Insta mums

[Harrielady]

What the actual fuck?! I have just joined mumsnet and can say I will be leaving it after the negativity I've experienced. I joined expecting women helping women.
Women encouraging other women. Whether that's with their children, their marriage or their careers?! 'Insta mums' are mums who have decided a career in instagramming! And why the fuck not?! Before you ask no I am not an insta mum. Not that I wouldn't want to be - I just can't be bothered to tidy. But they do! They make their homes beautiful and enjoy decorating and showing their efforts off. Other women are inspired and they can bring many other women joy and happiness. Who are you bringing joy and happiness too? Going into the internet and plastering negative energy and bitter comments is not helpful, not nice and not at all fucking productive! You bitch about these women spending their days cleaning and shopping and not 'caring for thier kids' but how are you fucking idiots any better?!? Your too busy slagging off other hard working women to get your kicks. It's sad. Pathetic and downright bullying.
Something's that have been posted have hurt 'insta mums' and have caused upset - what have they actually done to you?? You are no better than the disgusting internet trolls who target celebrities or others who are slightly better looking or better off than yourselves. Get a grip.

Just seen the apology, I realised now that I did see that post. As a mum of a child with severe ADHD I was not remotely offended and thought it described a toddler in your bed quite well. That apology seemed sincere and to be honest that's one of the least irritating things he's said (in my opinion!)

I thought he looked very sheepish( and very quiet for a change ....hope he's learnt from this incident that SM can indeed be a 2 headed monster

FOD is no comedian, good god he tries too hard to be funny with those tiresome badly-written captions, and this ADHD 'joke' was ill-judged and unfunny too. On a wider note, there are so many people who find it ok to joke about mental illness - one i hear a lot is 'so and so (usually client/boss) is totally bipolar' - people have to stop saying this stuff. it really is offensive.

When someone who is not a comedian or naturally funny tries repeatedly to be so (by necessity I suppose, when you have to generate content endlessly even when nothing much is happening) it's inevitably going to go embarrassingly and horribly wrong before long. Forced comedy is just painful.

Drranj so true! He does try so hard to be funny! I think that's partly why I still watch him instead of unfollowing, it's a bit like you want to see how bad it will get. But he's not quite hitting it in a Richard Madely way although his wanking stories were almost Alan Partridge. Alan Partridge but real.

Just imagine the stress levels in their house.

I DO find it strange that MOD apologised to the instagrammer on behalf of FOD, before he posted his story up! Maybe she gave him a stern word?!

I wonder how his book will sell. My friend is in publishing in one of the "big 3" publishing houses and said his book got laughed out of their acquisitions meeting. Apparently his main point on the memo was he wanted to sell more books than his wife. Nice.
Some mug paid him a huge advance that's for sure. Insta followers don't translate to sales unless he does a shit tonne of events and publicity.

Sure he's a very nice bloke, mind, I just don't like the endless comedy captions. It's a bit unrelenting. Simpler would be more effective. Let the funny stuff happen naturally rather than endlessly forcing it.

@sidelee7 Did he get asked to write a book or just wanted to?

Not sure - I think the insta mums are flooding the book market and his agent thought it would be good to cash in?

They all are doing it - one instamum that I actually think is ok, another Clemmie, had a book proposal before Christmas. Apparently it was actually embarrassing because it was soooo badly written.

I don't really understand why everyone on here is so obsessed with MOD and FOD. They're only famous on Instagram surely so you'd have to go looking for them to be bothered by them. So look elsewhere! It baffles me. If I don't like someone I just don't follow them. It's quite simple really. They really aren't going to impact on your life if you just don't bother looking for them. I have no problem with them, I quite like them and find their stories about the twins very relatable as I have a toddler the same age. Anyway I really shouldn't be adding to this ridiculously unrelenting debate about 2 people. Wasn't everything that could be said about them said in the previous intamum thread?!

I'm not talking bloggers or whoever that post stuff once every couple of days. I'm talking twelve instastories per day. Plus posts. Plus ads and paid partnerships. It must be exhausting having to incessantly create and generate 'engaging' content. Where's the reward (other than financial)? What are the featured kids gaining from it?

Yeah... it’s a job. People have been doing this kind of job for years, and a lot of people actually enjoy it. They used to be called “lifestyle journalists” or “ad agency creatives” or “creative directors” or “PR agents” (technically these jobs still exist, but now they’re in competition with influencers). Running a really appealing online social media persona is hard work. It is at least a half-time job. You can’t just snap a few pics and fling up a post every day or two. There are literally millions of those kind of accounts and people aren’t all that interested in following them.

Half the attractive, interesting Instagram profiles that you see are run by people who would have previously worked behind the scenes for an agency or magazine writing stories, shooting photos and coming up with campaigns for advertisers. Now they’ve cottoned on to the fact that they can cut out the employer and control their own creative content production. This is the new media environment.

And sure, discuss the morals and ethics of it; that’s an important conversation. But at the end of the day, Kate upthread is right. If you don’t agree with their ethics, don’t give them your eyeballs. These are professional productions exactly like newsstand magazines (which are full of content based on freebies and PR material, usually nowhere near as clearly acknowledged as #gifted #sp etc. You can control whether you give them your support.

Its easy enough to say don't give them your eyeballs but the nature of social media is that it is designed to be addictive and its actually really hard to tear yourself away from someone you have followed for years before they became professional. A lot of the discussion seems to be focused on MOD/FOD is because they didn't come from a professional PR background and some followers have now become disilliusioned because it is now apparent that rather than just sharing aspects of their lives with you, they are now being sold to on a regular basis. There are lots of parallels with traditional magazines but social media is an entirely new beast and far more insidious than those channels.

I think its very easy to say 'if you don't like, unfollow' but why shouldn't people speak out as well as unfollow if they don't like what they say? Some of the bloggers are completely taking advantage of people (not MOD/FOD who I respect for taking feedback on board and being more transparent).

@ShamelesslyPlacemarking The 'If you don't like it then don't look' argument is so old. It's just an easy swerve. There's still a debate to be had. The Bloggers and Brands thread on the Style & Beauty board here are an excellent example. Many trotted out the 'Just unfollow!!!!' tripe early on but we moved beyond that and the ensuing discussion has been brilliant. And has resulted in actual changes.

He's still burying #ad in his hashtags too

Not listening to feedback is a crap strategy anyway. A lot of disgruntled followers won't unfollow they just convert into Hate Followers. If you are lucky they sit there benignly (but making the blogger's engagement stats look bad), if you are unlucky they start calling you out for your crap collaborations and lack of transparency on your page. Either way, not a good outcome for brands to be associated with, who will eventually stop working with them.

youcantell yes fair enough that there is a very intetesting debate to be had but surely to those people who are just bitching about MOD and FOD for personal reasons like "he isn't funny" or "they seem smug" or "she's really materialistic" etc really should just move on with their lives and click unfollow

I actually agree with missrabbit - some of the comments on here are too personal. They detract from the important conversation being had here. And they're pointlessly cruel.

He's still burying #ad in his hashtags too

To be fair to FOD, (if that's who you're talking about) he's started using the 'paid partnership' geotag which is about as clear as you can get on Insta.

Its pretty brutal, but it is feedback about what they are putting out there, because they are putting out for consumption the jokes, the house renovation, the new clothes. MOD and FOD are pretty good at listening to feedback though, so although it probably hurts to hear now (and in the way it is delivered), if there are valid points I am sure they will take them on board.

I don't follow them. But I like to engage in discussion about it and have learned quite a bit as a result. I'm entitled to do that, they have put their lives in the public eye. It's no different to discussing someone in Made in Chelsea or a poorly written article by a Metro journalist. If I started a thread about "look what Littlejohn has written now" would everyone get in a flap and be all "oh just don't read it? Don't be mean to Littlejohn" It's discussion. It's what you invite when you publish content for hundreds of thousands of people to pick apart. If you don't like scrutiny get a different job.

The way it is delivered isn't helping anyone be listened to though.

Well I was remarking that he is trying to be hard to be funny and it's falling short. That's why I don't follow. I would also not feel bad about saying the same, in a mn post, of a bad stand up comedian I saw live last weekend and won't buy tickets to again. It's what people do - critique performances and discuss published content. Do you mean it would be preferable to write this to him directly than discuss with others here? I guess I could but he seems too vulnerable right now, which is what makes me think perhaps it's not the ideal job for him. To react in such a way to one person calling him something as innocuous as "wanker" is rather telling. Surely to be a successful influencer you need to have a very thick skin. Everyone on the planet is going to come up against people that just don't like them, and say as much. Let's say 1% for example. Either behind their backs or publicly to their faces. Putting yourself out there so publicly is just going to increase that number. Still 1% perhaps, but when you are living your life in front of 800k people then you can expect a certain number of comments and discussions, happening publicly in the same way that you are living out your life.