Influencers: the Ultimate Nightmare
Today I went to my gym. While I was getting ready to use the chest press machine, I saw a young lady fixing her smartphone on a tall tripod to film herself while doing exercises. She wore full make up and certainly showed no interest in impressing anyone but the camera. The best way to catch everyone’s attention is to behave as if you couldn’t care less. Maybe she’s one of those countless influencers with a small but loyal following? There was no way to know nor did I particularly care. Being an influencer is a perilous territory full of traps and perks, depending on your perspective. If you’re not their target audience, it’s a bunch of people trying to make their life as marketable as possible. They sell their personality a as brand turning whatever it touches to gold. This financially rewarding frottage helps them live way beyond the means of their followers, or at least those that take everything they see at face value. The most recent story is a proof.
Next to endless tributes to Jimmy Carter, a curious little headline at the Guardian emerged as well: Shafira Huang, a wealthy English influencer, had her house broken into, located in one of the poshest pockets of London. Allegedly, the burglar left with a loot of more than 10 million pounds in jewelry and purses. What kind of a person spends hundreds of thousands of pounds on bags that look as if they were designed by Pikachu himself? It reminded me of a local tourist here who was robbed of 3000 Euros in cash. You’d have to be an idiot to carry so much with you and my sympathies left with the thief too. As for Huang, naturally, the first thing that came to my mind is her career profile. After all, it led to tea time with the toe-sucking Duchess of York and obviously, a walk-in closet worth a burglary. The two ladies may have in common more than you think: having their cake, eating and flexing it too. Sometimes it leads to hiccups like this.
She is described as an art collector and cultural ambassador of an gallery in London. The perfect fit for a Newport society hostess from Gilded Age America. With the difference that back then, glamour girls were hiding their most valuable jewels under their petticoats. This one is the exact opposite and photos of stolen items look well, exactly as you’d imagine it. The whole cave without Aladdin and the lamp, simply put. And hilarious fashion like the aforementioned bag, which seems to be saluting a German dictator, minus the swastika. However, no political statements here. Our girl is too busy for that. At the moment, looking for the thief. Both are in hiding: her Instagram profile is reduced to only two posts without public access. But a website called Greatfon shows what used to be there and describing itself as the best for anonymously enjoying other people’s stuff.
While I’m sweating bullets, waiting to see if they can track my own profile down, there’s a yet another disturbing photo from her: a statue by Salvador Dali and right underneath it an open book with a portrait of Hitler staring at you. Huang swoons about it saying “My full time passion”. This hardly refers to him, but I don’t know her personally and it might be just a silly coincidence. Given everything going down right now, this isn’t helping and someone should tell her if things escalate further. When she first started building her online persona, I really doubt she could anticipate what that could lead to and how dark the water was that she was about to dive in. This is why I’d never post photos of my own children on social media. It’s hard to resist if you’re a parent and you want to share the joy. Of course, most parents aren’t geeks aware of this, which makes it even more important. Unexpectedly, a story about a big-time burglary abroad turned into a rabbit hole full of secret passageways into your personal life.
With the rise of success stories among influencers, podcasts and creators on other digital platforms, it’s no surprise that many started striving for what seemed like easy money when in fact it was an elaborate illusion because cosplaying wealth is sometimes harder than actually working for the real thing. Creators see content potential everywhere, fishing for all sorts of endorsement so annoying that it makes you switch the channel. Clicking on the featured link in bio might be what they’re going for but it leads in the other direction: Temu has become a corporate equivalent of Jojo Siwa. Try as you might to avoid it, it finds a way to get to you, fighting for free rent in your already overcrowded mind. Needless to say, he door to mine is firmly shut to both. The tragic victim of the headline-grabbing robbery is a cautionary tale of why flex is no longer such a good idea. You’re almost inviting people to treat your mansion as a free thrift shop.
Expectedly, there’s schadenfreude in the public reaction, after all the Marie Antoinette of Instagram had too much of her own cake, so the time has come to pick up the crumbs and clean the table. Her last reported story shows her prancing around in a luxurious chalet, with the view of a snowy landscape outside. The one before that shows her at home, around a big, flashy Christmas tree that might as well be in a shop window at Harrod’s. Most people will merely have an opinion about it, but it takes a special kind of person to see this as an invitation for a once-in-a-lifetime heist. Some see her husband as partly responsible for their lavish lifestyle, and I wouldn’t dismiss the thought because her job sounds like a side gig for a trophy wife. At least that’s the image she’s projecting and we live in an age that’s all about image. In a sort of way this is the logical conclusion of this modern phenomenon: Huang stuck her neck out and paid the price. Hopefully she’s got insurance to cover the damage but if you can afford all that she certainly won’t be desperate to survive despite this daunting setback.
Believe it or not, there are people who never buy anything online due to fear of being exposed to risks of getting hacked. What happens when the same thing that elevated you turns into a curse? The time has come to reap the consequences of Warhol’s famous prophecy. Fifteen minutes of of fame for a lifetime of anxiety, voyeurism and anguish as you wait for the phone to ring with another business opportunity which may or may not come. What I found extremely disappointing is how vulgar it all is once you tear away the curtain of mystery. In that sense, the mysterious burglar is something like a postmodern Wizard of Oz. If anything, he dismantled the desperate nature of human vanity where everything is a compensation for things we’re lacking. Countless videos of influencers unpacking shoes, jewelry, purses, laptops or smartphones come to my mind. What’s the point? Are they supposed to create a parasocial hit of dopamine when the box opens to reveal a Dior handbag. You hear the sound of the wrapping crush inside as the influencer holds it in his hands, praising its quality.
The leather is clearly as real as my foreskin, hence the pricetag. But I doubt there would be a waiting list for the latter because it’s not hidden behind a pricetag. It’s easy to get tricked into joining the influencer economy should the numbers start rising in your favor and there’s more people waiting to see what you got than you ever expected. But that’s a yet another absurd. If the follower numbers are anything to go by, Shafira Huang isn’t really that big of a fish, since it’s less than 15 000 people. It’s logical to conclude that all those baubles weren’t paid by Instagram revenue. The modern cult of the individual is inextricably linked to narcissism and self-actualization. They exclude everyone who doesn’t add any value to their persona. The world that elevates rich influencers turns people into personas, Potemkin would be proud. We reduced ourselves to curated cutouts of the most desirable impersonation. Who do I want to be today? Who do you want me to be today? The question on the mind of everyone posing for a selfie.
Our girl wanted to know the same thing. Who do you want her to be today? The lady rubbing shoulders with royalty? The one in the front-row seat at Fashion weekend? The one luxuriating in a romantic family holiday bliss? The social semiotics we were brought up with is slowly crushing under the weight of conflict between the signifier and what is signified. The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure would certainly have something to say about this as well, since his theories about language are related to contrasts and similarities influencing your own, among other things. The phenomenon of influencers is rooted in contrasts. Worship of excess of experience and materialism, excess of consumerism and perceived privilege. The one you can just aspire to. So what’s it gonna be today? Who’s it gonna be? I honestly don’t know. One thing though is for sure. I won’t be a heist victim, because the only valuable thing hiding in my closet used to be me. Not anymore. What’s left inside is the dust settling over my fears and insecurities. Feel free to take it, no more room for unsolicited pain.
