Comedy
Kaos
This modern retelling of Greek mythology falls into a pit of questionable themes and content concerns deeper than Tartarus.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you put a handful of social media influencers in a room and told them to host a reality talk show?
Well, Influenced is your answer.
Hosted by five Instagram and TikTok “famous” influencers, Influenced dives into the world of self-help hacks, entertainment interviews, relationships, self-love and of course, social media (as a job and a passion, naturally).
Each 25-minute episode is broken up into several segments, some with special guests and others just one or two hosts giving the audience the best advice on how to be a social media guru.
While the talk show isn’t too racy, it’s far from Christian.
Let’s start with the hosts.
The elephant in the room is Cyrus Veyssi, who’s openly nonbinary and a fierce advocate for the LGBT community. Veyssi wears makeup and traditionally feminine clothes, uses the pronouns they/he and talks about his gender-expansive journey.
All five hosts are advocates for mental health and self-love, promoting a vast array of causes on their social platforms. They are distinctly secular in their messaging and background, one even having done a stint on Love Island.
And, of course, they live their lives on social media, documenting their every move and making some wonder how much of what they show is their real self, or, on the flip side, how much of their vulnerability we actually want to see.
Some of the guests bring content problems with them as well, whether that be more-revealing outfits, LGBT issues or the promotion of some questionable media.
Some topics presented are socially and spiritually positive, such as being aware of your mental health and being confident in your true self. One episode, for instance, the hosts talk about the pressures they feel from their social media presence.
But without a Godly worldview, many conversations just fall flat. For instance, one episode touches on spirituality as it relates to crystals and star signs, while denouncing formal religion.
Overall, Influenced is your standard gossipy talk show, Gen-Z-ified. Some of the conversations can be encouraging. But so much of what we see and hear is outside the bounds of a Christian worldview—and can sometimes be openly hostile to it. And the show can remind us of Proverbs 10:19: When words are many, transgression is not lacking.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
In the pilot episode, the five hosts share their worst corporate job and their transition from “corporate baddies” to full-time influencers. They also look at their own AI “glammed-up” LinkedIn photos.
We hear several sexualized comments about the photos, including “hot,” “sexy,” “saucy” and “MILF-y.” Veyssi (who identifies as nonbinary) comments that the AI picture leans more toward Veyssi’s “they.”
One host talks about his time working for a barbershop and how he heard conversations about “the secrets of the womanly body.”
Hosts encourage the viewers to quit their “toxic” jobs and live for themselves.
In another segment, Veyssi shows us how to make money on the side by selling “pre-loved” clothes. The hosts also talk to Allegra Edwards from the spiritually problematic show Upload and Christina Milian, singer of the sexually problematic song “Dip it Low.”
In separate incidents Veyssi makes crude references to feet pictures and erotic pictures he took with a girl when he was still “in the closet.”
Milian talks about how she used her social media presence to help her business grow. One host talks about how social media used to be a tool she used to wind down at the end of her corporate day and how she has picked up ice skating to escape from her self-made career on social media periodically. (Interestingly, however, her social media presence includes plenty of selfie videos of her ice skating.)
We hear one f-word and “b–ch” twice. God’s name is misused four times.
Caleb Gottry is the Plugged In intern for Summer 2024. Caleb studies journalism with a minor in music at Texas Christian University, where he will be a junior in the fall. He loves playing with words, listening to and making music, and spending any spare time with friends or family.
This modern retelling of Greek mythology falls into a pit of questionable themes and content concerns deeper than Tartarus.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power returns for its second season, full of characters and bloodshed alike.
Netflix’s The Perfect Couple is yet another show about a family that isn’t suitable for most other families.
Prime Video’s Classified feels like it was written by someone who wasn’t sure which social justice issue on which they wanted to focus.
Our weekly newsletter will keep you in the loop on the biggest things happening in entertainment and technology. Sign up today, and we’ll send you a chapter from the new Plugged In book, Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family, that focuses on how to implement a “screentime reset” in your family!
