Influencers teaching knitting
This is probably a silly thing to get annoyed about, and if it’s not appropriate for here I’ll delete it, but this really gets under my skin when I see it for some reason.
I’ve just come across a video of an influencer I’ve followed for a long time (usual niche is lifestyle/fashion) talking about how she’s picked up knitting over the last year and now she’s hosting workshops to teach others how to knit. It’s not the first time I’ve seen someone online with less than a years’ experience with knitting suddenly posting how-to videos or feeling qualified to be teaching, but every time I find it a bit baffling! Especially because sometimes they get things wrong or don’t fully understand what they’re saying and need to be corrected in the comments, which just adds confusion.
Having close to 7 years of knitting under my belt and a good amount of knowledge, I personally would not feel qualified to teach in any sort of formal setting (of course I’ve taught friends informally to get them started or helped troubleshoot their projects). It just feels like a staggering amount of overconfidence to go from novice to self proclaimed teacher in a year, but maybe some people really do pick up skills super fast and feel confident enough to do that?
My personal view is that whilst anyone should feel proud of their work and free to document/share their experience/journey/lessons along the way, to position yourself as a teacher or expert when you are very new to the craft is a bit misleading and could lead other newbies wrong. I also wonder whether it creates confusion about who in the online knitting community really has the expertise to back up their platform, rather than taking advantage of the more recent hype for knitting.
Has anyone else seen this online? Do you feel similarly or am I being weird? I know I’ve probably overthought this and will likely delete anyway, but interested to see if anyone has had similar thoughts.