"Zero Self-Awareness": 30 People Who've Worked With Influencers Share What They Were Like

I’ve worked with dozens of top tier influencers (1m+ followers, lame metric but you get what I’m saying) during my time at a weho podcast network. I was managing a creative dept and typically did ~2 hr promo shoots with anyone notable that came through the studio. I can honestly say the vast majority of them were perfectly fine people. I’d go as far as to say I like a lot of them. In my experience, it’s not the influencers who were difficult, it was the C-listers/A-Listers of yesteryear (a female American idol host to call one out) that made my job hell

it’s similar to snapchat girlies behavior.

constant filming, constant finding their light, always asking for photos, editing….

it’s almost like you aren’t in the room sometimes. or your a prop. last one i hung out with i straight up said “hey can we just do a little time without our phones?” and she looked at me like i was *crazy*

everything is for sale- every moment is a opportunity. i find it exhausting. (ofc some influencers are not this way but all the ones i’ve met, won’t pass up any opportunity for a photo op/ are painfully aware that if they aren’t actively engaging with their fan base they become yesterdays news).

i know some cool “content creators” that are very chill and lowkey. but they aren’t featured

My friend owns a marketing company, and he said it’s awful and has since refused to work with influencers.

From what he told me, the influencers themselves are not terrible (albeit, from his words, some are completely entitled). He would tell them a campaign and they either loved it and were down, or not and he would move on.

For those who said yes to working with him, the issues arose with the management teams. He said that the management would try to gauge more money from him, acted like their client was the hottest celeb in the world, or would completely disregard the influencers requests and tell him their client was stupid and they could no longer interact with the person.

Friend did a stint with a HUGE twitch streamer, has a history of being controversial. To the surprise of no one he was a juvenile self-absorbed prick.

I can share one little thing; often if they are an account that promotes something they will be promoting something that belongs to someone they know. e.g. if they do a 'my top 5' etc. video or clip then one thing in there will be the particular thing they are actually making the video to promote and (it might be changed now idk) they don't have to class it as a paid promotion or advertising doing it in this format.

For example I know an influencer who constantly 'just happens' to like things sold by her husband's company and they always make it into her top purchases of that month or that season, not that she ever mentions the connection.

Work related to influencers.

I used to work on the business retail side of cosmetics and L'Oréal came to us with an influencer deal (French Speaking ~1-2M followers). They created her own "line" of lipsticks. To be frank, the lipsticks kinda sucked. There were only 2 colors and they were just the normal collection but with her name on it. I don't remember ONE color being exclusive.

The launch was a really big deal. One of our store was closed so that she could do signing and and photos with fans. I remember my colleagues being super excited about it. AFAIK, she was nice to the staff and the event went well. But... the "line" was a total flop. L'Oréal ordered way too many lipsticks and just no one wanted them them. I don't remember the sales number, but we probably sold 1/4 of the quantity ordered. My company had exclusivity too.

We ended up having to put the lipsticks on sale but even then, they didn't leave the stores. I remember pretty heated arguments between the L'Oreal reps and my boss to get rid of them and my boss shouting "who the f*ck is this influencer?". We ended up shipping all of them back to L'Oréal and I think they destroyed them. Pretty wasteful.

I know this influencer has since released another lip product collection with another brand and I'm pretty sure it didn't go much better.

Edit to add that obviously, this whole stint was presented as super cool, and that it sold so well and whatnot. But on the business side, it was a pretty s****y deal.

i used to work with an influencer who’s whole persona was “girl boss” “hustle culture” and girls looked up to her for that. she would show up to work just to take selfies then leave lmao.

A former acquaintance of mine recently went FAR down the right wing rabbit hole (not everyone should vote, marriage isn't a right, women shouldn't lead in church roles, queer people are groomer., etc.) and seems to be trying to become a conservative influencer. He has about 2k followers on Twitter and is trying to sell merch.

In real life, he hasn't been able to hold down a job for years and has largely been supported by his wife. He's one of the most deeply unpleasant people I've ever met.

When one of my stylists was starting out, she worked on a ton of “influencers” aka Kylie’s friends. Chantell Jefferies was chill and easy to work with, but Stassiebaby took forrrreveeeerrrrrrrr (like a year) to pay her.

I was working as an art director for a company and we used a few local influencers for a campaign. They were actually very lovely to work with. They were professional, friendly, and took directions really well. They knew what they were doing in front of the camera. I was surprised by how different some of their personalities were compared to what you saw on their social media. These were influencers with followers ranging from 50k to 200k+.