With this difficult time that is the Coronavirus Pandemic, came a shift in our whole world as we knew it. People’s lives have become affected in multiple ways. Everyone has a story, struggle, and hardship they are facing during this pandemic. Whether it is college students being sent home from school and classes moved to online, schools across the world being paused and pushed to remote learning, cancellations of proms, graduations, weddings, vacations, and the list unfortunately goes on. A massive, dominating effect is that jobs are being lost, businesses are shutting down, and unemployment rates are rising to all-time high numbers reaching well over ten million. The unemployment rate is about to hit 14.7%, which is the highest level of unemployment since 1940.
So, where do these so-called “influencers” and their jobs stand in all of this? Will they disappear after this pandemic and lose their jobs to influence individuals on what to buy, by posting their professional photos and video content to their social media platforms and blogs?
The answer has found to be no. Many influencers are simply adjusting, seeing their roles still exist, but in a different light. New York local fashion influencer Elizabeth Savetsky told TheVerge.com, “it’s going to force us to be more creative.” “I’ve been posting on Instagram for about seven years now, and so it’s nice to almost have this challenge that’s forcing me outside the box because we all tend to get into these habits of doing the same thing over and over again, shooting on the same street corner always, and we can’t do that anymore.” These influencers must learn new ways, to influence new things, in new meanings. As Katie Sands, another Instagram and fashion blog influencer sees the pandemic as an opportunity to have more honest, personality-driven conversations with people and followers. “We’re in a serious time and it’s creating serious conversation,” Savetsky, another influencer added, “I see a lot of my influencer friends going deeper than they usually would and posting different kinds of content. It’s going to change the industry for the better and make it less-curated and make it more relationship-based with influencers to follow.”
People are on social media now more than ever, having life on pause, and being at home with some extra time on our hands. We’re all looking for motivation and some inspiration during such a hard time, looking for home recipes, for workouts, for work from home outfits, for beauty advice.
We can find these things and escape the world craziness by going on social media and seeing these influencers in their bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms posing in loungewear clothing, robes, and pajamas. Showing us their morning routine starting with their skincare and promoting this time to be used for self-care and to connect with ourselves emotionally. We once were so used to seeing these “picture perfect influencers” pose for professional photographers on the street corners of New York City. We are now seeing this even more relatable side to them. That they live in a house and have a family like we do, as their moms and husbands are now taking their Instagram photos around the house. Influencers are opening up, sharing their own personal emotions and life changes during this. Influencer Sands is also going live on her page every Thursday with her therapist to help other people work through the stress and anxiety of a pandemic. So many other influencers and professionals are going live on Instagram throughout the day collaborating with therapists, life coaches, health professionals, nutritionists, etc. to give people something to watch and do. To connect with and INFLUENCE with their followers – like their so said job is!
One influencer who has pivoted, problem solving and doing the most she possibly can during this time is New York City fashion blogger, influencer, turned designer, founder, and soon to be author, Danielle Bernstein of WeWoreWhat. This 27-year-old has turned to impressive philanthropic efforts. By simply going live with different helpful professionals from fitness to all different industries. To posting stories of her current emotions that change from day to day, to her now virtual team business meetings, to sharing new hobbies, to posting businesses who will be hiring after this all, to surprising her followers as per their request to join their own friend Zoom calls, to meditating at the end of the dock at her mother’s Hamptons house where she is quarantining.
In the midst of all this, Bernstein launched her latest swimwear collection for brand ShopWeWoreWhat and donated $20,000 of her sales to two hunger-relief nonprofits, Food Bank for New York City, generating 75,000 meals, and River Fund to assist them. Bernstein then took the devastating shortage of medical masks into her own hands and turned to Onia factories where her brand is manufactured, to secure 15,000 KN95 surgical masks donating them to MaskAHeroNY.com. Furthermore, she just released a new way to help from turning her recent hobby of painting into a charitable cause. Partnering with Australian artist, Sara Sidari, the two are creating a hand drawn by Danielle herself coloring book for her followers to download at home, to print and paint or color themselves! It will include her own paintings and her own sketched designs of her clothing lines pieces. This coloring book can be purchased and downloaded by anyone on ShopWeWoreWhat.com for $15 dollars with 100% of the proceeds going to FoodBank4NYC. On her first day of releasing the personalized coloring book, Bernstein already raised over $5,000. Now that’s an influencer!