I was watching a Dutch documentary the other evening called 'Volg je me nog?'or in better English said:'Are you still following me?' A documentary about 3 Instagram influencers with 80K to 130K followers who have been in the business for a while are reflecting on what they are doing and if they are happy with it. It was a boring docu but the thoughts about it are interesting. Are you your own product?
Marstyle.nl
The bloggers
Girl number 1. Used to be a blogger. Is noticing that followers are pulling back. Makes her way to tic-toc. Smart move for the future. Looks stable and happy.
Girl number 2. Used to be a travel blogger. Admits that quite fast she realized that she made the travel of what people wanted to see of her. So travelled and blogged about it because her audience expects her to. Unhappy with her situation and doesn't really know what she wants to write about. Always wears pinks because she notices that that gives more followers. Had panic attack in hotel room because of the stress that the pictures bring with it. Looks extremely unhappy and lost
Girl number three. Had a travel blog and also had an identity crisis. Is now instagramming about her house renovation and pregnancy. Looks very uninspired and rather annoyed by her management that they are asking her questions about what direction she thinks she is going in. Wants to blog more about her life, tried Youtube and is actually surprised that she likes it. (I guess management pushed her in the direction, or the decreasing followers did) Looks unstable and uninspired.
Well as you see being a fulltime influencers isn't all happy joyjoy, and it is disturbing to see how all of these girls seem to have lost themselves a little bit. But as one of them explains herself: you focus too much on yourself and that isn't healthy at all.
vpro.nl
So how can you relate to this when you look at your own blog/vlog/instagram/whatever? Do you have the feeling you are being 'pushed' every day to post? Are you addicted to the likes, or in this case the rewards? Are you doing this as a businessmodel and is it bringing you what you want? What is your motivation to write?
Because when I was looking at these girls, the motivation what I saw amongst them was more that they didn't really know what else to do, but the 'secret formula' seemed outplayed already actually. How is that in any kind of way inspiring and I am wonder why these followers are still watching this every day? Because honestly....my ass was itching because of these girls, and the lack of inspiration was flying off of my screen. I wouldn't look a second at these blogs. Okay fair enough....maybe as watching a train slowly crash into a wall kind of way I would ;)
I still often feel like I live under a rock when you look at the world of editting and how fake most of these pictures all are. Well fake, over editted better to say. And yes they are beautiful shots, but they are molded in every kind of way so it is acceptable. A bit like a music album being produced by a random person, who just happens to have met the right people?
Is this all being negative? No way...these girls have worked hard for it over the years to get where they are, and that is a nicely paying job actually. And we all blog here, we all know how difficult it is to get somewhere with your digital shenenigans. So kudos to that. But I would also see this as a good warning sign for maybe to know when the expiration date to this 'job' has passed. Please remind me of it when I am there ;)