What Does An Influencer Do In A Time Of Crisis?

The word ‘influencer’ was only added to the English dictionary in May last year, which seems strange when you consider how long it feels like this idiosyncratic modern career has dominated our social media experience. Since Instagram first launched 10 years ago, it has evolved from a clunky method to show everyone what you ate for breakfast (literally) into a slick marketing machine and source of income for millions of people.

Getting paid thousands of pounds to take a selfie for a beauty brand, or to go on a free holiday, or to wear a certain pair of shoes may have seemed like a dream existence for the first five years in which influencers began to rule Instagram. But in recent times consumers have become less enchanted by the subversive form of advertising it morphed into. Our tolerant consumption of sponsored content will now be waning as we rearrange our priorities in the face of a crisis.

That was a conversation that came to the fore recently, when the darker side of influencing emerged, as ‘mummy blogger’ Mother of Daughters, aka midwife Clemmie Hooper, quit Instagram last December. It was revealed she had been logging into a blogging site called Tattle.Life under a pseudonym in order to leave abusive comments about her fellow mumfluencers – and even her husband, Simon Hooper (known as Father of Daughters on Instagram). At the time, Clemmie said, ‘Engaging in this was a huge mistake. I take full responsibility for what has happened and I am just so sorry for the hurt I have caused everyone.’ She received a massive backlash from her fans, as did Simon two weeks ago, when he posted sponsored content, for a fee, on International Women’s Day for insurance company AXA.

Earlier this month, then, some of Clemmie’s former followers were intrigued to see that Clemmie and Simon appeared to have quietly set up a new, private Instagram page under the title The House of Hooper, with the bio, ‘Making a house a family home: interiors, design and home renovation from @father_of_daughters’.

Whether this is a new side-project the couple are keen to establish remains to be seen – but it’s evidence that the Hoopers aren’t ready to quit social media entirely: the medium that saw them rise to national fame and score a string of lucrative contracts.

Others have already experienced the need to pivot their Insta-game. Molly Guy Rosen, who became internet famous via Stone Fox Bride (which chronicled her and others weddings), abandoned her brand a year and a half ago, when she and her husband divorced. Molly, a writer and designer who was raised in Chicago, had started Stone Fox Bride as a blog in 2012, but it was thanks to its Instagram account and ensuing bridalwear collection that the name became a firm favourite with brides-to-be and fashion lovers. (Marnie in Girls wore one of the brand’s designs for her wedding.)

The Stone Fox Bride Instagram account served up a cool, inviting aesthetic with a rolling array of chic boho weddings, flower crowns and cute engagement stories, which became part of the brand’s fabric – and launched a thousand copycat Instagram accounts. Despite being described as a ‘social media sensation’, Molly doesn’t enjoy being called an influencer, insisting, ‘It wasn’t about me, it was about my store. I wasn’t getting companies to send me stuff, or running around with a selfie stick.’

In 2016 she divorced, although she was advised to keep that to herself until after her Stone Fox Bride book, about wedding planning, was published the following year. She shut down her studio, admitting that she would have felt like a ‘phoney’ for continuing with a brand that celebrated love. She adjusted her Instagram account name to Stone Fox Ride (which has 109k followers) and now teaches creative and non-fiction writing classes in New York, and is writing her memoir.

Molly tells Grazia that she believes that as the role of influencer evolves and becomes more complicated, we will naturally start to see more people changing direction, as she has done. ‘I’ve seen more articles recently about people who have been stuck in that social media pigeonhole, presenting their lives in a certain way year after year and realising that their lives have changed but their image has not.’

The problem (one we may find it difficult to empathise with) is that stepping away from the picture-perfect life you’ve painted yourself into is painful – especially since, while it might not be authentic, it’s often lucrative. One vlogger with over 100,000 followers on Instagram (who asked not to be named), says it is almost impossible to imagine a normal life once you’ve earned a six-figure salary for such work.

‘You’re tethered to the industry because, if you’re earning that type of money, the idea of doing a normal job with a normal salary... it’s hard.’ Of course, now a lot of influencers are growing up, yet it’s tricky to get an audience to adapt. ‘You change, your ego settles down, you feel less of a need to share,’ continues the vlogger. ‘But if you’re creating different content, it may not be what people want.’

Are we now, particularly in these turbulent times, craving more authenticity? Molly thinks so, and believes we will see a merging of private and online personas. ‘We can see in the time of coronavirus that Instagram is uniting everyone. It is possible to come together across the digital divide. But I’d like to think we will be doing it as our more authentic selves.’

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