How to be a new influencer

All you need to get people drooling on Instagram

Are you a bathfluencer? Probably not, but you might want to be aware of their existence, not least because The New Yorker has just published a piece entitled “The Age of Bathfluence”.

A quick recap. You know about Instagram, the place where you post pictures of your perfect life? And you know determined Instagrammers become influencers on the basis that the pictures they post make Instagram types drool? Well, bathrooms – the right sort of bathrooms, with stacks of fluffy white towels and tongue-and-groove walls – are the drool jackpot.

People love to perv on other people’s bathrooms, apparently more than they like to lifestyle ogle any other aspect of their lives. Not any old bathroom – can’t stress that enough – but the sort of bathroom that Meghan Markle might own.

There’s a formula to bathfluence as there is to parkfluence (pictures of autumn in the park). It’s never the picture of the adorable toddler kicking leaves with white-haired granny in her waterproof poncho and misted up specs. Lord, no!

It’s always the adorable toddler in his adorable yellow mac, and a star-print scarf and speccy granny is well out of shot.

Granny is never turning up on your Instagram, by the way, unless she looks like Twiggy on a good day. Neither is your teenager with spots and difficult hair. Your bicycle is (if it’s a Lady Pashley with a basket). Wisteria is. And peonies and fairy cakes and black-and-white porch tiles and decorative house numbers and nicely arranged kindling. There are no mobility scooters on Instagram. No cold sores. No abandoned crisp packets. All the tracksuits are cashmere with a rainbow stripe.

The same situations – the influencers’ money shots, if you like – crop up all the time. Here’s what’s currently in the influence chart:

Bathfluence

The bathfluencer’s bathroom is a lot about the bath, which could be standing in front of a window overlooking Montana, or down at one end of your loft-sized bedroom; or it’s going to be a Downtonmeets-french château sort of bath with muslin curtains. Whatever. In this bathroom, there will be expensive products on view, if not antique glass display bottles. There will be stacks of towels, like you get in hotels and his ’n’ hers dressing gowns. What a bathfluencer’s bathroom is

not going to feature, ever, is a loo brush, a pedestal mat, a chrome pedal bin, a clothes drier or an air vent. You can’t be a bathfluencer with an internal bathroom, sorry to say.

Bedfluence

You may have seen the recent picture of Sam Cam perched on her four-poster, with the Oka furry throw and the embroidered Love pillow… catnip for bed-watchers. That said, the bigger draw in Instagram circles at the moment is the “could we be in Soho Farmhouse?” bedroom. This bedroom has probably got a bath in it – seriously – with a sheepskin instead of a bathmat, a pointless pretty eiderdown and an equally pointless Welsh blanket (there’s underfloor heating, guaranteed). To be a bedfluencer, you probably need minimum six pillows, and you are paying a lot of attention to the stuff dotted around, eg books with attractive block-print covers.

Kitchenfluence

Just about level pegging with bedfluence, but it’s a lot harder to pull off a convincing bit of kitchenfluence. If you don’t cook, it will show and count against you (big clue: lots of copper pans hanging from butcher’s hooks). Also, a pink fridge lets you down.

Dogfluence

See Carrie Symonds and Dilyn the Downing Street Dog. With dogfluencing, you either have a beautiful dog, eg a whippet, and photograph it lounging elegantly on eau de nil velvet furniture, or you have any old dog and a very well-known owner.

Hallfluence

A surprisingly big deal. Instagrammers love a hall because where else can you put your tiny antlers and collection of hats?

Sorry. We don’t make the rules.

‘There are no mobility scooters on Instagram. No cold sores. No abandoned crisp packets’