About 12 years ago I went through a divorce, which was, as you can imagine, a really painful experience. In the aftermath, I started seeing a psychologist in order to help me through things, and to stabilize my mental health. During one particular sessions I explained to my doctor how it felt worse when I would spend time online (social media) and come across posts by people I deemed to be having it better than me.
My doctor told me, "It's all an illusion. You're only seeing what they let you see." This is something I've taken with me every day since, and something I've worked to instill in my kids as they deal with the online community more and more.
I came of age just as Myspace came into existence. I remember needing a college email address to sign up for Facebook. So far, I've witnessed every phase social media has been through, including the rise of the social media influencer.
I remember the time before it was a thing, before the branded posts, before the sponsored-content warnings, and before it felt like every picture and video I see was trying to see me something. It's a whole different ballgame now.
At the time I am writing this, while taking my lunch break, the algorithm pushed someone's post to me on this very subject. The person belongs to our industry, but whom I won't name, wrote a few paragraphs calling out the entire influencer culture. They criticized the whole facade that it tries to create, and while I agreed with a lot of what they had to say, on this one point I felt divergent.
While their intent was to place that influencer culture into contrast with "real success" I think there is something else worth examining, another way of looking at things.
Often time's we characterize the "real" work with words like sacrifice, humility, authenticity, long hours, extra-mile dedication, and personal investment, etc. We envision the struggling small business owner, working day-in- and day-out, not the person constantly bragging and showing off, right? The "fakeness" of the influencer/entrepreneur is often characterized by their unrealistic looking lifestyles, their hyper-curated feeds, podcast appearances, or inspirational LinkedIn posts.
To me, the two aren't that far apart, and the more insidious "influencer trap" is believing that they are.
Every social media account is curated. What you see is what the person wants you to see. It's an image they create and present to their followers, but it isn't real, whether they have spon-con. or not. In some cases, those accounts that stress their authenticity and their "realness" are no more that than the one going into debt on a vacation to make people think they have it all together. Their goals are essentially the same, although they take different routes to them.
As we gear up for the 2025 World of Asphalt and all the posts start hitting your social media timelines, keep in mind that those probably getting the most out of the show, are those too busy to take the time to show you.
