I chanced upon this in the library and since I’m always slightly ambivalent about Instagram and other social media, I thought it would be interesting to read this and see what life is like for an “instafamous” person.
The Accidental Influencer is the story of Bella, who creates a satirical wellness account “deliciouslystella” and achieves fame. However, she soon struggles to deal with the pressure of being seen only for her account, the demands to live a certain way, and her ambitions to be more than just “Stella”.
What surprised me about this book was how fast Instagram had a negative effect on Bella. At her peak, Bella had 150k followers; her mental health issues started worsening at around 20k followers. That’s really early on in the book and I kept wondering why someone would continue on a path they know is harming them early on. The answer is, of course, that a higher number of followers makes you more attractive for other projects and as an aspiring comedian, Bella felt like she needed the account to break into the comedy/arts scene.
Alongside her story, Bella mixes in her musings on social media and what’s trending. It generally worked well with her story, though I did feel that the enormity of her closing her “Stella” persona was dampened by her talking about how everyone was writing a “confessional”. Closing Stella was clearly huge for her, given how she spent chapters talking about how she felt constrained by Stella and wanted to get rid of her; there was no need for her to apologise for doing so. In a way, it feels like she is trying to pre-empt criticism by acknowledging it first.
I also thought it was a bit strange/insensitive that Bella’s author biography at the back associates her so strongly with her Deliciously Stella account, mentioning all the things that have resulted from the account (the spoof cookbook, the podcast, and the sold out live show at Edinburgh Festival). I think this is the paradox that Bella has been grappling with throughout the book – she wants to be seen as more than her account, but it’s her account that has gotten her the opportunities. And I can see why she tried to pre-empt criticism, I went to look up Bella after reading this and realised the account is still up. It’s not very active, but I see a pinned post promoting this book. In a way, it feels like a clever bit of marketing to keep the deliciouslystella handle; but also not quite in line with what I assumed was “killing” the alter ego.
Overall, this was a fascinating read. It’s clear that social media isn’t suitable for everyone, but we’ve made it such a big part of our lives and our careers. I wonder what’s the alternative: can we help creative people make a living without draining their mental health? Is social media the only way to discover new people to follow? There are a lot of questions that this book raises regarding our relationship to fame (or the perceived benefits of fame), our careers, and social media. The answers, on the other hand, are something that we have to come up with.
This is so interesting and sad at the same time. It does seem like a social media presence is required these days because people don’t want to take a chance on someone–they want someone who already has a built-in following. But it’s a lot of work to expect someone to do all their own marketing and to create a persona with no help or guidance–and never knowing the whole time if it will pay off with a job offer of some sort.
Personally, I think social media often doesn’t tend to connect people or be an overall net positive like it’s supposed to be. It has its good uses and it is supposed to just be a tool that can be used for good OR bad, but, really, so many people seem to experience negative effects from it. To me, it makes sense for organizations to have social media accounts where people can connect, but I can just not imagine marketing myself an individual on these platforms without having some sort of breakdown where I worry if it’s enough, what people think about me, if I’m going to get angry comments, etc.
Exactly. In the past, people could have personas where their public facing self and their private self was different. But now, not only do we have to create a public facing self for social media (not only for jobs, for certain hobbies like bookstagram/booktok if you want media copies), the line between public and private selves are getting increasingly blurred.
I really do think that you need to have a thick skin to be a public figure, but at the same time, certainly a certain amount of sensitivity is required for those in the arts! It’s very hard to square the two, imo
This sounds fascinating, I’ve read quite a few books on social media but never from the point of view of an actual influencer. It seems interesting to hear about their experiences from their own perspective and how they feel about it. I personally would feel very uncomfortable blending my public and personal life so much, so it would really be a different read.
Yes, and I feel a lot of influencers talk up the positives while they are still influencers because their career depends on it. So this was a very interesting read for me
This sounds like a thought provoking read!
It was! I really like the questions it poses, it’s still making me think!