When I was 14, my best friend showed me a video from her new favorite YouTuber. At the time, my idea of female influencers included glossy “get ready with me” videos and perfectly organized back to school hauls. The girls on my screen had white teeth and flawless skin, and they would tell me what to buy and how to do my makeup. This girl, however, was completely different. She was funny, a little weird, and she wouldn’t have looked out of place at my high school. It was Emma Chamberlain.
I immediately became a huge fan. I’d never watched a YouTuber who openly talked about her period, burped on camera and admitted to having no idea how to talk to guys. Her videos felt like a FaceTime call with a friend, and watching them soon became a part of my daily routine. I watched as she was rapidly launched into internet celebrity status, and I continued following her as she moved to LA, started a coffee company and became an adult.
Now in 2023, influencer culture has completely transformed. Photo dumps and unfiltered story posts have created a complicated new set of rules. We’re meant to share our lives in a way that appears raw and authentic but, in reality, has been carefully curated.
The girls on our screens have also changed. While back in 2018, Emma Chamberlain stood out from the crowd, today there is a whole brand of internet celebrity dedicated to her persona: the “quirky” influencer. These creators span from Alix Earle, the somewhat messy party girl who reinvented “get ready with me” videos, to Madeline Argy, the unapologetically weird British TikToker who films videos from her beat-up Honda. Meanwhile, “Chicken Shop Date” creator and host Amelia Dimoldenberg has built a whole career around defying society’s expectations of how women should behave on a first date. These girls are real. They’re giving us the freedom to be whoever we want to be, right?
I’m not so sure. All these women have something in common, and I don’t mean the fact that they’re entertaining. They all fit the conventional beauty standard to a tee. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the most influential women who can successfully build a brand around being relatable because they’re weird, awkward or gross, also happen to have intense pretty privilege. It seems that hot girls really can do no wrong. Sure, Emma Chamberlain farts on camera and talks about her stomach issues, but it’s fine because she also looks like a movie star at the Met Gala.
The quirky rotten girl influencer has become a brand, and a convincing one at that. It’s built around realness and relatability, and often the illusion is so powerful that it’s easy to forget that these girls are rich and famous. Madeleine Argy has more than enough money to buy a new car, yet she still drives one that could break down at any second. Why? Because it’s a key part of her brand. A girl in a new electric BMW isn’t relatable to the general public. But a girl complaining about how her car radio doesn’t work appeals to the masses.
None of this is going to stop me, or anyone, from consuming their media. It’s still entertaining, and there isn’t anything inherently wrong with what these girls are doing. But the double standard of accepting their behavior when we might judge people for doing the same things in the real world is concerning. Sleeping in your makeup or going a little too long without doing laundry shouldn’t be acceptable for some people solely because they’re conventionally pretty and thin, and unacceptable for others because they are not.
Now, when I consume their media, I ask myself if I’m only putting them on a pedestal because they’re conventionally attractive. A lot of the time, the answer is yes. I encourage you to do the same and to offer the leniency you give them to everyone else in your lives whether it be your friends, roommates or family members. Remember, these girls might seem carefree and effortlessly beautiful, but there’s so much that we don’t see.