influencing is a real job (but no one thinks so?)

the devaluation of female labor in a female-dominated industry

show notes

hey bestie!

the tiktok ban got a lot of people crashing out (understandably so), but on top of creators expressing apprehension about the ban and what that means for their livelihoods, we also saw a lot of people expressing schadenfreude-esque behavior. obviously, this episode has an obvious bias because I am a “content creator” and “influencer” although I am just learning to embrace the latter title (the episode will explain why).

this tiktok video wasn’t included in the episode because it literally just came up on my fyp: click here to watch the video

and in the video, Ari Weindling tearfully shares how a CEO belittled her at a meeting where he was literally asking her to do free labor (videography and promotion as an influencer) for a free meal with her friends and when she refused because free meals don’t pay the bills, the CEO tore her following and statistics apart as an attempt to get her to do work for his company.

And situations like this grinds my gears because yes, it can be fun to make fun of influencers and make light of the *cringe* things they do, but our overall perception that influencing isn’t a real job has real-life consequences. And sometimes, those consequences include female influencers getting belittled in business meetings where they are essentially manipulated to do free work.

and this overall devaluation of influencers as female laborers and influencing as a female-dominated industry translates to all female laborers in all industries. once we give the green light to belittle one industry (which just so happens to be female-dominated), we give a green light to all belittling behavior that harms all women who dare to engage in the labor market.

I know sometimes “it’s not that deep,” but in this case, it is… and we need to learn how to swim.