Social media was born and the prototype influencer followed: Hanna Beth, Audrey Kitching and Kiki Kannibal – just a few names you’ll recognise if you were a very online millennial of a certain age and partook in a particularly melodramatic era of youth culture. These platforms – Myspace and then YouTube, Instagram, even Tumblr – were practically designed to generate “stars” like this. Celebrity was democratised with a like, follow or a declaration that you were a “fan” (lookbook.nu’s wording).
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But in the early days of the 00s, becoming an influencer was more about being hot and/or cool – Beth and Kitching are prime Myspace examples – and adopting a persona-first approach than necessarily creating the “best” content. Millennial influencers realised at the same time we did that they could give us things that celebrities couldn’t: access to their lives, innermost thoughts and day-to-day commentary. This was like having a reality star in your pocket, one who doubled up as a friend. It also quickly became clear that this was a job – a fully-fledged career. Now that these original influencers have moved over to share the concentration span of the public with a new crop of younger influencers on platforms they and their followers might not even exist on, it’s time to pay homage to the journey they’ve been on – one which we’ve all liked and subscribed.
Lookbook Days or That Pork-Pie Hat Life
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People – predominantly women – uploaded heavily filtered pictures of themselves in their outfits and subsequently received “hype” (it was the 00s) from other users, who, like me, were probably girls who thought a hair-sprayed quiff and skull ‘n’ crossbones bikini top comprised a fresh daytime look. Some of your fave millennial influencers today may have never posted their Black Milk knock-off galaxy-print leggings on Lookbook.nu, but the real heads know this was the genesis of the fashion influencer template. Teenagers didn’t really buy much based off what we’d seen on there because a) internet shopping and fast fashion were in their infancy; b) our weekend jobs covered Glen’s vodka, bad weed and cinema tickets but not Luella Bartley handbags and c) we didn’t have the thigh gaps and self esteem present in the portraits to pull off hot pants or statement hats. That said, hypefluencers did mean there were two long years in which girls wore their forehead handbands tight and infinity scarves very, very long.
Goodbye Sun-In, Hello Touch Of Silver
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There Was a Young Girl Named Lita
Welcome to the Dark Side
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Before this genre of video was synonymous with influencing, you purchased a couple of dresses online for prom with genuine concern over whether the return would get back to the company warehouse safely. Afterwards, receiving an ASOS bag bigger than your entire body that carried a hysterical 19-item order of tat was a normal and applauded thing to do every payday. It was arguably the nadir of and turning point for influencing, something you can point to as a significant driver of our overconsumption of fast fashion.
Another One Bites the Crust
The Boyfriends of Instagram, Revealed
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In this era, boyfriends were introduced to us and made into monetisable, brand-building content. Influencers showed how they dyed their boyfriend’s hair or dressed them, asked them dicey questions like “what food do I hate?” or let the boyfriends do their make-up and style them. Horseplay ensued. The industrious thing about this content shift was that boyfriends could be utilised later down the line in break-up videos and Questions For My Ex-Boyfriend formats.
Girl, Uninterrupted
All Grown Up: The “@zoeb92 and @AlexPT are my parents :)” Era
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The savviest influencers have found a way to monetise part of their mature life: a renovation account for their first home, a cute account for their puppy or – alienating for many but nonetheless brand deals with JoJo Maman Bébé exist – an actual baby. These accounts also provide a creative exercise in writing captions in dog or baby first person. Ironically what should be laughably banal – we are talking about literally watching a video of people watching paint dry – has now become painfully, woefully aspirational. The emergence of this phase coincided with the oldest millennials pushing 40 in a flat share with no savings. Observing influencers doing normal adulthood things while waiting for the bare minimum to live a secure, happy life is a sign of the times.