Before the world recognized social media as a lucrative industry, influencers — before the proper term was coined — were stigmatized across platforms for choosing a field that wasn’t considered a “real” career. Lifestyle influencer and mother JaLisa Vaughn-Jefferson experienced this firsthand from her own family after she left her corporate job to pursue her new passion as a full-time content creator. “They lost it,” the influencer tells AfroTech after breaking the news of her decision. “It was so funny because they were trying so hard to be supportive. For their generation [this field] just doesn’t make sense. [At first] I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, so I was prepared to just try out different careers. I knew I wanted to be in technology and I knew I loved social media, but I wasn’t sure what the exact job title would be.”