JOANNE Watkinson
I’VE FALLEN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
DON’T be a sheep. Be yourself. Think for yourself. Paddle your own canoe. I use all of these phrases, mostly directed towards my kids.
And most of the time I take my own advice. I march to the beat of my own drum (I also absolutely love an idiom). But I have an Achilles heel, one that frustrates me no end, and one I try to resist every single time the urge arises.
I am influenced by influencers. There, I’ve said it. I am influenced by what they are wearing, their home decor, where they go on holiday, the suitcases they carry. And I am mostly ashamed to say I have even been known to show an interest in the cleaning products they use.
I don’t always purchase the things I see, but I do find myself being interested enough to click to find out where the dress they are wearing/ sofa they are sitting on is from. Sometimes even to the point of following the link to get a price.
It drives me nuts that I can’t muster up enough self-control to scroll past. What is it that makes me want to know the details of this stranger’s life?
Am I inherently nosy? Actually don’t answer that.
Before influencers came along TV advertisements were my kryptonite – a catchy jingle, fancy packaging, or even just the promise of whiter whites made me putty in marketeers’ hands. But there is something about real people, in real scenarios that is more seductive than a staged ad campaign.
I feel better knowing I’m not alone. Statistics reveal that influencer marketing is the fastest-growing sector thanks to the meteoric rise in social media usage. So what is the appeal?
Psychologists say it’s simple. Influencer marketing plays on our natural tendencies as humans, our in-built herd mentality means we instinctively follow a crowd, and fear of missing out (FOMO) is a psychological response. We can’t help it, it’s how we are wired. FOMO is real.
Knowing my psyche makes me powerless to the ploys of modern marketing is both comforting and scary, I have always been inspired by how other people dress (mainly Kate Moss), but being inspired is very different to being influenced.
I don’t want to buy or wear what I am told. Where is the joy in that? It sounds like the death knell to individuality. Let’s go rogue, let’s buy the things we fall in love with, wear the clothes that we picked out.
Let’s paddle our own very fashionable canoe.