“Zero Self-Awareness”: 30 People Who’ve Worked With Influencers Share What They Were Like
The life of an influencer can seem pretty glamorous from the outside. Paying your bills by going to photoshoots, sharing sponsored posts on Instagram and attending events where you get to film yourself eating extravagant meals and mingling with others in gorgeous hotels might sound like a dream. But on the other side of the camera, those who actually have to spend time with influencers might be having much less fun.
Below, you’ll find stories that people who have worked with or encountered influencers in real-life have detailed on Reddit to give the public a clearer view into their filtered lives. Enjoy reading through these stories that polished social media profiles won’t tell you, and be sure to upvote the juiciest ones! Image credits: Notalabel_4566
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I went to high school with someone who blew up to nearly 200k followers cause of her kid. She was my bully, and seemed to always treat everyone rudely unless she could get clout.
She got “cAncElLeD” for being racist during the BLM protests and I have never felt so vindicated lol.
Sounds like this story has a semi happy ending. I hate influencers that have become famous off of their kids that have no way to consent and will have tons of pictures and videos of themselves on the internet, forever
Never worked for but I grew up with the Fat Carrie Bradshaw (Chris Burns) and I will say that he is the kindest, funniest, most inclusive person ever. Truly a good egg and deserves all the good fortune in the world.
My best friend’s brother is the DermDoctor on TikTok with like 18 million followers and I’ve known him my whole life. I’ve never seen any of his TikToks so idk how he comes across online, but he’s a really nice, soft spoken boy irl
Not worked for, but worked with. A few influencers, and one who is a Twitch girl, became flight attendants at my airline. I’ve been a flight attendant for 14 years, and the influx of these girls is annoying. Constantly filming and taking pictures, even during critical phases of flight (aka when we aren’t allowed to have our personal devices on)— totally out of touch goofballs. Super lazy too. When the cell phone cameras are off, the work ethic is gone. The egos crack me up. Also one of them is almost unrecognizable from her filtered/shopped photos. I don’t know who these people are online, I just know from my other co-workers. I don’t care what you do online, please just do your job. Lmao.
I think photoshopped faces and figures should be tagged in some way (yes I know, most of the internet). It’s not fair to younger generations feeling less than because they don’t look like all of these fake people online
I live next to an influencer who markets herself as an entrepreneur and high end business coach (30K followers). Meanwhile, she never tells anyone that she still has her office job and her parents are paying her bills AND clean her house every week. She is 30 and healthy, I don’t see why she can’t clean herself. But hey, another post with an expensive bag or car coming up in 3-2-1…
I worked for years as an assistant to someone with around 500k instagram followers. Not a beauty influencer or anything but something pretty niche, and she was middle aged.
She would constantly get sent SO MUCH free s**t. She didn't know what to do with it or even look at half the stuff. She gave me stuff all the time lol.
Also sometimes she would message or email random (large) companies to ask for free stuff if she wanted something specific. Usually they would say yes. One time she got a $5k camera. Blows my mind.
Otherwise she was pretty normal but definitely out of touch. (Think, "it's one banana Michael what could it cost? $10?")
Also having to help with filming reels, it would be funny to see the final post, looking so casual and unscripted. But in reality we did like 10 shots of the exact same sentence/redoing the scene. For example unboxing something.
No one well known, but I had a travel blogger friend who was filming while we were out one day - to celebrate my birthday - and then posted the video on YouTube without asking my permission. I asked her to edit me out, as politely as I could, but she wasn’t happy about that, ended up taking the whole video down, and our friendship ended there.
So mildly insufferable, I’d say. Always “on” and engaging with social media, a lot of interactions felt put on just for the camera.
Not work, but my distant cousins are a YouTube family channel. At our shared great-grandmothers funeral they were rudely telling all the other kids, “I’m only sitting here because my mom says I have to be nice to our fans.”
I know one that I went to school with like 10k followers who is constantly asking places for freebies (her engagement is really low - sometimes ten likes with one or two comments) and at work an influencer (3.2million followers) called and made a booking, never asked for a freebie, paid and did the tour happily and was super low key. She even posted it on her stories after (no one asked her to, she didn’t get paid to do it or anything)
i’m a jewelry designer and have made jewelry for big celebrities and also influencers. The influencers are always the worst. I feel like influencers have created this sense of entitlement where people now want free s**t in exchange of “exposure”. The amount of dms i get from people wanting free s**t who call themselves an influencer and have 0 posts, barely any followers, and don’t follow me is actually insane but that’s a separate conversation lol
Was ex-best friends with two sister influencers that are popular on every social media (millions+ following each) platform who have been popular since musically. Basically we were best friends for like 7 years and I supported them and went to stupid influencer events with them (like VidCon) and film premiers. I got noticed eventually and people would literally come up to me saying “ohh are you x and y friend?” (because I was featured in their content sometimes).
Basically…had a falling out this year after a near decade friendship because they kept canceling on me to film/edit content (THAT IS COMPLETELY OPTIONAL). They would choose a date & time and then as I’m going to pick them up, they would cancel saying “I really want to put this vid out tomorrow sorry!”. It pissed me off and I felt completely disrespected and disregarded. One time one of the sisters in particular wanted to bring her laptop to edit a new YouTube video at a club and I was dumbfounded. And we couldn’t go anywhere without them being spotted and asked for photos which is fine but kind of annoying and inconvenient because I ALWAYS took the photos and I just wanted to be alone.
Anyway, being around influencers for 7 years (and not being one myself) taught me that they’re all entitled, fake personas, friendships/relationships on social media aren’t real, they get paid a s**t load of money to do a 2 minute sponsor and they are ALL tone deaf and extremely out of touch. Don’t recommend. Lost my two best friends over fame 🥲
I worked with a few fitness influencers when I worked at a popular spin studio. One of them was a former beauty Queen too, and she was lovely- would take the time to introduce herself to people and learn about them, had a lot of grace and all round personable. But we are talking eating disorder central. It made me sad because she is clearly a kind person who has had a lot of emphasis placed on her looks. As a fitness instructor, her body is supposedly attainable… but ‘actually no, that’s not the truth, Ellen.’ She made money out of fitness retreats and the like, but would also frequently pass out from hunger.
My close friends know “the ace family”, Austin is a huge cheater (which is well known) but he always denies. One time my friends were at his house and Austin had just gotten back from cheating over the weekend. Well when they got into the house his wife caught him because girls DM’d her, so what does Austin do? Blame my friend and said he was the one hooking up with the chick so Catherine kicked my friend out of the house when really it was Austin. And yes they’ve lost a lot of money and he spends way too much money
Isn't this the family who had a "house showing" video and when they were doing a small workout in their home gym the dad was like "whoo, come on kids, let's go outside and get fresh air! You deserve it!" Like, yes, they deserve fresh air? And then the wife was rolling around with the kids in the grass in this skin tight white dress??? I don't understand how there's enough people who watch this mess.
I once worked with an influencer and regret it . She came 30 minutes too late and when I asked her what happend she said "I wanted to sleep" . We went to a restaurant and she behaved like a Karen . For example : She orded a salad with bacon and when the waiter gave it to her she screamed and said "I didn't oder Bacon". But the one thing that left me in shock was when we went to an event . She filmed a video for her channel and was nice and good to everyone but after turning off the camera she behaved like a total monster . She even threw a cupcake right into my face
C'mon just because your a influnecer dosnt mean your a god.
I have a friend whose dog has a modest following on instagram (~20k). It’s shocking how much work goes into running the account. Like, once she went on vacation and had her dog sitter send photos every day to be posted. And she goes to dog-themed events all the time to network with other dog accounts. But also, they occasionally get free stuff.
So, not super interesting tea, but all I have to offer 😭
A friend of mine dated a YouTubers BIL and said that their house was a mess because they had many rabbits and they just let them roam and s**t all over their house while the YouTuber just stayed in their bedroom every time they visited. BILs mom sometimes came over and cleaned after the rabbits but not often enough
I read BIL as Bunny in Law because of the picture. Please tell me I'm not the only one
So a major regional retailer had their photoshoot setup in an office across the street from the restaurant I worked at and they just had an open tab for the models who were working at the time. So the models would come in and just order whatever they wanted, we'd serve them and charge it to the company at the end of the month.
There were male and female models from all over the world, many of them influencers. They were generally all polite though they did tend to be a little airheaded.
Some of the sweetest girls came by to say goodbye and thank you when their contracts ended because I had helped them translate a bunch of stuff and they said I was always super nice and helpful 😭😭
I’ve worked with a handful of influencers in a very specific niche, so most of them didn’t have a huge following— one had a million followers and that was by far the biggest account.
They were all nice enough but jfc every single one required so many follow ups, reminders, check ins, general handholding, etc. All posts/videos ended up having typos or incorrect info, like none of them took a minute to check the material we provided.
The 1M account was by far the worst in terms of excuse after excuse for not getting anything done, plus it was a family-style account heavily focused on one of their kids, so that gave me the ick.
Anyway, I realized I do not want to work with influencers after that experience lol
Divas. We would send them to concerts and festivals in exchange for them taking photos with our product. Most of the time they would get too drunk, not take the required photos and were always late with deliverables.
Their agents were always great, but the influencers themselves were terrible
i’m an artist with around 30k, and have lots of friends that have around that amount or more. most are incredibly nice and humble. i guess it’s different for artists because we don’t get brand deals or vacations, and most don’t show their faces. people think you have money if you have a lot of followers but that is definitely not the case for artists. even when instagram featured me on the official instagram page, i did not get paid…
I only use IG to share my craft (embroidery), and I think it's the loveliest little corner of the internet. Everyone is so supportive and positive to other crafters/artists, no matter how many followers they have. (Oh and people share tons of cat pictures which makes it even better 😄)
I’ve worked with dozens of top tier influencers (1m+ followers, lame metric but you get what I’m saying) during my time at a weho podcast network. I was managing a creative dept and typically did ~2 hr promo shoots with anyone notable that came through the studio. I can honestly say the vast majority of them were perfectly fine people. I’d go as far as to say I like a lot of them. In my experience, it’s not the influencers who were difficult, it was the C-listers/A-Listers of yesteryear (a female American idol host to call one out) that made my job hell
Anyone coming from a casting show and not win it should just give up and go back to their normal life. All these former bachelor/bachlorette candidates who think because they were on the show they are hot s**t now and desperately cling to the public attention are pathetic.
it’s similar to snapchat girlies behavior.
constant filming, constant finding their light, always asking for photos, editing….
it’s almost like you aren’t in the room sometimes. or your a prop. last one i hung out with i straight up said “hey can we just do a little time without our phones?” and she looked at me like i was *crazy*
everything is for sale- every moment is a opportunity. i find it exhausting. (ofc some influencers are not this way but all the ones i’ve met, won’t pass up any opportunity for a photo op/ are painfully aware that if they aren’t actively engaging with their fan base they become yesterdays news).
i know some cool “content creators” that are very chill and lowkey. but they aren’t featured
It’s a constant battle to stay relevant as an influencer. As much as I’d love their lavish lifestyle, sometimes I wonder if I could pull it off, and even if I did, if I’d enjoy the experience
My friend owns a marketing company, and he said it’s awful and has since refused to work with influencers.
From what he told me, the influencers themselves are not terrible (albeit, from his words, some are completely entitled). He would tell them a campaign and they either loved it and were down, or not and he would move on.
For those who said yes to working with him, the issues arose with the management teams. He said that the management would try to gauge more money from him, acted like their client was the hottest celeb in the world, or would completely disregard the influencers requests and tell him their client was stupid and they could no longer interact with the person.
I am in marketing, have worked with influencers, and yes, this is absolutely true. Some of them are on the less famous side, really lovely to work with. They would apply to represent a brand, get the job, then their 'agent' would come in demanding more money after they already agreed to a set price (which was on the ad). They would try to claim ownership of the individual in some pretty...concerning ways. It was very bizarre. Met another guy trying to make it big who was just an all around horrible person. Tried to get the client to pay for expensive suits, tried to claim he 'didn't own clothes' so if we wanted him to star we had to pay for designer/tailored suits. Lied when his agent called saying it was a family member trying to extort money when really he was just cheating his agent, then waited until the last possible moment when he knew we couldn't recast and tried to extort us for three times the agreed upon price. Also tried to tell us we were not allowed to use his image-
Friend did a stint with a HUGE twitch streamer, has a history of being controversial. To the surprise of no one he was a juvenile self-absorbed prick.
"Twitch streamer" already screams of juvenile. Nothing against monetizing a hobby, but a lot of those types seem to think what they do is equal to having won the Olympics or a Nobel prize.
I can share one little thing; often if they are an account that promotes something they will be promoting something that belongs to someone they know. e.g. if they do a 'my top 5' etc. video or clip then one thing in there will be the particular thing they are actually making the video to promote and (it might be changed now idk) they don't have to class it as a paid promotion or advertising doing it in this format.
For example I know an influencer who constantly 'just happens' to like things sold by her husband's company and they always make it into her top purchases of that month or that season, not that she ever mentions the connection.
Work related to influencers.
I used to work on the business retail side of cosmetics and L'Oréal came to us with an influencer deal (French Speaking ~1-2M followers). They created her own "line" of lipsticks. To be frank, the lipsticks kinda sucked. There were only 2 colors and they were just the normal collection but with her name on it. I don't remember ONE color being exclusive.
The launch was a really big deal. One of our store was closed so that she could do signing and and photos with fans. I remember my colleagues being super excited about it. AFAIK, she was nice to the staff and the event went well. But... the "line" was a total flop. L'Oréal ordered way too many lipsticks and just no one wanted them them. I don't remember the sales number, but we probably sold 1/4 of the quantity ordered. My company had exclusivity too.
We ended up having to put the lipsticks on sale but even then, they didn't leave the stores. I remember pretty heated arguments between the L'Oreal reps and my boss to get rid of them and my boss shouting "who the f*ck is this influencer?". We ended up shipping all of them back to L'Oréal and I think they destroyed them. Pretty wasteful.
I know this influencer has since released another lip product collection with another brand and I'm pretty sure it didn't go much better.
Edit to add that obviously, this whole stint was presented as super cool, and that it sold so well and whatnot. But on the business side, it was a pretty s****y deal.
i used to work with an influencer who’s whole persona was “girl boss” “hustle culture” and girls looked up to her for that. she would show up to work just to take selfies then leave lmao.
A former acquaintance of mine recently went FAR down the right wing rabbit hole (not everyone should vote, marriage isn't a right, women shouldn't lead in church roles, queer people are groomer., etc.) and seems to be trying to become a conservative influencer. He has about 2k followers on Twitter and is trying to sell merch.
In real life, he hasn't been able to hold down a job for years and has largely been supported by his wife. He's one of the most deeply unpleasant people I've ever met.
When one of my stylists was starting out, she worked on a ton of “influencers” aka Kylie’s friends. Chantell Jefferies was chill and easy to work with, but Stassiebaby took forrrreveeeerrrrrrrr (like a year) to pay her.
I was working as an art director for a company and we used a few local influencers for a campaign. They were actually very lovely to work with. They were professional, friendly, and took directions really well. They knew what they were doing in front of the camera. I was surprised by how different some of their personalities were compared to what you saw on their social media. These were influencers with followers ranging from 50k to 200k+.
Who are they influencing with 50k or even 300k followers? The way people swipe swipe and not absorb anything with their goldfish attention span, I doubt they’re influencing anyone. Watch next time you’re at a restaurant or even walking down the mall.
Note: this post originally had 64 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
I read this rather than doing any actual work. It was ok. Nothing new learned. 5/10 will probably read similar posts in future when avoiding doing things.
🤣 thanks for encapsulating my experience exactly. Procrastination is not picky, sometimes
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This Influencer BS shits me to tears. Unless you are educating others or otherwise contributing to the good of society then just STFU. it's rampant narcissism. Grow up, get a job, learn about others who have life harder than you. The very least you can do is SHUT UP, stop posting self obsessed BS and tell kids to be.kinder to one another
My one take-away from this post: not all influencers are absolute asses. I also kinda wish I knew the profiles of the bad ones so I know who not to subscribe to/follow.
I read this rather than doing any actual work. It was ok. Nothing new learned. 5/10 will probably read similar posts in future when avoiding doing things.
🤣 thanks for encapsulating my experience exactly. Procrastination is not picky, sometimes
Load More Replies... This Influencer BS shits me to tears. Unless you are educating others or otherwise contributing to the good of society then just STFU. it's rampant narcissism. Grow up, get a job, learn about others who have life harder than you. The very least you can do is SHUT UP, stop posting self obsessed BS and tell kids to be.kinder to one another
My one take-away from this post: not all influencers are absolute asses. I also kinda wish I knew the profiles of the bad ones so I know who not to subscribe to/follow.
