" A mortal I know became a mom influencer … .And she was n’t even a mama . "
Many of us probably follow at least one or two influencers whose content we enjoy. Maybe you’ve been a fan of someone since their Myspace days, or you recently found a TikToker who’s just really relatable to you.
However, no matter how much you enjoy their content or how long you’ve been following someone, you most likely don’t know them in real life — and what goes on behind the scenes may be way different than you expected.
Recently, Iaskedcurrent and former influencers of theBuzzFeed Community(and people who know them IRL) to share their secrets and stories.
I ’ve also include some answers fromthis Reddit thread .
Here are 19 of their top answers:
1.“I worked for a ‘girl boss’ influencer who had her own beauty brand. While she was nice (sometimes), she was also a horrible boss. Low pay, no benefits. She made me drive her to a different city for a business meeting one time in her car (so she wouldn’t have to pay me for gas), even though I told her I was uncomfortable with the idea. After a super long day, she made sure I drove her after to get seafood so she could eat, but she didn’t offer to get me food. So I ended up asking her if it was ok if I stopped at McDonalds… I worked in marketing, but she was treating me like her personal assistant or something.”
2.“I’m an influencer who lives in a pretty old apartment that hasn’t been updated in years. My kitchen doesn’t have fancy marble countertops, new cabinets, or even matching appliances. When I have to promote kitchen products, I finesse the entire thing by shooting on a desk and laying a marble print poster on top to look like I have nice countertops.”
" Do n’t conceive anything you see on social medium . "
— landinghearts17
3.“I work with beauty influencers in real life on a daily basis because I’m over digital marketing for a very large cosmetics/skincare company. We mostly work with people who have over 250K followers. I have yet to meet any that I can actually stand. The ones we have worked with are the most insufferable, demanding, unprofessional group of people I’ve ever seen — and their agents are often just as bad.”
4.“I know two local ones in my area. One is horribly narcissistic and portrays the ‘cool decor girl’ with a great family vibe, but she’s been cheating on her husband on and off for the past five years. It was her boss. They both lost their jobs over it, their partners knew, and they rekindled again. She’d had to have both kids paternity tested.”
" The other was illustrious back in the solar day and is still going with kids . She preaches about her ' holistic and vegan ' life style , but she eat meat , cheese , you name it . She live altogether opposite of the life she portrays . So fake . "
— uranium / thatbrunettegirl10
5.“A friend of mine was a fairly popular influencer, and I eventually had to stop seeing her. Any time we would go out for a drink, lunch, dinner, or anything, it would be about her taking a billion photos. I couldn’t stand it. I would sit there and watch as she took the same selfie with a drink 500 times then would switch angles.”
6.“Someone I am close to is a local ‘micro-influencer.’ She’s a nice person and her personality is pretty much the same, but the part that irks me is planning and doing things specifically ‘for the ‘gram’. For example, one time we were on vacation together, and she wanted to go to a specific cafe just for the aesthetic. She bought a coffee, changed her outfit in the washroom (from sweats to a cute floral dress), took photos all around the cafe for half an hour, and then changed back into her sweats and threw out the coffee.”
" She does n’t even booze coffee , just buy the cheapest thing on the menu to justify being there . That level of fakeness leave a tough appreciation in my oral cavity . "
— uracil / manifesuto
7."[My influencer friend’s] online persona is one of extreme confidence and maturity. In real life, she is one of the most insecure people I’ve ever met. It seems like she isn’t even living life because everything centers around taking the perfect pic or making videos for social media."
8.“I’m the manager of an Instagram influencer who has over 50,000 followers, and I usually get bitten at least once per photo shoot. That’s because this influencer is actually my cat!”
" He ’s very food - prompt , so I bring his favorite treat ( Inaba Churu squeezy delicacy ) to our photoshoots to use as a payoff / reward , and he goes so wild for them that , in his excitement , he chomps my fingers a few times .
This is the slip whether we ’re doing a exposure shoot for a brand , our own merch , or a vacation or special occasion .
He ’ll always eagerly enter in the photo shoot because he wants to be wherever I am and necessitate in what I ’m doing — but using the squeezy treats makes it more likely that he ’ll do what I want during the pic shoot , such as puzzle with an detail or looking toward the camera .
If I get a really safe shooting of him looking toward the camera , it ’s often because I ’ve just give him some of the treat and am moderate the quietus of it right above the camera . He might look like he ’s looking at the camera , but his middle are really on that treat !
P.S. My feline influencer is Manny Halloween Cat — in gain to being onInstagram , he ’s also onTikTok , Twitter , Facebook , Lemon8 , andReddit ! "
— nikkichess
9.“I worked as an ‘influencer’ and was hired by a pretty major media brand. A lot of it was sales — I would cold call and network. After selling a brand on a marketing package, I would create content and advertise it through the bigger media brand. It was fun.”
— klm229
10.“I’m an Instagram influencer, and it can be a pretty ‘small’ world, meaning that you do have to box yourself into a specific niche in order to grow. I don’t think an audience allows you to be multi-dimensional because people like to follow what they identify with.”
" For good example . If you ’re all about fitness and healthy eating , you ca n’t just start verbalise about firm nutrient without getting hatred . Or if you are about minimalism and elementary living , you ca n’t then just begin living this fast - paced , metropolis life . Obviously , you’re able to , but it will hurt your growth on a chopine . And it can be enfeeble to only showcase a third of a personality , when masses have many dissimilar interests and like . "
— ericam4968e0c88
11.“I think people only get to see one side of [my influencer friend]. I see the behind-the-scenes, which is the strategy and work that comes with curating an online image. So online, you see a world traveler who is beautiful, polished, and fashionable. In real life, she’s so much more than that.”
12.“A person I know became a mom influencer…And she wasn’t even a mom…It’s just wild.”
— tripawedbear
13.“If you have a public profile, companies and brands can see WHICH location you post from without having your location tagged in the post. Therefore, if you post from a small town (let’s say with 3,000 citizens), nobody will reach out, no matter how good your content is, because WHO is there to influence? But if you post from a bigger town (let’s say 50K+) — your chances are pretty good.”
— cruellatweets
14.“I was a micro-influencer. The only secrets I learned are that burnout is very real, and once you have a certain level of followers, people get weird. I stopped posting because people started to seemingly think I owed them attention back if they gave it to me.”
" I was posting art , in the hopes of being a professional artist , and unfortunately , it really sucked the lifespan out of me . I was making picture for myself and sharing them because supporter and family asked , but then I started getting other eyes in oecumenical .
At first , I hoped to build up community and make booster with other artists , but thing got a bit too transactional . citizenry would demand I teach them , need I make painting for them , call for me to do things in specific ways , etc . I just matt-up like less than a soul and like I was just a tool for other the great unwashed ’s joy . I still paint , but I do n’t carry about it now . I just hang them in my house . I always chuckle when people suggest I betray online … like yeah … it ’s not that round-eyed . "
— areyoukidding
15."[The influencer I know] rents all of her clothes and bags and shoes and lives in a crappy house."
— uranium / totallyrad16
16.“I’m an influencer on TikTok making vintage recipes from my mom’s collection (@momsrecipebox). I know many people say that it can be such a high-pressure, negative experience and really damaging to your mental health, but for me, it’s been the exact opposite.”
— nicolebross
17.“A girl I went to high school with is an influencer, and honestly, she is pretty chill and down-to-earth. She’s pretty much exactly the person she claims to be while influencing. She was always nice and good at photography and curating an aesthetic, so it isn’t surprising to me that she is an influencer. I respect her because she is also incredibly intelligent and didn’t give up her dreams for school. I know she works in a lab and has a serious job, which is more than I can say about myself.”
18.“My cousin is an influencer in our small town in the Philippines. When we went on a Holy Land pilgrimage, he acted like a tourist but not a pilgrim. When we crossed the border to Egypt, our group was detained for two hours because my cousin wore his camera around his neck instead of stashing it in his luggage. His camera was confiscated in the end because, apparently, the lens he has is the type that can be used for spying, according to the Egyptian officials.”
" He had to pay a $ 300 fine , and he was only able-bodied to find his camera when we left the country through Cairo drome . "
— jamiiya
19.And finally: “[The influencer I used to work for] hires a lot of family to work for her but pays them less than she paid me. I got $13/hr, so go figure. One of her family members couldn’t make ends meet, so he eventually had to start driving Uber on the side. Meanwhile, she buys herself an excess of Gucci, Chanel…you get the picture.”
Note : Some reply have been edited for distance / clarity .
