Identity and Online Advocacy

Performance of ideal self-online having a detrimental effect on social media influencer’s identity

Abstract 

Influencers are today’s mini celebrities; their audience is absurdly large with some having millions of followers. Influencers are normal people but will an added value, which having the chance to get money out of posting content online and thus earning their life. Their idea lifestyle encourages more and more people to become influencers. This paper aims to show how being an influencer can have a detrimental effect on their life. Yet being an influencer has many worthy sides, but as soon as the influencers go again the ideal identity is a rapid fall to hell that is waiting for them. As humans we only want the good side of us being shown which is logic when thinking of it. So as an influencer are human but also online public figure, they show the good side of their identity, thus creating an ideal self without even realizing it. The audience frequently forgets that the influencer they are following are human too and can do a mistake or change opinion or even reinvent themselves. The first thing this paper will demonstrate is i) that Influencers project an ideal lifestyle to the detriment of their real lifestyle, that their life turns around their online identity. ii) Cancel Culture of influencers not maintaining the ideal self. iii) Self-branding of influencers selling their identity. A perfect human is an oxymoron, but it is what influencers are trying to achieve to detriment of their real identity.  

Keywords : Influencers, cancel culture, self-branding, identity, social media  

Influencers losing their real identity suggest when it comes to all the changes, they need to do fit the standards online. Influencers are ordinary Internet users who accumulate a relatively large following on social media through the unfolding of their personal lives and lifestyles, engage with their following digitally and physically, and monetize their following by incorporating promotional posts into social media posts and making physical appearances at events. (Abidin, 2021). But influencers put their real ( offline life ) aside in order to keep all those privileges. The creation of the ideal self by influencers is a way for them not to go again norms that social media set. That ideal identity, which is more robotic than human, this search for perfection is unreal. Also, that aspect of cancel culture which at the root is a good thing but with the power of social media and the influencing sphere take a complexly different definition. Becoming a trend for the audience online as they watch for every little issue to cancel an influencer. Furthermore, the suggestion that influencer should sell their identity to the brand in order to make effective promotion. Influencer’s works seem easy and worthy but when taking a closer look at the real-life of influencers are they not losing their real identity in order to keep their career.

The ideal self in detriment to the real self

Influencers, in general, perform an ideal identity online, this ideal self they showcase to an extends has bad effects on their offline identity. Influencers are once just some young people who use their social media to share their life and shape their online identities. Influencers shape their identity in accordance with what they are and then see what to keep, and what has its place in their new online identity (Leaver, 2015). Influencers self-presentation online is an “ evolving cycle” that is constantly changing, adapting, and comparing themselves to other influencers in order to have an ideal self. (Abidin, 2021). On Instagram posts of influencers, we see amazing places where they pose for their follower, but we never see the journey it takes to get to the place( (De Perthuis & Findlay, 2019). The audience of these influencers will only see the incredible picture of the influencer but the half-day it took her to get to the location, that she was sweaty all long and tired we will not see it because it does not fit to the ideal the influencer wants to project.

Influencers become influencers because of their big following, but this ‘spotlight’ which is on them because there are thousands of people following their life and that this audience expects the influencer to have an ideal self often lead to the influencer not having the right to have privacy (Papacharissi, 2010). Which lead to influencer having no offline life, but the public will always have that ‘desire to get backstage access’(Papacharissi, 2010). This backstage access is what the audience of influencer wants the more because for the audience of influencers that there is no privacy allow ((Papacharissi, 2010), influencers then just do not have the right anymore to have an offline identity and he loses itself in this online identity and keeps being flawless. At the moment that influencers start to share their private life to its thousand for some millions of followers, it’s as if they remove themselves the right to be someone else that X on Instagram. But is it is not because influencers chose to reshape their relation to privacy through sharing their life on social media that I mean that ‘they are interested in giving up their privacy’(Papacharissi, 2010).

There is also that aspect of performing self of influencer that can have a detrimental effect on their offline life. Performing the self is when someone acts and behaves in a way that a specific audience sees him in order to show the most favorable image of him in a particular situation. (Goffman, 2001). But each individual when performing the self has a different self for each ‘audience’. But for influencers, there is only one self-accepted in all situations; the ideal self. The pressure of social media does not really allow the influencer to perform self as they should and have much self including their offline self ( Brusseau, 2019). The basic of performing the self clearly said that many selves can arise from one individual but having multiple faces will consider as contradictory to their online identity thus influencers having conflict with their real identity may arise. (Brusseau, 2019). Social media as a whole allow influencer having only their ideal self in detriment of influencer real self which leads to self-denial of their offline identity and constant manipulation of their online identity in order to fit the ideal ‘ as though that their public image were a tool or instrument.”( Brusseau, 2019).

Cancel Culture of influencers not maintaining the ideal self

Cancel culture is a well-known practice in the social media world and in sum, it can destroy an influencer’s life in one day. Cancel culture is a “calling out” vigorously and condemning a powerful figure online because of actions the person has done. (Ng, 2020). Cancel culture touch mainly public figures, and influencer being public figure they do not escape this. An example of the cancel culture power will be the #metoo movement, which exposed a number of on social media in order to ‘cancel’ those public figures who have done sexual harassment and assault but have not paid for it. ((Ng, 2020). Thus, canceling these people mean destroying their career and make them respond to their action in court. Overall using social media platforms so as to ‘call out’ serious matters and make people pay for their fault is understandable. But cancel culture in some situations especially for influencers is not always justified.

Influencers in aiming to get a larger audience continuously create content and built a link with their audience gaining ‘trust and confidence of those who follow them’ (Neal, 2017). But simultaneously keep that ideal self-intact in order not to be cancel. Cancel culture not does not target only celebrities but also other public figures as influencers (Neal, 2017). But for influence cancel culture is a real fear even if the influencers did not do illegal or unethical action for influencers just a word, he said taken out of context can be a reason to cancel him. Cancel culture is now question if it should itself be canceled because of all the bad effects it had on people who have been cancel over exaggerated action which was not justified (Ng,2020). Cancel culture shows how content distribution via digital platforms enables fast, large-scale responses to acts which are maybe problematic thus ending by ending people career out of not concreate. (Ng,2020).

The example of Charlie D’Amelio a young 16 years old Tiktok influencer who was the first influencer reaching one hundred of million followers on Tiktok who has been a cancel culture victim over a video of her asking for dino nuggets at a family dinner where a chef was hired for the dinner. This young influence who is only 16 years old has been judged over asking for nuggets by millions of people for the majority adult who was criticizing this young influencer all over the internet. She lost one million subscribers on that day, she received death messages and hate because of the power cancel culture gave to the audience online.

This example perfectly shows how when an influencer does not perfume the ideal self that is expected of her this results in people try to cancel her; destroyed her life. Anything’s that goes again the image of an influencer can become a reason why canceling them. It usually happens like this: an influencer is accused of doing or saying something judged by their followers, they mutually “cancel” the person in question, and attempts to damage his or her career.” (Tietjen, 2019). The base of cancel culture with the example of the #metoo movement was a good thing but the cancel culture attacks young influencers because they asked for nuggets this is the problem. It is important to keep the roots of the cancel culture only and not allowing those useless and easy judgments distribution to overshadow important matter which really needs to be called out. (Ng,2020).

Self branding of influencers selling their identity

Self-branding of influencers makes influencers only billboards for brands and their real self (offing self) is most of the time put aside in order for them to make their promotion as they are asked to do. Self-branding is when someone creates a specific public image in order to commercialize a product and get their gain (Khamis et al., 2017). Influencers are a real tool of marketing for brands, a good influencer has a link with their audience, a sense of trust so if influencers propose products to their audience through a post that seems authentic their audience will for sure buy the product. (Neal, 2017). Influencer supporting brands contribute to a rise in purchasing behaviors as well as brand trust, even more so than celebrity support, as influencers are perceived to be more relatable and credible (Leader et al., 2021).

Branding forms part of marketing; however, the concept of self-branding does not fit well branding, and putting the branding concept down to the individual is problematic. (Khamis et al., 2017). Influencers who work with brands allow only to have the ideal identity that the brands allow them. Branding an individual rises theoretical, practical, and ethical issues, which are either not recognized or are simply glossed over by their personal believes. (Khamis et al., 2017). This reminds the postmarxist model of identity which is let an ideological system in this case promotion to form and reform the influencer’s identity. The risk every brand takes when an influencer has been employed for promotion: the influencers must maintain at least a make-believe of consistently desirable, aspirational attributes just for influencers not to go ‘off message’ (Khamis et al., 2017).

Influencers have the pressure of their audience, of social media, and even brands they are working with. The Self-branding of influencers suggests the idea that the influencers sell their identity to the brand in order to have money. When an influencer works with a brand he is asked to have a certain attitude and evenness which is extremely difficult to maintain (Khamis et al., 2017) as the real identity a  point of time take over which become a problem for the brand and the influencers. As when the ideal self is taken away brand does not want to work anymore with the influencers and the domino effect arises. The point is that uniformity requires awareness, authenticity, and the absence of unforeseen hurdles all of which are extremely difficult for humans to ensure (Khamis et al., 2017). Influencers are then forced to have an ideal self to detriment of their real self in order to be credible to work with brands.

Conclusion

The performance of the ideal online self has a detrimental effect on an influencer’s offline identity. Influencers have only one identity allow online which is the ideal self-having detrimental effects on their real identity. Canceled culture use as a tool to destroys many influencer’s life for no valid reasons. And finally,  the damage that self-branding can make on an influencer’s identity to the extent that it is the brands who tell them what behavior to have. Influencers are a new idealized profession nowadays, but there are still many flaws to it. But influencer’s position in time and space, while unrealistic, remains to brace up by commercial logic that reinforces the hegemonic aesthetic. ( De Perthuis & Findlay, 2019)

Reference list

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41 thoughts on “Performance of ideal self-online having a detrimental effect on social media influencer’s identity

  1. Hi Megan,

    The paper was very satisfying in terms of knowledge and the detrimental effect of becoming an influencer.
    I like the idea of the influencers losing actually their real identity that is the comparison in between what they are trying to show to the online public and their real lifestyle that they don’t expose which cause the selling of their identity.
    Ideal self creation to go against norms resulting in a more robotic aspect and the selling of identity to promote their brand more effectively.
    I think that you’ve take a shot at the nearly all the millennials by saying that influencers are losing their real identity, i mean this is what a portion of some rational youth was thinking but hesitate to say. Becoming an influencer is taken too lightly by the younger generation, they seems to see this as something ‘ cool’ and are hyped to get more followers and become kind of a celebrity, however it is with some maturity that we can come to some deduction that companies have been using some people for their interest.
    They are rewarding the influencers with some monetary rewards an in return they have already sold their real identity without eventually be aware.
    Your conference paper was really worth the read, i enjoyed every single paragraph.
    I personally, think that people should be aware before following the trend as everyone has the possibility to become influencer on the online media however are they aware of the risks.
    I encourage you also to read my paper which focuses on the level of privacy that we benefit from the social network which is not far from your conference paper in terms of stream.
    https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2021/2021/04/27/privacy-on-social-platforms-are-quite-at-risks-nowadays-what-are-your-views/

    1. Hi Yohann,
      I Like how your point of view about influencers match mine. You totally understand what I was trying to explains thought out my paper. As you said it is important for the younger generation knows what is really being an influencer as this job it too ideolised by younger one.
      Thank You for your feedback and I will for sure have a look to your paper. Hope to hear from you soon!

  2. Hi Megan! What an interesting topic!
    First of all, Influencers do not have a predefined criteria, their roles and lifestyles are endless debates. In my point of view, they only project what they want their audience to see but I agree there are more negative impacts as reciprocal effects on their identity and behaviors. I mentioned it in my paper, the concept of ‘ideal self’, body image, these are all socially constructed and imposed by the West. We are living and abiding to rules from people who are six feets underground for decades. In this digital era, influencers or not, everyone still carries on this man-made ‘legacy’ and this is why there are so many negative aspects on social media platforms such as mental health, cyber bullying, suicides, etc. As for Cancel culture, it’s a tool to stop offensive and harmful behavior, while others find it problematic and toxic. But again, you don’t give a ‘chance’ for them to apologize. I believe it depends on the issues, because if an influencer has been accused and proved to be a rapist, does he deserve a second chance? Do we, the public excuse people of our own like family or friends for their mistake? This matter is very complex and requires a lot of psychological and behavioral capacity to really delve deeper in this topic. The role of an influencer are subject to face all these kind of turbulence for the role they endorsed. As we say “its either right or wrong” and we both know it is easier to ‘wrongly’ pinpoint and argue than understand and forgive the bygones! Don’t you think so ? Overall very great topic.

    Also please find my paper here:
    https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2021/2021/04/26/from-new-york-streets-to-instagram-community-the-chronicles-of-body-positivism-movement-of-curvy-women-and-its-transition-to-social-media/

    1. Hi Ruby,
      First of all that you for sharing your views about my topic. But I will like to clarify something my paper do not generalised all influencers but just putting forward some interesting facts that I found about Influencer in relation to the topics we learn in class. For Cancel culture I totally agree with you that it is “it’s a tool to stop offensive and harmful behaviour” and I stated it in my paper but my focus was on influencers who actually did not had a offensive or harmful behaviour but was cancel anyway!

      I see that you have your own point of view about the subject and I found it very interesting !
      thank you for your feedback and I will for sure have a look at your paper!

  3. Hi Megan,

    The paper was very satisfying in terms of knowledge and the detrimental effect of becoming an influencer.
    I like the idea of the influencers losing actually their real identity that is the comparison in between what they are trying to show to the online public and their real lifestyle that they don’t expose which cause the selling of their identity.
    Ideal self creation to go against norms resulting in a more robotic aspect and selling of identity to promote a brand effectively.
    I think that you’ve take a shot at the nearly all the millennials by saying that influencers are losing their real identity, i mean this is what a portion of some rational youth was thinking but hesitate to say. Becoming an influencer is taken too lightly by the younger generation, they seems to see this as something ‘cool’ and are hyped to get more followers and become kind of a celebrity, however it is with some maturity that we can come to some deduction that companies have been using some people for their interest.
    They are rewarding the influencers with some monetary rewards an in return they have already sold their real identity without eventually be aware.
    Your conference paper was really worth the read, i enjoyed every single paragraph.
    I personally, think that people should be aware before following the trend as everyone has the possibility to become influencer on the online media however are they aware of the risks.
    I encourage you also to read my paper which focuses on the level of privacy that we benefit from the social network which is not far from your conference paper in terms of stream.
    https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2021/2021/04/27/privacy-on-social-platforms-are-quite-at-risks-nowadays-what-are-your-views/

  4. Hi Megan,
    Your conference paper is very instructive and i think you are right about what you said in it. Your topic about the influencer and how their online identity impact their offline one is very interesting and I also think that it is very difficult for them to keep that standard that everyone (their audience) is searching.
    One thing that I have seen in this paper and that I want to discuss about with you is that in the last paragraph you mentioned that brands would not want to work with the influencers if their ideal self is taken away do you think that here the cancel culture principle can also affects the views of a brand towards an influencer who has been cancelled by some of their followers but are still considered as influencers.
    I really want to talk about this with you and want to hear about you soon
    Thank you.

    1. Hi Corinne,
      thank you for reading my paper, so to answer your question “the cancel culture principle can also affects the views of a brand towards an influencer who has been cancelled by some of their followers but are still considered as influencers.”

      Yes definitely ! it’s interesting that you state this, that it is possible that influencers can be cancel but still have their job and in this case brands will for sure boycott the influencer as they will not want their band to be link with that influencers.

      Hope that I have answer you question and I am willing to hear from you soon!

      1. Hi Megan,
        What you explained here was good and I totally agree with you and yes you have answered my question and I am satisfied with your answer.
        Thank you

  5. Hi Megan,
    First of all your paper was very interesting and well written. I totally agree with what you said in your paper and that influencer has issues that they have with their offline and online identity. We often only take into account what we see on their social media pages but we do not really know how they really are or what they experience in real life and, how difficult it is for them to maintain this ideal self online v/s how it affects their offline identity and vice-versa.
    The example mentioned about the nugget story is a very good choice to showcase the cancel culture topic and here we can see how being an influencer may sometimes be very difficult and how they face injustice.
    But I would like to add that, Influencers must be prepared for those comments and to be prone to be “cancelled” by their audience as having tons of followers who each have different mentally it is hence difficult for them to control what their audience will comment or think about what they post.
    As you mentioned cancel culture is being wrongly used by people and I think it is mostly done by the haters in short those who are jealous of influencers and just want to disrupt their fame which shows poor use of their power as the audience.
    Also, talking about cancel culture and content distribution I think that if an influencer must be cancelled, it will be by their audience and the general public of social media platforms and not only by their audience.
    I would gladly like you to reply to my comment to see what you think about my views of the cancel culture.

    1. Hi Romain,
      I really like the interest you put in my paper and to reply to your point of view about cancel culture, when you say “influencers must be prepared for those comments”, I do not totally agree with this. I tend to hear this sentence a lot. Influencers are for the majority teenagers or younger adults who got a big following rapidly. Influencers are not prepared to received million of message a day even more if it is negative one. there is no guide that id given to influencer when they started to be prepared as you said. They are only humans with feeling things we tend to forget.

      For you would you be able to cope with million of hate message on your social media platforms?
      I think the answer is no thus it’s the same for influencers.
      The other point you have is that “it is mostly done by the haters in short those who are jealous of influencers and just want to disrupt their fame which shows poor use of their power as the audience.” and I agree and disagree with this statement. Yes haters has their part of contribution in cancel cultures, but many time it is the fans of influencer who cancel the influencers. we could think that it come from haters only but is is not the case fans and people who love the influencers to contribute in cancelling the influencers.

      I hope you understand my point of view and I waiting to hear from you soon to continue this discussion.

      Thank you for your feedback!

      1. Hi Megan, for the first part where you talk about teenagers and young adults as not being prepared for… I really think that you are right but they must have an idea how to be an influencer is as I am sure that they followed some before being part of this industry too thus, they already got an experience just from seeing other influencers getting cancelled. With this experience, I also think that they should be able to adapt to this universe quickly as they are also able to use these platforms quite well.
        And for the second I understand that these people suffer from these because of not only haters but also fans and I do think that it is a difficult job where meeting an ideal for everyone is impossible.

        1. Happy to hear from you again Romain,
          To responds to your point which is “they must have an idea how to be an influencer ” I do not agree with you. As when they are the audience they see only what influencers show them and it is completely different from being an actual influencer. Yes the can see that some influencer are being cancel but they do not see the thousand of message the influencer have or the pressure the influencer have. So they need to be influencers in order to understand all the negative background.

          when responding to you something came to my mind, there is a real lack of information about this new job. More information should be made available for the public in order to understand more the influencers!

          Let me know what you think!!!

          1. Hi Megan,
            I totally agree with the point you mentioned that is; “More information should be made available for the public in order to understand more the influencers” and that due to this lack of information it is difficult for people to know more about this “new” job. I think that influencers themselves should help other people to know more about this as they are the ones living these experiences instead of people who only do research about this subject do you agree with me?
            Hope to hear from you soon
            Thank You

        2. Hello Romain,
          Happy to hear from you again, Yeah! I totally agree with you that Influencers should speak up themselves about their life, scholarly paper will not able to have all the details and understand the topic as influencers. But I also think that influencer do not really want to speak up or fear from losing their career if they speak up. What do you think, knowing all the pressure they already have they maybe do not want too add up?

          1. Hi megan,
            The point that you mentioned about the fear of losing their career is a good one and I think you are right about it. Personally, I think that having competitors in this industry is a big challenge for these influencers as the more influencers there is the less work they will get.
            Thank you for the considerations you gave to my points.

        3. Hi Romain,
          I really enjoy debating with you, and seeing your interest about my paper makes me soo happy. I am glad that you were able to learn new things with my paper and thank you for your point of view with help me to think out of the box.
          Cheers!

          1. Hi Megan,
            I also want to thank you for all your views thus making me more informed about that subject.
            Cheers!!

      2. Hi again, I also want to talk about some other points you mentioned in your paper which are:
        1. Do you think that they really do not have privacy online as some influencers have their private account where they can post more private things and to an audience of their choice?
        2. Is It possible for the case of influencers that they are showing how their offline identity really are and that they do not seek an ideal online self as their real-life is already ideal for them?
        Hope to hear from you soon
        Thank you
        Stay safe.

        1. Hi Romain,
          I am happy to see your interest for my paper, you are the first person interacting that much with me!

          To answer your first question, yes I think that influencers can have a privacy online if they have a private account! but they should keep this account a secret for the general public as the account is private and that the influencer accept only people he knows he will be able to keep a privacy !

          And for your second question , yes some influencers can showcase there real self online, many of them already do it but there will still have an aspect of their life that they will not show only so as to keep some privacy!!

          Hope that my answer help you and hope to continue this discussion!

          1. Hi again,
            Don’t you think that making this private account a secret may be difficult as with just a little effort everyone could know the existence of it and do you also think that if their audience knows about that there is a chance of them being cancelled on social media as the ideal self that they show on their public pages might be compromised?

        2. Hi Romain,
          Yeah entertaining a private account could be difficult as also managing more that one account can be challenging on the long time, they could post something on their public account what was supposed to be on their private one and thus get exposed. But I think that all influencers have a private account and manage to manning it secret. And I do not think that influencers could be cancel if their audience discover they have a private account but never say never in this influencers world. I think that maybe the audience would want to see the content of the private account but not go to the extent to cancel the influencer but its juts my point of view. What is yours?

          1. Hi Megan,
            I think that it is totally possible for audience to do that as they may consider it as if these influencers are lying to them. But after reading your point of view I realised that they may lose fame instead of being cancelled which is more possible what do you think about that?

        3. Hello,
          Yes the lost of fame is possible, but in this case the audience will may be angry and the influencer will lose some followers but I don’t think it will go further than that!

          1. Hello Megan,
            This is an interesting point and I totally agree with what you said about the fame of an influencer!!
            It was also a very interesting debate with you
            Thank you
            Good luck with the rest!!

  6. Hi Megan!
    I really enjoyed reading your paper. It was really fascinating to learn more about the influencers and how this career path can be detrimental to their self-identity. It was interesting how you said that influencers sell their identities to a brand in order to make an effective promotion. As their followers depict them as ‘normal people,’ someone that they can realistically become as compared to the impossible standards of celebrities, some brands are exploiting this persona of a ‘real self’ performed by influencers to achieve their marketing goals.

    I really liked how you included the cancel culture in your paper as it is an aspect of social media that is becoming really toxic for influencers and youngsters in this current era. Calling out a bad behaviour online is understandable, however by encouraging people to quickly cancel someone while being reluctant to forgive is dangerous, particularly if the reason for being cancelled is not that serious. Do you think that the cancel culture became a form of public shaming in our generation?

    Hope to hearing from you soon! Keep up the good work.

    1. Hi Norine,
      I am happy to hear that you learn things with my paper and get to know more about how it is difficult for influencers to be true toward themselves!

      To answer your question “Do you think that the cancel culture became a form of public shaming in our generation?”

      I will say that is it much more than public shaming, people who are canceled lost their careers, families are broken and the person is rejected online and offline too. And what is on internet stays on internet, so comparer to public shaming which can last for some time, being cancel on internet is something that will stick with you for life!

      I hope that I have answer your question, do not hesitate to tell me if you need any clarification.

      Thank you for your feedback!

  7. Hi Megan,
    Your paper was really insightful and I really appreciate reading it as it was well structured with a lot of interesting points. I strongly agree with your point of view specially in the paragraph when you talk about cancel culture as a practice in the social media world that can destroy an influencer’s life effortlessly. This conference paper made me question myself whether what influencers demonstrate to the public forms part of their real lifestyle or is it just their ideal self that they want to put forward in order to get more followers and succeed online . This cancel culture practice can impact on the influencers’ identity and in my point of view, I really think that this practice will never disappear as influencers will keep on projecting the image they want to be associated with.

    I would really appreciate to have your views on my paper which is about the BLM movement on Twitter and how it has politically and socially strengthened the Afro-American community. Here’s the link: https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2021/2021/04/27/the-black-lives-matter-movement-on-twitter-has-socially-and-politically-strengthen-the-afro-american-community-with-use-of-hashtags/

    1. Hi Tatyanna,
      I am glad you liked my paper and that it make you questions the way you view influencers, but it is important to remind that my paper is talking about a specific theme which is the ideal self. Thus it is not the case for many influencers who are just them self. But it is good to always question what we see specially online. And concerning your point of view about cancel culture I agree with you this practice will never disappear it is sad but I do not see social medias without cancel culture.

      thank you for you feedback and I will for sure read your paper hope to hear from you soon!

  8. Hello Megan, I sincerely think that your paper is well written, and it covers great aspects on the debate of whether influencers truly influence people around the world. The real question is I think is are influencers truly sincere in what they are sharing Online. Most of them are just looking for the buzz and become famous by all means to have some revenues out of this fame. There are backlashes because their content are fake and force people in believing in things which are fake. Content sharing should truthful and not just be for entertainment but also help others grow and learn something while surfing on Social Media. One great influencer I would recommend to everyone is “Nota Bene” on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/notabenemovies)… This is what I call purposeful content. Learn something in 10 mins…

    1. Hi George,
      I will first thank you for your feed back on my paper. I agree with you on the point that some influencer are using their platforms only for “buzz” and tend to fool their audience. But as I said in my paper many of them are ” fake” because of the pressure they have online which make them showcase a completely different identity than their real one! But as you mentioned good influencers exists, and I did check the influencers you recommended me ” Nota Bene” . I really love his content I did follow influencers with the same content of sharing interesting information like “culmination.officiel” and also ” Dr Nozman” who both have learning content you should check them out and tell me what you think!
      Hope to hear from you soon!

  9. Hi Marie!

    This was an interesting read. I like how you introduced concepts, especially the ‘ideal self’ which I think is very relevant today. As the engagement on media platforms increases, it becomes harder for influencers to show their ‘ideal self’ as they tend to be judged for doing things a certain way. I think sometimes influencers get swayed by the fact that millions of users are watching them and potentially ‘look up to them, which pressurizes them into acting a certain way that will resonate with their followings.

    However, you’ve mentioned that as a result of not portraying their ideal self, users often lose themselves as they get so caught up in the fact that their lives are not nearly as similar to their favorite influencers. However, they don’t see the behind-the-scenes of each photo or each story being taken and how much effort it takes to take just a glimpse of a photo for Instagram.

    I also agree that cancel culture has become prevalent and is almost toxic for celebrities and I think because of this, influencers are a bit skeptical when portraying their ideal self.

    I would love if you read my post on Twitter and the effects it has had on the MeToo Movement
    https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2021/2021/04/25/social-media-platforms-are-able-to-establish-online-sexual-harassment-communities-within-the-social-media-and-communities-stream-to-provide-significant-necessary-support-to-sexual-harassmen/

    1. Hi Saranya,
      I am soo happy to see how you understand and shared my points about the ideal self of influencers. People tend to talk about just the negative side of influencer and how they have bad impact on the society. But we completely forget that they are humans that do have problems, feelings and that they can be victime of social media too.

      I will have a look to your paper, hope to hear from you soon !

  10. Hello Megan
    Good job and very interesting topic.
    I would like to point out the false truth of the influencers and their impact of their audience on social media.
    Not only youngsters but many people of different ages are affected by the idyllic buzz posted by influencers and mostly not forcibly real to convict them to follow them presenting only the beautiful and final aspect of things neglecting deliberately to show the real efforts its demand to come the final result.

    1. Hi Elizabeth,
      thank you very much for your feedback and I am happy that you liked my paper. I am completely agree with you influencers do not only have impact on youngster but to older people too. At the end even youngsters and older one forget that influencers are human and have personal problem and have pressure on them due to their work.

  11. Hi Marie,

    I enjoyed reading your concept of ‘the ideal self’ and I feel as if a lot of individuals, not only influencers, are losing their sense of their ‘ideal self’ due to the introduction of social media platforms. Do you think influencers will one day represent their ‘true self’ online?

    The concept of cancel culture is so horrible when thinking of the person that is receiving the hate, yet many viewers think it’s funny to ‘spill the tea’ on these social media figures, that is potentially ruining their careers. Do you think cancel culture will ever die out?

    My only critique on your paper would be not to use ‘But’ at the start of sentences Try to use words such as ‘However,’ ‘Although,’ ‘Evidently,’ to provide a more stronger argument, which I think would make your paper even better more than it already is 🙂

    1. Hi
      Thank you for your feedback concerning your questions, yes i think some influencers are already showing their truth self and i hope in the coming years it will became a normality. But for now the majority of influencers are not showing their real self.

      And for the Cancel culture i do not really think that it will die one day maybe it will change name or way of doing it but i don’t think it will die.

      And for your recommandations about my writing thank you i really have that bad tendency to use the word « but » so for a future paper i will for sure do my best to use others word.

      Thank you for you feedback it was very interesting.

  12. Hi Megan, Firstly your paper is very interesting as it is happening now in Mauritius as you know some Mauritians are writing influencers in their Bio, Without knowing the meaning and some of them are making many Bad buzz, as they have another identity on the social media platform and sometimes they forget that they have a public that are watching them and that they need to show good example to youngers.

    1. Hi Jean – Denis,
      I am totally agree with you many youngsters do not know the real background of what being an influencers is. So for me the solution for this as you said not to mislead youngsters, awareness should be made so as to inform them about the reality !

      Thank you for your feedback!

  13. Hi Megan,

    Firstly I would like to say that your topic is very original. We often focus only on the effects that influencers have on their audiences’ identity but we often forget what are the impacts that this fame has on their OWN ‘offline’ identity. The combination of your good research and the flow of your paper is very engaging which also gives weight to your arguments.

    I would like to know more about the aspect of the audience impacting the identity of influences in your section of cancelled culture. I find this fascinating that the influencer is influenced by its own audience.
    Your paper tackles the other side of the mirror and I find this very interesting and original. thank you for your paper.

    I encourage you to also read my paper which focuses on the Natural Hair Vloggers on youtube and their relationship with black women’s identity. Here is a link to it:
    https://networkconference.netstudies.org/2021/2021/04/26/black-natural-hair-vloggers-on-youtube-are-empowering-their-audiences-by-encouraging-them-to-embrace-their-black-identity/

    I hope that we could discuss more on this topic. Good Job

    1. Hi Camille,

      I read your paper as I said over there you paper help me a lot to learn about the history of the natural black hair.

      And concerning the question you asked me about audience influencing the influencers, I will say that many time we tend to forgot that it is the public / audience that give the possibility to anyone on social media to became influencer or not. As its the audience who like post, share and comment on content influencers made, and the more the interaction is the more the influencer will be able to gain money out of it.

      And in the paragraph where I talk about the cancel culture it is just a kind of reminder that the audience give to some influencer which is ; if you do not act like we want then we will take back what we gave you which is this status of influencers.

      Hope that my answer will help you to understand more the influencer and influencers relationship.

      1. Thanks for the reply it was very informative and I agree with you that it is the audience that has the real power to choose who can be an influencer or not.
        I can now understand even more your concept of cancel culture.

        Thank you hope to hear from you soon

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