Reality and the Internet Personality

Back in the early days of content creators and influencers, it was a bit like watching “Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous” on your feed. Influencers were made out to be these people who had completely different - albeit unattainable - lives from us. Or maybe they were people similar to us, yet they had somehow found their place on the internet to be viewed as enviable yet a trusted source for recommendations.

We bought in to the idea that if we followed them we could “learn their secrets” by means of products and services they pushed. It was on a scale from your local popular woman promoting MLM’s, boutiques, etc., to celebrities shelling diet drinks, clothing brands, makeup, to “aesthetic girlies” teaching us how to make coffees at home, to wealthy men in their 20s flexing their travels. We believed we could have a taste of their lives, which seemed so luxurious and effortless. They were always beautiful, “I woke up like this” existed to make us feel bad about ourselves, but low and behold we could grab a glimmer of their sparkle. All we had to do was follow and engage with them, form para social relationships with internet personalities, align our beliefs, routines, our lives with what they were carefully presenting to us… until we didn’t.

It became more noticeable during/post-COVID for me. Suddenly, the accounts that were making it big weren’t luxurious rich folks or young sugar babies, who wore brands that costs 7x my yearly clothing budget. It wasn’t necessarily about expensive items; I mean, does anyone remember the sour dough phase?

The people we wanted to follow and get a glimpse of their lives, they weren’t that different from us. There were the cottagecore accounts, showing us how to perform tasks like their grandparents did in terms of cooking, canning. There was the wave of folks in their early 20s foregoing conventional ways and traveling the country living out of campers or vans. There were the low-income stay-at-home-moms who would show us what or how they fed their families. While their lives weren’t something we could easily imitate, there was something about them that made them seem more relatable.

And then…the wave seemed to turn on influencers of before. Maybe it was because audiences were tired of being tricked into buying products they didn’t need or didn’t work. Maybe it’s because they would travel to the beautiful spots they had seen on Instagram, only to realize these spots had become overcrowded, overhyped, or misrepresented. Folks started figuring out the influencers were being paid for their opinion, they didn’t actually use the products they represented, or they learned the truth about the filming process. For whatever reason, at some point when society caught on to how much work and thought went into producing “real” or “lifestyle” content, the less they trusted these figures.

Some influencers tried to shift their aesthetic, assure their audience they were just like them…and the more the audience turned. Stories about their struggles or the reality of maintaining these lifestyles lead to unfollows. Behind the scenes stories seemed to burst the bubble of illusion, and people were annoyed…people were angry in the comments. The spectrum of fandom for an influencer ranged from obsessed fan to doxxing hater…neither particularly enjoyable. While there are still accounts that are thriving doing the aforementioned things, there was a noticeable shift in how people regarded and referred to internet personalities.

Influencer or Tik Tokker was said almost as an insult. While people enjoyed consuming their content, seeing an influencer in the wild getting content, doing the dances, taking photos in front of things, it became something people poked fun at. It annoyed them. It’s a title that represents a stereotype to some people. Introducing yourself as an influencer became tricky. So we shifted what we called them. Content Creators, social media personalities, bloggers, user generated content creator, lifestyle accounts. At the end of the day, all are paid to market to an audience and make a profit.

How weird is it that we enjoy this content, but when faced with it or the people who create it, we feel animosity…to the point we keep changing what we call it to justify it’s continuation for our enjoyment? Is this from a place of jealousy, that they have so much and we do not? Or does it come from a place of “I wish I had thought of that?”…those who would have been wildly successful at this job, before the market got oversaturated feeling angry they missed the boat? Or is it on a deeper level? That we view ourselves as equal or even above some of these creators, yet they have opportunities and partnerships we do not and we feel this is unfair?

Now, I feel we are in a phase of “just like you” creators, but so many are changing to this approach that it makes us question….what is considered relatable? When everyone is suddenly relatable, is anyone? Who determines who is real and who is fake? Why is it so fair weather on what is someone’s true life or what is for show? And what constitutes someone being fake when their job is literally to promote something? Would we truly even enjoy content that was “real”, aka dealing with deep personal struggles with limited editing or staging? Wouldn’t that feel like going backwards a bit in social media, marketing, OR is it a hopeful future that we par down the theatrics, and start being honest about everyone’s struggles while sharing products or services we truly do use and help us? Even if it’s not “aesthetic”?

I myself angle my account as being “just an average Midwest family”. My media kit even says we want to be perceived as the friends you go to for recommendations. When I shifted from an account that just shared Southern Illinois places and events to a family travel account, filled with our faces, our stories, our daily lives…I lost hundreds of followers. I am sure those followers could not relate to me, did not care about us as people - they just wanted to know the spots to go in Southern Illinois. And there is nothing wrong with that! There is nothing wrong with wanting to consume content without an emotional investment in it’s creator.

I don’t try to make my life seem enviable, or unattainable, but I’m conscious of my privileges, and that my life is unattainable for some. Therein lies the flaw with being real and relatable…what is real or relatable to some, is still seen as unattainable or not in the realm of reality for others. No matter what you do to prove you are human, there will always be someone who cannot relate to your life. When you are in a business that requires cultivating content, staging, marketing, and overall - influencing others - you have to take a piece of reality out of it.

I think in order to enjoy content, you have to take reality out of it. You have to have an audience that either: a) understands how the cultivation of content works or b) is invested in YOU and your story, no matter how it differs from theirs.

So, here’s my advice: if you feel you have to consistently assert to your audience you are one of them; you either have the wrong audience or need to shift your version of reality.

Alternatively, I’m just going to say it: some people aren’t made for that angle! And that’s okay! Some people are really good at representing a life we all want, one we can strive for. That doesn’t mean someone rich and famous, living like a celebrity. Hell, most of us are envious if someone can go to Disney World, but we still want to live vicariously through them and get their advice from their experience.

I’ve really struggled with this since creating my account two years ago. I had such imposter syndrome, because I did not think anyone would want to take my recommendations, as I don’t represent that unattainableness that draws us to the major accounts. Then I struggled with being “real”. How real is too real? If my audience truly knew me, would they like me? Would I like the person I would be displaying to the world? The people who would “buy in” with us and take our recommendations - are they aligned with the personality we are displaying for the world? Am I doing this right?

At the end of the day, I realized all my family can do is let our audience in to bits and pieces of our lives, and hope they stay interested. Hope they understand sometimes the magic making of content creation involves more work and suspended belief than they know, or even care to know.

Thanks for believing in us, and we hope you stick around for whatever comes next in the world of content creation!

- Jessi