Letting the presence of influencers irk you is a symptom of early-onset Boomerism
The Met Gala rumors are fake, but the outrage is real
I have been terrified that I am burning out. Every day at 3 p.m., I start feeling like my eyes are melting out of my head. Several weeks (and a hundred searches for resorts where you can check yourself in for “exhaustion”) later, I learned that I am just extremely farsighted!
Anyway, I have been to five doctors in the past two weeks, which means that I have said I am a “digital journalist” five times and when they say “what’s that” I just say “influencers.”
So, let’s talk about influencers.
Influencers aren’t invading the Met Gala this year. They’ve always been there.
Have you seen those delightfully fake graphics with extremely fake Met Gala intel (including very real name misspellings — Idris Alba!) going viral on Twitter?
They are, as mentioned, fake — not curated rumors, just fully fake. I’m not going to get into that right now, because Kat Tenbarge and Charlotte Columbo over at Insider already did a lovely job unpacking the extreme fakeness and how it has become a platform for selling other Instagram accounts.
I will say, the fakeness is kind of inspired. Beyonce sitting across from Addison Rae? Orlando Bloom next to Selena Gomez? What would Lady Gaga and Hailey Bieber talk about? Cole Sprouse and Donatella Versace?? Is this tribute to the quarantine house trend of yore? In the Instagram Story font? Give this fraudster a raise!
It is sort of fascinating that screenshot-sharing fan accounts are more effective at spreading rumors than Page Six these days (that’s,,,, another story), but I’m here to remind y’all that influencers have always been invited to the Met Gala.
People love gatekeeping the Met Gala, including the people behind it, and I think that’s annoying and pretentious — but being annoying and pretentious is part of the fun. I saw a bunch of commenters lament how the big Vogue Spectacular is going from a “fashion event” to an Instagram moment, but haven’t “fashion events” always involved putting inaccessibly beautiful clothes on famous and influential people?
Now, I’m not an expert here. I’m a girl sitting at home in $10 cheetah print pants with a rip down the side because I could have sworn they had pockets and I tried to shove my acrylic nails inside them and they split.
I have been obsessively looking at every beautiful dress on the internet possible since I got my teens.aol.com login, and I swear there have always been influencers here. We’re just changing our perception of what an influencer is.
What is an influencer? Someone who influences people, usually to buy something. You can do that if you are an actress. You can do that if you are a fashion designer or a magazine editor or an athlete. You can do that if you have 10x more followers than any of those people because you’re good at smiling and dancing at the same time. If you think they’re undeserving of influence, then don’t be influenced by them.
Life gets a lot better when you stop letting influencers bother you. Be skeptical, sure. Hold them accountable, definitely! But don’t let them bother you because they showed up somewhere you feel you could never be. Their lifestyle is unattainable, and by ignoring them and/or their inherent sales pitch, you win in the exact way you’re probably craving.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you can’t criticize problematic or cringe people on a personal level. Have at it! But shaking your fist at the concept of influencers mingling with mainstream stars is just a symptom of early-onset Boomerism.
I think we can all agree Jeffree Star will not be there.
Also, I hate to break this to you, but Vogue itself confirmed that the co-chairs of the event are all 25 or under. Whether or not Addison Rae shows up to their little soiree in her Bitmojicore™️ fit, she would still be able to banish us all to 2015 by wearing an infinity scarf in a single batch of nose-scrunching videos.
[Pretend I can embed this TikTok]
Influencers aren’t ruining everything, you’re just grumpy. Take a deep breath and recognize that TikTok has a zillion million daily users and they’re not just teens. Instead of watching Twitter the night of the Met Gala on September 13, fire up that Criterion special release of Citzen Kane! You’ll be fine.
Discourse Dump
Content dump will be back next time, I’ve just been tweeting all the stories I like lately. Hi, follow me on Twitter!
Instead, here are some free content ideas based on recent discourse:
It’s good when everyone makes the same joke online, actually. It’s like a low-impact Family Feud game.
Lorde has earned the right to be a little boring.
What does the girl who had the Insane Clown Posse-themed wedding on True Life think about their upcoming farewell tour?
Why did a man with a poop profile photo get paid to share his bad food opinions?
Do hot girls have digestive issues or do they drink entire glasses of whole milk, and what does that have to do with all these milk crates y’all have?
I don’t think you understand, I’m obsessed
Substack won’t let me directly embed TikToks, so I am forced to do some self-promotion here, but I’d like to direct you to some strange corners of the internet.
Thank you to my husband for copy editing this. See ya next time.