WHAT Do They Inspire? Choosing My Influences

I've come to the realization that the majority of people who I follow in Instagram and YouTube do awaken something in me, but I would not like to call that thing inspiration. Here's why:

When I scroll through Instagram, look at Insta-Stories, or watch cover after cover and video after video on YouTube I my thoughts instantly go to "I want to be like this person. How can I be like them?"

They "inspire" me to want 50K - 400K Instagram followers like them. They inspire me to want hundred of subscribers and 5K - 1M views on my videos. This is what they "inspire" in me.

I'm not saying these are bad people, but I am saying that these people who I dedicate anywhere from minutes to hours of my day to on a daily basis (both in following their channels and in the way I spend my mental energy the rest of the day) almost solely inspire me to want to be like them: to want to be popular, to want to look perfect, to want to have followers and idolizers.

Is this true inspiration?

Perhaps instead of listing off public figures or social media entities that I "wanna-be-like" as my inspirations I could examine what they inspire me to do.

To be an inspirer or influencer really just means you are a noun that performs an adjective. You "inspire" or "influence" people to do or want things... but to do or want WHAT?

If someone inspires me to try to create popular social media accounts and to have a perfect public image, I want to identify this and delete them.

If my influencers really just lower my self-esteem, if I'm defending my influencers who say their goal is to build people up who then dedicate their entire account to "look at me-me-me" and "support me-me-me"... that just doesn't seem right.

I've realized that the majority of the people I consider influences in my life feel to me two-faced (like they say one thing "I care about you" and focus on another "so look at me"). These are not people I know in person. I have rarely met any of them. When I do meet them the impact they have on me is not a sense of empowerment but as a sense of, "This person is great, popular, has what I want, etc. so I need to impress him or her or I'm doomed."

They inspire me to want to impress them (or to have what they have) and nothing else.

Hardly sounds inspirational when you look it into words, right?

~*~

I would like to contrast this with some of the nearest and dearest people to me in my own life. Two people come to mind especially (my friends Stephanie and Meaghan) when I think of people who bring to life in me IDEAS and fill me with a LOVE for and a JOY for life not with a desire to grasp popularity but with a joy in exploring, analyzing, and simply enjoying literature and ideas... these are the INFLUENCERS I want in my life.

I think two reasons these people I engage with in conversation are such a joy simply to talk to and explore ideas with is that they don't live in the world of social media. They either don't have social media or rarely go on it. It's not a central part of their lives. They would get along just swimmingly in Victorian England :)

It is so rare to find these sorts of people today: people whose very conversation with you is so stimulating that rather than inspiring you to run off and advertise yourself to the world they inspire you to sit in beauty and joy. Life is FASCINATING with these people. I have never met anyone like them.

My hope is that I can FINALLY let go of following all the "influencers" I talk about admiring on social media and YouTube. My best friend once told me there's no real way to be on YouTube without some sort of ego or agenda. I wholeheartedly agree. 

I'm not saying it's going to be easy letting go of these influences. They have become a sort of "go to" / "addiction." They get me to not live in the moment but to live in some world of perfect pictures, popularity contests, and a two-faced asking for attention while telling people you actually care about them. 

They bring me into a world of manipulation where livelihood is driven by "likes" and where you draw people in by pretending to others (and possibly to yourself) that they should support you for their own sake. You ask them for things (views, subscriptions, mail orders, etc.) while saying it's for them.

I think in this ^^ sort of world people don't even realize they're being manipulative, because they've either manipulated or blinded their own selves to seeing the truth (that they convince you to give them things by telling you how much they give you).

~*~

I think identifying and ridding my life of these influencers and replacing my time and attention with appreciating literature and stimulating conversations is the #1 thing I can do in my life to make me into the person I want to become.

So here's to starting...