By Elizabeth Fitzpatrick
Elm Staff Writer
Many Americans were in for a rude awakening as TikTok shut down after the app was banned on Jan. 19. Forewarned with knowledge of the impending ban, many users posted goodbye messages before the ban went into effect.
Among the messages thanking fans and indicating where content could be found on other platforms were a few videos that were more candid than others. Several popular influencers posted videos to a trending soundbite, captioned with admissions to secrets about the surprising reality of their content.
According to Fortune, health and wellness influencer Lexi Hidalgo admitted that she never drank the coffee she made for her popular “coffee talks” and only did half the workouts she shared with her followers.
Due to backlash from fans, she has since removed the admission video from her account and amended her statement to specify that she did do the workouts, just not when she recorded the videos.
Fans were shocked by the revelation that many influencers had been lying about their routines for content. While it is understandable that many feel hurt to find out that people they trusted have been lying to them, this trend raises questions about how trustworthy influencers are.
The answer seems to be less reliable than the influencers would like their audiences to believe.
According to The Guardian, many influencers encourage parasocial relationships within their fanbase, using that trust and emotional attachment to build a following and maintain an audience.
Regardless of their actual day-to-day lives, many influencers post what their followers expect to maintain a consistent brand, whether that be elaborate workout routines or fancy ice cubes.
Influencer Kaeli Mae is known for her ASMR ice restock videos.
“I never actually used any of those special ice cubes,” Mae said on her TikTok.
While it may be clear to many that the focus of Mae’s content was ASMR and the “clean girl” aesthetic as opposed to the novelty ice cubes. However, others took the perceived betrayal more personally.
According to The Guardian, parasocial relationships are defined as “intense and crucially, one-sided attachments to celebrities or public figures.” These relationships can have many detrimental effects, causing people to feel closer to these figures than they actually are.
The number one goal of any social media influencer is to make successful content. A consistent and dedicated fanbase is crucial to their success in a world where engagement rules.
Many find it challenging to keep the line between fan and friend distinct as the trend toward relatability and intimacy encourages content creators to represent themselves in this way in their videos, but this intimacy is carefully crafted.
Content is specifically curated and, in many cases, fabricated to maintain an audience’s attention. The fraction of their lives that influencers post on the internet is just that: a fraction. Influencers are people that fans can never really get to know.
Although it is still absent from the Apple and Google Play stores, TikTok’s service has been reinstated. President Donald Trump’s executive order offers only a 75-day extension on the ban, leaving the future of the app uncertain.
As many TikTok influencers are scrambling to salvage their careers, users of the platform should approach online content with an air of skepticism.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Photo Caption: Famous influencers such as Dixie D’Amelio are not as reliable as their audiences might want to believe.