To be put out by friend and her ‘influencing’ attempts

[Tenhuy]

One of my closest friends has started posting more influencer style type things on Instagram, and has grown a couple of thousand followers. Shopping hauls, getting ready videos and family days out etc. She is open about wanting it to grow to the point she could earn money. Fine - each to their own.

I do feel like it is having a bit of an impact on our friendship and don’t know if I am being unreasonable to mention it - hence the question!

The straw which broke the camels back is a couple of weeks ago when we had arranged to meet on a Thursday evening at a shopping centre for a look around and a restaurant dinner. The day before, she excitedly called me and said she had been given a ‘PR invite’ to attend the soft opening of a new fast food takeaway there - basically a noodle chain. She said I could go with her and it was when we were at the shopping centre anyway.

She picked me up and when we parked up had to film an introduction for a post, then filmed our walk in, asked me to film her walking in etc. She then filmed the takeaway unit and was given a free meal - again, filmed herself eating this and commenting. I wasn’t given any of the food and was waiting around for her to finish.

We then looked around the shops and she said she wasn’t hungry enough for our planned restaurant meal and could I grab something quick instead from one of the other fast food units so she could get home to edit the video as she was told to post it by the following lunchtime.

I suppose her counter to me being a bit annoyed would be that I’d support her if I was a true friend. The other minor annoyances have just been filming everything to an annoying extent, ‘oh hold off eating so all the dishes are in shot’ or ‘we need to do a cheers first’…

Opinions welcome!

But some people are so talented and show you step by step advice on renovating furniture, hanging wallpaper, painting with gloss, buying second hand furniture and renovating it (good for the planet). Shopping at charity shops for ceramics rather than John Lewis. Appreciating good workmanship, dovetail joints in real wood, not MDF.

Next time she wants to hang out ask if she will be working and if so, it’s a no thanks. I have a friend who’s an influencer and she might take a quick snap of our coffee before we start drinking it but she is otherwise just being my friend when we catch up. I couldn’t bear being the spare part while someone else basically worked. It’s tiresome and very rude.

She sounds obnoxious and very self-consumed. Take some space.

Just text her that you fully support her new line of work did not enjoy “ going to work “ with her last Tuesday and in future happy to meet up as long as she isn’t working as youd rather focus on enjoying the food and each other

Agree.
I stopped spending time with someone who would curate the entire day/trip/meal etc and then post it all online.
Multiple shots until she got the perfect one.
Absolutely boring and tedious as shit.

I can't get over her sitting and eating her free meal in front of you, while you had nothing! And then dumping your plans to go to a restaurant.

Choose friend or not, I'd be considering the friendship's future. That was just blatantly rude.

I agree with a pp, that next time anything planned, you ask if it's for work, or spending time together. If she says 'both' then you tell her that you won't be accompanying her anywhere where she's filming or is otherwise work related. If she protests, remind her that you went hungry last time and she ditched your plan.

That's what I'd be asking next time she suggests something (don't forget to charge double time for out-of-hours appearances !)

Yes some people put out genuinely useful and interesting ’content’. They don’t tend to be the ones with millions of ‘followers’ though do they? Most of the people who are addicted to Social Media are watching people put on make up, go shopping, eat at a restaurant or go on holiday. It’s all so depressingly vacant.

Are you seriously suggesting that 'how to' and self help videos aiming to transfer skills is the same thing as staging a fantasy lifestyle purely to get people to spend money to copy you?

They're really, really not.

Yes, definitely annoying, and given how many people want to be influencers, it's unlikely she'll be particularly successful at it, though I wouldn't tell her that. She sounds a bit self-absorbed and thoughtless to not realise that she wouldn't want another meal after the noodles, then hurrying you along.

I think I'd lay some ground rules. When you go out together, the purpose is to spend time together, not to create content. If she only wanted to snap the occasional photo or record a short video clip every so often, I'd be okay with that, but you should be able to set whatever boundaries you're personally comfortable with. Otherwise I'd limit the time you spend together to things that are unlikely to turn into content creation outings.

She's an amateur tell her.

The one I know was in London in July on three occasions all expenses paid three times first class train carriage. The products were all Xmas. She sat with journalists from newspaper, magazine covers who were lovely btw.

She's spent a fully paid day with Google who are interested in influencers. Training on software.

It's work being successful. It takes time. You get loads of offers from companies. Use our soap, eat our jam, try our noodles. You need to say no thanks to most of it especially health cures, now that's a minefield.

Use your head, be patient, Mrs hinch started with zoflora which she really believed in.

I wouldn't have an issue with her being an influencer but I would have a problem with her expecting you to tag along.

No, it wasn’t technically open (no food on ‘sale’), they just invited a load of people and handed out prepared food in exchange for them posting about it.

Did she even ask for a plate for her friend?

I don’t know why you got involved in this at all. As soon as she started her introduction I would have left the car.

No. I couldn’t tolerate this madness. I would have refused the invite from the off.

I can't believe you obediently sat and watched her eat tbh.

I think I'd have either ordered my own noodles, or told her I didn't really want to hang about while she filmed herself eating (wtf who does this), arranged to meet her another time then left.

You are not BU!

She should have been thankful and bought you your own dinner (or at least share hers!)

It’s all cringe in general, but aside from that your friend changed the plans to suit her and that would annoy me.

I had a friend like this. Would rearrange my drink so the photo looked better or tell me to pause when I had a forkful of food.

I don’t have the friend any more.

Ugh... rude and thoughtless of her.

That sort of content creation for fast moving, time sensitive, limited shelf-life content does create some utter monsters though. To get monetized for insta, tiktok etc she will have to produce a certain number of videos every week (lots, several a day probably) and then maintain that... To get invited to things or paid to review/feature, she'll have to have a rapid turn around, do exactly as asked, stick to a script, hit key words/points - anyone doing that simply for a free plate of food is an utter fool!

I make long format Youtube content - i probably spend about a day a week on it, and it is something I am doing anyway (art stuff), as part of one of my jobs. Monetization would be nice but not something I see in the near or even longer term future, however my content is 'evergreen', not particularly time sensitive, and I have no interest in or need, to jump through hoops to serve big brands, so it isn't going to take over my life or piss off my friends!

Tell her you're not impressed and you wanted to spend time with her, not watching her work. She will be so obsessed with making content out of everything she does though... so I doubt it will sink in!

That’s really rude. She should have checked you were happy to combine your trip with her “work” and then just eaten enough of the noodles to take a picture… and then still gone for dinner as planned.

She sounds quite inconsiderate.

But they're not doing it for a free plate of food. Five videos a month £2k a time sounds a lot but compared to using an advertising agency, product placement on the TV, in the press it's incredibly cheap to use influencers.

That's a completely different situation and scenario to the experience the OP is posting about though.

You choosing to unfollow your friend - one click on a screen - is nothing like her proposing shopping and dinner then using you as a free camera man, leaving you hungry and ending the evening early "because posting".

OP I think some excellent advice has been given from all those saying it's clear she's blurred the line between friendship and work. Time to firmly re draw it.

I’m strangely impressed by anyone setting out to become an influencer in 2026. It’s an incredibly saturated market! Especially the ‘lifestyle’, eat-at-this-restaurant, go-to-this-bar type of influencing.

Fair play to your friend for trying. Hopefully she has an alternative source of income while she builds up her social media presence.

(It was unacceptable of her to repurpose and ruin your day out together for her work though, of course.)

I think you're right it's a lot harder now. My friend started seven years ago. It's grown slowly. Stacey Solomon has done it faster but she was already well known.