Posting into the Void: Is Influencing a Means to an End?
The internet taken and the internet giveth
(September Edit: previously it was said Zoella hasn’t uploaded a YouTube video in 6 years, while technically still true, she is still making content on a new channel Zoe Sugg)
It’s no hidden secret I’ve tried, like many, to go viral. First it was for my fashion company Covn, where I did a ‘Days Til Halloween’ series starting 75 days out from Halloween, each video attempting to go viral to get orders and customers (we never did go viral).
Then it became marketing myself as beccasaud, here on Substack, the creation of my own website and writing articles as a means to bridge the gap while looking for a job as an immigrant in another country. I was laid off from my role in a (toxic) start-up, I wasn’t alone as it was a firing squad of the sales team (and to make matters worse we weren’t even replaced by sexy AI we were replaced by an unsexy webinar).
It took me nine months after graduating with my Masters in Enterprise and Entrepreneurship to land that role, only to get laid off after 6 months of work. This time around, I knew I didn’t want to spend the next several months solely reading different types of rejection emails so I began focusing on creating my own content (Fuck it right? Influencers are buying houses in the Hamptons).
Like with Entrepreneurship, ‘Going Viral’ is painted constantly as one of those overnight success stories. In the golden year of TikTok (2020) it was possible to go viral and gain an overnight following (now not so much).
I first got my TikTok account in 2020 and while we all hope in small ways to go viral I never did, but I also never truly tried. I created lots of types of content: outfit inspo, get ready with me, comedy skits, vlogs and more.
But its a constant juxtaposition because ‘Going Viral’ is cool but it’s not cool to try to go viral. It’s why one of the constant streams of advice from these content creators when you’re starting out is to create a new account so (at first) your friends, family, and high school haters (and secret lovers) won’t be the first to see and talk about you.
I feel very similarly to how it was when I launching Covn: desperate and depressed (not exactly a good vibe cocktail of viewing content). In many ways it feels like you’re posting into the void. The amount of times I’ve said to my boyfriend ‘no one cares’ after I create something is innumerable. Because that’s what it feels like, but through research it’s clear these ‘viral’ moments that seem to appear out of nowhere are not simply that. These creators have been creating content for a while-the rest of us just ‘discovered’ them.
Take the now famous Pookie TikTok couple, the first video I saw of them on my fyp was filled of comments roasting her husband Jett for being underdressed compared to her in her now known ‘Fit Checks’. The same commenters weeks later praised Jett’s devotion to his Pookie Queen. The point being? They were out there curating and waiting (and ready) for their viral moment.
It’s embarrassing to seek validation from the masses, but the masses are who you need. In my generation (millennials) a funny recent lament is ‘I wish I made a YouTube channel in 2014’. Vloggers like Zoella (Zoe Sugg) and Charlieissocoollike (Charlie [Charlotte] McDonnell) shot up during this time as well as fashion bloggers like FashionToast (Rumi Neely) -but are they better off for it?
To be a vlogger IRL was to be weird back then and it would have been weird to whip out a camera with your friends hanging out (unless they were also vloggers as was the case in many of Zoella’s friend groups as she ended up married to Alfie Deyes another fellow YouTuber). Charlie [now Charlotte] deleted all her videos coming out as Trans in recent years so she’s not longer monetising older content. FashionToast has deleted her blog (I was shocked by this recently). Zoella hasn’t uploaded a new video in 6 years to her original account. Instead she created a new Youtube channel ‘Zoe Sugg’ a more family centred vlog channel, moving away from her original beauty sphere, while still being a notable feature in Alfie’s Vlogs.
So it’s not like these creators are objectively better off (maybe they are because they don’t have to work a 9-5) but clearly they all went through their own shit and the ultimate goal with going viral seems to be ultimately to go offline (ironically). A means to an end. A necessary evil. For the greater good.
I get the posting anxiety. I received a small taste of virality on my recent Bubble and Squeak TikTok video (where I discovered what Bubble and Squeak was in the UK) with Brits in the comment section (being overall lovely, sharing stories of their own bubble and squeak recipes and with 10% critical of the type of cabbage I used) but so often I’ve seen other videos where they rail into American creators (Europeans in general have no greater past time than thinking themselves better than Americans) so I prepared to be roasted but was pleasantly surprised I survived another day online.
The internet taken and the internet giveth. It only takes one bad take, one bad video, one bad opinion-to be cancelled. Only yesterday did bridal TikToker Caroline Crawford Patterson get roasted in her own comment section for making a poorly made dress for a friend’s wedding (my take here).
This is without factoring in how to keep your audience after you go viral. Every creator is wary of entering a ‘Flop’ era, coined for ‘Good’ creators and how the ‘Algorithm’ is working against them and not showing their content to their viewers.
Of course there’s successful stories from influencers, mainly in the beauty sphere. A rose-tinted (aka a new HD camera and 4 light set-up) program filled of brand deals and brand trips and PR packages that fill their room as proof that they’ve made it.
But fame, especially on the internet, is a fickle thing. It seems like the smart (and usually older) content creators know that they can’t (and shouldn’t) bank on a company to always support them (just like us in the real world), and even then, you can’t bank on your own audience to always support you.
More and more content creators are turning to creating their own businesses in an almost seperate identity to themselves. You have OG YouTuber Philip DeFranco early on selling his own merchandise on ‘Beautiful Bastards’, Expat YouTuber Estee Lalonde starting her own bath brand ‘Mirror Mirror’ and TikToker Lexi Larson who got viral for posting about hating her 9-5 job and smoking weed after work pivoting her account into a launching a loungewear brand called ‘Sunday Cherries’.
It’s a smart move, cut the middleman of brands, sell directly to thousands, if not millions, of your own audience, and utilise those Entrepreneurship skills you already have from becoming an influencer (I personally believe Influencers are 100% Entrepreneurs in every definition).
Of course this trajectory has changed the game for emerging brands, if you don’t have ton of money to give influencers in marketing then next logical thing is to become an influencer. A reverse engineering solution.
I already have a brand, two degrees, and the experience of working in fashion before I launched my business, that might as well be diddly squat if you don't have the platform to connect with consumers.
For now I will continue posting into the void. I’ve ‘done’ fashion for my entire adult life, over 10 years, my entire twenties and I quite frankly barely tried anything else. With the new found time since taking a step back from Covn and deciding I wanted to be an influencer, (content creator, writer whatever you want to call it) I started ruminating if this was the path I wanted, if this is what I always wanted to do. If I didn’t do this what would I do?
If you were an influencer what type of influencer would you be? An aesthetic food blogger? (Like Nara Smith whose the ultimate clean girl from scratch cook or maybe a different more chef’s table aesthetic like theemoodyfoody? or maybe you want to frolic in the Hamptons private chef life like Meredith Hayden)
Maybe it’ll be Fashion? (Boho Fairy vibes like Faith) Comedy Skits? (Like Caroline Klidonas giving us the best Hallmark movie plots in under 5mins)
Beauty? (like mega beauty Boston born rags-to-riches Mikayla Nogueira or Girly get ready with me that pushed Monet McMichael to fame?
Travel Vlogs? (Like American Expat condimentclaire?) Gardening? (Making garden bundles like carmeninthegarden) Home Decor? (like Bethany Ciotola giving all the English countryside moodiness in NJ)
Funny Couples Account? (Like Aileen and Devon laughing at each other online?) Camper Van Life? (Like Abigail Martin) Trendy Mum in the City? (Like Ilana Wiles’s super jam packed day in the life of a NYC Mom Vlogs?)
I really sat and had a Zoolander moment of ‘who am I and who do I want I want to be?’ so far I decided I’m going pursue the non-fashion interest I have and write about travel, food, cooking, and gardening (and whatever this counts as-thought pieces?).
That’s the thing, once you go viral you pigeonhole yourself into being known for one thing. The audience is our crutch and without its constant support anyone can fall, but there are things content creators can do to stand with or without their audience.
Only time will tell how each of these creators virality will turn out, and it seems like this generation of content creators understands just that. They’re creating their own brands, books deals and mechanise building a business that spans beyond and seperate from themselves.
I suppose every creator we love has started started out as cringe to all their friends, families and countrymen and they also all started out posting into the void, so maybe there’s hope for those still in it.
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