r/Influencersinthewild

I see average people hawking various cheap products online as if they are someone special. They are waving items in front of the camera while looking desperate or in need. It got me wondering what the average shelf like is for an unknown influencer. Do they get bored after 3 months because their audience doesn't grow, or they are spending way too much time on their postings without any payback?

If I am completely wrong, maybe I should join them ;)

Seems to me, most consequences involve a "slap on the wrist”. Give an example with names.

I know a girl from high school who is now trying to be an Instagram influencer, and honestly it’s entertaining to watch.

The thing is, growing up she lied or exaggerated about a lot of things. She was always telling stories that didn’t seem to add up, claiming she knew celebrities, saying she was getting signed by an agent, and making other claims that never seemed to materialize. It became such a pattern that people just stopped taking what she said seriously.

She used to have a rescue dog with a pretty large social media following. When the dog sadly passed away, instead of leaving the account up as a memorial, she wiped all the photos and repurposed the page to keep the 20,000 followers for her influencer content.

Now almost every post and video features her one-year-old daughter. It feels less like sharing family moments and more like using a child as part of a personal brand.

One of the stranger things was a video she posted about a “friend” coming to visit. Viewers started pointing out that the person appeared to be AI-generated rather than a real friend, which only added to the questions people already had about the authenticity of her content.
She also appears to heavily edit many of her photos and videos. Her teeth, forehead, jawline, and other facial features often look noticeably different from post to post, making it difficult to know what is real and what has been altered.

She also presents herself as a lifelong horse owner and equestrian, posting horse-related content and talking as if she’s spent her entire life in stables. But from what I remember, she never owned horses.

What stands out is that the influencer persona seems to follow the same pattern as the stories she used to tell. The image she presents online feels very different from the person I knew growing up, and it makes me wonder how much of social media is genuine versus carefully crafted fiction.

I’m a 53M American living in Paris for 25 years. My wife of 25 years was Parisian (recently separated). When I moved here many years ago, one of the things that surprised me most was French women’s taste in men.

US women in their 20s can be very superficial and like very tall, big, masculine frat boys or finance dudes with symmetric faces. These men can be dumb as nails with zero wit and intellect, as long as they look hot. Yes, I’m generalizing a bit, but overall it’s true.

In many ways, French women are the exact – and I mean, EXACT – opposite…

They don’t like big men. It’s not that they don’t like us (I’m 6’5” and do very well with French women) – it’s just that they don’t really care much about height. If you spend 20 minutes walking around Paris, you’ll see half the couples where the woman is taller than the man. It looks like moms walking around with their sons. I do find some French women who say they could never date a short guy, but they’re the exception.

They don’t like ultra-masculine men. French men, especially Parisians, are very effeminate. They’re little and skinny and walk like women, and they wear elegant decorative scarves around their necks all year long. Strangely enough, this doesn’t seem to bother French women. I hear a lot of American expat women complain about how French men seem like they’re all gay.

They’re not impressed by your nice face. With all their shortcomings, Frenchmen are actually very handsome. They have nice, handsome, symmetrical faces. Clavicular looks like every 20-year-old French guy. He doesn’t stand out one bit in Paris.

They like wit and intellectual depth. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s true. French people in general really do admire wit. They also love deep conversation and are turned on by intelligence. Clavicular’s pickup lines were so laughably bad it made me cringe to listen to them. He just tells women they’re pretty. LOL. And asks them if they want to spice up their evening. It’s hilariously cringe.

They don’t like Americans. I should clarify this… It’s not really true. What they don’t like are the typically clichéd dumb, arrogant Americans with cocky attitudes. Although I’m American, I speak perfect French and know how to talk to a woman with an understated confidence – a subtle mix of humility and wit. Clavicular comes off as the ultimate “ugly” American.

I wouldn’t recognize him either.

What happens when an independent content creator systematically inflates their resume with tier-one global institutions to sell unverified psychological frameworks?

This post introduces a media analysis tracking the public biographies and self-claimed platform authority of Berlin-based writer and podcast producer Miho Soon (Miholyn Soon). It serves as a case study in how modern digital platforms allow public figures to perform institutional authority they have not intellectually earned.

This investigation exposes a systematic pattern of "upward credential inflation":

The Tate Modern Claim: Promoted as a featured researcher/artist at Tate Modern; public archives reveal she was only a participant in "Tate Exchange," an open-access, unvetted community forum hosted inside the building.

The United Nations Claim: Framed as an official UN research partner; institutional records show she was merely a funded youth attendee at a consultative migration forum.

The Guardian Claim: Presented as an authoritative contributor, bypassing the actual editorial processes that give the publication its institutional weight.

The analysis also reveals how she uses these elite badges to insulate a highly commercialized, un-peer-reviewed wellness certification program ("The Trauma of Money") from genuine clinical accountability.

The complete long-form investigative breakdown and the comparative primary data verification table can be read here: Fact-checking Miho Soon: Epistemic Performance and Credentialist Mimicry

Questions for Media Analysts:

1. How do media literacy frameworks adapt when public figures utilize the explicit vocabulary of anti-capitalism and structural critique to insulate their own commercial profiles from accountability?

2. When the structural signifiers of prestige (citation metrics, institutional badges) are easily detached from actual editorial vetting on platforms like Substack and Medium, how do we police the boundaries of the "spectacle of expertise"?

Und weiss was mit ihr und ihrem Mario los ist?
Seit Wochen ist das alles total kryptisch.

Da muss es doch Nachbarn, Bekannte, Kita Eltern etc geben 😅

I have to admit I watch her videos off/on for the last few years. She has admitted to having narcissistic traits or NPD. I just watched her latest video on Ariana Grande and there's a very quick part in the video where she says she very rarely regrets her decisions because "I'm a socio"....Any chance she's a diagnosed female sociopath? The lack of empathy or compassion for people def make her seem like she has NPD or ASPD ...Thoughts? Her saying she's a "socio" under her breath kinda freaked me out.