‘What Happens Next?’: Does Influencer Culture Have a Dark Side?

Susan Carland: Welcome back to What Happens Next?, the podcast that examines some of the biggest challenges facing our world and asks the experts, what will happen if we don't change? And what can we do to create a better future?

I'm Dr Susan Carland. Keep listening to find out what happens next.

Kate Fitch: There's this long history, I think, of influencer culture and women's labour.

Jo Stanley: Oh, it's so quaint, isn't it? That you can actually conduct what effectively was, to some women, massive start-ups whilst raising their children.

Olivia White: Of course, I want to be in a space where I'm effectively my own boss, where I can create the opportunities for myself, and I'm not answering to anybody, because no one was giving me the opportunity. No one was giving me the chance, so create the door.

Susan Carland: Whether or not you have a favourite beauty blogger or have kept up with the Kardashians, you'd have to be living under a rock not to have noticed the rise of influencer culture. Since the early days of TV and radio companies have used celebrity star power to sell their products, but the internet's given those promotional techniques a new twist.

Modern influencers may be celebrities, but they may also be regular people who found a social media niche, creating content for highly engaged audiences on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or other platforms. When many of us think of influencers, we're often dismissive. We often think of these women, and they are largely women, as a superficial bunch, spending their time posting carefully curated outfits on Instagram or unboxing beige baby toys to fill their even beiger nurseries.

But thanks to their massive networks and emotionally engaging content, influencers hold tremendous sway over the opinions, behaviours, and purchasing decisions of their significant followings. Marketers have taken notice, leveraging these social media superstars to sell everything from smoothies to online therapy sessions. The influencer economy we're so quick to discount brings in billions of dollars annually.

Today on the podcast, our guests delve into societal perceptions of feminised labour and how they affect influencers' professional credibility. We'll explore how stereotypes of influencers shape public opinion, and we'll talk about what it's like when every moment of your life is an opportunity to create content and the toll it can take on your well-being. Keep listening to find out what happens next.

Kate Fitch: Hi, I am Dr Kate Fitch from the Monash University School of Media, Film, and Journalism, and my research interests include promotional culture and celebrities and influencers.

Susan Carland: Kate, welcome to the podcast.

Kate Fitch: Well, thank you for having me.

Susan Carland: I want to ask you about influencer culture, and I want to ask you if you know of any statistics that can tell us or illustrate for us about the economic impact of influencer culture. Does it generate a lot of cash?

Kate Fitch: Yes. Look, the influencer industry is estimated this year to generate about 21 billion American dollars.

Susan Carland: Whoa.

Kate Fitch: But I think the more telling statistics are around its extraordinary growth. Over the last eight years, according to research from Ogilvy, the value of the influencer marketing industry has increased from $1.7 billion to 16.4 billion last year.

Susan Carland: Wow.

Kate Fitch: We're talking about a $20 billion industry.

Susan Carland: When we think about influencers, we often, I think mostly women. It's seen as quite a gendered thing. There are of course male influencers, but we generally seem to think of it as a female endeavour. Do you see any link between say, gendered labour and influencer culture?

Kate Fitch: Absolutely, and that's a good point. I think historically, women's promotional work and especially publicity has been marginalised as non-professional work. It always depended on... Because a lot of my research is about women and promotional labour in the 20th century, so I'm very interested in the history of publicity work and gender. And so, studying influencer culture naturally came out of that.

That kind of promotional work always depended on social networks or relationships, media contacts and understanding of media content and even kind of media strategy. There's this long history I think, of influenced culture and women's labour.

And so influencer culture, you are right, is primarily female. Approximately 70 per cent of influencers are women. And some industry research suggests there's even higher figures across particular platforms. Eighty per cent of influencers who monetise content on Instagram, for example, are women, and the figures are only slightly lower for YouTube and TikTok.

Susan Carland: And would part of that be because more of the audience for influencers are also women? Is it a very female-creating and female-receiving space?

Kate Fitch: And the audience often is women. And it's not surprising that influencer culture is readily branded as women's work and often framed as frivolous and demeaning in terms of the labour. I think the work that's done to maintain visibility online is not particularly visible work, particularly if they're striving to show their everyday and authentic life.

Susan Carland: The stereotypes associated with the word influencer run deep.

Olivia White: Hi, my name is Liv White and I am an influencer, content creator and Disney lover.

Susan Carland: Liv started her influencer career as a young mother sharing the good and bad stories of parenthood with an empathetic online audience. These days her Instagram feed is full of photos and videos of her family vacations, snippets of her day as a mom and content sponsored by brands including Disney and Qantas.

Liv, welcome.

Olivia White: Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited.

Susan Carland: I'm excited to have you here. And I want to know, first off, do you consider yourself an influencer?

Olivia White: It's so funny because I feel like the word these days can come with I guess some negative connotations sometimes.

Susan Carland: I know.

Olivia White: I would like to think that I am in a positive way, but I also think it's more than that. It's content creation and creativity and just influencing is a small part of that.

Susan Carland: Why do you think "influencer" does have negative baggage?

Olivia White: Look, when I first started out, it was nearly a decade ago, and that was not the word at all. In fact, it was more like blogger, writing and before social media happened. But I guess as time has gone on, just like any industry that's out there, there's going to be people that perhaps do bring a negative light to it in some ways. I think when you think of the word influencer, you can think that as good or bad. And perhaps we're attaching that to people we've perceived as bad influencers.

Susan Carland: And do you think so maybe the term content creator seems a bit more positive or at least more neutral?

Olivia White: One hundred per cent. I definitely, when I do stuff like this or someone asks me to write like a bio or something, I definitely prefer to use the term content creator because I guess that's what I find myself as. The influence part I feel is secondary to that.

Susan Carland: The influence just comes as a by-product of being a content creator.

Olivia White: I think so. And I mean, I guess it depends on what space you're in and what you are trying to do, but for me, definitely I think I prefer that word.

Susan Carland: What are you trying to do?

Olivia White: For me, it was just really a place to come to in early motherhood, to just verbal diarrhoea everywhere and connect with people. And I've come to realise as I've gotten older and as I've done this for however many years, that really what I'm just trying to do is be me and bring light to people. And be funny and encourage people, especially women and mothers to just go out, give it a go, give it a try.

And I definitely became more comfortable with that I think as I realised that for me and how I started in this is really also a reflection of my purpose. I started this because I became a mother quite young and I had only really dipped my toes in professionally. And so, going back to work really wasn't an option for me or there wasn't much opportunity. And so I just thought, "You know what? If there's no door, I'm just going to create a door."

Susan Carland: Jo Stanley knows all about creating doors. She's built a highly successful career in mainstream media and now she's using her platform to make room for more women to join her.

Jo Stanley: Hi there. I'm Jo Stanley. I'm a broadcaster and a writer and a performer and a start-up founder. And I'm building Australia's first radio network for women by women called Broad Radio.

Susan Carland: Jo, welcome.

Jo Stanley: Thank you for having me. I'm delighted.

Susan Carland: You know a lot about women in the media. Do you think the way we think about gender norms and stereotypes …, do you think that's influenced the way the media has formed?

Jo Stanley: Well, if you were to go back to how the media was formed back in the day, I mean how many decades ago that was, it was formed by men. Women were in the home. And I don't think that that really has shifted very much. I think largely the powers that be are men. It is shifting slowly. I think we're aware of that gender imbalance in the media.

But I mean, I'm very glad you started with this conversation because it's absolutely my wheelhouse and my passion is gender balance in the media and the lack thereof. And in radio particularly, commercial radio of the voices we hear, only 27% are females. We are still battling with a message and a reflection of society that's completely skewed. It's the subliminal that you don't notice I think where it might be, who do we go for as experts?

Susan Carland: Yeah.

Jo Stanley: When we talk finance, when we talk sport, when we talk economics of any kind, science, STEM, are we going to women very often? I know statistics show that in radio only about 35% of the people who are quoted in those areas are women.

Susan Carland: To Jo it seems natural that when the internet came around and democratised things a bit, women carved out a space for themselves.

Jo Stanley: And that kind of influencer culture, subculture largely came out of blogging and that was such a female domain as well. And it was always painted as this side hustle that mums might have while they were in between breastfeeding. Or they were doing it while they had the baby on their boob and they were doing this kind of hobby. And, oh, look at me now I've turned it into a business.

Susan Carland: How cute.

Jo Stanley: I know. It's so quaint, isn't it, that you can actually conduct what effectively was, to some women, massive start-ups whilst raising their children. Yeah, I think that it does feel like a fairly female domain.

Susan Carland: Here's Liv again. It's really interesting what you say about creating the door because there does feel like there is this gendered element to influencers blogging, content creation to an extent, especially if it is a female content creator. And I wondered, do you still feel that there is this gendered element where, for women who maybe wanted to do certain types of roles, they were just being locked out by generally the men who owned these spaces? And so women said, "Well, we're going to create it for ourselves." Was that part of it for you? Is it part of it for you now?

Olivia White: I definitely feel that now and see that a lot. As the space has exploded, you only just have to look at, we mentioned when you began about the negativity towards the word influencer and how people identify that. In the traditional media space, and we talk about the people that are at the top in these spaces, definitely I think there is such a glass ceiling for women and opportunity and how people even still view influencing now. It's like the graffiti of the journalism world.

Susan Carland: That's a great way of putting it.

Olivia White: I think that's how some people see it. Even in the traditional marketing space, the people who are engaging us, you still have a lot of people at the top there in traditional agencies and stuff who are being told, "Oh, yeah, influencing is the future." And your ROI and cost based on traditional advertising, it's there, the numbers are there. It shows that it's so beneficial for such targeted and niche audiences. And people are still reluctantly doing it or not taking it seriously or not showing the respect to people in the space because they don't think that it's a real job or a proper job.

And like you said, there's disproportionately so many more women in the space because of course they're flocking to it. Of course I want to be in a space where I'm effectively my own boss, where I can create the opportunities for myself and I'm not answering to anybody. Because no one was giving me the opportunities, no one was giving me the chance, so create the door.

Susan Carland: What do you think is one thing that would surprise people about being an influencer?

Olivia White: I think as you mentioned at the start, that conception or misconception that all we do is just take the photo or quickly make the video and that's it. Look, for some people that might be the case, and I really think it just depends on what kind of content you're creating. But for me, that's almost like, I guess 10% of it. Just like we talk about what you see on someone's stories or someone's page is such a minute part of their life.

Yeah. The actual part of the content, that 40-second clip that you might see, or even six-second clip you might see could have been hours in editing, hours of reshooting, hours of prep, if you've got wardrobe, makeup, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's probably the one thing.

I think for me, the thing I love about my job so much is that it can look so different on any day. Yesterday was an at home content creation day. I had a backlog of content that I needed to create. Really just working out what that was and then setting up to film. And I have thousands of dollars’ worth of production equipment as you could understand. And depending on what I'm doing, sometimes it might just be on an iPhone, but sometimes it might be setting up mics, be setting up lighting, setting up all these things. Making sure I've got all the products, everything that I need to do it. Because quite often, I'll go to film stuff and be like, oh, I haven't got this. Or I haven't done that. And then heaps of admin, heaps of admin.

Susan Carland: What does that admin look like? What does that mean?

Olivia White: That's emails, conversing with brands, conversing with management. A lot of the time brands want to have calls with you before you sign on the dotted line or make sure you're all on the same page. All of my life admin as a parent and as a mother. Yes, as a person, that's got to fit in there somewhere.

And then all the business side of stuff, which I absolutely hate. No one creates a business to do that side of things, I feel like. But it's there. Your tax is there, your accounting is there. Your invoicing. Invoicing, all of that stuff. And look, I'm very blessed. I do have a manager, but it still doesn't mean that I don't have to be doing all the banking reconciliation and accounting and tax and all that kind of stuff.

But then the next day, I'm here with you doing a podcast and I'm heading to an event later. I'll be going and doing my makeup and doing my hair and putting on a pretty outfit and going to hang out with some awesome brands and some awesome people. And any two days can just look so different.

And then other days, I'm mom. Just like everybody, I try and work around my kids. I'm still there to do drop-off. I'm still there to do pickup. I'm doing the three till eight shift of all the sports and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's different every day.

Susan Carland: Beyond the heavy lifting, behind the scenes, influencers are hard at work developing the all-important relationship with their fans. As far as the relationship goes, it's an unusual one.

Here's Kate.

Kate Fitch: Well, I don't think I'd really envy the influencer lifestyle, because I'm a little bit too private.

Susan Carland: What do you not envy about the influencer lifestyle? What puts you off?

Kate Fitch: I think living all aspects of your life online, which of course not everybody does. It's a very carefully curated and edited aspect of your life that's lived online.

Susan Carland: Do you have any insight into how influencers deal with para-social relationships? The way that maybe their fans feel that they really do know them. That they post a lot online so they feel, actually I do know you and you owe me something. You owe me a level of access that perhaps they don't want to give.

Kate Fitch: Yeah, that's really interesting. The really successful influencers do forge something of an emotional connection with their followers. There's what scholar Crystal Abidin calls a contrived authenticity about who I am and what I'm presenting online and that kind of para-social relationship where there's an emotional attachment or investment between the audience or the followers and the influencer.

Susan Carland: This isn't unique to social media, of course. The term para-social relationship has been around since the late '50s. If you've ever convinced yourself that your favourite performer or celebrity would be your best friend, you've experienced a para-social relationship. Here's Jo again.

Jo Stanley: I did breakfast radio for 12 years, and in that time, our audience, the reason you are successful and we were incredibly successful, the reason you're successful in commercial radio as breakfast radio hosts is because people attach themselves to you and your life. And I mean, effectively what they imagine is your personal life.

And those... Our listeners were literally the best thing about that job. Love, love, loved, loved everything about it. And the fact that they trusted us with our stories and their own stories, there was an exchange, was so beautiful and so rewarding and it is the thing that I miss most about being daily on commercial radio.

I guess you would say that they were fans, but they definitely felt as though... And I really even hate using the term they makes me feel like it's an us and them thing, there was an exchange. But at times there have been conversations I've had with people who, particularly around my daughter who was born 14 years ago when I was on air and people who had children at exactly the same time, it was really valuable to them that my experiences reflected what they were going through. And so for some, there have been an assumption that they knew me better than actually they do.

Susan Carland: That never bothered... You never had an instance where you felt a fan crossed a line or you felt like saying, "Look, I know you think we're friends, but we're not friends. We actually don't know each other"?

Jo Stanley: No, I never had that experience. No. And I feel very blessed. I've never really had serial stalkers or trolls. I mean, but this is my question, does a para-social relationship need to be positive? Could someone though believe they have a-

Susan Carland: Hate follow.

Jo Stanley: Yeah, believe they have a relationship with you, but actually it's because they dislike you?

Susan Carland: Yeah. I think absolutely. Either way, I guess in some ways it's just positive or negative. It's a projection. People project onto you what they think you are.

Jo Stanley: Yeah, because I've had ongoing critics, or hate mail I guess you'd call it. But to me it always struck me as you are misguided that you think I care about what you say about me or to me. And is that them assuming that they have some kind of relationship in that they can tell me something that they find very offensive? And I'm actually going to take that on board and go, "Oh, okay, sorry about that. I'll have a word with my hairdresser and do something about my hair."

Susan Carland: And on the internet, things can get nasty. Here's Liv again.

Olivia White: I guess the downside to the industry in media, there's obviously people that don't like you, and I guess what comes with that. The dank, dark depths of the web that can sometimes be a bit taxing on the old mental health.

Susan Carland: I don't understand why anyone would have a problem with you. You're so nice. You post pretty pictures.

Olivia White: Let me get the lists out. No. Look, there's always going to be...

Susan Carland: Yeah. Haters.

Olivia White: Yeah, there's always going to be haters. And I think I am in a very... The niche of... I wouldn't say that I'm like a mommy blogger anymore, but definitely, predominantly my audience are largely women, mothers. And yeah, definitely I think perhaps what I do as a job can be triggering for some people.

And I completely understand it, but it's like the whole reason we said at the start of this podcast about the negative idea of the influencer, the reason there's so many women in this space is because the opportunities aren't there and we're not being seen.

But then also, it has given rise to so many fantastic women, entrepreneurs starting businesses really monopolising and monetizing their brand, which is them as a person. And people don't like that. And I know it's rooted in misogyny, but I think some women don't like that and it's triggering and maybe they're not looking into why it's triggering for them. But a lot of the comments are around, "It's not a real job. You're not working hard. All you do is take the picture." Or, "You don't deserve that." Or, "Why is she being asked to do that?"

Or quite often, if you are looking at what people are saying to you or the judgments that they're passing on you, it's really rooted in that. Yeah, it does. It gives me so much freedom to be the mother that I want to be and be the person that I want to be and enjoy the job that I'm doing. Perhaps that can be triggering for some people.

Susan Carland: You will never find a hater doing more than you are.

Olivia White: That's absolutely. Try to remind myself that.

Susan Carland: Here's Jo. Given that there is so much currency in intimacy, either on breakfast, radio and sharing who you are as a person all through being an influencer or a content creator, it's that intimate, authentic relationship. Did you ever feel pressured either on your own Instagram or radio to share things that maybe you didn't really want to but you knew this is part of the exchange?

Jo Stanley: Yeah, I mean, I guess that there were times when there were conversations with producers who might say...

Susan Carland: Talk about the fight with your husband.

Jo Stanley: Yeah. But that's a deal with the devil you make when you start doing breakfast radio and you find your own way around what's comfortable and what's not, and finding actually ways in which you can share versions of yourself and still keep what's important sacred. Certainly for myself around social media, I'm really aware that sharing certain parts of yourself, it actually does bring currency and you get really great response there.

But I go, "Well, is that?" There are times when I think that that's not appropriate. And you have to think about, well, what's the lasting effect of that down the path? As someone who's building a business and I'm going to be working with investors, and I have to be seen as someone who's fairly of sound mind. I guess when you talk about influencers and Instagrammers and TikTokers, people who share really...

Susan Carland: Everything.

Jo Stanley: Everything. Sometimes I think, "Is that the best choice for you?"

Susan Carland: For influencers like Liv, sharing their vulnerabilities and opening themselves to an audience of strangers is part of the job, but that doesn't mean it's easy.

Olivia White: I think as well, I can completely identify and sympathise with people because when I started out in this space, I guess that's what I was looking for, was connection with people and understanding. And that sometimes that, depending on the person and what their circumstances are and what's manifesting inside them, that perhaps you can get really... Feel that connection with somebody.

I mean, you hear about people that give their life savings to someone that they met online. And yeah, I mean, I guess it's an interesting thing psychology-wise to understand. I've found it really hard in times where I have perhaps been sharing something and then people see that as the go-ahead for them to share something really deep and dark with me. And I'm talking like, I'm not the right person to be speaking to about this.

Susan Carland: You need a psychologist for this.

Olivia White: Yeah. Or you need help. You're in a really dangerous situation. And that's really hard and that's really taxing because it's like, well, what do you do? How do you set that boundary with someone? Or how do you explain to them or perhaps tell them what they don't want to hear? That's hard, and I've come across that quite a few times. But for the most part, I get the wave in Kmart or someone comes up and says like, "Oh, I love following you." And then I'm super awkward about it because I don't know how to react. And I'm like, "Oh, thanks." Walk like this, hoping my kid hasn't just struck a tantrum about something. Because you do, you... But the worst, though, is when you get the message, "I saw you in Kmart today." You're like...

Susan Carland: What happened? I was picking my nose...

Susan Carland: Influencer culture emerged from a complex interplay of societal expectations for women in the workforce, emerging technologies and capitalism. Not so shallow after all, is it? Next week we'll talk about what the industry and audiences can do to challenge stereotypes and support female creators.

Thank you to all our guests on today's episodes, Dr Kate Fitch, Jo Stanley and Olivia White. You can learn more about their work, including Jo's effort to create Australia's first radio network for women by Women by visiting our show notes. We'll be back next week with part two of this series.

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