Why I Unfollow Famous Influencers on Instagram

cartoon art by Joan Cornellà

To simplify the motivation behind unfollowing some of the most famous influencers on Instagram: It just doesn’t feel right. They are taking so much space and attention from over millions of people, but they are not speaking about any of the more important stuff happening around us. The most important values in life, the most important topics on earth. Too rarely. Not enough. Most of the content are advertisements in disguise.

We all love to take a peek into somebody else’s life, we really do. This is why we enjoy watching movies, Korean dramas, and people watching while sipping soy latte. Especially when somebody lives a drastically different lifestyle than us, their curated posting and daily story updates could serve as our mood board for future reference. With certain people, we enjoy knowing their whereabout from afar; with certain people, we become infatuated by their perfect life more deeply than we should.

A hot girl on Instagram with dat ass, I shall follow her and wish that my ass will look like her magically eventually. Wow, they travel all around the world just to check into the most luxurious resorts and look hella stylish and rich? Follow. Babe with good skin? Follow. Babe with boobs? Follow. Babe or bro who doesn’t seem to have a job but travels to Paris London New York errday? Follow. Here comes the danger: when attention and infatuation over someone else are thrown into the mix on a daily basis with high accessibility (simply quick tap on the app, and we are in someone’s life.), we subconsciously jump-start mimicry.

Human mimicry is a key consequence here. If you are taking away one single message from this article, please let it be human mimicry. We perform nonconscious mimicry — verbal, facial, emotional, and behavioral when another human is in close proximity, the performance is almost innate and inevitable. We see someone sneezes, we tend to sneeze. Same goes to seeing an influencer adorned with Gucci, Yeezy, and whatever trendy frenzy, we naturally and likely to mimic non-consciously, moderated by social, motivational and emotional conditions. You can say that, we mimic because, underlying every glamorous picture, they seem to be so socially and financially secured in life. Healthy, happy, living a life full of extraordinary experiences. Oh have I mentioned they also appear…