Sometimes when our minds feel super busy, there’s a little culprit that lives at our fingertips to blame. This Free Therapy Sunday, we’re focusing on influencer culture and how to get our mental freedom back:
Global (19 November 2023) — In the last decade, our ability to be influenced by others reached massive proportions. ‘The age of the influencer’ outdid mainstream media platforms in ways no one could’ve imagined before social media became a household term. But, with over a decade of the influencers’ age to look back on and learn from, the effects it has had on our mental states has become a very heated topic. Cue the deinfluencing trend!
When the deinfluencing trend started popping up earlier this year, it embraced an obvious sense of irony. A trend telling us not to trend? Still, many people found that its impact was hugely necessary and its concepts long overdue.
From its core definition, the deinfluencing trend refers to people who review what influencers are pushing or have pushed people to purchase, alongside mainstream trends. They then debunk all the hype around these products as former purchasers themselves, mostly with the intention to communicate authenticity, their own experiences and save the most-influenced people from low to middle-income circumstances, money.
But, it also led to a deeper stream: the heavy toll that being told what to buy and who to be from all angles of society has on our minds.
Many of the self-described deinfluencers shared their personal experiences of what it is to live your life under the thumb of influence. As TikTok creator Christina Mychas shared, “I was so insecure and unsure of myself what I wanted/what I actually liked that I just bought into these trends.”
Other social media users shared that the culture of influencing pried on their senses of self-worth; making them feel smaller, more disconnected from others and mentally exhausted.
As the deinfluencing trend grew, it extended not only to boot what we are told we ‘need’ to own to be part of a certain community, but why the best trend you can actually follow for your mental sake, is discretion.
Why Influencer Culture Effects Our Minds Negatively
- A constant state of comparison
- A sense of self-worth that’s tied to materialism
- Less trust in our own choices
- A reward system and dopamine influx that are activated from watching others showcase the lives we aspire to have, instead of acting on our own efforts to make it possible which perpetuates instant gratification
- Anxiety caused by ‘information/content overload’
- Disconnection from our real lives and communities
What We Can Do About It
Understand the ‘Psychology of Influencing’
When we really understand that influencers play on a lot of psychological gaps to sell their lifestyles, we become way more aware (just as people have with mass media) of the parts of ourselves we need to give extra love to. This can look like focusing on things like our personal insecurities by healing them and understanding why they exist instead of adding another product to a cart that won’t fill what’s ‘missing’.
When influencer culture is seen for what it is (whether professional or from someone who unknowingly has taken on influencer tendencies), trusting in your own decisions and wants becomes a lot easier.
Parent Yourself with Your Social Media Habits
The less time you spend on social media, the more time you’ll have cut out to focus on the things that are actually fulfilling! Remember that the grass grows where you water it.
Focus Less on How You’re Perceived
So much anxiety has come from tiny screens, and so much of the time it’s because we worry about how we’re perceived by others. Humans are social beings, but we were never meant to have quite so much access to each other’s worlds. Instead of focusing on how you’re perceived, focus on what you perceive: your own ideas, creations, dreams and the story of your life, for no one other than yourself.
Take the Time to Set Your Own Standards for Your Life
Whip out the vision board, grab your favourite happy snack and start being intentional with your decisions! When you have a plan and you know what your self-set standards are, you become a lot less susceptible to being influenced unless it aligns with where you’re trying to get to.
If spending money on aesthetic restaurants with no other intention beyond showing people you went there has become a habit, it’s time to re-evaluate. Could that money be used for the business you want to start? For the dog you want to adopt? Or for a hobby that might bring no one else but you immense joy?
Remember, if it isn’t paying your bills, you have no business acting like an influencer (or spending like one, for that matter). Deinfluencing your mind means stepping back from endless external influences and stepping into your own power.
Trends come and go faster than ever, but your own sense of self-worth is like a good perfume: timeless.
Sources: GTG
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