The REAL Art Of ‘Influencing’

I, once knew an Influencer.

Pretty big league.

What’s weird is, I didn’t even know she was an Influencer, until my mate told me.

Bit understated, like.

I’d see her on the school run, cig firmly clamped between her cracked lips, looking like a wild-eyed Johnny Depp revisiting his ‘Viper Room’ days. Gaunt with dark circles, heavy rock blaring from the car, hair slightly greasy and, dare I say it, the odd spot.

Nowt wrong with that, right?

Just not very……y’know…..‘Influencer’.

I never made it with the mum crowd.

Early days, I declared myself a proud outlier and went rogue.

I took no interest in school gates gossip because - I’ll level with you - I guessed it was likely to be ABOUT ME - what my kid had done to piss off another, what a shit parent I probably was…..

So, how was I supposed to cotton-on that this beleaguered looking thirty-something, secretly lived the combined lives of Heidi, Marie Kondo and The Folk Of The Far Away Tree?

That after dutifully depositing her daughter at school, she drove home, surreptitiously stubbed out said ciggie and cracked on climbing into what was essentially a grown up version of the Fisher Price Tree House.

I didn’t.

Couldn’t.

Her child was ordinary, she blended in.

Neither prodigy nor obvious John Lewis ad material.

Her husband looked normal.

No chiselled jaw, no megawatt smile. Charisma of a mediocre bartender.

The whole family seemed….well…. a bit…average.

The only give away, was her car.

Some sort of posh Range Rovery thing.

Apparently.

“You mean you haven’t noticed THE VEHICLE?”

enquired this same friend. Not so much one to rub shoulders with the local stars, more persistently pester their masseuse.

“Must be worth about £100,000!”

In truth, I hadn’t. I don’t drive, have never been into cars. More hot mess than Hot Wheels. I didn’t have ‘Cadillac Dreams’ but rather nana naps involving well stocked camper vans.

“And HE….”

She added, pointing *discreetly* at her other half

“Julie! Two o’clock! Two o’clock!………”

“Huh?”

“Has only gone and GIVEN UP HIS JOB! Doesn’t even need to WORK ANYMORE because of HER Instagram account!”

Really?

I’d been far too busy weighing up the frazzled looking woman through the windscreen and wondering if she’d had the same Amber Heard of a weekend I’d had, if I’m honest.

On hearing this news, anyway, I gets a serious case of “Ooh….well you’re a bloody dark horse aren’t you!”, decide to go mercilessly stalk her casually check out her Insta and OMG I’d never seen so much wet felting and foraging!

She hadn’t just capitalised on the ‘crunchy mom’ niche but photographed her own damn toenail clippings and called them ‘yoghurt bark’.

Her entire feed was rolling scroll of rustic oak tables, draped muslin, kilner jars and wind chimes - all seen through the golden gaze of a patient flower fairy clutching a dwindling candle. Everyone in the family clearly lived on whatever one could pummel with a pestle and mortar, eating ‘local produce, seasonally’ - nettle pesto galore - whilst having a jolly good ‘wild swim’ along the way.

Hang on a minute though , ‘Nature Girl’.…..could’ve sworn I saw you troughing Doritos at the last Nativity……

Hmm….

Perhaps it was me…..

My ‘bad’!

(As twats now say)

Maybe they were acorn ground kettle chips or summat.

(What the hell is a ‘kettle chip’ by the way? A hard, fat crisp?)

Fast forward a few months, anyways and she’s doing a book launch, one of those oversized ‘coffee table’ offerings - full of all these pictures of her ‘life’.  She’s on location in The Med. Shirley Valentine, it ain’t. White linen is wafting about by open windows and potter’s wheels, her floppy hat is strategically tilted to that eighties angle of Sheena Easton moody. There’s an azure ocean with tide foam matching the shade of her pearly half smile.  The same gnashers that in real life probably have more stains than Steptoe’s khazi.

There’s a podcast. Of how, I too, can live ‘like this’. You know, ‘minimally’ in that “I have fucking everything’ kind of way.

And as the thuds of the inevitable bouquets tumble in - “I soooo want your life!”- all I can think of, is how SHE doesn’t even have her life.

Or at least not all the time.

At least not when I see her.

All I can think of is the stressed out looking every-mother I encounter on those school runs, little ’un playing up in the back. Bleary, on auto pilot and bearing zero resemblance to this detoxed, doe-eyed Donna in the photos.

I always knew social media was about selling an image, but until you observe for yourself just what candy floss confections can be cobbled together for mass consumption, it’s hard to fully realise.

But good for her!

Why tell a white lie when you can airbrush the fuck out of your entire existence and make a packet in the process?

Maybe school pick ups aside, her life really was all shiny red apples and sugar lumps for ponies.

But something tells me it wasn’t. Isn’t.

Something tells me she was just a canny lady with a camera who knew how to sell a dream.

And what are the ethics in this influencing game?

Are we in on the joke, the trick?

Are we supposed to laugh along with it, knowing it can’t possibly all be true?

Or do we instead feel flawed, limited and inferior?

I’m guessing it’s probably a bit of both.

To some extent, we’re all self marketers, aren’t we? Choosing to frame ourselves in a preferred light. Our story takes on a different slant depending who we talk to.  Rather like the way we tweak a CV depending on the job we want.

We ham it up, milk it.

We omit scenes and play stuff down.

We buy into our own bullshit and the bullshit others spin us.

We’re all unwitting Influencers too - micro impacting culture with our choices of what to wear, what to eat, who to engage with and ignore, what to present to the world as our values. We are all taking the future very subtly in a certain direction, for better or worse.

We can take it a step further and carefully curate images of an enviable life in the hope that it helps both ourselves and others manifest that ideal. That in reaching for the moon, we find a little star dust along the way.

Or, we can document our very real struggles in the chance that others see them and relate “Yeah that’s me. I hear ya! I’ve had that day from hell too! You’re not alone.”

And perhaps the greatest Influencers - certainly my favourites - do both. They inspire whilst keeping it real. We are happier for their eventual acquisition of Marshmallow Mansion, having first endured the squalor of their grotty bedsit.

We smoked every drag of that fag with them knowing never once did they stub out their dreams.

But in my humble opinion, the best influencing doesn’t happen on Tik Tok, YouTube or Pinterest.

It happens RIGHT NOW on a street where you live.

It happens on a walk in the park with your mate. Over a coffee in a cafe. 

It happens when you share the tiniest spark of an “I was thinking…..not that I probably will……but……” embryonic idea with a friend and they run with it like you passed them an Olympic torch.

It happens when you tell your neighbour she looks so good wearing that dress she was unsure of, that she then wears it to the supermarket and glides down the freezer aisle feeling like Rita Hayworth in Gilda.

It happens when your jaw drops open as your once overly cautious child reaches the heady heights of a climbing frame that you yourself would never have dared scale.

THAT’S real influencing.

We used to call it inspiring someone, supporting them, giving someone confidence, cheering a person on. Rooting for someone.

Remember?

And we don’t need ‘followers’ to do it.

We don’t have to be selling something, either.

So drop your props, guys, your ‘awesomes’ and your ‘super-excited’ paid partnerships.

Go invest in something old school.

That’s right, a REAL PERSON.

In their hopes and dreams.

Persuade them that they’re capable.

Encourage them to achieve all they can.

Invite them to become the best version of themselves they can possibly be.

It may not pay out in tickets to premieres and chocolate fountains.

But the smiles that you scaffold, the hope that you harness and the difference it will make to the wider world, is worth much, much more.