Influencers who leave well paid, essential jobs to travel the world/ make content

[Paramedia]

I seem to have been flooded with new accounts of white women in their 30’s/ 40’s who all seem to have similar stories of leaving teaching, medicine, corporate jobs, law to travel and create ‘content’ either with or without children whilst travelling.
Obviously I am a bit jealous, but I wonder why now? Ten years ago, people would be happy to have a two week holiday and then come back to work. Was that because there was no other ‘easy’ option such as influencing or that we were just happier in our jobs?
I wonder if it’s a mindset, I always hear ‘do what makes you happy’ and wonder ‘but we can’t all do that, all of the time?’. Someone has to be doing the watching, someone has to be working in those sectors and seeking the escapism that those accounts offer? So how do they, ‘the creators’, know that they will be the ones who make it, that their accounts will be the ones people engage with. Or are there enough people that all of the similar accounts can all be successful based on views alone?

I think people are seeking a different lifestyle as the current situation in the UK isn’t great - the climate (for most of the year), underfunded and declining public services and a very high cost living against stagnating wages.

If you have a job that allows you to work remotely, you can take advantage of being able to move around freely. I don’t know anyone who has quit their job to travel but I know a lot of people who have moved from high powered and pressured corporate roles to more relaxed, remote roles that allow them to travel. People don’t want to spend all their outgoings lining the banks or landlords pockets.

We also have friends who have left teaching in the UK to teach in the UAE. They actually want to come back (they’re not influencer types and quite family orientated) but the financial and lifestyle compromises required mean working in the UAE feels like golden handcuffs.

I recall watching a TikTok a while ago of a young woman who had left her role as an NHS nurse to work serving ice cream in a shack on the beach and was earning more per hour than in her skilled role. It’s no wonder people are disillusioned.

Depends on the field, surely? Travel is much a matter of opinion than, say, dentistry.

I don’t think it’s misogyny. People are focused on female influencers because that’s what we, as women, tend to come across. The algorithm isn’t going to throw me, a 36 year-old woman, content from male influencers talking about computer games and off-road vehicles, is it?

Women make far more money as surgeons and barristers (and indeed female representation in both professions is increasing rapidly) than social media influencing, on average, so if OP really was just a misogynist who had a problem with women succeeding financially, she would support women leaving jobs in law and medicine to pursue social media influencing which is relatively low paid and has a very high failure rate. So I would say it’s not so much misogyny as envy at the perceived ‘glamour’ of it all. Reviewing a hotel in the Maldives is ‘more fun’ than fixing a patient’s pancreas or pulling all-nighters on a legal case.

Absolutely, but does someone have to have a qualification to offer an opinion on something? In the travel influencer example, who would have an 'acceptable' qualification to you?

Yes because male influencers only talk about computer games and cars, bloody hell.

I am a 40 year old woman and have plenty of male travel influencers on my feed.

Many of them do have qualifications. There are doctors, lawyers, historians etc online. There are hobbyists where their subject is their true passion.

This - though there a lot more history ones lately talking absolute bollocks some with AI voices - but then there are so many good often funny ones out there who are accurate and infomative and fun. It's finding decent sources or the fun channels that are out there.

My feed has been flooded of people returning to their corporate jobs after trying to make their side hustle their full-time income after a year and it not paying off.

The grass isn’t always greener, it’s such a small number of people that actually make it and so many grifters out there. AI is making grifters even more grifty too with all the images and videos you can create at the click of a few buttons.

Don’t believe half of what you see, so much of social media is fake.

Love my ASMR people, they help me sleep. I've just subscribed to Clutterbug to see if they help me.

I agree, I think a lot of people see "influencer" and think of a pouting 20-something with lots of botox and filler showing you things they've bought.

Some of the people I watch are in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Just ordinary people who have a hobby they like to show off or have a wealth of knowledge about a subject.

Perhaps someone should start an 'anti influencer' thread, made up of people they follow who are just talking about ordinary things.

I recommend Jago Hazzard, who talks about London trains. It is oddly restful and has not influenced me in the slightest, as I drive everywhere.

That's my point, whether or not qualifications are important depends on the field.

Travel is an obvious example of one where qualifications wouldn't matter, and I'd probably value level of experience particularly highly there. Then the other end of the spectrum would be something tightly regulated.

Chris Spargo. Videos of 5-15 minutes about very British subjects and the minutiae of life - road signs, number plates, Sports Direct mugs, parking apps, why many supermarkets have clock towers.

I have a travel blog, which I've had for 10 years. I really enjoy writing, taking and editing photos and showing people destinations they may not have thought of (my most popular content is places like the Balkans countries, and other less visited cities)

Personally I have social media channels for the blog and I do share content but I am terrible at reels, I am crap at using Tiktok. I KNOW if I focused more on these platforms my views and followers would grow and that in turn would lead to more blog views (I want people to read my hard work!)

I make enough money from the blog at this point to cover the running costs and maybe one low key trip a year, a quick overnight to somewhere. The dream is to be able to drop to 3 days a week in my day job to focus 2 days on writing. I wonder if influencers just don't want the 9-5, some people don't thrive in that and want to change it

But the point still stands that a woman is more likely to come across female content on social media. That’s how the algorithms work.

Anyway, I still think it’s envy rather than misogyny. People tend to envy those who they perceive to be just like them, and so think it’s unfair that that person has a more glamorous life etc. If you’re a 30 year-old woman from Oxford and you see another 30 year-old woman from Oxford making money from travelling, you might think “why not me?”. You’re less likely to think that about an 18 year-old man from San Diego who is a skateboarding influencer.

Some hotels and restaurants don't need the publicity and don't want the wrong kind of publicity. They don't want influencers visiting the bar or booking for only one night and then disrupting and annoying their core, loyal clientele by conducting one long photoshoot. Some hotels have introduced longer minimum stays. There are still plenty of businesses who need influencers less than the influencers need them.

I dunno. Ive been following a bloke who's renovating a completely abandoned hamlet in a Ukrainian forest. A bloke that hikes around the highlands with his dog staying in different bothys. A guy in America that finds strange looking places on Google earth and goes on missions to find them.

I'm going to miss my free trial of yt premium when it ends! Loads of people out there doing cool stuff and videoing and trying to get a following so they can have an income from it. I think there's a misconception about the wide range of things that they do, or the odd story of a young woman who was acting entitled is what the word means

Because I have often seen the same names pop up several times on the Style and Beauty threads over the years and as sock puppeting has been banned on here I doubt very much that they are all the same poster.

And what would be the point in asking for recommendations on here? I very much doubt that most mumsnetters are "influencers"

I'm sorry, but the very word just makes my teeth itch.

It depends what genre they're influencing in. For example I follow a couple who do house renovation and ADHD content creators. I find the ADHD creators especially helpful. Their posts inspire their audience—whether that's marketing a product, trying a specific coping strategy, changing a viewpoint on ADHD, or seeking further information. It's unfair when people make judgements without even watching any videos

My mother blasts social media influencers but always buys Country Living because she likes to see the new trends. She just doesn't get the hypocrisy.

I can totally see the appeal although I would not trade my privacy for it. If successful you appear to get so many freebies and the money seems pretty good if advertisers want you. Always good to have a back up and so many branch out. It’s just modern advertising isn’t it.

As with anything you need a USP but the thought you might make it big must make people keep going.

I don't necessarily follow them officially.

I find it harder and harder to engage with social media at all and not also see masses of stuff I don't subscribe or follow. I find it really hard to curate my feeds to exclude it all and I guess that's how they work.

I subscribe to them on youtube. I don't have instagram and make liberal use of the block/mute button on facebook.

Sometimes it’s filmed solo, but that isn’t always true. There’s been a rise in so called “BTS” behind the scenes reels lately that show otherwise.

To be fair it’s possible to “not understand” and also “not give a shit”

People who don't give a shit don't join threads just to announce that they "don't understand" the subject matter, so they're fine by me.

What on earth are you talking about “they’re fine by me” ????