To want to shake her?

[hopeitsnottooouting]

So, really really hope this isn’t too outing.
One of my best friends is a so called “Instagram influencer”
She has around 30k followers and has got these over the past maybe 2 years.
I spent another play date with her yesterday basically ignoring me and ignoring her kids purely so she can post constantly on Instagram.
In the 4 hours I saw her she posted approx 25 times.
Anything from photos of the kids, to the menu, to videos describing the place, to photos showing the weather where we were, selfies of herself, photos of herself with forkfuls of food about to go in her mouth.
Because she has so many followers she’s invited to events maybe once a month, just parties or grand openings. She also gets a few freebies or samples a month that she’ll review.
I am in no way jealous of her, but I’m worried.
Her kids are getting neglected. In the 4 hours yesterday she barely spoke to them, lost them numerous times, left one with a dirty nappy for ages and basically dumped the child care of our 5 combined kids to me.
She’s ignoring her friends as she’s just sat on instagram.
She’s ignoring her husband and he’s threatening to leave her over her Instagram use.
You genuinely cannot even have a 5 minute conversation without her going “hang on a sec” and interrupting you to Instagram.
She is so so bloody boring.
Her house has gone downhill, there’s no clean clothes for the kids and it’s filthy.
She’s even cut family days short as there’s no 3G so she’s got no signal to post.
Apparently she needs to post every 10/15 mins to keep followers?
She is wrecking her whole family just to be popular on Instagram.
I just can’t be arsed to be around her, likewise most of her friends.
Why can’t she see what she’s missing out on right in front of her?

What does she influence? I ask because having scruffy kids isn't normally part of the package.

I’m not the most tech savvy person.
I know how to follow people on Instagram but don’t post myself.
Or rather I’m too busy with my real life to have the time to work out how to post multiple times a day!
Other friends have messaged me saying they’re concerned about her posting and the kids.
I just don’t think she cares.
It’s like nothing else in life matters to her except her followers.
I think maybe she is desperately unhappy in day to day life and this is her escape.
All she does is slag of her husband and kids and then take photos of their forced smiles for Instagram.
It’s horrible.

That’s what a mutual friend mentioned the other day re the scruffy kids.
It doesn’t seem to stop people following her.
It’s not as though she’s influencing anyone.
I think it’s the shock factor of her slagging members of the public off without them knowing that gets her followers, plus posting every moment of her life, the occasional beauty product, and 99% whinging about having to work, having to do school runs, doing the food shop etc.

That's really sad and shallow. Like a PP said she needs an intervention.

It seems people do things now just to post on social media - the day out, 'date night' (awful phrase), lunch with friends are all photo ops.

I see that many pics from people I can't understand how they are enjoying the day if they're constantly snapping away and posting.

Add to that the #blessed#makingmemories#randombullshitquote 😷

Oh that is horrible. Her poor kids. I'd be worried for her on wellbeing. What is she not getting from her own life that she needs to seek validation on insta?
Or is it purely because she wants 'fame' or money?
Either way her poor husband and kids!!!
You'd nearly feel like grabbing the phone from her and smashing it.
This aspect of modern life is truly awful. We are all going to evolve into hunch back tech addicts. My kids are still young and haven't asked for phones yet but I know it's just around the corner and I'm dreading it.

Honestly, daily example is
Wake up and photo breakfast
Photo shower saying she can’t wait to get in
Perhaps mention new freebie deodorant
Ask followers if it’s a flip flops or trainers day
Take photo of the back of 30 school mums and moan about how much she hates doing it
Go to work, photo of shop
Photo of queue of customers, moaning she can’t be arsed with it
Photo of beauty product
Video of herself eating seeds and nuts on the morning break
And so on and so on...

Sounds like she’s not much of a friend anymore. And rather an unpleasant person if her Instagram is based on slagging random strangers off. I really don’t see what you could do other than tell her the truth - she has become boring, selfish and a shit parent. Prepare for the friendship to end, but it’s on its last legs anyway unless she comes to her senses.

Your friend is a million miles from making a living as an influencer - she needs quadruple that amount of followers at least – and she needs to understand that before she destroys her life and ruins her kids' childhoods. Can you talk to her husband about how worried you are and stage an intervention with him and other friends?

Try timetabling her day, like above, but showing when she shoos her kids away, won't engage with real life people etc.

Maybe if she sees herself as all her friends see her, it may knock some sense into her.

Can you or her husband video her refusing to interact with her children multiple times per day, and snubbing other people, then sit with her while she watches it with you, tell her to decide there and then, she either gets help or you'll post it to all her followers to show what sort of a parent she really is.

OP be careful if you don't want to be outed. The journalists will be along any minute now. "Woman neglects family husband and job for Instagram fame" sounds like perfect column filler.

She is obviously desperate for approval. I think someone telling her that her children are being neglected would have an impact?

To be honest I’ve kind of distanced myself from her as I didn’t like who she’d become.
Met up for the first time in a few months yesterday as thought she’d might want to catch up “properly” but nothings changed.

Argh. I have a friend like this, she’s not a close friend but someone I meet up with in a group regularly. She does get paid a bit to promote stuff... but it is stuff she would never use/eat herself, which grates a bit because she promotes integrity, that’s her ‘thing’ being true to yourself and being at one with nature, and the next thing she is pretending she feeds her kids sugary cereals (she doesn’t, she made a point of telling me so!)
We went out to a restaurant for a mutual friend’s birthday, and while we were toasting the birthday girl, she was on her photo answering comments on her insta.

Could you and her husband and friends stage an intervention, for the sake of her children?

I once watched the woman next door arrange lace tablecloths, baskets and china on her lawn. Next came her baby in a lace dress and straw hat. Then she appeared in a twenties style dress and hat. Draped herself and the baby all over while her dh took photos.

Next they appeared on Facebook with what an amazing mother’s day picnic they had had. In reality it was a photo shoot with the poor baby being dragged all over.

What does stage an intervention mean please? Is it perhaps the same as 'have a word with'? Sorry - I'm old.

To be honest I’ve kind of distanced myself from her as I didn’t like who she’d become.
Met up for the first time in a few months yesterday as thought she’d might want to catch up “properly” but nothings changed.

Well leave her to it then and drop her, shes not even a friend anymore from what you say. You can either tell her about her behaviour and how its affecting everyone or just not have any further contact with her.
Dont be wasting your time on her, you have your family and other friends. I'd just move on.

I don't know of anyone ever having done this, but could you stage some sort of intervention? If people keep telling her separately she can kind of dismiss it in the moment. If she has friends family colleague and someone with a professional background all telling her she is going to lose everything at once maybe she will listen?

It does sound like a proper addiction. Is there any support anywhere for families or friends of social media addicts?

Stage an intervention is having a word but more formally with a lot of people at once. It's normally a surprise as the person wouldn't agree to go. They will go into a room and find lots of people they know who will all take a turn to explain how the behaviour is affecting both the person in question and their relationship with them. Used when someone is in denial about their behavior

AmIRightOrAMeringue Thank you for the explanation.... that sounds scary.

It's addictive.

I think her DH and her friends and family need to sit her down and tell her about all the things she's about to lose ... in real life ... so she can have her fake life. An intervention, so to speak.

She'll need help if she's to quite. Perhaps DH needs to cut off the wifi and change the code, take her phone, etc. Get her a basic mobile with no internet access.

If it doesn't work, I hope DH goes for full custody of the kids. Poor things.

Just goes to show how fake a lot of this social media crap is. My ex friend has a huge twitter following coming across as this expert on a couple of niche issues, it is all complete bullshit.

I wonder how many of these obsessives think they are "influencers" but the reality is that all those "likes" are just a modern equivalent of attending a freak show? Something is very very missing from your life if staging photos to put on the Internet is your be all and end all. Walk away, op.

‘Being popular on instagram is like being rich in monopoly’

Ha, I’m nicking that , absolutely brilliant!!

Vapid, silly woman. She will lose all that was precious to her for the sake of what? Nothing of substance. She's not an 'influencer' she's a de facto venue, people are not looking at her, they're looking at the products if at all... or more likely, they're just madly clicking, signing up to 'people' in the hope that free products will come their way too if they have enough other 'people' add them to their list.

It's all going to come crashing down around her and, for her sake, I hope it's soon so that she can salvage and repair her relationship with her husband and children. They deserve better than that.