Bad Influence
Illustration: Maddy Baird
“Become THAT girl with...”
“How to: clean girl aesthetic”
“RUN don’t walk to...”
“Your sign to get the...”
“You NEED this...”
Are you a ‘clean girl’, ‘dark academia’, ‘coquette’, ‘fairy-core’, or a ‘New York it girl’?
With a single search on TikTok, you’ll find all the products you’ll need to perfect your subscription to girlhood, to solidify your place in society. You don’t fit in? Never fear. You can buy your way into a community; you can buy your way into happiness because @random-user found the PERFECT 'Lana-Del-Rey-Coquette-Mermaid-Core’ mini skirt at Zara, and RUN– don’t walk– because girl math means your purchase is always justified. Never mind the three skirts you just bought and haven’t worn. It’s not a want, it's a NEED.
These words have been rewritten and reworded in countless forms by countless voices, all with the intention of coaxing us towards a materialistic ideal– a lifestyle to which we should aspire. Many of these voices are recognizable: the familiar faces of people we look up to, whom we believe we know, pushing us towards some product they’ve been paid thousands of dollars to promote.
Influencer marketing, which captures the profitable relationship between a brand and digital celebrity, is no new concept. Notable brands have always used celebrity endorsements to boost profit, such as Beyonce’s relationship with Pepsi, or Taylor Swift and Coca-Cola. The rise of the digital celebrity throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s has only given more worth to these relationships. Brands watch with dollar-sign stars in their eyes as social media apps are flooded with sponsored advertisements by influencers boasting up to millions of followers.
A major difference between the traditional and digital celebrity is the relationship they have with their audience. While traditional celebrities, such as actors or musical artists, tend to be associated with a certain talent or craft, digital celebrities’ talents are largely based on their personalities and ability to relate to an online community. Audiences develop close and trusting connections with these individuals, often forming parasocial relationships with them. We listen and laugh at their stories and learn personal details until it feels as though they’re our friend. We take their advice as if they’re talking directly to us, as if they know us as we know them. We get influenced.
It’s easy to forget that influencers are not our friends. They are our entertainment, and we watch them just as we watch film characters dazzle on the big screen. Instead of falling in love with a fictional character and storyline, we fall for something that feels more tangible. But we only see the person they choose to portray; what we hear and see is a curation of what they choose to share with us.
The loyalty which influencers inspire in their audiences is a major advantage to brands, who manipulate their relatability and trusting community to the benefit of their profits. Some influencers pride themselves on only accepting sponsorships from brands they believe in, but others don’t place such significance on authenticity. Regardless of their intention, we have to remember that in the systematically capitalist social media market, we as fans become a commodity, sold by influencers to brands in exchange for a symbiotic profitable relationship.
Influencers sell us to brands and then sell products back to us, in a cycle of consumption that benefits all parties. But we, the audience, are often swept up in the glitz and glam of the lifestyles and aesthetics promoted to us. The strategy encourages poor spending habits, reliant on a quickening trend cycle, and the perpetuation of capitalist ideals which can not only harm the environment, but also the many people behind-the-scenes subject to unethical business practices and working conditions.
The fantasy lifestyle market is not solely perpetuated by digital influencers, and it’s not as though the blame for a system of capitalist consumerism can be laid at their feet. Who can blame these often young individuals, suddenly subject to a life of fame and fortune, for accepting easy money? Who among us can honestly say we would refuse the same opportunities? Western society promotes individualism, but it is this lie which capitalism perpetuates and encourages us to believe. After all, the instinct to be self-serving benefits the bottom-line.
The capitalist tale tells us that happiness and satisfaction come in a pre-packaged box, from an assortment of products that spell out the lifestyle we’re seeking. But by this logic, we can never achieve the happiness we believe we’re buying. This is especially true for women, who have forever been sold a pretty-in-pink picture of what the feminine ideal looks like, and what we must purchase to achieve this. The recent influx of online trends that label and define different lifestyle aesthetics are largely targeting young female consumers, selling designated versions of girlhood through masks of purple washing and inspiring statements of female empowerment.
Most of these trends start out as fun and silly jokes between people searching to relate to a community. Girl math is relatable, and the logic of it is really not that far off from how I’ve justified some of my own purchases. I do, in fact, tell myself I deserve a sweet treat after doing an hour of homework, or find myself ‘rewarding’ myself with a little online browse of my favourite stores. It’s amusing to give pretty poetic names to mundane things, like turning light blue into ‘blueberry milk’, or brown into ‘mocha latte’. We all seek to romanticize our lives in some way, to find joy and beauty in the ordinary, especially in light of the seemingly constant tragic and horrific events happening around the world. It’s not as if the secret to freeing ourselves from capitalist tyranny is to relegate ourselves to the boring, boycott the internet, and stop buying things altogether. It’s not as though by deleting social media we become immune to these same issues, which exist in different fonts on and off the internet. I’m still going to watch Alix Earle’s GRWM’s while I get ready. I have favourite fitness and fashion influencers, and I often take inspiration from them or even advice. Denying yourself of simple pleasures is not going to change the institutionalized issues we face. I like to be entertained and social media is fun! But there is a balance between leisure enjoyment and losing yourself in the algorithms.
Believe it or not, money actually can’t buy you happiness, no matter how persistent corporate marketing manipulation tries to convince us otherwise. We must grow our awareness and consciousness of our consumerism. Every action has a consequence, and the choices we make, though individual, have butterfly effects which speak to the larger organization of our societal institutions. We do not have to lose ourselves in the black hole of capitalist critique and analysis (I’ve been there and it’s a dark, dark place), second guessing every decision we make. Awareness and overthinking are two different things. We can be conscious consumers and keep this awareness at the forefront of our minds without letting it consume us.
The allure of likes, comments, and online validation that comes with succumbing to purchasing the latest popular product won’t satisfy you any more in real life. A lifestyle can’t be bought, especially one that only exists in vague internet terms. Quantity of consumption is not equivalent to quality of life, and we must seek our happiness somewhere other than the abyss of online algorithms and shopping shelves.
