Culture Study Podcast - Is Everyone an Influencer Now？

00:00:00.000 this is the culture study podcast and i'm ann helen peterson hi i'm sophie bishop i am the

00:00:14.200 author of influencer creep uh and i'm an associate professor in media and communication at the

00:00:20.200 university of leeds in the uk sophie we're gonna start super straightforward because there's a line

00:00:27.420 in your book where you're like uh so I did what anyone with an MA in gender studies and a little

00:00:34.720 bit of industry experience did I got a PhD and so this is like my question is how did you become

00:00:44.340 interested in influencers as like something worth studying okay so yeah so I can give my yeah my

00:00:51.820 my life story a bit so I was doing yeah so I was doing my master's degree in gender and media

00:00:58.420 studies at the University of Sussex which was a great program it was very small for a UK

00:01:04.560 um master's class there was only five of us in it and uh yeah wow yeah it was like you know we all

00:01:12.520 dated each other and so on it was like it was a good time it was a very it was it was that kind

00:01:16.680 of moment um so but at the same time I was working in digital marketing so I had an internship

00:01:21.880 and the great thing about it was it was very kind of loosely organized so I got to do a lot of stuff

00:01:29.200 as part of this internship so my role um was work to work with some of the fashion and beauty clients

00:01:35.180 that we had um and my role was to find bloggers to work with so it was this was like 2010 2011

00:01:43.660 so the blogosphere was kind of professionalized um and there was this awareness from brands that

00:01:50.940 they could work with bloggers they could get the they could send them products and get them to talk

00:01:56.520 about those products and you'd have a reach of potentially tens of thousands which was huge

00:02:01.520 you know outside of the context of social media platforms um and you wouldn't have to pay very

00:02:07.180 much for it if anything um so my job was yeah that was my job was to find the bloggers so

00:02:13.420 I'm but obviously at the same time I was studying gender media studies and this whole space was so

00:02:20.420 gendered and that was something that I found really surprising and it sounds quaint now but

00:02:26.740 I think you know that time there was this real uh like euphoria or there was a real optimism maybe 0.93

00:02:34.460 about the internet like the potential that we could supersede the highly gendered media that

00:02:40.480 we have uh you know you know the conde nast or whatever and we can make something different and

00:02:46.320 that anyone could actually get an audience just making what they were passionate about

00:02:50.580 but actually what was happening was that you know the most visible uh people who were like writing

00:02:56.760 blogs at the time were doing exactly the same thing that had been done in these magazines like

00:03:02.200 outfit reviews yep boy advice makeup advice so i was really interested in that and that's when i

00:03:09.120 was like there's more to say and uh i applied for a phd and initially was rejected because they were

00:03:16.780 like there's not a whole phd to write about content creators like there's not you know it's

00:03:22.920 not a kind of significant enough topic situate us what what year was this so this was so this was

00:03:29.240 probably 2012 13 yes that is such a 2012 phd response is like no of course not this isn't a

00:03:38.040 phd so my phd work was in like celebrity gossip blog yeah the history of celebrity yeah and same

00:03:43.980 sort of situation they were like like here i am like looking at perez helton they're like what

00:03:48.020 the fuck are you oh my god right but that man needs to be studied like that he's begging to

00:03:54.420 be studied in granular detail that back then in that moment it was still like within the academic 1.00

00:04:02.280 sphere it was like really interesting for us who were very plugged into the internet and what was

00:04:07.760 going on in the internet and very much like I was in my 20s were you in your 20s yes yes yeah like

00:04:13.740 we're like no this is interesting this is the future of the internet and trying to explain

00:04:18.080 that to people who had been doing like classic Hollywood scholarship it was was difficult

00:04:24.320 sometimes but yes now it seems very prescient that we were thinking about all of those things back

00:04:29.640 then exactly no and it's and I think also like thinking about this moment has really reminded me

00:04:36.860 how seemed a lot of possibility and hope and it really seems like maybe the internet or like

00:04:44.260 content creation or like you know writing blogs that could be something that wasn't as exploitative

00:04:50.520 that wasn't as uneven and unequal you know all the things that we know it to be now

00:04:55.140 um it was you know it was it was a different time quite literally but also yeah you know

00:05:01.560 figuratively well and as you trace in the book like there are all these dynamics that are

00:05:06.480 happening in this early blogosphere both like the more professionalized beauty type fashion

00:05:11.840 OOTD oriented blogs that then translates and intensifies when it's fed into social media,

00:05:22.060 specifically into Instagram and now TikTok, right? Like you see like the influencer idea

00:05:27.920 crystallize more. Can you talk a little bit about how you saw that happening, especially during

00:05:32.120 COVID? Absolutely. I think so we talk about this process of platformization where everything

00:05:37.160 becomes really dependent on a small number of monopoly social media platforms so you know when

00:05:44.300 I was working with the bloggers like that was very distributed it wasn't always easy to find them

00:05:49.580 so during COVID I was studying artists like I'd kind of moved on from studying professional

00:05:54.920 influencers but COVID was this really interesting moment for people who were posting their art on

00:06:02.320 instagram um because there were lots of people that were stuck in their homes uh so they had

00:06:09.460 you know this growing audience we were like all looking at our phones more but also they had

00:06:14.000 disposable income and people wanted to make their houses nice because they were stuck in their homes

00:06:19.300 so a lot of the artists that i spoke to at this time like for this research um they had a big

00:06:25.600 algorithmic bump like they got lots of followers very quickly on instagram so instagram became

00:06:32.300 like really really central to how they were working like and you know a lot of people quit

00:06:37.020 their jobs or if they got laid off they invested their their debt like their payments into creating

00:06:43.360 a business selling art on instagram um but you become really really dependent on it so and you

00:06:49.480 know that's the same that's the case for influences like you build up this audience through the

00:06:55.220 platform but even if people have chosen to follow you on instagram then that doesn't necessarily

00:07:01.940 mean that instagram is going to show you the content right like that's still up to them like

00:07:07.220 even if you've built an audience that has expressly chosen to follow you you still might not be able

00:07:13.520 to reach that audience so yeah this is where we really see the like role of the platform as being

00:07:19.460 the conduit the arbiter the kind of middle man between like creators and their audience and you

00:07:26.920 know it's all becomes like a lot more platform dependent right and be and creates this incredible

00:07:32.180 anxiety right because like the rules are very opaque of how to actually like like it's not like

00:07:38.520 oh you open up a business on main street and then you follow these five rules that you learn in

00:07:44.380 business school about how to run a successful business. It's so much more dynamic. Things that

00:07:50.880 work or things that did work no longer work after, I don't know, three months. Anyone who's done any

00:07:57.280 sort of social media marketing knows this. And I wonder to talk about that anxiety, maybe we could

00:08:01.840 talk about the example that you used to begin the book, which is you were approached by an Atlantic

00:08:07.080 writer to talk about a dog foster influencer like with someone who fosters dogs who is trying to get

00:08:15.360 her dogs adopted via social media the dogs that she was fostering and how much anxiety she felt

00:08:21.700 around this yeah so it's actually the Atlantic journalist herself who fosters dogs and she

00:08:28.760 so it is yeah and so you know this really is not her job at all right so she fosters dogs she wants

00:08:35.320 to get them adopted and the way that we do that you know the like the way that we do anything more

00:08:40.340 and more is through social media through instagram so she found herself doing all of this labor like

00:08:47.660 you know taking amazing pictures of the dogs really showcasing their personality and writing

00:08:53.280 a lot and it takes a lot right that's like a lot of work um and also you know making them kind of

00:08:58.980 seem authentic and you know making sure that she's represented that faithfully but caroline's

00:09:04.860 mims nice is the name of the um journalist but but she just got so much abuse like whatever she did

00:09:12.880 like and that was i mean it's not funny but it's just like the in the in the piece she talks about

00:09:18.540 the risks of the of the visibility like the anxiety around it like the anxiety if she did

00:09:23.400 share the dogs then people would just be like why aren't you adopting the dog or commenting on how

00:09:28.400 she was looking after it or you know like just making like people had like a lot of really

00:09:33.320 intense feelings about it but then if she didn't post it she didn't feel like those she was doing

00:09:37.580 the dogs justice because she wasn't potentially getting them like the home that they deserved

00:09:42.240 because you're not reaching this wide audience so she really that is like a really nice example

00:09:47.300 of that anxiety because she just felt like if she did post it was wrong if she didn't post it was

00:09:51.920 wrong and yeah it was very stressful yes no and I I have felt this and I think like an interesting

00:10:00.540 thing from my perspective is like as first an academic and then as a journalist I was always

00:10:10.580 almost from the beginning visible on social media yeah like I got twitter very early on

00:10:15.640 and then I started like a wordpress blog that was an academic blog it was called

00:10:20.120 celebrity gossip academic style and like and also had like some early posts that I had written there 0.93

00:10:29.180 go broader and attracted the ire of what were then called the twihards like people who were

00:10:35.860 very obsessed with Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson being together um and and so I got a

00:10:40.900 ton of abuse from it but it like so it kind of I just internalized this logic of like part of being

00:10:47.100 an academic and a journalist was being very public about my work which for people who had been in the

00:10:52.600 industry for a long time like this was anathema like why would you have to deal with trolls about 0.94

00:10:58.560 this stuff like this is this is fucked up that you would like feel like you need to talk about 0.94

00:11:02.740 your personal life and your work do you know what I mean like that you were in any way trying to 0.97

00:11:07.360 create this persona like there was even a huge discussion when I was going on the job market in

00:11:12.820 like the early 2010s about like branding and having a personal website and whether that was

00:11:19.600 like anti-professional because it was too glossy like it was too almost like advertising you know

00:11:25.720 like it was too much like an influencer we didn't have the words for that then but I do think and

00:11:30.940 this is like where the idea of influencer creep is so useful is that it has happened so gradually

00:11:37.160 that sometimes we forget that it wasn't always this way that you didn't have to perform your

00:11:42.040 dog's personality on social media to get it fostered right right no and that's the thing

00:11:48.120 because I mean it sounds very naive but really I didn't expect the artist that I spoke to as part

00:11:56.360 of this second project so you know I united this ethnography of art worlds with my ethnography

00:12:05.320 influences which had been going for I don't know eight years at that point and yeah I really thought

00:12:11.240 it was going to be different I was really shocked I mean these conversations just kept coming up

00:12:16.160 like when I went and got a tattoo I was speaking to the tattoo artist about my PhD and tattoos

00:12:23.400 like you know that's a huge space where people have to be super visible on Instagram and she

00:12:28.940 was telling me that she because I was studying at the time like algorithmic experts so the people

00:12:34.500 who create content about how algorithms work and that's their content that's how they get their

00:12:41.220 audiences they're sort of you know giving kind of like a weather forecast for the algorithm even

00:12:45.860 though they can't really actually know how it works but they do experiments and tests and so on

00:12:50.900 but my tattoo artist was like yeah like I listen to this person this person and I was like why are

00:12:56.680 you what listening to these influencer algorithmic experts and it's because you know Instagram is so

00:13:04.840 central to that world but then you know these examples come up more and more so I've talked

00:13:10.300 to friends that are chefs for example and you know if you want to create if you want to put

00:13:14.680 yourself out there as a chef then you have to be creating dishes and putting them online but then

00:13:18.920 also potentially yourself I mean it's just like more and more it really does feel like a creep

00:13:24.100 because it's wild that it's so central like these social media platforms are so now central to

00:13:31.160 to everything that we're doing um and yeah it is kind of like how did we get here

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00:17:15.420 Okay, so to explore some of these questions about like how influencing has crept into so much

00:17:21.680 of business, all this sort of thing. We're going to go through our reader questions,

00:17:24.860 which are really excellent this week. So first question comes from Alexa. And it's basically

00:17:30.440 the question that your book answers. Influencers have shaped not just what we buy, but how we sell.

00:17:37.700 I worked in advertising and it always makes me laugh how my brands partner with creators who

00:17:43.920 aren't quote unquote, real influencers, but they know how to make content that feels like

00:17:49.460 influencer content, and that's just now considered effective advertising. What really interests me

00:17:55.660 is how this style has escaped the marketing world altogether. Every so often, I'll see someone I

00:18:01.500 vaguely knew from high school post a video in full influencer cadence, sharing a daily routine,

00:18:08.520 a life lesson, or a little POV moment, despite having no following and nothing to sell.

00:18:14.760 So what is happening here? Has influencer-style content become a new mode of self-expression, just the way we now naturally narrate our lives? Has the aesthetic of creator advertising seeped so deeply into culture that we've subconsciously adopted it even when we're not influencing at all? Or is the girl who sat behind me in math senior year simply just looking for a career change?

00:18:39.520 i love that question i know it's so good i think we could start by figuring out what makes someone

00:18:48.180 a real influencer so like part of your research for the book was about the professionalization

00:18:54.340 and like i really left the point where you're like so much of the exchange with influencers

00:19:01.440 is actually especially in the beginning non-monetary right like it's not paychecks

00:19:07.060 it's just goods and when someone seems to be getting free stuff that professionalizes them

00:19:13.500 in the eyes of the viewer which then allows them to professionalize further blah blah blah

00:19:17.340 so what makes someone a real influencer how do you say how do you ascertain oh god so yeah so

00:19:23.700 this is you know it's a very challenging question and i did this like i was the specialist advisor

00:19:29.880 to the uk parliamentary inquiry into influencer culture and we were trying to come up with a

00:19:35.240 definition or some kind of like working concept of what an influencer was and it was a real

00:19:41.320 struggle because it's kind of like do you go follower numbers do you go engagement do you go

00:19:47.720 are people making money from this are they making a full-time living from this so my definition of

00:19:53.620 an influencer is that you're creating content in a specific niche but it also has to be about

00:20:01.340 yourself too like it has to it has to hinge on your own personality and come from some representation

00:20:08.180 of your personal life for me so there's lots of different kinds of influences and but for me i'm

00:20:15.020 looking at like the most commercially friendly influences there's lots of influences that don't

00:20:20.300 rely on brand partnerships or rely on kind of you know more black market brand partnerships

00:20:25.140 um and there's other forms of monetization but for me people who generally are successful

00:20:31.580 influencers are working with brands and that's kind of directly because they're doing sponsored

00:20:37.400 content where they advertise um you know whatever it may be my example for this is always like a

00:20:44.340 dice and air wrap I don't know why but you know like you know they're advertising like like hair

00:20:49.240 products like that i mean the on the feminized side of it you can have gaming creators and

00:20:55.280 influencers that are you know advertising games gaming equipment you know you can have uh car

00:21:01.860 influencers gun influences but but it has to be like you know something from themselves so they're

00:21:08.160 working with advertisers directly but then they're also getting money from advertisers indirectly via

00:21:12.900 the platforms that they work on because usually those platforms will have a creator fund so you're

00:21:19.100 get paid like for attracting views from attracting an audience a buying audience so yeah so I think

00:21:27.040 that's that's what makes an influencer but the air but it's so gray there's such a gray area now

00:21:32.940 are you a content creator who's an expert in something or are you an expert in something

00:21:38.020 that creates content like it's it's it's the line is really is really challenging I would say to kind

00:21:44.540 to unpick right and i think a lot it's also challenging because a lot of influencers are

00:21:49.760 like i'm not an influencer right yeah i follow all of these like fundamentalist trad wife influencers

00:21:56.320 who are like i'm not an influencer i just am constantly creating weird videos about all of

00:22:02.440 my children um and make money from all of my links but like i'm not an influencer right because there

00:22:08.520 is this idea that like it and this gets into something you talk about in a solid third of

00:22:13.640 your book which is the production of authenticity yeah that somehow if you announce yourself as an

00:22:18.800 influencer that's not inauthentic yeah right and that's and that's the thing and I think most

00:22:24.580 professional influencers don't use the term the social media platforms also don't use the term

00:22:31.480 because no one likes the idea that they've been influenced it's actually not a good thing like

00:22:36.280 it's like it's not it's because it goes it's I mean yeah influencer culture is so weird because

00:22:42.440 like you said it hinges on this authenticity this reality this trustworthiness so there's always this

00:22:49.020 missive underneath everything that's like i would never promote something unless i genuinely love it

00:22:56.080 but that's not true because you have car payments you have a mortgage you know like you can kind of

00:23:01.600 retrofit things that are close enough to something that you would maybe recommend but but yeah so

00:23:07.280 there's this i yeah this idea that like people don't want to claim the label of influencer

00:23:12.320 most people use content creator that's what the platforms use too because they don't want

00:23:19.320 the idea that people are like you know influencing promoting lots of commercial content

00:23:24.720 and content creator aligns more of like creativity and you know like things that sound more fun and

00:23:32.120 less marketing orientated totally where do you the second part of this question about how

00:23:38.220 these like the cadences the the memes and memes again can be like videos or like taking it yeah

00:23:45.180 snippet of music and like reproducing it like when did you start noticing this popping up in

00:23:53.400 non-official influencer content so I'm talking about like your friend's content like my friend

00:23:59.660 posting a picture of her son with a cute outfit and hashtagging it ootd i mean it's interesting

00:24:07.100 because influencers are the power users on social media platforms and like and instagram has

00:24:13.980 intentionally torqued the its algorithms so we see more kind of professional creators because

00:24:21.500 uh i actually i mean i don't actually really know the reason for that but

00:24:26.080 you know there's you are gonna get like a healthy mix of professional creators amongst your friends

00:24:32.220 like these are the people that we are seeing that we're consuming and this isn't like a media effects

00:24:38.060 argument but i would argue that it these people change the culture of social media platforms

00:24:45.680 because that's what we're seeing um so so i think there's definitely that and then also we're kind

00:24:53.400 of all working in the very similar conditions that influencers are working in like we want an

00:24:57.900 audience for our stuff like we post things because we want people to see them and similarly you know

00:25:04.920 non-professional influencers who are creating content like also have to fight with the same

00:25:10.100 sort of algorithmic conditions and the same expectations of creating engaging authentic

00:25:15.920 content I get this question a lot which is like so are we just all copying influencers or are we

00:25:23.040 in the same working in the same conditions as influencers and then we're coming up with stuff

00:25:26.660 ourselves and i think the answer is kind of both to that question like we're seeing it but also we

00:25:33.360 you know we do want to be visible and we are strategic people you will probably think to

00:25:38.920 yourself like i posted something that you know showed me doing this with my family and a lot

00:25:44.480 of people engaged with it and like that content so you're probably gonna make more of it um right

00:25:49.880 or you're probably going to post something like that again right like I think sometimes people

00:25:53.700 discount like most people are not using Instagram as like their personal family album right no they

00:26:00.380 want people to see if they're posting a photo they want people to see it and to talk to them about it

00:26:05.400 and so whatever creates that engagement you internalize whether it's like very super

00:26:12.000 conscious or not you internalize what works like that's just how our minds work yeah exactly and

00:26:19.820 i think you know there is this theory that instagram loves faces but then but then it's

00:26:24.680 the question of like is do we do humans just love faces you know are we actually more likely to

00:26:30.320 engage with something if we like see if we see a person like you know a smiley person whatever

00:26:35.560 but i am obsessed with people who are like really acting like their influencers yeah yeah yeah as in

00:26:44.700 you're you're like don't have a big following but you're but you you're speaking like you do

00:26:50.360 um yeah and I have some family members that do that and I I kind of love it because it's really

00:26:56.080 I mean it's it's so interesting but I think uh one thing that Brooke Aaron Duffy talks a lot about

00:27:04.420 is aspirational labor and it's really you know potentially true that this person does want a

00:27:11.420 changing career path and right I guess there there is this idea that if you just post if you

00:27:17.520 just post yourself if you just you know put yourself out there then it all might kick off

00:27:24.600 like you really might grow a following and I think that I yeah there is a law in that idea

00:27:31.220 and you know potentially someone is really aiming towards a professional content creation job

00:27:38.520 Totally. I see it so much in the TikToks that are produced during the very beginning of Rush

00:27:46.600 for Bama Rush. Yes. Because you have girls who have been practicing for years and who are like

00:27:54.200 very savvy to all like how to talk to the camera, how to light themselves, everything. They just

00:27:59.300 get it. And then they have, there are other girls who are like, I can do this too. And for me,

00:28:04.560 those are always the most interesting ones to watch because they have such a small audience

00:28:08.900 but they still like push themselves and you can tell they're kind of miserable but they're pushing

00:28:15.020 themselves through it like an endurance gauntlet almost because they're like well I started doing

00:28:21.040 these so I guess I gotta keep doing them but it's like yeah yeah and also do you have a lot like I

00:28:28.780 mean it's like it's like starting a sub stack or something it's just like totally you just like

00:28:33.580 and it might catch this audience and it is it is a really good exercise like it's nice again

00:28:40.220 one thing I talk about a lot is that with the current state of creative industries

00:28:45.380 there's very few spaces where you can you know actually do something creative produce something

00:28:53.520 and there is a pathway to a career there you know with the state of journalism with the state of

00:29:01.880 like in the uk a lot of that like arts and theater funding has been slashed or

00:29:06.160 has stagnated you know there's very few options like apart from especially in the uk it's very

00:29:11.840 very class driven um you know if you're not from a super privileged background it's really really

00:29:17.860 tough to break into creative industries but social media does offer this promise right like

00:29:23.380 that you can be successful and you can make content and and and we also see that in like

00:29:30.400 barma rush stuff like it's you know these oddball like goofy characters like barma morgan i followed

00:29:36.120 a lot you know yeah i'm not saying that she's an oddball goofball sorry i but like i mean she was

00:29:41.280 someone who that's part of what made her famous was that she wasn't acting like all of the rest

00:29:46.360 of them yeah well exactly she was kind of being herself and then and yeah and she's a really like

00:29:53.460 you said that's like a kind of more interesting person like you you don't know who is gonna get

00:29:58.540 picked up yeah I mean that we could I could talk to you like for 75 more minutes about Bama Morgan

00:30:05.320 um I know she seems fine though oh yeah but she also has like internalized I mean this is something

00:30:12.660 that we can talk about in the further questions but how you begin to internalize the gaze of

00:30:17.220 yeah your audience in your behavior and especially your behavior online but okay this next question

00:30:23.140 is about okay influencers and their followers and what they expect from them this comes from

00:30:27.180 Hilary. I'm really curious about this demand for influencers to have a position on everything.

00:30:34.880 Like what's driving the desire for their opinions that are probably not terribly developed or

00:30:40.960 studied and totally outside their brands? I mean, maybe this question is about parasociality.

00:30:46.700 I'm not sure, but I'd love to hear some discussion on it. Talk we will. Yes, let's talk about it.

00:30:53.600 i find this question really interesting because to my mind i actually think that many of the

00:30:59.660 influencers i follow are very careful about what they have opinions on right and then i agree pick

00:31:06.500 what they do have opinions on like yeah so tell me what you're thinking yeah so i'm a big kind

00:31:12.000 of bravo fan and uh i follow like the cast of summer house bravo summer house that are all

00:31:18.800 influences you know like and a lot of them like i don't know if i have to explain what summer house

00:31:25.100 is but basically it's just like a reality tv show where they all go out to the hamptons every summer

00:31:29.600 and um it's like so compelling i don't anyway i love it but and they're kind of all professional

00:31:35.880 influences and yeah you know on the day that mandami was elected mayor in new york city like

00:31:44.180 that was my whole Instagram like that was my whole Instagram stories from everyone including

00:31:51.080 and that's you know mostly people in the UK who don't live in New York but from all of the

00:31:55.820 Summer House cast it was completely silent which to me was wild because you know they're they're

00:32:02.340 younger a little bit some of them are um they're Gen Z and you know they're quite outspoken on

00:32:07.840 things like feminism or like kind of like a secure the bag type feminism like you know 0.58

00:32:13.700 like but still like you know men suck like that kind of thing but like but but they're quite kind 0.71

00:32:20.800 of outspoken and it was like absolute crickets and then i tried to post in the subreddit for 0.93

00:32:25.720 summer house like what and then and then the subreddit was like no talk about politics

00:32:30.620 this is not the space and i was like oh no this is annoying i love that you tried to post in the

00:32:35.940 subreddit to see if i was like why aren't they talking about politics but anyway this is just

00:32:42.720 all to say like yeah i would say actually they like they they don't like and so there's two

00:32:49.640 things here like one so in the book i talk about l'oreal's um like l'oreal have done a lot of um

00:32:56.540 articles about how they find influences and how they decide to work with them and they use a lot

00:33:02.280 of kind of automated software to go through every single single one of your posts that you've ever

00:33:07.000 made um wow so if you've ever criticized the brand if you've ever had like a potentially

00:33:12.940 um divisive political opinion if you've ever posted what they call a nude um or you know

00:33:21.360 potentially like sexual content in any way like something that might be a bit risque like

00:33:26.100 they are not going to work with you they check everything they're very very risk averse um so

00:33:32.100 there's that like I think professional influencers know that that is the case and there's kind of a

00:33:37.580 chilling effect um I also talk in the book about like Dylan Mulvaney and her experience of working

00:33:44.700 with Budweiser and and um you know how a lot of these brands are really really unsupportive if

00:33:51.360 actually something happens and there is a crisis they will just like cut ties immediately and

00:33:57.540 yep yep so yeah so you've got that those kinds of risks it's like when you're political in any way

00:34:03.520 and then also there is something I've been thinking about more as well which is like the

00:34:07.300 algorithmic side of it which we know well we don't know but we I mean it really seems like

00:34:13.620 Instagram depresses any kind of political speech but especially about topics like Palestine

00:34:18.640 and so you know that if your whole visibility if your whole job relies on being able to reach

00:34:27.000 your audience like via social media then if your account gets moderated taken down if you lose

00:34:34.000 access to that audience then your job is gone so there's a huge risk about putting yourself out

00:34:40.220 there like that um so i also don't see very much like from the artists that i studied or

00:34:48.300 influences like in terms of political content um yeah but i wonder what other kind of positions

00:34:55.260 it could it could be i mean because yeah but okay so i'm looking at the question again i'm looking

00:35:02.700 at the question again and this is actually i i feel like i misinterpreted it slightly so it says

00:35:08.300 she says i'm really curious about this demand for influencers to have a position on everything

00:35:14.840 and i will say that i feel that all the time like i have actually said many times like talk i've

00:35:21.500 talked about Palestine and my support for Palestine and against genocide all these sorts

00:35:26.020 of things on my Instagram many times but I still get messages if I haven't posted in like a month

00:35:31.160 yeah why are you silent on Palestine right and like I think that's there is this ongoing pressure

00:35:37.640 there are some types of people who understand silence as or like any sort of like not if you're

00:35:43.380 not continually posting as silence when if you think about the algorithm if you post on it then

00:35:49.160 and that actually buries your account so it's actually silencing yourself by posting do you

00:35:55.160 know what i mean it's complicated it's really complicated because it's not totally and also

00:36:02.140 i'm you know i think sharing these messages of solidarity is really obviously important to show

00:36:10.100 what you know who you are and where you stand but like i am thinking about you know this is like

00:36:14.480 super old school but like jody dean's communicative capitalism like thinking about

00:36:20.120 you know we're sharing these kind of messages on this for-profit so like you know what are we

00:36:28.140 really asking from people like is it so essential i mean i think it is because it's obviously very

00:36:34.500 powerful to to show that you support topics that are you know really challenging and in kind of

00:36:41.980 mainstream media might not be fully representative but it yeah like you said it's a lot to ask of

00:36:48.500 people so i don't know well and i think that it is like as hillary points to like there this some

00:36:55.340 of this is parasociality like because we think of our consumerism as like our ability to participate

00:37:02.700 in democracy now you want to be a consumer only of influencers who politics completely match your

00:37:09.380 own right so either you want to push them to surface politics that match your own or you want

00:37:16.360 to disaffiliate yourself from them if they don't match your own yeah so it's almost like you're

00:37:21.700 like yes you're like itchy and you're like come on tell me more yeah no i need to get down there

00:37:29.500 i mean but what i guess like how can we historicize this like is there a demand maybe

00:37:35.680 for influencers to take more of a political position than there was a demand for a traditional

00:37:43.500 celebrity like a hollywood type celebrity or a musician i know like taylor swift there's been

00:37:49.700 a lot of calls for understanding her politics like more completely and everyone's very upset

00:37:55.620 about sydney sweeney as well i know what is that so the so the thing that's so interesting to me

00:38:03.540 about sydney sweeney is she grew up in a place that's two hours from where i grew up so i grew

00:38:08.100 up in rural idaho and she grew up in a mid-sized city in eastern washington and this place is like

00:38:15.900 i wonder if you can think of an analog a uk analog this it's like a town that's like had a good mall

00:38:22.220 and like there are some democrats who live there but like no one's like super leftist by any means

00:38:28.500 and like the thing to do like for fun is to like go out on your boat um yeah and like her politics

00:38:35.620 are i think very much shaped in part by those and it's like not a super legible understanding to be

00:38:44.620 like from a like to have some of those politics still because there is this understanding i think

00:38:49.100 in american culture that if you're a celebrity like you are on one side or the other right like

00:38:54.320 you're either super maga or you are like a leftist who's like coming out on the stage to support

00:39:00.860 like democratic candidates like there's just not a lot of space in between and i think that

00:39:05.600 eligibility is the scandal around her yeah that's is that she refuses to clarify and there's just

00:39:13.360 so much more space now like with platforms like there is an expectation for an opinion on

00:39:19.920 everything and maybe if previously you were communicating to the world through interviews

00:39:26.020 with journalists you know you there's going to be a lot more vetting that's going to be a lot

00:39:30.300 more sparse so we don't i guess that is that parasociality element because people don't feel

00:39:36.600 as like connected and demanding of celebrities in that way um but then i don't know is that

00:39:44.720 necessarily a bad thing i don't know it's so interesting thinking about this from a like

00:39:52.320 historical perspective because in classic hollywood what they would do is completely

00:39:56.760 efface any sort of personality yeah right if you were a star like they would like wipe you clean

00:40:02.520 and then build on top of it and some people totally believed that artifice but a lot of

00:40:08.940 people were like there's an actual i know there's an actual real star under there and that's why

00:40:14.220 there was like so much appetite for scandal right is that like who's the real like i know they're 0.99

00:40:20.080 all fucking essentially like i know they're all doing drugs and i know they're all fucking and i 0.98

00:40:23.980 just want to find out that hunger for the the second layer of authenticity yeah um and i think 0.99

00:40:30.360 now there is this belief that like because we have quote-unquote unmediated access to the star

00:40:38.040 vis-a-vis social media that like we're getting like we're getting the truth but we're not right

00:40:43.620 like we're getting a performance of self still yeah exactly yeah and I mean but it can always

00:40:49.420 only be a performance of self that's really that's like the only thing that's really

00:40:55.240 possible um yeah yeah I like this question I'll I'll I can sit with it

00:41:03.400 more that's that's us we're like we like this question let's keep thinking about it

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00:45:12.640 Next question comes from Adara. What can we learn from understanding influencer culture

00:45:17.760 as an initial reaction to capitalist work structures that eventually morphed into a

00:45:23.380 reification of said structures. Many of the micro-influencers in my life began influencing

00:45:29.060 to push back on the shitty patriarchal corporate nine-to-five. They wanted time and flexibility to 0.76

00:45:34.440 do unpaid labor and care work. They also wanted to understand their labor beyond profits and

00:45:40.980 productivity and to spend their working hours doing something other than performing male-coded

00:45:46.060 professionalism. But now I see their lives looking like the worst parts of capitalism.

00:45:50.320 constant pressure to commodify life and extract maximum monetary value out of even their innermost

00:45:56.620 personal moments. Zero boundaries between working and personal hours, eternally chasing attention

00:46:02.460 via a mysterious algorithm. From the outside, it looks like influencers played directly into

00:46:08.160 the structures they were trying to escape in the first place. Does this read feel correct?

00:46:13.240 Is there such thing as an influencer who has truly escaped capitalism?

00:46:16.800 person first of all fantastic question oh my gosh I like let's take a class with this person

00:46:22.380 I want this person in my seminar like that'd be fun yeah where do you want to start here

00:46:26.860 yeah I mean so something that I kind of talked about on my on my book tour I mean I haven't

00:46:32.940 already been doing a tour but in my book talks so when I did this parliamentary inquiry it really

00:46:38.520 blew people's minds that like you know when I kind of said oh yeah that's why I like family

00:46:44.580 influencers have lots of kids it's because like when you have a new baby it's more content

00:46:48.980 and everyone's like what but it's but it's true you know it's 100 true yeah exactly because babies

00:46:58.420 are cute and also like I think people sorry I just I have had a baby like a year and a half ago and

00:47:05.320 like I think it's really interesting there's a lot of content about babies but then like no one

00:47:10.620 really wants to watch toddlers in the same way because it's just kind of like unpleasant they're

00:47:15.360 just screaming a lot and it's all very stressful um but yeah I think uh so yeah a lot of the mom

00:47:23.260 creators have stopped making content because it's not like cute no I feel like there's like this

00:47:28.380 interesting gap that you see in mom creation where it's like infant like especially especially when

00:47:33.540 they're wearable oh my god so cute right like you can wrap them and like print them and then like

00:47:38.460 you don't see them again until they're like four yeah exactly it's like this is not what anyone

00:47:43.940 wants to see like they're eating poop 100 like that is happening uh it's not it's not nice um

00:47:51.420 but yeah so because we get had um influencers come and give evidence to like the politicians

00:47:57.220 and stuff like you know it was it was really interesting to hear their perspectives on this

00:48:01.820 it's because like people can't step away so adara's sense is totally right in this way like

00:48:07.960 you can't take maternity leave so you have and you know because that's going to be like a peak

00:48:14.400 monetization time like having you know a young baby a newborn baby very cute and there's lots

00:48:20.300 of content and that you can potentially make there and you can't take sick leave you can't take

00:48:26.480 your bereavement leave like you it is really it's a job where you commodify every single aspect of

00:48:33.100 your life and yeah like it's this idea that oh i can just like you know do whatever and like

00:48:41.000 i can just take uh you know like i can just go on vacation but like that vacation is all

00:48:46.600 going to be structured around yep what kind of content you can get you know making sure it's

00:48:51.960 good like it takes a lot of time so i absolutely understand i think this is a yeah really really

00:48:57.320 good like kind of summary of what's happened here um but yeah i think an influencer that's

00:49:04.200 escaped capitalism like if you're sharing your life on instagram or tiktok then no um i'm trying

00:49:12.740 to think of exceptions because there's loads of people that like live off grid that who are like

00:49:17.840 living off grid and producing like stuff of them i there is a lady who lives on my my island i live

00:49:24.160 on a little island um who she just posts pictures of like her old cool vintage outfits yeah like 0.96

00:49:32.520 she just puts them on and like twirls around in them um her name is i think silly pink shoes is

00:49:38.480 her instagram handle and she has i think like 70 000 80 000 followers and like she's doing this

00:49:44.880 because it gives her a reason to put on her clothes do you know what i mean yeah um like

00:49:49.340 she's like she doesn't have any deals she does like is she an influencer that's an interesting

00:49:53.800 question right or is she someone who like likes showing other people her outfits and i think that 0.96

00:50:00.100 that in some ways is outside of capitalism right yeah but then she's not i would say she's not an

00:50:06.020 influencer because that you can't monetize that in the same way or she's choosing not to because

00:50:10.820 70 or 80 000 followers you're not going to get enough from like an instagram creator fund or

00:50:15.520 anything no no no no so you would if you wanted to make money which yeah she doesn't and that's

00:50:22.580 good but yeah but she so she's yeah i mean is she an like i guess it this comes back to the

00:50:28.060 definition of influencer and it was cool when i did this inquiry because we worked with legal

00:50:33.580 scholars who were like coming up with like a working definition because we needed it for

00:50:38.720 regulation and so i guess for like a working legal right like you know for an employment law

00:50:46.300 kind of perspective she's not an influencer right but then you know from like uh she has a reach and

00:50:51.920 she has an audience then like you know in some ways she is but but it's not her job no and i

00:50:57.620 think the first part of this question is something that i've thought about a lot when it comes to

00:51:03.000 trad wife influencers is that there is especially in the united states there are so few viable

00:51:10.340 part-time jobs available so a lot of people have an entrepreneurial spirit they are ambitious people

00:51:18.220 yeah but the scenario of their life whether ideological or there's no jobs in their field

00:51:24.940 wherever they live or they want to stay home and not work full-time the avenues open to them

00:51:31.560 are very very limited and usually it comes down to mlms yeah and getting involved in like

00:51:38.740 multi-level marketing right or influencing and so like this i like that part of the question

00:51:45.000 that's saying like some of this is a reaction to yeah like the limited options that we have

00:51:51.720 under our current capitalist system like they're trying to find a way to like be at home with their

00:51:57.300 kids and also make a little bit of extra money but like how does that even work yeah and it turns

00:52:03.420 into this other scenario yeah yeah 100% and like being on maternity leave as well I'm following a

00:52:09.840 lot of mom influences like that is people openly share that like people are like I'm trying to

00:52:15.000 become a content creator by this date because otherwise I have to go back to work like there's

00:52:21.920 a lot of that like people quitting their jobs and deciding to do this full time because yep it's

00:52:30.540 yeah because it means that they can stay home or it means that they can have a longer time

00:52:34.540 um and that's yeah that's something i found really interesting and again it's very gendered

00:52:40.240 isn't it like it's this kind of hustle to fit around the impossibility really of how of being

00:52:47.120 a working mother like having a like having a family and especially being like a really present

00:52:52.800 mother like it that's that's really really challenging with all of these demands so yeah

00:52:59.060 that I really like that part of the question too I think it's people you think you can like kind of

00:53:05.780 hack your way out of it um and I think it's really challenging to do that in reality yeah like I just

00:53:13.080 think of these women who have 12 kids like one of the women I follow seriously has 12 kids and

00:53:17.640 she's pregnant with um I think she's pregnant with her 12th right now no and she is also producing

00:53:23.820 all of she's producing all of these like really like classy reels and i'm like how are you doing

00:53:32.780 this like that is a lot of time and then also the and this is always the contradiction at the heart

00:53:39.820 of trad wife influencing is that like you're trying to talk about how important it is to be

00:53:45.940 doing all of this domestic labor and making everything from scratch and like always being 0.69

00:53:50.260 submissive to your husband well also you're working all the time and a lot of that work

00:53:56.860 is actually not involving your kids it might be featuring your kids but it's not involving your

00:54:01.520 kids right well it's stopping you being really present isn't it because you're on the phone

00:54:06.180 like you're all you're like talking to a phone like you're not talking you're not talking to

00:54:11.720 them it's a really interesting space family influencing mom influencing and that's something

00:54:17.160 i'm thinking about more and more which is kind of you know just like naturally because it is the

00:54:21.280 kind of content i'm seeing but it also is like this thing like this demand for showcasing

00:54:28.760 challenging moments like and bad experiences like i think especially in this space it's really

00:54:36.920 i mean the trad wife stuff is like i guess different because it's really aspirational

00:54:41.640 but the moms i get are like i'm going to show you that the real side of motherhood i'm going to talk

00:54:46.400 about the challenges and so there is like a real like you know a lot of tears and upset and emotional

00:54:53.340 kind of performance and I think like a lot of people say like oh this helps me feel less alone

00:54:59.500 there is a real appetite for I think people sharing that side of themselves and yeah it's

00:55:07.400 I mean it's an interesting kind of emotional labor I think yeah like being public about a

00:55:12.440 pregnancy loss right yeah like that's something that you are compelled to share if you are

00:55:17.260 pregnant and then you are not pregnant like you have to narrativize it and you have to you have

00:55:21.400 to post it right um i think also that adara might she might have asked this question thinking about

00:55:28.900 a very different subset of influencers which is like you know van life influencers like people

00:55:33.580 who are trying to like yeah you know actually not work nine to fives and here we are talking about

00:55:38.860 like mom life but I that that component of like I've gotten I've gone way down the rabbit hole

00:55:45.720 on van life stuff and like digital nomads and those sorts of things and they are they're like

00:55:51.240 they're stuck like you know in Fiji just inside making reels instead of like being in Fiji you

00:56:00.380 know what I mean exactly 100% like how can you live like this authentic moment I get and this

00:56:07.480 similarly like the people who are like building alternative communities off the grid or

00:56:12.640 yeah and then creating content about that it's like you are dependent on income from

00:56:19.360 from social media from the same kind of space as everyone else um yeah yeah and the other uh

00:56:27.320 like i guess side of it is um caroline mims nice the atlantic journalist who wrote about the dogs

00:56:33.200 also wrote this really really good piece about people who live stream their working life as like

00:56:39.300 an like an extra layer of monetization so it's like people who live stream like who are like

00:56:44.860 line cooks or people who are like uber eats drivers or they work in warehouses and it can

00:56:51.440 kind of be sort of like a comforting background sort of live stream that people watch and then

00:56:57.260 they ask them to do certain stuff but there is that kind of side of the hustle culture where

00:57:01.840 you're just like trying to get additional income streams and additional layers of monetization to

00:57:07.120 what you're doing too um but then you know it's like all of the same problems that we've already

00:57:12.980 discussed yeah no and i think that point too like this goes back to us like trying to figure out

00:57:19.000 the line between like an influencer who's always doing this right like i see people who do it

00:57:24.540 as like today in my life it's a professional shaft kind of thing right yeah and then people

00:57:28.740 who are just like filming funny videos because they're fucking bored at work right and this is

00:57:33.060 like a way to create like uh entertainment amidst the tedium and drudgery of like whatever your

00:57:40.860 labor is and there is a line right there is like one feels much more empowering than the other one

00:57:46.060 does at least from the outside I think yeah definitely I mean yeah like because I also get

00:57:51.880 a lot of like I'm a private chef in the Hamptons and this is my yes the menu but that's but you're

00:57:56.900 doing that as like you know again like potentially you're looking to get into content creation

00:58:01.980 opportunities it can kind of function as a cv like a resume you know like yep it's self-promotional

00:58:10.440 and that you know that i'm thinking of one guy but he's very charming and you know it's very

00:58:14.960 very nicely produced and um but but there is a reason that people are doing that kind of side

00:58:22.560 of it like you said yeah like it's like when i was a nanny i would spend the kids nap time

00:58:28.420 watching movies all the time because and trying to like write reviews of them yeah so that i could

00:58:33.780 go and get and apply for my master's degree yeah and like that you know like basically they're

00:58:39.040 taking this like j-o-b job being a chef in the hamptons and figuring out how to like

00:58:44.760 be a digital producer and i think that that sometimes that we forget that like we don't

00:58:51.120 have to critique this as like this person is like uh like messing with their sense of self or like

00:58:57.420 they feel like they have to commodify everything it's like no they're trying to learn another skill

00:59:00.960 and this is like a way to make money and also learn that skill it's like a paid internship

00:59:04.740 yeah and that's a question I get a lot like it's like is it all so bad is it so bad you know like

00:59:12.160 and it's not I mean the promise of social media is like there is a real promise of creativity

00:59:18.020 people are doing really cool stuff sometimes like you know a lot of the time they are like

00:59:24.080 it's exciting and you can reach audiences like my sister is a fat yoga teacher who has really blown

00:59:31.880 up on instagram like you know her audiences are so appreciative because she represents something

00:59:37.680 that they don't get to see in classes that they go to she's got 120 000 followers i think or

00:59:43.940 something now like she's kind of like you know my living example of influencer creep in my life 1.00

00:59:48.820 because she's got an agent recently and all of this but it but she but she like stopped being

00:59:54.940 a struggling actor and started doing this instead and so you know it is really really cool to see

01:00:00.220 that and like but then she at the same time is very again still anxious because she is worried

01:00:06.400 about the longevity of her business if she doesn't keep getting this kind of algorithmic rise so

01:00:11.920 totally it's hard yeah but then i also think like and i talk about this with other people who write

01:00:17.360 newsletters like if i were running a brick and mortar i also would have to think about like

01:00:21.820 how do i keep my customer base i think that the one difference is is like yeah if you own a shop

01:00:27.680 in downtown like in a little village right what if there's an economic downturn and all of the

01:00:34.240 shops move out of the village and then like no one there's no foot traffic and like you're it's

01:00:38.140 not it's no longer the model that it was before and for me that is somewhat analogous to like our

01:00:44.340 dependency on social media it's like yeah the village is fucking changing the difference is

01:00:49.380 that it changes so fast so like you could see some of the depression happening in a town and 0.96

01:00:55.020 you could see some of the writing on the wall whereas on instagram it's like no and now we're

01:00:59.340 doing reels right instead of like it used to be it used to be posts and now it's stories and now

01:01:05.880 you better learn how to make a reel and you better use music in your post and you better use it in

01:01:10.260 this way like what is trending audio I mean I know what it is but it's just like it's like you want

01:01:17.740 everyone to be using the same songs like I don't really understand why I hate it yeah it's bizarre

01:01:24.400 uh yeah no and it's so like yeah i i think i i like that idea about visibility and

01:01:35.420 kind of not knowing and also again like you know the glossy aspirational nature of all of this is

01:01:40.820 that it's really hard to understand kind of what's really happening um but then also you know people

01:01:48.060 do share their failures but you're expected to kind of have like an uplifting message at the end

01:01:52.580 of that as well always it always yeah here's what i'm learning here's how i'm looking to the future

01:01:57.840 like it's just so i would love to see someone who's like man that burned like we like we are done

01:02:05.380 i know we're in bankruptcy i'm just laughing because like my husband showed me this piece

01:02:11.920 this this linkedin post and i don't know if it was a parody or not but it was like

01:02:16.540 i'm a marketing professional and this is what i learned from my daughter's abortion like and how

01:02:21.540 i applied it to like my like how i turned it into b2b sales or whatever it was like it must

01:02:26.880 have been a party but it was very like but it also is like all of that i mean linkedin is like

01:02:32.200 a whole other thing okay we have one last question which i think a lot of people in our audience are

01:02:39.700 going to be familiar with this particular type of influencer creep and i think it's a great way to

01:02:45.100 end this comes from katie and melody's gonna read it how do you see influencer work and cultural

01:02:50.640 consumption affecting work expectations at large. I am deliberately not on social media,

01:02:56.260 but I work at a public facing organization, not in a communications role. And I'm frustrated by

01:03:01.720 the way my coworkers ask me to participate in videos that lean on me as a person rather than

01:03:06.280 my actual job and expertise, like sharing personal tidbits, doing a trend, the idea that I should do

01:03:11.760 a social media act at all, etc. And I'm even more frustrated by the fact that us being commoditized

01:03:17.420 in this way is not seen or understood as unwanted, let alone problematic. I understand part of my job

01:03:24.140 in our current economic system is doing things that directly and indirectly bring in the money

01:03:28.780 to allow me to do my work, but this creeping expectation of influencer work concerns me.

01:03:34.220 How have you seen work expectations evolving with the ubiquity of social media? And while

01:03:38.820 it's obviously impossible to have a truly ethical work in our current economic system,

01:03:43.240 how do you draw a reasonable protective line between the personal and the professional

01:03:48.320 this is i i love this question because it draws on something that i've thought about a lot from

01:03:55.360 celebrity theory which is that like even the understanding that there is a personal self

01:04:00.380 right like the real self and the professional self and also this understanding that in the past

01:04:06.620 it was easier to delineate those two selves yeah and also in masculinized professions

01:04:12.800 it's a lot easier to delineate those selves whereas there is an expectation of fusion

01:04:17.740 in more feminized professions how are you thinking about this yeah that's a really good point

01:04:23.360 and it's you know something that when i interviewed all the artists about their experiences that was

01:04:31.200 something they were struggling with a lot because they felt like if they put their backstage lives

01:04:36.260 like their true lives their family true i mean sorry true lives is even problematic but yeah

01:04:41.500 their family their pets you know whatever if they put like their domestic life on social media that

01:04:47.240 content would always do really well but then there was this question always about like what was

01:04:52.320 appropriate what they felt comfortable with their privacy and also like for artists they felt like

01:04:59.440 they had to have this perfect artistic life that was very bohemian that they would have an amazing

01:05:04.120 studio either live in a city or in a beautiful cottage you know and if your life doesn't match

01:05:09.960 up to that then you feel a lot more reluctant to share it to you and i'm not saying that people

01:05:14.960 are reluctant to share their lives because like they don't have like aspirational lives and that

01:05:19.460 might be part of it but it might not but it but it is like a question of privacy but you always

01:05:24.320 have this kind of carrot dangling which is like if you share more if you do more if you put yourself

01:05:30.160 out there more than you you know that might bring success it might bring collaborations it might

01:05:36.520 bring monetary rewards or whatever it is and so it's really really hard to opt out of that

01:05:41.680 yeah and I do think if it is an expectation of your job that should be part of the job

01:05:48.820 description yeah but otherwise it should be normalized to opt out and I think what this

01:05:54.760 person is experiencing is it's not like mandatory like no one's like you're gonna get fired if you

01:05:59.340 know do this but it's more like those soft expectations of like being a team player yeah

01:06:04.760 which affect women I think a lot more yeah and this I mean I'm experiencing this doing my book

01:06:12.020 promo like I had to totally instagram public which I've never done uh and my you know I get

01:06:21.200 questions from my publicist like why haven't you responded to all your linkedin comments and it's

01:06:26.980 like okay so they had to go through but then you know you have to like these are like people that

01:06:31.540 I really know often or sometimes so like you have to like craft like a kind of highly personalized

01:06:37.440 message like all of the you know and like and you know again it's like if you want to write

01:06:44.240 something engaging then it might like lean more on real life but it's that question about like

01:06:49.300 what do you want to share like what do you want to put out there if it's a public forum yeah and

01:06:54.860 this is also like kind of i think what she's inferred to like tiktok trends like i've been

01:06:59.360 seeing a lot of stuff on tiktok where it's like people become kind of reluctant stars because

01:07:04.300 they are the communications people running a tiktok and like the joke is kind of like

01:07:08.640 they're just not someone who you would expect necessarily to be tiktok famous but they have

01:07:13.300 to make tiktok content but then like you know it's actually quite funny because or like it's

01:07:18.400 supposed to be funny in that way and that seems to be like an increasing trend that might be part

01:07:23.560 of it too yeah I think like like it's hard to have this conversation with like your manager

01:07:31.080 without seeming like you know being the person who is that also seems like a wet blanket and

01:07:37.360 you're like like a killjoy just like I don't yeah like I don't want to be public in this way

01:07:42.020 I think there is a way to frame it right like you can be like I just don't I don't feel comfortable

01:07:46.980 being super public in this way I'm happy to do anything else to support our organization

01:07:51.000 you know this is my job I you know all those sorts of things but like I just don't want to

01:07:56.060 be public facing and that's okay no one has to have a reason for that yeah I think that is very

01:08:01.460 unless you're hired as unless you're like the spokesperson right and that's a different job

01:08:06.880 than being you know a random person on ops that's like not yeah wheelhouse I agree I think that's

01:08:13.900 a good way to approach it and it's cool to not have social media like actually that's much cooler

01:08:22.800 than having it well it makes me think of actually when i hired melody to do this podcast melody our

01:08:30.540 producer like we never discussed this openly but like oh sometimes melody i'm going to like you're

01:08:36.780 going to become part of the conversation and i'm going to ask you things melody how do you feel

01:08:40.640 about this question oh i mean i love it but i love attention so i know and that's the thing right 0.79

01:08:48.420 some people love this shit they love like doing being the star of the like local library pride 0.90

01:08:53.560 and prejudice like tiktok trend thing you know what i mean like i will say though like the couple 0.99

01:08:59.560 of times because i'll just like talk how i talk to my friends and then people will write in and

01:09:04.840 be like that thing you said was really offensive and i'm like oh right okay right sorry no like

01:09:10.160 you don't have as much practice and this doesn't mean you're a bad person you don't have as much

01:09:16.040 practice with like always thinking about how things could be taken in bad faith even though

01:09:21.960 actually as an editor melody you're so good at thinking about how things could be taken in bad

01:09:26.240 faith yes but if I were to apply that to myself I would not be able to function yeah yeah so you

01:09:31.820 like it's too much pressure so you just have to pretend like you're talking to friends I totally

01:09:35.200 get it yeah yeah i think that's important because yeah because then because you should say what you

01:09:40.900 want to say no i think and that's the hard thing right and this is the like whole authenticity

01:09:46.540 that makes yeah some people's presences work and like why some influencers are popular is because

01:09:52.820 they have somehow managed to balance that feeling with like also not saying things that piss too

01:09:59.220 many people off yeah i feel like we came full circle here do you feel like we came full circle

01:10:04.080 just bringing in our producer to answer the question yeah i love that well in true influencer

01:10:10.940 fashion where can people find your temporarily public instagram if they want to yes it's actually

01:10:17.060 yeah so it's uh oh god i don't even know it's friendly lady i think it's like underscore

01:10:23.260 friendly underscore lady underscore which is not professional but you can find me on linkedin

01:10:33.040 and leave a message that you will have to reply that you'll have to reply to yeah give me one

01:10:39.740 that like really is impossible to just to navigate but I'll just be like thanks girl thanks for

01:10:47.000 listening like and subscribe like and subscribe all right thank you so much Sophie this is a real

01:10:56.540 pleasure and thanks for coming in late in the evening for you in the different times yes thank

01:11:02.360 Thank you. This is great. I had such a good time. Thank you.

01:11:08.080 Thank you for listening to the Culture Study Podcast. In case you missed it,

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Culture Study Podcast - January 21, 2026

Is Everyone an Influencer Now？

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