Disabling the Influencer Mindset by Briea Frestel, LCSW, CADC
You’ve been following her for a while. She’s energetic, inspiring, humorous, beautiful by western cultural standards, and seemingly has the perfect life. Her personality traits drew you to her, but her aesthetically pleasing pictures, videos, and home kept you here. Her home is engulfed with Target and Pottery Barn’s latest pieces, her style is up to date, her skin care routine is top notch, and her lips are full without a wrinkle in sight. She is, from the outside looking in, perfection. You may recognize your thoughts go from, “Wow, she is so positive and energetic and her outfits are good inspo” to “Well… why can’t I look like that? Why isn’t my home that big? How come my body isn’t shaped like hers?”. She then begins to recommend products or programs that will help YOU achieve everything she has. Detox teas, “botox in a bottle”, meal prep plans, workout programs (often curated by someone who is not a certified personal trainer), clothing, unregulated vitamins… the list goes on. You buy these products and then your heart becomes broken because your body/skin/home doesn’t look like hers. The innocent follow of an influencer online has now become a place where you judge yourself, negatively compare yourself, and use your purchasing power to grow diet culture’s billion dollar industry.
In a time where much of our time is spent online, it’s easy to feel impacted by the people you follow. A social media influencer is defined as someone who has established credibility in a specific industry, has access to a huge audience and can persuade others to act based on their recommendations. Oftentimes, the established credibility is beautiful, thin, and has the “perfect life”. Contrary to what you may be thinking, this is NOT a bash-on-influencers blog. The influencer has found an entry point into a market that has elevated her connection to others, financial stability, and much more. Heck yes, girl. This woman is also in the same spiral of diet culture, striving for perfection alongside her followers.
What is harmful is the portrayal of perfection, self-objectification, and digital manipulation used daily on social media.
All of these things have been shown to impact body-image, increase eating disorders, and decrease an individuals sense of worth. The use of online filters have impacted these experiences even more because they often distort the users face by making their lips plumper, cheekbones higher, and chin slimmer; otherwise unattainable unless using surgical procedures. The Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Society found surgical procedures in 2021 increased 54% and non-surgical procedures were up 44%, with the most used non-surgical procedures being neurotoxins (botox) and dermal fillers. As we have spent more time using visual telecommunication in the past two years than ever before, it makes sense we have sought after treatments that alter our appearances. There is a difference between wanting to enhance your features vs. changing your body to feel worthiness or combat low self-esteem. We are currently in a culture where billion dollar companies’ marketing strategies are heavily dependent on online connections and immense influencer followings. These companies bank on our low self-worth and compulsion to buy the next product to make ourselves feel better. How do you stop this?
BRING AWARENESS TO WHAT YOU ARE CONSUMING AND HOW IT AFFECTS YOU
Take note of the types of accounts you follow. What emotions or beliefs about yourself arise when you scroll through their content? Do you feel uplifted, joy, connected, and understood? Or do you feel inadequate, disgusted with yourself, and motivated to change parts of you that were never wrong in the first place? If you are feeling more of the latter, give yourself some grace and compassion. These emotions and urges are giving you information about the unhelpful content you are consuming. Next, I suggest you remove any accounts that align with these feelings. Begin to follow accounts that spark curiosity, connection, and interest in activities you may be interested that don’t involve changing your body. After a while, the social media platform’s algorithm will change to match what it believes your interests are and suggest more accounts like that. Another practice you can use is intermittent media fasting. This is a practice where you either take two days to months long breaks (whatever you are willing to try) and identify how you may feel during your time away from social media platforms.
Utilize your time to seek connection in others who are also looking for self-liberation from the endless cycle of diet culture and social media. When you feel an urge to start the next big diet fad or buy the newest skincare product that swears to rid you of all your “imperfections”, instead buy yourself a movie ticket or take yourself out for a yummy meal. Following the never ending diet trends and using filters won’t lead you to a meaningful life, but instead a life of constantly chasing an unattainable standard. Disabling the thoughts and actions we have learned as women over decades is hard and may seem overwhelming. At the end of the day, we are just women seeking connection and wanting to feel enough. It’s important to remember that you are enough without the need to change yourself.
