Why some of the mum influencer thing died

Or how a certain cohort has moved on to be replaced with fresh meat

I first came into contact with the mum influencer world when I started writing for a blog called ‘Selfish Mother,’ run by Molly Gunn. At the time Molly was what I would call a ‘connector’ and knew everyone in the influencer world.

I didn’t really know anything about social media, and it felt like it was a bunch of grown-ass women sharing idealised images of their lives and not letting anyone look ‘under the bonnet’ to see the chaos underneath. I started working for Molly when I was made redundant from my ‘big-girl-shoulder-pad- job’ and had a bit of money to fall back on in the form of a large redundancy payment. I could pretend I was one of these women for a while because I had some money to flash about.

I wasn’t feeling confident. I’d had a child but was older than most of the women in this crowd. I’d also had several miscarriages and failed fertility treatments. I’d had my first dose of Botox but felt like it gave me a manic expression- like I was always interested in what you were saying.

This actually made me sort of popular in the influencer world.

I had a follower count under 15K so was a small fry in the influencer world. I listened to lots of women tell me theories as to why I’d never be able to grow my profile as big as the heavy hitters. It was something to do with the algorithm perhaps. I thought it was probably because I didn’t conform to a certain stereotype of motherhood and shared strange pieces of writing that nobody understood. I couldn’t sum up my brand in one line put it that way (this is something that still vexes me now).

The heavy hitters had hundreds of thousands of followers and got free invites to Glastonbury, and shopping trips around Selfridges, and basically lived like the Kardashians before the Kardashians were doing it. This was the time when events were really important in the mum influencer world. There were several each month and all the biggies would get together and cackle. They were jubilant because life was sweet. Events were also where you showed off your relative importance to the rest of the pecking order, talked about what deals and parties you were invited to, and also got a chance to show off the cool clothes you’d been gifted.

It was a bit like the birthday parties you’d get invited to as a child (I was never invited), and everyone would wear their best clothes, but some kid would say something mean, and one of the other kids would start crying because they’d got a sugar rush and hadn’t got the prize in musical statues. There was always some drama about something.

My role was to attend. And sometimes to massage the egos of the influencers and make them feel even more important by saying - ‘WOW THAT’S AMAZING!’ and then push a goodie bag in their hand so they could quickly dive into it, and then complain because the stuff inside wasn’t useful, and there were only trial sizes instead of great whopping enormous ones.

Sometimes I was amazed at how ordinary these women were in real life. Like the kind of girls at school that you would avoid because they bought all their clothes from Next and washed their hair in Timotei. Who thought you were odd because you wore long cardigans and listened to The Smiths (they were Johnny Hates Jazz all day long). We used to call these girls ‘plastix’ at school. They usually got married and settled down young and thought it was weird that you were trying to get a career off the ground and didn’t fancy their husband who was called Dean.

‘I got a massive deal with Marks and Spencer,’ one influencer declared drunkenly as I cowered in a corner, trying to work out when I could go home and lie in the recovery position.

‘I got that deal last year. It’s great. I got to pick out 10 different outfits. I mean they’re not super cool as a brand but it’s pretty good right?’ another one guffawed.

‘Are we going to Bestival again?’ one of them would chuckle as she swiped another mini beef burger from the tray as it went around.

‘I hope we get a free Yurt. I hated the fucking tent I had to sleep in last time. And the food. Nothing vegan!’

I felt like I wanted some of this influencer action but also like I wasn’t quite popular enough because of my low follower account. I was also an empath so struggled not to respond to the energy of those around me. It made me feel conflicted - like I wanted to be friends with them, but also hated them and their energy. It was hard.

Then a few years back there was a scandal with one of the mum influencers. I wasn’t really party to what happened, and the Botox had worn off at this stage so my face was wearier but I was possibly better able to show my true emotions.

I had set my sights on being an author, and had sort of dismissed the mum influencers as a passing fad. I felt good about this - like I was moving up a notch with my ambitions.

The way the community reacted to this scandal was very telling. Instead of being supportive of one another, learning a few lessons about how to behave in a nice, ethical, feminist way, they doubled down on being mean and nasty. I went to a book launch, and all anyone talked about was this one woman (who five minutes ago had been their best mate), and how dreadful she was, how she’d always had it coming, how she was mad as a hatter etc. It was like finally they’d got permission to vent their fury and frustration, and didn’t have to pretend.

They are no doubt some of these women hawking their wares on TikTok (nice if you have the time and energy) or trying to get work as social media consultants or they have turned their energies elsewhere.

I recently went to a shopping centre and one of them came up to me. She quickly realised I was a nobody. It was awkward as she’d committed to talking to me because she’d stopped. She was wearing a whole heap of beige clothes and had hair that looked like it had been ironed flat. I told her I was fine and I noticed a faint lip curl of disgust as she walked away.

I’ve also had Botox again. I now ask if I can ‘look normal please’ as I don’t want to look interested when I’m actually bored to fucking tears.