Why does no one remember going to school with influencers?

Why does no one remember going to school with influencers?

In an ecosystem where every moment gets shared, the scarcity of personal accounts about the past of certain public figures is striking. While for established celebrities like Paco Rabal or Julio Iglesias there are plenty of anecdotes about chance encounters – from flamenco festivals to award ceremonies – when it comes to internet-born figures like Sarah Santaolalla, hardly anyone can be found claiming to have shared a classroom with them. The key, some analyses suggest, is not a lack of fame, but the artificial nature of their trajectory.

Influencers without a biography: a lab-made product

The phenomenon is explained, according to certain readings, by the fact that figures like Santaolalla have no conventional past: they are created for a specific niche, with a script and a staging that erase any trace of a prior life. Any testimonies that might emerge would be dismissed as part of the show, and the PR machine would sweep them away. There is nothing to dig up because, quite simply, there is no past to remember.

The contrast with the old guard

Against that digital opacity, encounters with classic faces of popular culture abound. A conversation with Paco Rabal at the Las Minas de La Unión festival, for instance, revealed a story about a casting mix-up for «The French Connection»: William Friedkin wanted Rabal for the drug dealer, but a mistake brought in Fernando Rey instead. The anecdote, told by the actor himself, circulates as an example of how approachable earlier generations of celebrities were.

The reality is that the influencer bubble seems deliberately manufactured to leave no trace. The past, if it cannot be monetized, simply does not exist.