By Hiran de Silva
And Why Is Nobody Allowed to Ask That Question?
In any field, teaching is supposed to mean something.
You choose a level.
You choose a scenario.
You choose a problem worth solving.
And you do so consciously, because real people in real organisations face real stakes.
But walk through the modern Excel content ecosystem and ask a simple question:
“On what basis is this being taught at this level, for this scenario, to this audience?”
Watch what happens.
The influencer freezes.
Eyes widen.
Defensiveness kicks in.
How dare you ask?
Who are you to question their “lesson”?
Why probe the assumptions?
Just press Like, subscribe, and stop making trouble.
This is the state of Excel education in 2025.
The Two Extremes: Beginners and the Truly Advanced
Real teaching acknowledges two poles:
- The absolute beginner — needs careful scaffolding and relevance.
- The genuinely advanced practitioner — needs architecture, systems, enterprise scale, and strategic context.
Everything else lies in between.
The mature educator asks:
Where, exactly, am I teaching on this spectrum? Why? To whom? For what purpose? What outcome is being advanced?
But that’s not what the Excel influencer economy does.
Influencer Education: The Lowest Common Denominator Wrapped in Pretence
Let’s call it out clearly:
Most Excel teaching today has no intellectual foundation, no enterprise relevance, and no pedagogical justification.
It is pitched at the only place that guarantees maximum views:
The middle-novice who is too inexperienced to question anything, but experienced enough to feel impressed.
This audience is safe.
This audience won’t ask critical questions.
This audience is large.
This audience clicks.
This audience shares.
This audience does not threaten the influencer’s carefully-curated image.
And so Excel education becomes:
- Feature demos disguised as wisdom
- Party tricks presented as “best practice”
- Shallow scenarios sold as “real life”
- Buzzwords elevated to theology
- Hype cycles passed off as judgement
- And teaching goals defined by whatever benefits the influencer, not the learner
Nothing about this is anchored in business needs, management realities, architecture, or the real pressures of enterprise operations.
It is education in name only—merchandising disguised as mentorship.
**The Silent Agreement:
Don’t Ask “Who Is This For?”**
You will notice something peculiar:
No influencer ever explains why they chose a particular scenario.
Nobody clarifies whose real-world problem it solves.
Nobody discloses the operating level of the intended learner.
And when asked?
They get offended.
They get defensive.
They treat the question as a personal attack.
Because the truth is devastating:
The content isn’t pitched for real users.
It’s pitched for engagement metrics.
It is theatre—carefully staged to avoid the harsh light of enterprise reality.
The Excel Replacement Industry Does the Same Trick
If anything, the FP&A / ERP / “Excel replacement” vendors perfected the technique long before influencers copied it:
- Identify a large group of users who don’t know better
- Feed them dramatic oversimplifications
- Present false limitations as universal truth
- Train them to stop asking difficult questions
- Sell them a shiny alternative solution
It’s not education.
It’s not awareness.
It’s certainly not truth.
It’s simply marketing aimed at the least informed segment of the market—those unable to challenge the narrative.
The influencer culture simply mirrors this corporate tactic.
Both are aimed at audiences least likely to evaluate suitability, accuracy, or strategic relevance.
**So Why Does Excel Education Exist?
Does It Even?**
If Excel education were honest, it would start here:
- What level am I teaching at?
- What real-world need is this solving?
- What business outcomes does this enable?
- What would a more advanced practitioner do instead?
- What management pain is addressed?
- What value is created?
- What strategic purpose does this method serve?
But influencer culture is allergic to these questions.
Because answering them would expose something fatal:
Most Excel education today is not education.
It is entertainment wearing a lab coat.
The goal isn’t mastery.
It isn’t transformation.
It isn’t enterprise power or architectural clarity.
It isn’t raising the audience from novice to professional.
The goal is attention.
The goal is monetisation.
The goal is building a brand on the back of an uncritical, beginner-level audience who cannot see the mismatch between what’s taught and what industry desperately needs.
A Call for Sensible, Adult, Intellectual Discourse
It’s time to say what nobody in the influencer economy dares to say:
We need to restore seriousness and purpose to the teaching of Excel.
Not more feature demos.
Not more “cool tricks.”
Not more influencer-bait content.
We need discourse that begins with:
- Real business pain
- Real management need
- Real enterprise architecture
- Real systems thinking
- Real data flow
- Real process design
- Real responsibility
- Real outcomes
We need teaching that respects the learner’s intelligence.
Teaching that recognises the complexity of the real world.
Teaching that understands Excel as a strategic tool, not a toy.
We need education anchored in truth, experience, and impact—not vanity metrics.
And above all:
We need to reclaim Excel education from people who teach for attention,
and return it to people who teach for transformation.
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