Posting Instagram Sponsored Content Is the New Summer Job

While some teens spent the summer of 2018 babysitting, bagging groceries, or scooping ice cream, thousands of others made hundreds of dollars—and in some cases, much more—the new-fashioned way: by doing sponsored content on Instagram.

With “jobs you need to do a lot of training,” says a 13-year-old Pennsylvanian who asked not to be named. “Then you have to, like, physically go out and do the job for hours a day. Doing this, you can make one simple post, which doesn’t take a while. That single post can earn you, like, $50.” Last month, she started posting brand-sponsored Instagrams for her more than 8,000 followers. So far, she says, she’s earned a couple hundred dollars.

Young people are still struggling to compete with older for seasonal minimum-wage and retail jobs, and . Still others are eager to earn money of their own, but at 12 or 13 aren’t old enough to legally do so. Instagram is the one space where they have a competitive advantage, and, as Mary, a 14-year-old from California, told me, it’s “pretty much the easiest way, without becoming famous on the internet, to make money.”