t look at that as a negative thing. I just look at it as more like the challenge for individuation is being upped.”
The Avengers: Doomsday star continued, “Hopefully the grosser part of the youth of — let’s just call it America for locality’s sake — is gonna say, ‘Yeah, but that’s not my thing. I want to go do something, I’m going to make something, I want to build something, I want to educate myself and I want to have more inputs,’ so whatever my output is, it isn’t just a self-aggrandizing kind of influencer-type thing.”
“When I hear people talk about, ‘Oh, the stars of the future are going to be influencers,’ I go, ‘I don’t know what world you’re living in, but I think that that is absolute horseshit,’” he added.
As someone who boasts more than 58 million followers on Instagram alone, Downey Jr. was also asked for his perspective on when an influencer is about novelty, as well as what contribution influencers can make to the lives of their millions of followers.
“My now 13-year-old son, he kinda got caught up in this whole influencer thing, and next thing you know, it’s like, ‘Hey, if you like the way I’m playing this video game, do you wanna send me a donation?’ And really, it becomes a religion,” the Iron Man actor said. “So there’s something about the influencers today that are almost like the Evangelical hucksters of the information age. At the same token, it’s different because we’re playing in this new territory and so it’s a little bit of a frontier and I don’t really have a judgment on it. I also know when I am promoting a film now, I’ve gotten to know a few of these influencers, and I find many of them grounded, accomplished, cool people. And then you have all the associated jive that’s always around.”
When it comes to his own relationship with social media and having such a massive following online, Downey Jr. admitted he’s a “little bit of a blinders guy,” and tries “not to get too deep down any rabbit hole” because “I don’t wish to be consumed.”
“I know, like people say, ‘Robert, they just love it when you’re just kind of like seeming off the cuff, and they’re getting a glimpse into your life.’ And I go, ‘But yeah, but I’d be manufacturing that aspect for them, so it’s B.S. I like things that feel a little more prepared,” he explained. “But I remember Jon Favreau, when we brought the teaser for Iron Man to Comic Con [in 2007], he was tweeting on stage and I saw the audience… This is the new hue where the audience is going to feel like they’re on the steering committee of this thing. OK, so that’s the new landscape in part.”
He continued, referencing the 2023 Christopher Nolan-directed film, “Oppenheimer was the opposite of that. Senior to me was the antithesis of that because I had to almost trick myself into doing something truly organic and deeply personal while knowing that it was ultimately going to be viewed and would be there as an item for consumption on Netflix.”
Downey Jr. next stars in Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday, hitting theaters on Dec. 18.