Why is it Still Looked Down Upon to be an Influencer?

Even though I am a member of GenZ, I hadn't followed any influencers on social media until last year while sitting on my couch bored in quarantine. It wasn't because I thought I was above doing that (okay, maybe a little bit) but because I genuinely didn't know the first thing about influencing and I only knew about the Flat Tummy Tea and Fab Fit Fun boxes that Bachelor contestants were advertising on their pages. I thought they were just pretty people who would promote anything for a check and got to go on fabulous influencer trips to the Bahamas, which honestly doesn't sound too bad.

Cut to 2020, I was scrolling through TikTok and found the influencer Tinx (AKA Christina Najjar). She wasn't an influencer quite yet, but she seemed to be an established member of LA and NYC's elite group of boss babes, business men, and influencers. She had lived around the world, came from a wealthy family, went to Stanford, and knew the latest fashion trends. She started posting videos about what different "rich moms" in big cities around the country dressed and acted like and I thought it was hilarious and so creative. She posted her favorite Amazon products, daily musings on everyday life, and takes on pop culture that I found relatable. I liked her life, so I finally found her on Instagram and took the plunge and pressed "follow".

What I found--be it five years too late--was that an influencer is selling not only products that were sent to them for free but also their lifestyle. Something kind of creepy about humans is that we love peering into other people's personal aspects of their lives. Be it their nightly routines, workouts, relationship drama, family vacations, or girls nights, we love watching it unfold before us on a tiny screen. Even when our lives are generally happy and good, what we see on the Internet even behind the botox and filters is enough to make us daydream about looking and being like someone else.

One thing Tinx said mostly in the beginning of her journey of Internet fame is that she wasn't an influencer and didn't really like that word because of the bad connotation it had. But as she has gradually increased in popularity, she's doing all of the influencer "things". So why is it a bad thing to have that label? I have personally watched people close to me gain astounding Instagram or TikTok fame and I think it's great. I love being able to support them and hear stories about the fun brand deals they are getting or how tiring it can be to memorize an script for an ad or film one of their unboxing videos. I find it so fascinating and am truly happy they are creating content that they find fun and meaningful. It's a world that we don't see the behind the scenes of too often, and for a generation that wants to be blunt and real about everything, why hide what these people really are?

In the past couple years, I have noticed a huge shift in the business of influencing. Influencers are taken more seriously now, have legitimate talent agents, and usually all have lifestyle podcasts. It has become a more serious profession that people are slowly but surely accepting. Another influencer I found on TikTok that I love is Remi Bader. She popularized realistic clothing hauls on bodies that aren't model skinny (the average dress size of a woman in the U.S. is a 14 by the way) and I loved her humor and honesty about how clothes looked on her body. Her realness was attractive to me and all of her followers, and I think that's something influencers before Covid lacked.

Before Covid seems like a distant memory, and the world has changed so much. Covid forced all of us to break ourselves open and look long and hard at what we really wanted in our lives and what we needed to change. I think for a lot of us, it was the very first time we were faced with something actually serious and potentially life-harming happening in the world and we realized that celebrity culture and the PR of it all wasn't as interesting or important as it once was. As Covid has waned (although slightly) we have come back to those distractions and entertainment but with that wisdom from last year. We are now looking for people to look up to that are actual good and real people, not just selling a product or perfectly curated life.

Influencers and wannabe-influencers are now racing to see who can be as authentic and honest about their lives, because that's what people want. People who have become TikTok famous are now invited as a guest on Jimmy Fallon's show, becoming the face of designer brands, and boxing other influencers. They have more power than ever before, as our world is slowly but surely turning more digital. So while being an influencer may look too tiring to me, it's a legitimate source of income and way to make your mark in the world.