I participated in a mini-influencer event earlier today, leading a short guided meditation post-workout for the attendees. It was quite glamorous, all in all, felt very elegant and precious, and for once, I enjoyed being out of my sweats and in more elegant, comfy summer clothes while inside a studio.
It left me with questions, though.
Being obsessed as I am with people-watching, I had a blast just observing these women so far out of my own natural habitat. The thick layers of make-up (inappropriate, to say the least, for such intense workout), the designer matching outfits, the perfectly-coiffed hair. Being glued to their phones. Naturally, I kept an eye on the stories and posts getting reshared later and did a bit of stalking.
I mean, these girls seemed nice enough and all, and I hope the event helps promote the studio. Maybe it's the fact that I don't interact with these kinds of people on Instagram (right now, my feed is a carefully curated blend of Luka Modric and Gilmore Girls clips, so), but I find myself a bit at a loss.
Maybe I'm too old for this, but I genuinely don't get what these people are supposed to be influencing. Anticipating the event, we were talking about what domains they would be influencing. I get you're a gaming influencer or a fashion influencer or a sports influencer, but lately, a lot of these accounts that people are following seem to be dabbling in a little bit of everything.
They tell you how to dress, where to eat, even apparently what yoga studio to attend. And while I understand the use from a business perspective, I'm frankly baffled on a personal perspective. In the course I just finished on PA on logic, we talked about appeal to authority as a common fallacy we resort to. You know, like when Leo DiCaprio talks to us about climate change.
But at least, with Leo, I can understand the appeal. I mean, I listen to him because I like him as an actor. That, to me, stands in a way. But these people are regular joes, you know, corporate paper-pushers just like me, regular-world girlies just like me. Where's the authority, even the fake one that would cause me to defer to them in some way?
At the risk of sounding old, back in my day, I used to defer to "experts" on all sorts of fields. I loved to gather skincare and style tips from women I found beautiful like Liv Tyler or Kate Moss. As actresses and models, I felt they had some genuine authority on the subject. Or rather, even though that was wrong, I wanted to emulate them because they were pretty and famous and on the cover of magazines and stuff, and maybe if I used the same night cream, I could be too. Not famous, but you know what I mean.
It seems to me genuinely bizarre to idealize a random other person and start living your life in such a way that emulates theirs. Because what sets them apart? I can appreciate the nobility of finding everyday heroes, rather than worshipping celebrities or such, but it doesn't seem to me it's the case here.
This whole social media world seems to be built entirely on carefully-curated visuals and expensive aesthetics. More alarming, to me, is
Again, I get trying to copy celebrities. For a good long while, when Friends was at its peak, women all over the world were trying to copy the famous Rachel Green look. It made sense. She was comfortable, she felt to us like a personal friend, or even a slightly better version of us, more glamorous, more sexy. And I guess, ultimately, that's the same thing a lot of people feel for these Instagram "influencers". They see them as slightly happier, slightly better, slightly more glam versions of themselves.
I shudder to think of the psychological cess-pool that plunges us in, though. Presumably, having Jennifer Aniston be someone to aspire to was something manageable. You had one, five, seven of these people you wanted to be and sort of copied or used to improve your life, and that was it. But now, there's no limit. Anyone can be (and presumably is) better and more impressive than you.
Which puts you in a very dire situation, at the bottom of the ladder, no? I do wonder what that does to us, on a psych level, thinking that millions of random strangers out there are better, fancier, hotter and more important than us.
Imagine the mass depression this would put any society under. Actually, you don't have to imagine.
It also doesn't help that we seem to "admire" people for generally the wrong attributes. Expensive outings. Posh accommodation on the French coast. Designer sports outfits. The aesthetic of a premium life. How hollow is this life we're supposedly aiming up towards (and how frightfully empty must ours be, if it prices below that)?
I must say, I didn't enjoy it much. It was fake. It seemed clear to me, unfortunately, that the girls there were playing a part (those who were kind enough not to be on their phones throughout the meditation). A posed serenity. The look of someone finding peace.
The illusion of a better life (that some poor saps out there even now aspire to).
