do we have to be influencers?

All of my young-adult life, I grew up surrounded by some form of social media. I was exposed to blogs, branding, and the rise of Instagram culture. I’ve seen thousands of color palettes, photography and writing styles. In fact, I’ve even adopted much of what I saw and transformed it into my own. I mean, that’s basically what life is: a constant stream of learning and trying to adapt to make ourselves feel happy and more fulfilled. With this exposure, I was inspired to build myself and my ‘brand’.

As I grew up and started figuring out who I am, the principles of developing a voice and style were parallel to my online presence. I’ve learned countless social media tips and strategies. I tried being an influencer, or at least tried to ‘make it’. I streamed, I built a community, I networked. Almost every time my effort ended with burnout, frustration, and me basically deleting my social media (some temporarily, some forever…). I never stopped to ask myself, does this make me happy? Is this is what I want actually want to do?

Because the truth is I grew up learning that we HAD to have a brand, a specific audience, that you have to post x amount of times per day, to post “organic” photos traveling to promote “authenticity”. Some of these aspects are crucial when trying to portray ourselves to the world, especially creatively and professionally. Look, I get it. It’s marketing. If you see a plastic water bottle with a picture of a forest on it, you might think the water is fresh and the brand helps the environment, but in reality, it’s a trick and a lie.

I am here to tell you that people don’t have to be brands. We don’t have to be influencers.

Taking pictures of ourselves is nice especially when we feel beautiful or are capturing a nice moment. However, when it becomes a chore or something we genuinely don’t like doing, I think that’s a good signal to pause / ask ourselves if what we’re doing is making us happy.

Just because you create content or live on some platform, doesn’t mean you need to participate in the game to fame or the journey which is promoting products you don’t really use nor fostering fake connections for the sake of success. Now I know to some of you, this is common sense. You don’t have to be anything, obviously, but in a society that has so many unspoken expectations it can be hard to be yourself or even know what that means. I got the message that since I’m conventionally attractive, I should model. Well, turns out I am not great at posing, and I don’t really enjoy doing photo shoots or having my picture taken. Or because I am pretty and I like to talk I should be streaming. Granted, I tried this, and I liked some parts, but honestly I am way too introverted to enjoy this and it’s not the best career for me nor the greatest use of my time. Plus I suck at marketing myself in that way (lol). There are ways I’ve adapted to enjoy social media and making content, but they do not fit the standard of traditional success nor do they fit the lifestyle I truly want. This is why I am relearning how to just, be. To be me as who I am without trying to ‘make it’ or gain a large following to prove to myself that I’m worth it.

I don’t enjoy the nuances of being an influencer or content-creator. The term ‘influencer’ is cliché and has its own stereotypes. When I think of my goals of why I want to put myself out there and create content, it doesn’t quite align with the traditional path to success in being a full-time content creator. I’ve been learning that that’s okay. It wasn’t till I actually tried my best to be consistent, post on several platforms, market/announce every stream or video that I realized this is not for me. However, as I’ve been distancing myself from social media and reforming my relationship with these platforms, I’m slowly finding a happy balance. I’m realizing that it’s okay that I don’t want to follow that other path, even though I committed years to it and have a large chunk of the skills needed to do so. Sometimes it’s not about fitting into the role, it’s about how the role fits into our lives and what makes us happy. For me, it just doesn’t. It doesn’t make me happy.

Accepting this lesson has taken a long time, because at first I was lost and frustrated. Later, I was in denial. When you commit to a path and invest how many dollars and hours into equipment, branding, community building, etc, it’s hard to let go. A brand and a community is a living entity of its own. It takes a while to build any sort of following and ‘success’. It wasn’t until I allowed myself to detach, disconnect, and stop that I was able to see how much I really don’t like ‘putting on a show’ or trying to market myself enough so that people think I’m worthy enough to watch or engage with. Even for the times where I felt confident, I did not like this game of trying to scream for attention and interaction. My time and energy are valuable, and I’d rather spend it talking about things that are more important to me than just trying to look pretty for the hell of it. All the respect for people who do this, make a living off of it, and enjoy it. But see, that’s the key! They enjoy it. Of course there are always aspects of a job we may not like, but if the majority of something is making you feel unhappy, then in my opinion it’s time to reconsider.

If the majority of being a streamer or trying to be an influencer makes you unhappy, maybe reconsider if this is what you want to do.

Amidst all other difficult things in my life, I’m at least happy that I’m slowly finding a balance that works for me. I’m learning to just be myself than just trying to be an influencer. It’s inevitable to do it perfectly and completely remove some factors which make a person 'an influencer’, however, I am at least at peace that I’m doing things my way and I can continue learning, growing, and just being me. Thanks for reading. This whole rant is partially what inspired me to create this new handle, it’s my “anti-brand brand” lol. I can’t help but like certain color palettes and change my logo and animate things to make it look nice, but my primary reason is not to sell more things or get more followers. It’s mostly for me, and what I like and how I want to represent myself. I believe intent is crucial and I’m glad I have the time and capabilities to express myself the most authentic way I can. If this resonates with you or if you want to share your own lessons or story, feel free to comment below. I figured at the end of each post I can do the basic “house-keeping”. I almost forgot I had this platform, hello again. I was about to record about this, and want to talk about this via video, but I just don’t have the energy at the moment (hi it’s janine from the future, I finally filmed! I talked a bit more about this topic, you can watch the video here). I haven’t been active on any platforms, and honestly it’s kind of nice. I made a video semi-recently talking about my social media detox. It still applies lol. I’ve learned which platforms I want to invest my time in. I think I need to also learn how to care less about what others think, but also see if I actually want to share certain things via specific platforms. Basically figuring out which platforms best serve me, but that’s another topic for later!

I don’t always want to create, but know that when I do, I will do it because I genuinely want to and I am grateful to be able to have a voice and platform, however big, to do so.