9 Redditors Share What It's Like To Be Friends With An Influencer

Because of constant oversharing on the part of influencers, we get an idea of what it's like to be a social media influencer. Sometimes, a single picture can cause a huge backlash! However, have you ever wondered what it's like to be friends with an influencer? These Redditors reveal what a friendship with a vlogger/blogger/content creator can be like - it doesn't sound great. Some influencers' need to constantly create content seems a bit annoying...

#1 All That Glitters is not Gold

"Pretty mundane, honestly. My friend is conventionally attractive, and if you look at her social media, you'd think she were a supermodel millionaire who goes on tons of trips.

She's actually chronically unemployed, and has an income of less than 10k/yr. Her boyfriend makes about $60k/yr which is enough to afford them a very nice 3 1/2 bedroom apartment, and she has tons of props she uses to make each room look different from day to day so it seems like she's always in a new, exotic place. They take two trips a year to fun, tropical places, in which she takes many photos, and posts them as different places throughout the year.

She's a very kind, considerate, sparkling personality, but whenever we hang out, I tend to be a shoulder to cry on as she laments about her lack of success in life. It's quite sad, honestly. But with her creativity and personality, I think she'll achieve her dreams eventually."

[LemonFly4012 via Reddit]

#2 Dating an Influencer

"I dated one. Not super popular but followers in the 100k range last time we spoke. I remember a lot of getting ignored and only receiving nice gifts/acts of kindness when they could post about it. Asking me to go to nice places (they didn't drive) only to leave me on a bench somewhere while they took pictures. Huge strain on the relationship, especially when they started to get bigger and there was more demand for content."

[42charlemagne via Reddit]

#3 That Must Hurt

"She hasn’t come to anything I’ve invited her to in 5 years because she only goes to events that 'further her business.' Regularly says things like, 'we’re all using each other for something.' Sometimes she texts me the same exact thing word for word over a couple of days, and it’s obvious she just copy/pastes the same thing and sends it to all of us and then forgets who she has sent it to.

She still reaches out to me multiple times a year and claims I’m one of her best friends, but it sure doesn’t feel like it. I’ve told her as much, but she just says 'this is my life now, my business comes first and if you can’t accept that, then I guess you’re not a real friend.'"

[Cirrus-Ramparts via Reddit]

#4 Family Vloggers are a Challenge

"I worked with Youtube influencers in my last job with an agency that paired sponsors with these 'celebrities'. I basically did the grunt work like ensuring hotels/plane tickets, getting coffee, running errands and meeting with the talent to ensure they were where they needed to be (e.g., events, conferences, trade shows, parties or whatever).

Over time you make friends with others who are in those positions, especially when you're running errands for some entitled pseudo-celebritiy.

The nicest Youtubers were the animators - always calm and understanding.

The worst were the family vloggers - I've met all the big ones & I never met one that wasn't a completely different person off camera. The kids are always spoiled and no one disciplines them so they're running around breaking things or acting like idiots, and no one can yell at them lest their influencer parents find out.

Close second is makeup Youtubers."

[JohnnySilverhands via Reddit]

#5 The "Micro Influencer"

"I post travel photos and have about two hundred followers. 200, not 2000 or higher.

My friend somehow thought that was influencer status and decided to copy me - except she quit her job so she could travel more and 'grow her own brand'. In 2020, she lost her apartment, her car, and still hasn't found a job, but calls herself a professional influencer all the same."

[oikorapunk via Reddit]

#6 The one That has no Fun

"I was with a guy at Coachella, he has a pretty good following on IG. He posted something while we were watching a concert and could not look away from his phone. I asked him when he’d eventually put his phone away and he said he would when he got over 1,000 likes.

I couldn’t believe it."

[legagneur via Reddit]

#7 The Only Life is the Insta Life

"This was my ex gf. I couldn’t eat before she took a dozen picture. We went hiking and had to turn around less than a mile in since she spent an hour taking videos and posting photos. Service connection wasn’t good enough so we went to the trail head. She had to post or else “people are going to think I’m broke or depressed and they need to know I’m traveling.” She lived her life through her phone."

[Ronachickamonga via Reddit]

#8 Influencing Sounds Tiring

"Sad. In the beginning they started because they got offers from brands because they were so popular on Instagram and it was a lot of fun for them.

Now they don’t ever post pictures or videos without a filter. Rarely ever like a picture on the first try and don’t you dare post any pictures of them without getting their approval for it. Imagine trying to get a group picture with all of your friends for your birthday but having you take almost one hundred shots to get one that your influencer friend is happy with.

Also in the beginning I would like and comment on all of their posts but now that’s not enough. They expect me message it others, share it on my stories and my page (something about new rhythms and likes not being important anymore). I hate posting stuff to my page but I do it any way to be supportive.

It is so tiring. They do get free things sometimes though that they sometimes share with me. Not worth it imo."

[yonewredditwhodis via Reddit]

#9 An Influencer Wedding Part 1

"Awful. One of my best friends fell real hard into Instagram, and for a few years it was tolerable and understandable, albeit annoying and strange. Everything needed to be documented in specific ways, so lots & lots of photos, even if it took away from the moment. But the strange part was how, when she’d share things, the captions always told a slightly different story than what actually happened. Like just off enough for me and my other friends to say, huh, that has a weird quality to it.

Fast forward a couple years, and she gets engaged. Boom. This was the catalyst for the worst of the influencer mentality to come out. I was in the bridal party, and it was a nightmare. No gratitude, just demands. Demands for expensive trips and expensive parties and all kinds of things that were above and beyond the means of her closest friends. And all the demands were because she had a “following” and had certain expectations to meet.

It was really heart wrenching to witness someone belittle their best friend and maid of honor for trying to plan a sweet bridal shower because it wasn’t going to be at an expensive restaurant or art gallery. It reached its peak for me when...

[whenthesunrise via Reddit]

#10 Influencer Wedding Part 2

"...after the in-state wedding became an expensive destination wedding, there was the demand for an out-of-town bachelorette party a few weeks before. I was honest and said I couldn’t afford the bachelorette (mind you, I made about a thousand sacrifices over those months to afford what I could), and was promptly bridezilla’d and told I ruined the whole experience and that I was an awful, fake, inauthentic person.

It got so bad that the bridal party fractured and disintegrated, she lost two of her best friends (myself and the MOH didn’t even attend the wedding after all her behavior and blow-ups), and we’ve barely spoken since. All so she could have an instagrammable wedding that would look good for the few photos she ended up sharing of it. And, true to the weird strange re-written reality ways she had, she published a public “apology” on her blog for her followers and family that completely distorted and rewrote what happened, painted herself as the victim, and got her the sympathy points she was looking for.

Ppl really lose themselves when they create an artifice for social media. I learned a lot from her."

[whenthesunrise via Reddit]