The Inauthenticity of Influencer Culture
There are a lot of buzzwords describing social movements and their associated grifters, but there is no word quite as triggering as the almighty ‘influencer’.
In the past few years, there has been a noticeable rise in self-branded Instagram personas showing off their effortless fashion and seemingly limitless travel budgets, all wrapped up inside the bow of a perfect life — and a heavy sponsorship.
Humans are inherently nosey, which is essentially the entire reason why influencer culture has taken off. In fact, according to data analytics company Klear’s analysis, the number of Instagram posts using the #ad hashtag, signifying a brand partnership, increased by almost 50% in 2019.
There’s also the simple fact that we live vicariously through these personalities and their glamorous lifestyles to distract us from the impending doom of a fiery apocalypse at the hands of climate change.
Or maybe it serves as a distraction from the dumpster fire that is American politics, or any other handful of atrocities happening globally. We’re just trying to pretend that everything’s okay by scrolling through the perfect lives of influencers.
But there’s another glaring reason why influencers are so abundant; the idea that just a few years ago this glamorous human was just like you and me. The allure of being a self-made millionaire by simply posting content people want to see keeps us not only coming back for more but also inspires us to make content of our own.
However, there’s an insidious issue within this culture. Most of these influencers aren’t even living the lifestyle that they make us think they’re living. Many of these people are living these unattainable lives, enhanced by photoshop and lies, which has thousands of young girls striving to reach this non-existent lifestyle.
What the Influencer Lifestyle Is…Or Isn’t
The point of this piece isn’t to drag influencers. But, it’s important to note the shift in habits that consumers, especially the young and impressionable ones, are displaying since the rise of influencing.
The most notable offenders of perpetuating influencer culture are the Kardashian/Jenner clan. All of the members of this blended family have made questionable decisions in regard to what they are promoting on Instagram, some missteps more sinister than others.
For instance, Kim has come under fire numerous times for promoting a dangerous product called Flat Tummy Tea. There are a few aspects of this to unpack.
1. Whatever she’s promoting, she’s promoting to 159 million followers. When you have a reach that huge, you have to be honest and responsible when deciding what content to post.
2. The chemicals in this particular tea aren’t FDA approved, and therefore could pose danger to the young audiences K is promoting it to.
3. It’s no secret, (nor is it an issue) that Kim looks the way she does thanks to surgical enhancement, but promoting any weight loss supplements comes off as a little gratuitous.
The kicker of it all is that this family is absolutely not lacking in funds. There is no good reason for them to continuously shill harmful products for six figures when Kylie alone is a literal billionaire.
This brings me to my next point: being an influencer is a pretty good gig if you have the following.
It’s one thing to be a celebrity influencer like the family I mentioned. But, it’s an entirely different ballgame to get paid six figures when you’re just a person that “influences”.
For example, Chiara Ferragni started as your typical fashion blogger. Today, she boasts over 15 million Instagram followers and can command a salary of 12 thousand dollars per post reaching over 40 million monthly users and 13 million followers. So, you can plainly see there’s a ton of cash to be made in influencing if you’ve got the reach. And If you don’t have quite the reach, you’ll do some outlandish stuff to obtain that volume of followers. We’ll get to that in a minute.
I talked a bit about how the Kardashians can be quite disingenuous when it comes to promotion, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg when you consider the fact that they already had the following.
One of the most notable examples of influencers being dishonest in what they’re selling was hatched out of a more colossal drama: the iconic James Charles and Tati Westbrook feud.
For those who don’t know these names, James Charles is a beauty influencer with a massive following with16 million YouTube subscribers and 16 million Instagram followers. Tati Westbrook is another beauty guru that boasts around 10 million YouTube subscribers and 3 million Instagram followers.
One of the pillars that lifted the feud was the fact that Charles was promoting another controversial product at the exact time his good pal Tati was launching her version.
Charles alleged that Sugar Bear Hair approached him at Coachella and offered him some cash and heightened security if he’d promote their products…that he’s never tried. And he did exactly that. This, in turn, spiraled into a nasty, personal feud resulting in numerous videos (both attacking and apologizing), and the iconic #ByeSister trend.
The act of an influencer not trying the product they’re promoting is far too common when taking into consideration the impressionable audience that Instagram fosters. It goes without saying how ethically shameful it is to shill a product that you’ve never used to 13-year-olds.
All is Not as it Seems
There’s another way in which influencers deceive young audiences which is arguably the most toxic aspect of the culture, and that’s the usage of photoshop.
It’s no secret that most of us edit our pictures in one form or another. Whether it’s to fix lighting, make your teeth a little whiter, or to edit out a ketchup stain on your face in the cute brunch pic you took, we all do it, and that’s okay.
The issue here is editing to the point of physical impossibility. I personally think that posting highly altered photos on Instagram is anyone’s prerogative, but you can’t ignore its negative effects.
Case in point: Tana Mongeau is a relatively popular influencer who boasts over 5 million followers on the ‘gram. A few months ago, she was involved in a huge scandal when she, among others, was called out for editing her photos to the point of being unrecognizable. These (not just Tana’s) unrecognizable photos include body proportions that are physically impossible to obtain naturally, facial editing that smooths skin enough to make even people with perfect skin feel ashamed and noses small enough to make Voldermort quake.
If you need more examples of the fraud, Since Nov. 1, 2017, r/instagramreality has become the main hub for before and after photos showing the lengths ordinary people, celebrities, and influencers will go to obtain a certain beauty standard.
The thing is that we are now entering an insane plane of existence where Tana and other influencers are very open about the fact that they heavily enhance their photos, so we’ll tip a tiny, ant-sized cap to her for that transparency.
It’s All Fun and Games Until…It’s Not
Most other influencers aren’t as honest, which is a problem, because then there are 12-year-old girls that stare at these pictures for hours, comparing them to their own bodies. When in reality, the bodies they’re seeing don’t even belong to that influencer. An entire generation of young girls are now breaking their backs to attain the unattainable.
In fact, Instagram is the worst social media network for mental health and wellbeing, according to a recent survey of almost 1,500 teens and young adults. As one survey respondent wrote, “Instagram easily makes girls and women feel as if their bodies aren’t good enough as people add filters and edit their pictures in order for them to look ‘perfect’.”
It’s also no secret that the desire to look perfect causes disordered eating in men and women, and eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness. There’s also an unfortunate corner of Instagram that encourages eating disorders for the sake of reaching “goal weight”.
It’s important to note that the culture of maintaining a thin physique isn’t only specific to influencer culture, it’s more or less a bug that exists within the app as a whole. But, it’s still a prominent issue with regard to the way influencers with large reaches edit their own bodies.
Were You Ever Really There?
Some influencers take inauthenticity to an entirely new level when it comes to travel.
Influencer Johanna Olsson had to go as far as to make public statements after critics among her digital following of over 510,000 pointed out the fact that images of her glamorous October trip to Paris had been altered with Photoshop. She photoshopped the Eiffel Tower behind her in a way that was painfully obvious to her followers. The kicker is that apparently, she was in Paris, on a sponsored influencer trip — and still posted fake Paris photos.
We’re striving for the unreachable. The insatiable hunger for attention and validation. Whether that be extravagant traveling diaries, the best clothes, or the best bodies, many of these things aren’t as attainable to us normies because, well, it doesn’t exist in their reality either.
The Platforms are Cracking Down
Instagram is trying to combat the inauthenticity by implementing the removal of likes. While the likes are visible to the user that posts the content, the viewers of said content cannot. This makes it harder for brands to gauge just how valuable the influencer is based on a number that is usually enhanced in some way. Instead, they actually have to take into account likeability, the actual marketing skills of the influencer, and their algorithmic reach. Small victories.
Instagram removing likes could also mean that people who thrive on like count will have a hard time being booked. How will they beat this? People listen to people with lots of likes — it’s psychology (or say ‘it’s human nature’). But, it’s happening.
Instagram has also tried to effectively ban any miracle diet posts.
Influencers also do wonders for brands that are actually doing good things, for example, the accessory brand Pura Vida. In fact, In 2017, 92% of marketers who used influencer marketing found it to be effective.
Influencer culture is a ubiquitous part of everyday life. We are constantly being influenced whether that be from a Facebook ad, a celebrity wearing a certain brand, or organic Instagram influencing, we’re all exposed to it. Influencing isn’t inherently bad. In fact, a lot of influencers are savvy marketers, amazing content creators, and can sometimes truly make a positive impact on their brand or in the life of a fan.
It becomes dangerous when it’s inauthentic, and the inauthenticity of influencer culture has been on a steady rise lately. We can only hope that young people are getting the proper guidance in regard to how they cope with these “perfect images”.
At the end of the day, there is inherent responsibility when you are influencing young people. Even with 5,000 followers, you are still reaching impressionable audiences and need to consciously decide what they should be seeing.
We can also only hope that social platforms do their job in making sure dishonest content isn’t rewarded. As influencing continues, it is also imperative that more guidance becomes available to young people viewing this content. Instagram is not evil. Social media is not evil. Influencers are not evil. It’s the individual effects that vary from person to person that make the apps sinister, and those feelings are completely valid.
So, if you’re reading this and you feel that social media is affecting you in any of the ways mentioned here, maybe it’s best to start limiting your intake. Take a walk, talk to someone you trust about how you’re feeling, unfollow those accounts that make you feel icky, or simply turn your phone off. Remember that you are in control of what you view, and you have the power to cut out images that harm your wellbeing.
Be kind to yourself.
