Influencers have felt the tables turning on them for quite some time in recent years. People who used to be looked up (by some) as celebrities and stars, are more often than not seen as just people hocking another lame product or service.

With the entire premise of being a social media influencer rooted more in presentation than reality, it probably comes as little surprise that many of social media's biggest "stars" are not 1:1 with themselves on and off-camera. Whether they're better or worse depends on, well...

I actually know a couple of „insta models“. All of them with surgeries they claim did not happen, very low self esteem, no hobbies or passions. Just empty boring beings that nobody actually wants to be around… I feel sorry for them. Then I loosely know one girl in med school with me that‘s pretty famous – she‘s even more kind hearted and intelligent in person than online!

I was friends with someone who has a big enough Instagram following and has been on various tv shows.She is a bully, always has been and always will be.We did have a falling out eventually. We butted heads a few times due to her behavior. She blasted me on her SM.

I know a girl who has a really popular TikTok page. She pretty much got popular for being pretty. I think she is one of the only people I would describe as a genuinely horrible person. Even before she got popular, she was incredibly selfish and mean and sociopathic.

One of my students has 100k tiktok followers and she is honestly just not a nice or good human being. I’ve tried hard to see a silver lining or something ANYTHING good about the girl, but she’s a mean soul.

I worked as a nanny for a really popular Instamommy. She was always hiring new nannies because of how unbearable she was.On Instagram? She was the perfect super mommy of an infant and toddler. Breastfeeding both, cloth diapers, making her own baby food, constantly taking her kids to the park or hiking.In reality? Her kids nursed maybe once a day although she didn’t produce milk. And it was for pictures. She would buy cloth diapers. Use them once for photos then it was pampers.Everything was a lie.

I am acquaintances with 2 sisters who are very popular Instagram beauty/lifestyle influencers. They’re both nice, but not near as outgoing as they are on social media. They also just generally are not as interesting as they come across on social media— rather dull to be honest.Moral of the story: Everything is exaggerated on social media. Everything.

I met a high school sophomore who had over 100k followers on Tik Tok. She was nice but kinda creeped me out because it felt like she was always trying to perform for a hidden audience. What bothers me the most though is how she tries to act sexual in her Tik Toks because she’s only 16 and is definitely not cultivating a good audience.

I (photographer) had this influencer girl hit me up one day asking to help her with a shoot cause she was in town. She didn’t offer any pay for it and I was stupid enough to be blinded by her 140+k following thinking I might get something off the back of it. Anyway, the whole time she was f**king annoying, boring and bossy. I ended up losing half of the pics due to a card error and I genuinely didn’t care since I detested her attitude anyway.

My old friend was low-key famous on Tik Tok. She made videos that were really douchey. If you’ve ever heard of “private school check” she was the leader of that. It was apparent by her comment sections that everyone believed she was being ironic or something. Nope. She’s just as arrogant and privileged in real life. Also her entire Instagram consists of just photos of the two Mercedes her mom bought her…

I went to high school with a Tik Tok cosplayer who’s currently rapidly rising in popularity. She was a popular girl that bullied people for liking the same things she’s now profiting from, she latched on hard to surface level nerd culture after years of being a bully.

I had a friend in college with a YouTube channel doing covers of video game music. He’d been doing it for a few years as a hobby and was a funny, kind guy who was passionate about music. He had one Skyrim video get big around 2013, and that got him way more traffic to his page. Overnight, he went from being a goofy musician to a snob who was too good to hang out with us.

I used to live in an area with many minor hipster celebrities (the type who like living in neighborhoods that are quite gentrified, but still have some urban slum-aesthetic to it). They’re generally smaller, fatter and uglier in real life.

Managed social media for a 500k wellness/fitness IG model and lifestyle influencer. She dated an A+ actor and he was footing all her business bills. He dumped her for a younger model in 2020 (pre-covid) and she scaled down her dreams of owning an empire.On IG she’s perfect: pretty, bikini body, friendly, healthy, and always surrounded by friends.In reality, she’s a fake. Her “organic” products are cheap bulk junk from China that is repacked here in the USA. 100% of the pics are photoshopped. Her followers/likes are bought. Her friends are filler material for her feed. The clothes have tags that are edited out. She’s not a health expert, googles everything, and is barely literate. Her posts are written by her live-in intern-assistant-dogsitter-maid-photographer.

the girl who bullied me relentlessly in school is famous on tiktok. I don’t really care about tiktok, but it still kinda hurts that people don’t know how horrible she is.

Lived near the biggest gaming channel from my country (100k subs I know not much but we are a small backwards nation) I hate the guy’s online personality since it’s so fake. In real life guy is just super nice and polite. After I learned his sister was paralyzed from the neck down and his mom had breast cancer I never talked bad about his channel. Guy was also very active in the community like showing up to birthdays and red cross events. Overall guy just makes you feel good while you’re around him.

My brother dated a beauty lifestyle influencer for about a year, she had around 250k following, she really is a lovely person, very down to earth, when they broke up, she still stayed close with my mother.When covid hit, she decided she wanted to do something else with her life, so she is now currently working with Autistic children, and training to become a teacher in that field, she still does all her socials but not as much, she says it’s empty, not fulfilling and the more followers you get the lonelier you feel.

My aunt is “friends” with a cast member of Real Housewives. She is apparently no different than on the show.

My cousin in the UK went to school with Calvin Harris…from primary to high school. They are still good friends and I’ve actually hung out while he was just kinda starting out. He’s a really nice bloke and pretty down to earth…

I had an employee who was vine popular. He ended up getting a sponsorship and getting a bunch of face tattoos and moving to Japan. I heard he started smoking heroin which I didn’t even know was a thing though so not good in the end.

Dated a girl briefly who had over 600,000 followers on snapchat doing makeup. No job, room full of publicity products, vlogging while I was with her. Literally started CRYING like an actual 5 year old over getting a little hungry, it was seriously disturbing. Tried to gaslight me like 12 times. Insane nightmare, never again RUN AWAY.