Online Wannabeism: Why We Mimic Social Media Influencers

Are we start­ing to mim­ic social media influencers? 

I’m a digit­al PR expert, but I’m also a reg­u­lar social media user. I fol­low friends, fam­ily, and acquaint­ances on my social media accounts. But some­thing seems to be … off.

Often, aver­age social media users seem to mim­ic influ­en­cer man­ner­isms — des­pite hav­ing no audi­ence oth­er than fam­ily and friends.

What’s going on?

In this blog post, I’ll dis­cuss a form of online wan­nabeism; how reg­u­lar people in your feeds are sud­denly start­ing to talk and act like influ­en­cers — des­pite hav­ing no real audi­ences to address.

Here we go:

Online Wannabeism

We might not all be influ­en­cers, but that does­n’t stop us from mim­ick­ing their beha­viours when we cre­ate and pub­lish content.

The wide­spread beha­viour where non-influ­en­cers mim­ic influ­en­cer man­ner­isms is fas­cin­at­ing — and some­what sad. 

Online wan­nabeism = when a reg­u­lar social media user mim­ics influ­en­cer man­ner­isms while cre­at­ing con­tent; a form of aspir­a­tion­al role­play in front of an ima­gined audi­ence. ¹Silfwer, J. (2021, August 10). Online Wannabeism: Why We Mimic Social Media Influencers. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​o​n​l​i​n​e​-​w​a​n​n​a​b​e​i​sm/

The Social Mirror Theory

Where does this online wan­nabeism stem from?

The social mir­ror the­ory is a psy­cho­lo­gic­al concept that sug­gests that people learn to see them­selves and their iden­tit­ies through how oth­ers react to them. The the­ory sug­gests that people use the reac­tions of oth­ers as a “mir­ror” to under­stand and form their sense of self.

The the­ory pos­its that our sense of self is shaped by how we believe oth­ers per­ceive us. Rather than form­ing iden­tity in isol­a­tion, we con­struct it by inter­n­al­ising social feed­back — see­ing ourselves reflec­ted through the “mir­ror” of oth­ers’ reac­tions, judg­ments, and expectations. 

The social mir­ror the­ory sug­gests that “[…] people are incap­able of self-reflec­tion without con­sid­er­ing a peer’s inter­pret­a­tion of the exper­i­ence. In oth­er words, people define and resolve their intern­al mus­ings through other’s view­point.” ²Social mir­ror the­ory. (2023, July 21). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​S​o​c​i​a​l​_​m​i​r​r​o​r​_​t​h​e​ory

Influencers as Peer Mirrors

Today, our “peer mir­rors” have become frag­men­ted and pop­u­lated by online influ­en­cers, often exag­ger­at­ing per­form­at­ive validation.

A study pub­lished in 2017 found that influ­en­cer con­tent sig­ni­fic­antly shapes con­sumers’ atti­tudes, which then pos­it­ively influ­ences beha­viour by trig­ger­ing their under­ly­ing desire to imit­ate social media influ­en­cers. ³Lim, X. J., Radzol, A. M., Cheah, J.-H., & Wong, M. W. (2017). The mech­an­ism by which social media influ­en­cers per­suade con­sumers: The role of con­sumers’ desire to mim­ic. Computers in Human … Continue read­ing

Naturally, influ­en­cers can­’t sus­tain numer­ous sim­ul­tan­eous two-way rela­tion­ships on equal terms with their audi­ence. So, these rela­tion­ships must be one-sided in nature.

The audi­ence can only mim­ic their favour­ite online “peers” to feel closer to them.

“The main-test res­ults, using the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) ana­lys­is via AMOS 23, con­firmed that the con­cep­tu­al mod­el and all the hypo­thes­ised rela­tion­ships were stat­ist­ic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant. Further, the boot­strap res­ults demon­strated that a target’s mim­icry desire indeed served as a sig­ni­fic­ant medi­at­or link­ing the target’s atti­tu­din­al beliefs to beha­vi­our­al decisions.”
Source: University of Tennessee ⁴Ki, C. (2018, March). The Drivers and Impacts of Social Media Influencers: The Role of Mimicry. University of Tennessee. https://​core​.ac​.uk/​d​o​w​n​l​o​a​d​/​p​d​f​/​2​6​8​7​9​9​9​2​1​.​pdf

Learn more: Online Wannabeism: Why We Mimic Social Media Influencers

The Selfie Generation

I turned 30 in 2009 and spent the fol­low­ing dec­ade exper­i­en­cing a social media uni­verse dom­in­ated by teens and 20-somethings. 

Sure, new trends are excit­ing, but still.
I love social media—just not all of it.

Welcome to the internet.

I could do without motiv­a­tion­al quotes, bath­room selfies, impossible ping-pong trick shots, wing­tip sun­sets, Instagram teen mod­els, jet-set life­styles with fil­ter packs, keep­ing up with real­ity super­stars, LinkedIn net­work­ing threads, Tik Tok pranks, butt pos­ing in yoga pants, baby pic­tures, MrBeast, Twitch stream­ers speak­ing in baby voices, man-buns mak­ing per­fect cups of cof­fee, rampant Twitter debates, and snap­shots of feet on beaches.

I’ve since loathed see­ing oth­er­wise mature, intel­li­gent, middle-aged friends do duck­face selfies in front of their bath­room mir­rors — or weirdly flex­ing about their latest triath­lon train­ing ses­sion. ⁵Silfwer, J. (2021, August 10). Online Wannabeism. Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​o​n​l​i​n​e​-​w​a​n​n​a​b​e​i​sm/

A Generation of Kidults

We’re a gen­er­a­tion of adults who don’t know what it means to be grownups on social media. We’re “kid­ults.”

“Being young today is no longer a trans­it­ory stage, but rather a life choice, well estab­lished and bru­tally pro­moted by the media sys­tem. While the clas­sic paradigms of adult­hood and mat­ur­a­tion could inter­pret such infant­ile beha­vi­or as a symp­tom of devi­ance, such beha­vi­or has become a mod­el to fol­low, an ideal of fun and being care­free, present in a wide vari­ety of con­texts of soci­ety. The con­tem­por­ary adult fol­lows a sort of thought­ful imma­tur­ity, a con­scious escape from the respons­ib­il­it­ies of an ana­chron­ist­ic mod­el of life. If an ideal of matur­ity remains, it does not find beha­vi­or­al com­pens­a­tions in a soci­ety where child­ish atti­tudes and adoles­cent life mod­els are con­stantly pro­moted by the media and tol­er­ated by insti­tu­tions.”
Source: ResearchGate ⁶Bernardini, J. (2014, June 30). The Infantilization of the Postmodern Adult and the Figure of Kidult. ResearchGate. … Continue read­ing

Some take the route of being omni­po­tent multi-experts who are fiercely opin­ion­ated about everything. Others try to save the world by organ­ising them­selves around the cent­ral task of sham­ing oth­ers pub­licly. Some try too hard to impress oth­ers by self-pro­mot­ing their per­son­al life choices. ⁷Silfwer, J. (2022, September 6). Social Media — The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​o​c​i​a​l​-​m​e​d​ia/

Others opt out. Some of us cen­sor ourselves in fear of social isol­a­tion, opin­ion cor­ridors, and mighty echo cham­bers. ⁸Silfwer, J. (2023, December 15). Echo Chambers: Algorithmic Confirmation Bias. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​e​c​h​o​-​c​h​a​m​b​e​rs/ ⁹Silfwer, J. (2020, June 4). The Spiral of Silence. Doctor Spin | the PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​p​i​r​a​l​-​o​f​-​s​i​l​e​n​ce/

“To me, it’s just one symp­tom of a broad­er trend of infant­il­isa­tion in Western cul­ture. It began before the advent of smart­phones and social media. But, as I argue in my book “The Terminal Self,” our every­day inter­ac­tions with these com­puter tech­no­lo­gies have accel­er­ated and nor­m­al­ised our culture’s infant­ile tend­en­cies.”
— Simon Gottschalk, pro­fess­or of Sociology at the University of Nevada

How To Be a Grownup on Social Media

We resort to click­bait, humble brag­ging, and vir­tue sig­nalling in our des­per­ate search for likes. ¹⁰Silfwer, J. (2023, November 22). The Anatomy of Attention. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​a​t​t​e​n​t​i​on/

To me, it all seems… lonely.

“A status update with no likes (or a clev­er tweet without retweets) becomes the equi­val­ent of a joke met with silence. It must be rethought and rewrit­ten. And so we don’t show our true selves online, but a mask designed to con­form to the opin­ions of those around us.”
— Neil Strauss, Wall Street Journal

But it’s nev­er too late to be a grownup on social media:

But First, Let Me Take a Selfie

I think of social media beha­viours as I pon­der the vary­ing levels of emo­tion­al matur­ity among my peers in the selfie gen­er­a­tion. I feel sorry for us.

Getting sucked into a mael­strom of click­bait and humbl­eb­rags is men­tally taxing.

Imagine if we, at least those who con­sider ourselves adults and wish to opt out of the selfie gen­er­a­tion, could shift our approach to social media. Wouldn’t that be something?

Sounds great, I think.
But first, let me take a selfie.

Learn more: The Selfie Generation

Emotional Maturity and Social Media

How do we bet­ter under­stand the emo­tion­al matur­ity of the selfie gen­er­a­tion? In The Secret of Maturity by Kevin Everett FitzMaurice, a matur­ity pro­gres­sion of six steps is outlined:

Level 1: Emotional Responsibility

Level 1 matur­ity means that you under­stand that your feel­ings are your choices. People who haven’t yet reached this level of matur­ity tend to blame their feel­ings on extern­al stim­uli, such as oth­er people, places, things, forces, fate, and spirits. 

Lacking emo­tion­al respons­ib­il­ity on social media: When people get eas­ily offen­ded, espe­cially on behalf of others.

Level 2: Emotional Honesty

Level 2 matur­ity means under­stand­ing your feel­ings and hav­ing the cop­ing mech­an­isms to allow genu­ine emo­tions instead of sup­press­ing them. People who have yet to reach this level of matur­ity tend to hurt them­selves emo­tion­ally because they have yet to learn how to cope with their inner emotions.

Lacking emo­tion­al hon­esty on social media: When people pub­licly paint them­selves as vic­tims of their feelings.

Level 3: Emotional Openness

Level 3 matur­ity means that you can be pur­pose­ful in vent­ing your emo­tions with the intent to let them go because you’re done with them. People who haven’t yet reached this level of matur­ity tend to be insec­ure in know­ing how and when to share their feelings. 

Lacking emo­tion­al open­ness on social media: When people pub­licly over­share to wal­low or are unaware that their shar­ing has the oppos­ite effect than they were aim­ing for.

Level 4: Emotional Assertiveness

Level 4 matur­ity means that you take respons­ib­il­ity for clearly com­mu­nic­at­ing your emo­tion­al needs with those who care about you. People who have yet to reach this matur­ity level tend to fear ask­ing oth­ers to respect their emo­tion­al needs.

Lacking emo­tion­al assert­ive­ness on social media: When people allow oth­ers to make them feel bad but can­not set whatever bound­ar­ies they need.

Level 5: Emotional Understanding

Level 5 matur­ity means you no longer force your­self into ima­gin­ary or con­veni­ent ideas about who you are and what you should feel. People who haven’t yet reached this level of matur­ity tend to have cer­tain firm beliefs about them­selves that stem from ideas or prin­ciples, not genu­ine emotions. 

Lacking emo­tion­al under­stand­ing on social media: When people try too hard to vir­tue sig­nal and pro­ject a false self-image, they only make them­selves feel worse.

Level 6: Emotional Detachment

Level 6 matur­ity means you are detached from your ego, and noth­ing can no longer both­er you bey­ond your con­trol. People who haven’t yet reached this level of matur­ity tend to have cer­tain self-con­cepts to defend or promote. 

Lacking emo­tion­al detach­ment on social media: When people can’t truly appre­ci­ate liv­ing in a world where people make each oth­er feel good and bad about things.

Learn more: Emotional Maturity and Social Media

The Anatomy of Attention

Attention is an essen­tial com­pon­ent of pub­lic relations:

An organ­isa­tion, starved of atten­tion, trust, and loy­alty, is com­pelled to wage a per­petu­al struggle for its con­tin­ued existence.

And it’s not just organ­isa­tions. We all seem to crave atten­tion in some form or another:

“People want to be loved; fail­ing that admired; fail­ing that feared; fail­ing that hated and des­pised. They want to evoke some sort of sen­ti­ment. The soul shud­ders before obli­vi­on and seeks con­nec­tion at any price.”
— Hjalmar Söderberg (1869−1941), Swedish author

It’s fear of social isol­a­tion—and atten­tion star­va­tion.

Types of Attention

But what con­sti­tutes ‘atten­tion’?

“Attention is a com­plex, real neur­al archi­tec­ture (‘RNA’) mod­el that integ­rates vari­ous cog­nit­ive mod­els and brain cen­ters to per­form tasks like visu­al search.”
Source: Trends in cog­nit­ive sci­ences ¹¹Shipp, S. (2004). The brain cir­cuitry of atten­tion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 223 – 230. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​1​6​/​j​.​t​i​c​s​.​2​0​0​4​.​0​3​.​004

Each of the below terms refers to a spe­cif­ic aspect or type of atten­tion (“men­tal band­width”), a com­plex cog­nit­ive pro­cess. ¹²Schweizer, K., Moosbrugger, H., & Goldhammer, F. (2005). The struc­ture of the rela­tion­ship between atten­tion and intel­li­gence. Intelligence, 33(6), 589 – 611. … Continue read­ing

Let’s explore dif­fer­ent types of attention:

Each type of atten­tion is likely to play a role in how we inter­act with and pro­cess inform­a­tion from our envir­on­ment, and under­stand­ing these dif­fer­ent aspects is key in fields like psy­cho­logy, neur­os­cience, and education.

Learn more: The Anatomy of Attention