You really should watch some of his videos if you think this. Marques has been doing this for years at this point, he's a reviewer, not an influencer. The clickbait titles is purely a YouTube thing, that is only indicative of the video being on YT, unfortunately.
I don't believe we share the same barrier to entry for objectivity, is really what it comes down to. He's sponsored, he's an influencer.
From a recent article [0]:
"The 30-year-old YouTube kingpin makes money from sponsorship deals with brands, merchandise sales, and a whole lot of ad revenue from YouTube."
Where do you draw the line between his format and his sponsorships? And how do you know that he's "reviewing" without monetary bias? As an example he put out this [1] video with Buick a few years ago. Let's try to be honest for a second - he wouldn't be caught dead driving that car unless Buick paid him to. And that is my point. There's no boundary between his "reviews" and his "ads". They look, they feel and they are the same format. He's excited about this Buick, "reviewing" it on his channel, it does say that it's sponsored, but is it his actual opinion? Very doubtful. And that, right there, is the difference between a reviewer and an influencer. Is he a charlatan? Maybe not quite that far - but he is being dishonest by making the sponsor video in, basically, the same format as anything else he does. Does he have relevant points? Sure - but there are other reviewers that have much deeper knowledge of the reviewed product. Case in point is his car reviews - he's not a true car enthusiast. His car "review" videos clearly reflect that when you compare it to someone who knows the car market in-depth (there are a lot of great car reviewers on YouTube, MKBHD isn't one of them). Is it good enough? For most people, probably. But again - I don't trust anyone to do a full spot on a car that's not even close to being on his want-to-have list and then expect him to be unbiased when "reviewing" a competitor. He puts out ads for his own brand, and anyone willing to pay him. He's an influencer. And now, he's hocking wallets that are $125+ [2][3].
Looking at the comments to the Buick video, that seems to be the exception to the rule- commenters dislike it but express they like his other ones. Of course, perhaps he’s had more sponsored videos since then, but again, maybe they’re exceptions to the rule.
