Every influencer tries their best to connect with their audience. Often, their relatability fades as their fame rises, causing a fake and unrealistic mask to keep a grasp on the audience they gained.
Over the course of the internet’s existence, this has happened a numerous number of times. However, only in the more recent years, especially with TikTok, has this number shot up. With the social power it has and the diverse community it reaches, TikTok has stayed the most prominent app of the social media game and a breeding ground for influencers to get big. Examples like Mikayla Nogueira and Haley Baylee have grown their platforms on social media and received backlash as their career progressed. Let’s explore the change in influencers, their responses, and where they are now.
Mikayla Nogueira first went viral for her strong Boston accent in her videos. While being a beauty creator she often did voice overs or talked about a certain product making her videos become more mainstream. As her account progressed, she turned TikTok into her mainstream of income, meaning it was her full-time job. Now, most “full time jobs” range from 9am – 5pm, right? Well, not to Mikayla. A video of hers went viral when she said, “I just got off work and it’s 5:19 [pm] Try being an influencer for a day. Try it”. In response, she did not receive the interest she had hoped but instead a desperate wake-up call. In response to the video were videos critics made displaying their jobs, whether it was a first responder working until 9pm or someone who was low income working multiple jobs. Many made the joke “at least I am not an influencer”, mocking the difficulty of Mikayla’s job. She proceeded to double down and post videos about the laborious tasks of filming, scriptwriting, editing, etc., but still, people met her with the idea that being an influencer is an extremely lucky position to be in to sustain yourself. This behavior was upsetting, and many took it as she was mocking the working class. Her following took a dip in numbers, but Mikayla kept posting anyway and, today, she seemed to have moved past the video and continue her influencer life as normal. Well, whatever normal is to her.
Moreover, Haley Baylee is another example of an influencer gone wrong. Originally working as a model, Haley decided to go to TikTok as another hobby. She began creating relatable, funny videos and stuck to following trends. However, her habit of “following trends” seemed to cause backlash at the Met Gala in 2024. While wearing an extravagant and expensive outfit that was made for her, she decided to film a video in front of the bystanders in line. She used the sound that said, “Let them eat cake”, a quote from the film, Marie Antoinette (2006). In the movie, Marie Antoinette was mocking the people in poverty while she lived in luxury, and people saw Haley’s behavior as a parallel to that. Her making a video, in an expensive outfit, about to walk the carpet, in front of people who could not afford to be closer to the building was a bad look and resulted in her receiving lots of hate. A clear class difference was noticed in the video and that is what upset viewers the most; some saying that her video was so out of touch, they don’t understand why she even got invited. Haley’s response to this was an apology video and an explanation. She had no ill intentions in choosing the audio she did, she just thought it matched the aesthetic of her outfit. Regardless, many said it was a clear brag as a celebrity, and it looked down upon people who cannot afford that lavish lifestyle. Now, Haley is still posting videos like normal, and she seems to have learned her lesson, even joking about how bad the video was.
As influencers’ careers grow, their fame and money do as well. While this is good, most of that attention goes to their head and they become ingenuine, losing the reality of the whole world around them. Their social unawareness only leads to controversy and backlash. Influencers like Mikayla Nogueira and Haley Baylee along with many others on the platform have become peak examples of more and more people becoming out of touch. Unfortunately, influencers on the rise will never be immune to this loss of empathy and behavior like this will most likely continue.
