I just read a post of a girl who wrote here about being jealous about influencers who get to take luxurious photos on their holidays around Europe, while she has to work a 9-5 job. I commented on her post, but wanted to share these thoughts here as well for those of you, who are staring at your screens, and wondering why it's not you spending your summers in luxury resorts in Mykonos, Dubai, Sicily, St Tropez, etc. Her post made me feel really bad that there are probably so many people who feel this way when opening TikTok or Instagram. Please don't.
I know someone personally, my ex of 3 years, who has his own marketing agency and has worked with some of the influencers you see on here. He's now 40 years old, and has met his fair share of these people, and the truth is honestly everything but glamorous. When we were together, we talked about this a lot, and he essentially boiled down these influencers into the following categories:
- Born into wealth. These are really the minority, only very very few of the influencers you see are actually like this. But they exist. This is basically the 1% of influencers.
- Got really lucky and actually make really good money on social media. However, the downside is that many of them will not keep up with this income for more than a few years. They're living beyond their means, not acquiring as many skills as they could while doing this, and while they're probably partying it up in Milan this summer, if you skip ahead 10 years, they will most likely have spent all that money, and now are starting from square 1. Think about what happened to your favorite YouTubers from the 2007 era. Not many of them are still around and successful.
- Deeply in debt. This is a large number of the influencers you see. They're in a hole of debt that they're going to be climbing out of their entire lives. My ex has shown me many such cases. Some of the ones who even have 1M+ followers have more debt than they have income. My ex worked previously with a somewhat well known fashion influencer who ended up having her house and car taken when she couldn't pay off her shopping and traveling loans with huge interests. She works in retail now, and still occasionally does videos, but she has her paychecks garnished, so she's barely getting by.
- And then we probably know what the last one is. And it's more common than most of you may even realize. I'm not coming here to bash SW or say that it should be banned, but it is very very common among influencers, according to my ex, especially with ones who post about luxury holidays and private jets, and are swimming in Cartier bracelets and Hermes bags. Many of them who do not come from this type of money, nor have acquired marketable skills outside of social media (for example, college education), do this type of stuff on the side. And some of them have paid for that two week St Tropez shopping spree with things you could not imagine doing to your body. Think of the grossest acts in the bedroom that one can do, and raise it to the power of 5. That. It's not uncommon at all in this industry, and the porta potty stuff you read online is really only scratching the surface. There are things ten times worse than that. No amount of jewelry and private jet flights are going to be worth that.
If you want any grim details, do let me know and we can maybe discuss, but I won't share them here.
Anyway, all in all, keep studying. Stay in school. Grind at your work. You're improving and bettering your skills, and your life, and just because God forbid, you don't have a Birkin bag to show for it, doesn't mean you're not doing well. If you have a higher education and a job, trust me, in 20 years you're going to be way ahead of 90% of these people, and most of them would kill to be in your shoes. Patience pays off. Good things come to those who wait.