Influencers will try to make their lives look as desirable as possible, recording each moment from morning to night to get you to live like them. But now, the standards they see as their norm are becoming further from what is accessible to the everyday person.
As the internet develops, influencers are becoming more well known and even reaching celebrity status. For veteran influencers from early apps like Vine or YouTube, they have stuck around long enough to befriend A-list celebrities and be celebrities themselves. Creators like Liza Koshy, Troye Sivan and Logan Paul have become household names. Since Vine ended in 2017, these creators have starred in movies, become well-known performers or gained larger platforms on other apps.
Smaller creators have also grown with the internet. The longevity of their presence on various apps has gained them red carpet appearances and brand deals. However, this has also made them more out of touch. Some creators I have been drawn to for their relatability have drifted away from this characteristic and ruined my perception of them.
Vine has only been gone for 10 years, but now we live in a different time with richer social media options and more viewership. With the volume of users on social media apps today, it is easy for just about anyone to form a following. TikTok has produced a multitude of creators with different levels of fame. Some creators may be famous within a certain group of people but unknown to others. Because smaller creators tend to only be known within certain groups, when they start gaining traction for a specific type of content, they stick to that niche. However, when they branch out into unfamiliar territory, they create the possibility of being even more popular outside of the app’s context.
With this fame comes a considerable amount of money—an amount that seems outrageous for just posting videos online. Some creators secure brand deals and earn thousands just for placing a brand in their video. As much as they make “day-in-the-life” content seem busy with editing, attending meetings and responding to emails, influencers’ lives look nothing like how viewers live. Most people work full-time jobs that involve even more hands-on work, and they still don’t make half the amount that the most famous influencers do.
As a viewer of lifestyle content creators, I watch to see how they navigate normal everyday life. But, when their lives now involve brand-sponsored trips abroad and parties with famous guests, that life is not something I can connect with. The creators I used to watch started filming just to have videos to look back on. Since that time, they have realized that influencing is a real profession, and this shift has changed the style of their content. The escape that these videos have provided me is now a push for the creator to sell products, erasing the purpose of their content.
In a recent study, 54% of people aged 18-60 said they would become influencers for fame and a pretty much guaranteed six figure salary. The ease of getting famous has drawn people to create content with the goal of total fame, skipping past the genuine and passionate growth mentioned previously. This has created a drought of creators who create for their audience, instead filling platforms with unrelatable celebrities.
As people are seeking out fame, they should keep in mind why some of the biggest influencers are currently famous. For these hopeful influencers who haven’t struck big yet, content has gotten less innovative and become solely algorithm centered. For influencers who have drifted away from their origins, their audience will continue to find them out of touch and stray away, allowing them to fully embrace their new celebrity status.
Viewers like me may be taken away from viewing their formerly relatable favorites for resonance to treating them more like the movie-stars and big names they have become. The shift of small creators becoming out of touch has paved the way for people who make relatable content to stand out and attract the pure audience that influencers previously had.