Before you roll your eyes, this isn’t a ‘poor me’ story about how hard it is to be an influencer, because, granted, it’s a privilege to be part of the influencer community. However, I would like to preface what you’re about to read with a reminder that I, along with 100% of the influencer community, am a human being, and sometimes I struggle to reconcile the effects of social media with my own mental health.
Christmas can be exhausting for an influencer at the best of times – the pressure to keep up and stand out, be creative and balance your time with your earnings is a challenge, especially if creating content isn’t your full time job.
This year, in the midst of a spike in the virus and back in lockdown, being online and creating Christmas content has been particularly emotionally draining. I feel a little awkward admitting that, but it’s true.
During the first lockdown in the UK, influencers embraced the opportunity to speak to millions of people locking down and seeking community, diversion, solace and inspiration online. Many bloggers, Tik Tok influencers and instagrammers capitalised on the heightened demand for digital content, churning it out at a rate of knots.
For most influencers, a pivot in thematic content to more lockdown-friendly images, videos, tutorials and reels seemed the obvious way to go, but personally, I didn’t want to go that way. I had tried to be online more, to make a few more videos and respond to what it seemed like my followers were looking for, but it didn’t feel good.
Creating content takes, planning, creativity, time, admin, and I didn’t want to do any of it. I felt lonely, sad and overwhelmed by what was happening in the world. I couldn’t make cheerful videos, it felt maudlin and unauthentic. I explained this to my agent who told me to take a break if I needed to but I felt conflicted.
Emotionally, I felt burnt out. I was living on my own in London and lockdown was taking its toll on my mental health. I felt cynical about social media and Zoom quizzes and videos of beautiful girls snapping their fingers and appearing in different outfits. It all just seemed so arbitrary when so many people were losing their lives.
Then again, I felt guilty and selfish. Like I should be using the time I was spending at home to be more creative and compete with the influencers churning out content, receiving amazing opportunities and inspiring others. I couldn’t comprehend how they were able to do it – fresh photos and videos, perfectly edited, big smiles, words of encouragement, day after day, after day.
I wanted to keep up, to compete, to create useful, uplifting, compelling content but instead I pulled back and opted to recycle old photos instead. The following I had worked hard to build began to drop and so did my confidence. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this” I thought.
But from the followers who remained came added pressure. As I said, it’s a privilege to be part of the influencer community and I really do enjoy chatting with my followers, responding to questions and offering advice where I can. However, this year, the expectation to reply and to show up and help out – in my own DMs – has been a little overwhelming.
I was asked: why aren’t you showing up in my feed, where this coat is from, can I see inside the box because the video isn’t very clear, what’s it like to have a colposcopy, where do you get your lips done, have you got a boyfriend, do you want to see this dick, how old are you, what kind of dog is that, what exercise do you do, why did you post that, can you post less of this and more of that, and the list goes on.
I have a theory that the greater your number of followers, the less humanity they collectively attribute to you. You become a source of entertainment, an extension of whatever app they’re viewing you with or interacting with you on. They come to you for something – products, information, advice, entertainment. They’re there for your brand and let’s be brutally honest here for a minute, they’re not your friends.
So there I am. Locked down, tired, sad, trying to make a living, as overwhelmed as the rest of the world and thinking, “it isn’t my job to be a beacon of hope, a source of inspiration, a comfort or a magic 8 ball with unlimited capacity to answer questions. I’m not salaried for this stuff.”
Compare and despair syndrome hit me hard and the expectation from my followers tipped me over the edge. I began to take week-long breaks from social media. I walked outside, I played the guitar, I painted, cooked and did my best to earn money from home as a consultant. Unfortunately, this meant I was still responsible for running multiple social media accounts for my clients and they wanted reactive, positive, useful content with the potential to go viral. They wanted COVID-centric news and COVID-related press and they wanted it instantly. I was exhausted.
The past few months have been a dicey time for me and being a ‘person of influence’ hasn’t seemed as wonderful as it had in previous years. While many turned to social media for comfort, I found it a source of anxiety that seemed to swell with every post telling me ‘you are not alone’ and ‘we will get through this’. I had to dig deep to remind myself of why I decided to work in the industry I had chosen and now, in December, although those intense feelings of cynicism have lifted, I’m still don’t feel totally comfortable when I’m posting on Instagram.
It feels a little like a failing marriage. I know why I got into it, there was real love in the beginning and I was having the time of my life. It was reciprocal and I felt valued and seen. Although now, things are different and perhaps it demands more than I can give. I’m envious of other people’s happy unions. It makes me a little bitter. But honestly, I don’t know if I have what it takes to replicate them, to be performatively happy and motivated, always in motion.
Perhaps I just need to be ok with that and remember that sure, I might lose followers, I might lose opportunities and I might lose money if I take a week off here and there, but this really is an ‘unprecedented time’ and some days, salvaging a bad marriage might not be the best use of mine.
