The influencer’s best friend

The life of an influencer is a particular one. It’s a lifestyle dually committed to public connection and public consumption. Yet, behind your favorite influencer’s feed posts will often lie another presence. A hand holding up a phone and snapping 10,000 pictures. 

For many years, that person was me. 

I never sought to have friends, let alone, best friends, that were influencers. It was something that just kind of happened. 

Living in Los Angeles, you meet a lot of people who want to be in front of the camera. I was, and still am, one of those people. But, starting around 2013-2014 I started noticing a shift. The rise of social media stars was changing the landscape of the group-dream of Los Angeles. People started repositioning from aiming to be in front of Hollywood’s expensive cameras and instead were opting to shoot themselves on their own. No set required or professional gear. The only thing standing in their way was pressing record. 

At the time, my friends and I were all struggling actresses, models, and whatever in between. The usual murky career label most young people in Los Angeles have at the start of their careers. However, amidst this shift, the moment came, and I’ll never forget it, when my friends changed their paths. Towards the new online frontier. And I, being a bit of a traditionalist at the time, didn’t.

Soon after, they immediately focused on building online audiences while I was still trying to convince Hollywood I was worth something. 

From 2015-2019, I watched my friends’ lives completely transform. The constant filming, uploading, and engaging paid off. They built substantial audiences across platforms, attuned to their specific quirks, traits, and interests. They had devoted fanbases, brand deals, clothing collections, invites to exclusive parties, and so much money, they didn’t even know what to do with it. 

Then there was me. Still the best friend. Still the stubborn traditionalist waiting for a big break. Still oscillating between being broke and having some ounce of money. Still taking their pictures. 

They had left me behind and it was all my fault. 

I’d repeatedly ask myself — Why didn’t I just become an influencer? Why, when you have so many friends around you succeeding at something, would you not try and learn and pick up what they’re doing? What was it that was holding me back?

I was haunted for years by these questions.

But, there was some impenetrable like force that kept me from doing it. Some stubbornness that felt like it grew from the center of the Earth like a wall to keep me out. Or to protect me. 

“…the commitment, to divvy out my day, to divvy out my life, to churn it as content, repeatedly, and incessantly so, was too much of a cost for me.”

There were times, and there still are times, I’ll take brand deals and post reviews. Doing influencer-adjacent things. And, of course, I do love sharing aspects of my life and my thoughts online. But the commitment, to divvy out my day, to divvy out my life, to churn it as content, repeatedly, and incessantly so, was too much of a cost for me. It takes too much away from real living. 

I watched that with my friends. I watched them split in two. Who they were online and who they were in person. And surreally, I watched that happen within our friendships. Some were worse than others. Their internet personas such a chilling departure from who they were in real life. I’d watch them oscillate personalities, horrified. For others, the change wasn’t so distinct. But it was there. Whenever their invisible audience was in the room, they were different. 

This dissonance began to rub off on me. I started thinking of myself as my “real” self vs my “online” self. What parts of who I am get to be a part of my online facade? What about myself can I advertise for likes? 

That’s what’s challenging about building a brand off of your personality or lifestyle —  How much of yourself do you save just for you? Where does the line stop? Or, is there even a line? And further, am I within that line as your friend? Or do aspects of our friendship get branded?

How do I exist within your online reality? 

What starts happening to me as I watch you put your life on display?

I felt like a weak puppet in the performance of their lives. But, let me be clear, I place no blame on them for that. It was of my own doing. Performing a diluted rendition of myself the moment their cameras would turn towards me. Refreshing my social media pages, obsessively, seeing if my one minute of air-time was worthy enough for their followers to punch my tagged username and follow. 

The problem was I was still struggling with the direction of my life and my values. Acting wasn’t working out and I didn’t know what to do about it. So, watching the closest people around me succeed in such nuclear ways by simply broadcasting their lives, confused me even more. While I was not actively trying to be an influencer, by having them so intertwined in my life, my habits started to morph into theirs. Their models of success were spilling into and affecting my brain. 

Thus, every moment was a chance for content. Vacations were not just vacations anymore, they were vehicles for content. Even who you dated was a chance for content. Nothing was off limits. I couldn’t step into a place without thinking of all the photo opportunities. Golden hour became synonymous with good lighting for pictures. Some days when I felt down on myself, I would think, at least I got a good Instagram out of it. 

Then there are the perks! You get to be the plus one at influencer events. You get the PR gifts they don’t want. You get people who end up following you just because of your proximity to them. Yes, you get all of these things, but, what ended up happening was that I felt like an abandoned trash bin collecting all of their extra stuff. They had so much excess of everything. Tossing what they didn’t want or didn’t have room for, towards me. 

That didn’t include just physical things, though. I also took on the non-physical. I unknowingly took on their set of values. Their ways of living. I said I didn’t want to be an influencer, yet I was performing the same way. And subconsciously, was secretly hoping to be one. I was imagining what I wanted out of my life through the lens of an Instagram post. I didn’t think of what it would be like to film and experience my dream acting role, I instead ogled and drooled over what it would be like to post a picture from set. 

The world, and what I could do within it, became smaller. It became the size of a phone screen. I started believing social media was the only way to legitimize my career.

“The world, and what I could do within it, became smaller. It became the size of a phone screen.”

There were times I tried to stand my ground and not indulge in the photo/video capturing. Trying instead, to enjoy the beautiful beach, or the beautiful house, or the beautiful dinner we were having. But, watching all of your friends take gorgeous pictures without you while you sit alone and try and take in the moment just doesn’t really work. They are still in and affecting your present reality. So, eventually, I would give in. Rise and take my place in line to take photos and have photos taken of me. Immediately rushing to look at my phone to swipe through the hundreds of photos taken. Thinking of which ones were worthy of being posted. All of us, surrounded by each other in a beautiful place, rummaging through our phones looking at photos of ourselves. 

Some of you might be thinking, so what? Let people document and enjoy things! And, I fully agree with you on that. But, for me, I have to ask and assert, where does the line stop? At what point does it become too excessive and ruin the moment? 

Well, if you’re getting paid for it, maybe it never does. Which was my problem. I wasn’t. They were simply doing their jobs. I was in their workplace. 

Come 2020, my meter had run out. Every time I was handed a phone to take a picture I wanted to chuck it on the ground and smash it into pieces. But instead, I’d force a placid face, grab their phones, and oblige. Until the tension would boil through my blood to my fingertips. Until I was unable to click and take another photo. Dropping the phone back in their hands. Trying to remember any semblance of living in the moment. 

Once the pandemic came, I had a lot of time to think. As we all did. Isolated, I was no longer surrounded by my influencer friends. For the first time, I was able to really digest who I was in proximity to them and if I wanted that version of myself to continue. 

The version of myself who was the struggling actress, who didn’t have a firm set of values, and who felt severed from what was important to her. The version of myself who was still waiting for Hollywood to give her a chance.

But, what was this “chance” anyway? And, was it really what I wanted? Or was it the validation of being chosen? Could there be something else more suited for me that would allow me with more ease to be an artist? I thought back to all of my influencer friends and how they disposed of the idea of being chosen. How they were living lives centered on choosing themselves. And through that thought, gratefulness inside of me began to bloom.

“I thought back to all of my influencer friends and how they disposed of the idea of being chosen. How they were living lives centered on choosing themselves.”

All of this time they were teaching me something. 

In a way, the career of an influencer is somewhat radical. It is a complete re-direction from the routes of success we were taught growing up. Especially, within the entertainment industry. You no longer operate thinking I need them to let me in. You create your own room, your own building, your own operation — built upon what is important to you. So, if people come knocking, they have to meet you at your level. 

My friends were living examples of this. I was so caught up thinking about the detriments of their social media usage, that I wasn’t able to zoom out and look at the value that transformed their lives. The value of actively taking the risk to choose yourself. 

I needed the space to be able to see this. But, I also needed the space to be able to rediscover my other values. I am not an influencer, nor do I want to be one. I am a writer and an artist. I want to share the art of my life. I don’t want my career based off of anything else. 

The eerie, still quiet of those early pandemic months allowed me to deepen into my subconscious and form a new relationship with social media. One inspired by connection, vulnerability, and social change. I no longer think of myself as the runt friend with residual followers from larger influencer accounts. I look at myself as the writer paving her way through the digital realms as well as real life. That’s what’s most important to me. Real life. Success to me is not going viral anymore. It’s placing my book in someone’s hands and them saying my words mean something to them. I don’t see my milestones through an Instagram post anymore. My world of possibilities is too big for that now. 

So now, it’s 2022, and my landscape of friends has changed. The majority are no longer influencers and those that are, choose to be intentional with their boundaries of sharing. I’ve quit auditioning for Hollywood and I’m working on my next book. 

Golden hour comes, and I bask in it, because I never have to take someone’s fucking photo again.

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If you’d like to read more from Halleta, you can buy her book here.