‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Star Robert Downey Jr. Goes Off on Influencers, Calls Their Culture “Horse****”
Robert Downey Jr. is once again in the spotlight after speaking out in a new interview about how fame and public attention have changed over the years. The conversation focused on how modern celebrity culture is evolving, especially with the rise of social media and online creators.
The interview took place on the podcast Conversations for our Daughters, which was created by Bran Ferren, a former executive at The Walt Disney Company. The podcast explores generational change and aims to highlight personal stories and perspectives from different public figures.
During the discussion, Downey Jr. spoke about how younger generations are growing up in a very different media environment. He said he admires their ability to deal with pressure in a fast-moving digital world, but he also questioned the direction of online fame.
He explained that social media has made it easier for people to become famous without traditional training or long-term work in their field. In his view, this has changed what people think of as success and attention.
At one point in the interview, he made a direct comparison to entertainment and surveillance culture, saying, “It’s like every one of them is starring in their own version of Minority Report.” The comment was used to describe how constantly recorded and visible life can feel in today’s online world.
He did not hold back. When someone suggests that influencers are the stars of tomorrow, Downey Jr. said his immediate reaction is, “I don’t know what world you’re living into, but I think that that is absolute horse—.”
That said, he was careful not to write the whole thing off entirely. He acknowledged that the landscape has genuinely changed and that fame now works differently than it used to. “Nowadays, people can create celebrity without ever doing much besides rolling a phone on themselves,” he said. “And I don’t look at that as a negative thing. I just look at it as more like the challenge for individuation is being upped.”
Downey Jr. also talked about how things were different when he first started his career. He suggested that breaking into acting used to require more time, effort, and development, while today visibility can sometimes replace skill or experience in the public eye.
He did not dismiss younger creators entirely, but he encouraged a focus on building real skills and long-term work rather than chasing attention for its own sake. He said he believes many young people will still choose meaningful work over online popularity.
The strongest reaction came when he addressed influencer culture directly. According to the interview, he rejected the idea that online personalities represent the future of entertainment. He said, “absolute horse**t”* when responding to that suggestion.
What he really seemed to be getting at is that the bar for standing out has actually gotten higher, not lower. With so many people chasing attention online, he argued that the young people who choose to go a different route will be the ones who actually leave a mark. “Hopefully the grosser part of the youth of – let’s just call it America for locality’s sake – you know, is gonna say, ‘Yeah, but that’s not my thing. I want to go do something, I’m going to make something, I want to build something, I want to educate myself and I want to have more inputs, so whatever my output is, it isn’t just a self-aggrandizing kind of influencer-type thing,’” he explained during the podcast.
The comments were reported by Conversations for our Daughters and have since sparked discussion online about how fame is changing and what it means in today’s entertainment industry.
