Why do influencers look so different to the rest of us?

I was hoping my transformation might come with 100k TikTok followers, alas not

Last night I was in a room full of young TikTokers, some of which, I could technically have given birth to.

I was there for an influencer event, which normally go one of two ways. Thankfully, however, this dinner was one of the good ones.

As I looked around the room, there was one person I immediately recognised. I followed him on TikTok in lockdown when he blew up with his comedy impressions.

Although I don’t follow him anymore, he still pops up on my for you page now and then, so I was surprised at how different he looked in real life.

Do you remember that machine Wallace from Wallace & Gromit made? You know how he’d press that button next to his bed, fall through a hole in the ceiling, into his trousers, while robot arms put his sleeves and jumper on?

Well, seeing him, reminded me of that. Except the machine would have been an influencer copy and paste robot.

It’s not that he looked bad, if anything you’d say he looked great. But, he no longer looked like one of us, he looked and dressed like them.

Everything was polished, from his cropped matching jacket and trousers, to the pristine white Calvin Klein boxers which were purposefully on show and almost ruler straight across his abdomen.

His skin was glowing, there wasn’t a hair out of place, I felt instantly ugly as soon as he was in my proximity.

The thing is, when you spend a lot of time with influencers in real life, you start to realise that they do all look the same. They feel a little uncanny valley. They’re too perfect. It makes you self conscious.

You’re suddenly hyper aware of your double chin and your bobbled H&M jumper which felt smart/casual when you put it on and now feels pure slob.

The problem is, however, their lack of imperfection, immediately makes them feel untrustworthy.

This guy was now picture perfect. He had the golden ratio of facial symmetry I hadn’t seen before, but for everything he had gained with his glow up, he’d lost all humour… to me at least.

Clearly that’s a personal bias, but just knowing how much effort must go into maintaining that appearance, instantly made him less funny to me.

There were a couple of other journalists at the dinner as well and we got to talking about the differences between press and influencer events.

We agreed that the lack of formality was refreshing. Rather than being offered red and white wine, there were waiters with silver trays of Diet and normal Coke. Our main course didn’t consist of white fish, but instead a burger and fries.

Of course, we also all noticed the differences in physical appearances.

To me, the press journalist divide reminds me of the north/south divide.

I remember when I first started at Cosmo and we shared an office with Red magazine. At the time the beauty director there wore no makeup at all and I was so shocked by this initially.

Now, I realise that as well as a personal preference, there was also classism at play. You never want to look like you tried too hard at a beauty press dinner. Not to mention, most people have turned up straight from the office with an armful of branded tote bags.

But, we agreed, that even if we tried. Even if I spent a solid two hours getting ready for this dinner rather than the half an hour, due to the emotional breakdown I had earlier (more on that one day, but let’s just say I’ve got 4 months to magic up £350,000), we would never look like them.

My slicked back bun looks nothing like their slicked back bun. Being plus-size, my wardrobe options are severely limited and I’m at the age where I can’t take a face full of makeup, but I also don’t have enough elasticity left to look fresh past 5pm.

Ultimately though, I know it’s fruitless to try and keep up with this combination of money and youth.

It’s just hard to always be in the same room as it.