2020 Killed The Influencer
By: Claire Stapley
Tags: Culture, Internet, Social Media, Reality, Influencer

2020 Killed The Influencer

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

Influencer culture has dramatically changed over the last few years, and 2020 has rawly illustrated the toxicity of social media, particularly towards the influencer community.

I struggle to understand where the term “influencer” came from, as the market seems to be incredibly saturated with the same messages and stylised grids, which gives the impression that influencers are, in fact, social media personalities rather than influential.

This isn’t to discredit influencers in the slightest. I follow a lot of influencers — some with large platforms in the millions, others within a “micro-niche” teaching me about a specific topic. I think there’s a place in the world for this community, however, 2020 has killed a particular “type” of influencer in my opinion. It saddens me to see social media turn into a somewhat dangerous place to what it used to be back when I was growing up.

At 25, I feel as though I’ve lived through every social media phase in the book, and have had accounts on MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and so on. Social media felt as though it was created for the lonely hearts of the world when I was in secondary school, and ultimately was an escape from the day to day life that I had.

Social media used to feel like a video game

Whether that was reblogging someone from Tumblr, or throwing anonymous questions in an “ask me anything” box, social media used to have the same effect as a video game, as the advancements of the internet back in 2006 were limited in comparison to now.

You could log on and off with ease and it replenished you with a dopamine hit you needed, but didn’t rely on. I don’t doubt that there were influencers and social media personalities back then, but due to the infancy of the internet, it felt fun and exciting, and less like someone was trying to sell you something.

Social media used to be a game of exploration and funny filters, and although hate messages and gossip sites were rife, it didn’t feel as noisy or as calculated as it does today.

It also felt like social media back in the 2000s embraced its own fakeness, and crazily editing your photos and pasting quotes and graphics everywhere was a symbol of creative expression — rather than putting rose-tinted glasses on your own reality. The limitations of social media was what made it so exciting.

It was comforting to log into Tumblr or MySpace and feel accepted in the online world and block out the anxieties of being a teenager. Now, we view social media as a place that we need to escape from, rather than the other way around.

Our realities in 2020 have been distorted so much that we spend too much time in the video game. We forget that the online personalities we interact with are real people, with real consequences.

Quarantine fed the monster

With the majority of the world being forced into lockdown, the monster of social media was further fed with propaganda, negativity, the odd meme and unfortunately — a hell of a lot of judgement.

The place we sought solitude and acceptance from turned out to be a living hell, and with no real life to escape to due to being stuck indoors — quarantine brought out the worst in influencer backlash that I’ve ever seen.

Cancel culture has thrived in 2020, and with the online world being the closest thing to “normal” we can get, it’s the most influential people that sit at the frontline of abuse.

Now, there have been circumstances whereby I’ve agreed with a lot of comments that I’ve seen on particular issues, but one thing I’ve never understood is why we hold influencers in such high regard as though they’ve paved the way for humanity.

There have been plenty of scandals that have caused me to unfollow and move on from people on social media — but I’ve never seen the value in leaving a nasty comment or opinion. It’s always perplexed me that people view influencers as a fountain of knowledge and only form opinions based on their Instagram feed.

Why do we expect so much from influencers?

The truth is, we expect so much because we refuse to see them as real, flawed individuals. I’m not talking about the influencers who have been outed as racist, sexist, homophobic, etc — as they deserve to no longer have a platform.

I’m talking about influencers who are simply living their lives under a spotlight whereby they’re shredded to ribbons on a daily basis — and usually for no reason, too.

We measure people’s credibility on the number of followers they have, rather than their personality, skills, and the value they add to our lives. The higher the following — the higher the expectation.

You’d never send death threats to someone with a thousand followers, so what makes it any different for influencers who have a hundred thousand followers? It’s the social expectation we have for people who usually never asked for it.

It’s more than just an aesthetic

Influencer culture has mostly been about an aesthetic, whether that’s clothes, beauty, or even activism. 2020 peeled back the aesthetic of perfectly curated influencer grids and uncovered a lack of authenticity, which spiralled into view quicker than most anticipated.

For influencer culture to continue to grow and develop, it looks as though you need to offer more than a visually appealing grid to stay relevant. Brands have been cancelled in 2020, and influencers, unfortunately, seem to be viewed in the same vein as multi-million businesses, when more often than not they are singular entities.

The aesthetic influencer will struggle in years to come, as people no longer want the fake video-game version of social media. People want opinions, unedited pictures, humility, and most importantly — to feel included.

So many influencers have been tone-deaf in 2020: broadcasting their holidays whilst people are dying, posting polls on what sports car they should buy, and refusing to read the room. This type of influencer has been rumbled, and unless you show empathy and tune in to what your audience wants — you’ll fall short in years to come.

Aesthetics can be achieved by anyone, but engagement and community — which social media so desperately needs again, is going to be invaluable for influencers who want to be taken seriously.

Regulation and support

Using influencers as scapegoats is an easy way to shift blame and deflect the spotlight off ourselves, usually as a way of validation to show we “aren’t like them”. Although I have no aspirations to be an influencer, I think like any industry or profession there needs to be an element of regulation and support for a social presence which often is an individual’s full-time job.

Management teams, agents, and publishers have to be held as accountable — if not, more accountable than the influencer themselves. I think we often forget that some of the biggest influencers in the world aren’t even of legal drinking age, let alone having the emotional strength and intelligence to navigate criticism and tough topics.

Usually, these are young adults who have become popular within a short period of time who haven’t been taught how to act when they are under scrutiny by their followers.

There are assumptions that because you have a large platform you have a duty to comment on societal and political issues outside of your niche — and to a degree, I agree with this statement — but the accountability has to be spread across the influencer and the management team who helps them project their message.

However, it seems that influencers are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t — and regardless of good intentions, you’ll still be thrown to the wolves.

Gossip sites such as Tattle and GossipGuru further feed negative rhetoric, and the lack of regulation on said websites is shocking.

Holding people accountable without inciting hatred

In conclusion, I don’t think that we should mollycoddle or shelter influencers and social media personalities, as ultimately they do carry a certain level of responsibility on their shoulders.

However, holding people accountable who are in the public eye still needs to be approached with humility and a balanced argument.

We don’t live in a video game, and people’s lives are raw, real, and flawed, regardless of how many filters you pack on.

Although 2020 has killed the influencer in many ways, I do believe that both influencer and audience can coexist in a healthy way, and that true online personality can shine through and incite positive change.