Let's Share Our Obsessions: This is a Safe Space!
All of the recent Ballerina Farm discourse* has really made me think about which influencers I do and don’t follow – and, I suppose, more importantly, which influencers I follow because I like their content, and who I follow because I am… I don’t know. Curious? Horrified? Obsessed?
Then, Sara Petersen, clearly having the same thoughts, asked her followers, “who’s your niche momfluencer obession?”
So I want to know: who are you obsessed with, for good or for ill, on social media right now?
For me, I really love Ally Nicole on Instagram, who makes me really want to dye my hair pink again (and wear more colour!), and will consume pretty much any content Karrie Locher creates. She’s also great for colour, although I will issue a content warning because hers is very much a baby / breastfeeding / postpartum themed account:
Then, I guess, in the name of full disclosure, I could confess that until recently I’d been kind of hate-following Busy Phillipps. “Hate” is too strong a word, but irritably following doesn’t really have the same ring to it. I was really fond of her and her content throughout Covid, and I like Girls5EVA, and I listened to her podcast a bit before the episodes started running close two two hours apiece and the only gals I’ll dedicate that time to are Clashley… But idk I realised recently I was still following her, yet every time a post of hers came up my lip seemed to curl without my even thinking about it. So I hit the unfollow button.
That being said, I am all for a hate follow if that hate follow brings you joy / gives you something to talk about with your friends! Just, you know, keep it to the privacy of your WhatsApps.
Now tell me who YOUR social media obsessions are, and why, please!
The Times, clearly seeing the cash cow that is the traffic generated by the original Ballerina Farm article, has also done a follow-up that is very weird: “My day with the trad wife queen and what it taught me.” As a journalist, I can’t imagine being asked to write a follow-up to a feature that is, essentially, how I felt while writing that feature…
Although now I’m thinking about the various interviews I’ve done – Olivia Palermo, Emma Bunton, Victoria Beckham, Gok Wan – and kind of immersive features I’ve done, in particular the two days I spent in Sligo with the Voya brothers, and wondering what those pieces would have been like from that perspective (probably mostly just me panicking about what to wear and, in the case of the latter article, explaining how deeply conflicted I feel – ew! but also how relaxing – about seaweed baths, in general).
I used to irritable follow Busy Philips too, and, like you, hit the unfollow button recently. I have started following @itsjane (or @janeon instagram ), because she made hilarious shorts about her 5 year old (where she interprets said 5 year old) and then realized she was a mormon, and trad wife adjacent under the cover of comedy.
I used to love @taza , another Mormon mom who lived in NYC before moving during the pandemic and disappearing from all social media. A part of me is wondering if she is going to resurface in a true crime series.
So… I’m probably slightly fascinated with Mormons.