Idk who needs to hear this but you are not a social media influencer

I’ve been thinking a lot about social media influencers because I see them all the time – online and in real life. I’ve met people with thousands of followers and watched them behind-the-scenes. Sometimes I like them and think they are fun, sometimes I think they are just too much.

For example, the other day I took my friends to a complimentary wine tasting at a winery. As part of the complimentary experience, I am asked to take photos and post on social media. My friends and I enjoy our 1 hour presentation with the Sommelier and we take pictures throughout the tasting and at the very end.

After our session, another group arrives for the same complimentary wine tasting. They arrive with DSLRs and cameras. Instead of sitting down and starting the wine tasting, they take the bottles of wine and plates of cheese and crackers to different spots and start taking photos. This includes taking the wine outside by a tree.

We watch through tinted windows as they took their pictures and boomerangs and some more pictures. They were outside for at least 15-20 minutes. The Sommelier actually had to go outside and ask them when they could start the wine tasting.

My friends are not that big on photos. They are more of the “be present in the moment” kind of people, so they thought it was weird/funny for them to be taking so many photos before even doing the wine tasting experience.

I take a lot of photos so I felt weird watching them because I was literally them 10 minutes ago. I wasn’t as extra but still, I was like them in the sense that I wanted and needed to take pictures to showcase this experience. A part of me understood them and enjoyed this aspect. It’s fun to take photos and get a good shot, but I also felt slightly embarrassed watching as a third party because it was a little much.

I saw this on Instagram the other day and thought it was really funny and relatable:

I’ve been asked: Are you an influencer?

No. Definitely not. I have this blog because I like to write and I like to share my experiences. Most of my experiences are self-paid for because I actually want to do these things.

My Instagram currently has 2k+ followers, which is already more than I had ever hoped for when I first made an Instagram account. I do get random offers from companies – free sunglasses, a discount code to crappy online clothing, wine tasting – but rarely do I actually accept these offers because really who am I? I’m not here to tell me friends, family and people who like my pictures to buy shit. I’m just a normal person.

I’ve also been asked: Don’t you want to be an influencer full-time if you could?

Again, my answer is no. Even if being a full-time influencer gave me a higher regular income, I would never want it to be my career. I want my career to be related to my actual skills or education.

What are my final thoughts about social media influencers?

This post isn’t about bashing them or looking down on people who are, who believe they are, or who want to be social media influencers. You can be whatever you want and you can spend hours taking photos if that’s what you enjoy doing. I think that’s the most important thing – you need to enjoy it and do it for you, not your followers.

I simply recommend more balance in life. If you spend hours taking photos, I hope you spend even more time actually doing the activity and being present in the experience. Sometimes I am so focused on taking pictures, I forget to just enjoy myself. At the end of the day, I may have a bunch of great photos, but no funny stories about what happened.

Every person enjoys an experience differently – some people are like me or more like the group at the winery. Other people are more like my friends. Be a little bit of both and try to understand each other’s way of enjoying an experience.

TLDR: Just let people enjoy things.

Sincerely, Loewe