In the first part of this series, I looked at the day in the lives of regular Lifestyle Influencers, which you can find here! (link it to the here)
The following week I decided to look at more "body positive" kinds of lifestyle influencers. I did this to contrast the week before to see how it would affect my own lifestyle and mood.
Georgia Richards is an Aussie YouTuber who used the platform as a side hustle as she works part-time in hospitality. I chose to watch her video as I feel like she's in a similar position to me - she makes content as well as works, and I do university as well as working - she's able to find a balance while also promoting her health journey. I think it's really interesting to see a young person in a kind of similar position to you whilst still trailblazing the way for me. As a plus size girl, I found Georgia's video via her roommate who's videos I watched last week. It's comforting for me to watch girls who look like me make content that I want to be making - it makes me feel like the image or the way we look isn't a barrier. Which is the way we should always be thinking, but being self-conscious about the way you look doesn't just go away overnight. Also having her on my Instagram feed has normalized the way I see myself, to have a realistic Instagram feed with realistic bodies.Â
I refound Nabela Noor via TikTok. I've seen Nabela online during the years from her Facebook videos where she transformed with different makeup looks, to now where she has become very popular online on TikTok from her short vlog during quarantine from the very beginning of the pandemic. I recently started watching her videos from her TikTok's because they were so aesthetic and I feel like even if the clips were sixty seconds long, it felt like she was getting so much done. I feel like I enjoy her TikTok content more than I do her YouTuber content because I feel like it's more to the point and less sit-down stuff - I feel more proactive in scrolling through her TikTok than sitting down to watch her video. So I did that for at least half an hour. She has made me feel more at ease, and calmer about living without guilt and shame of appearances. I did feel better about wearing whatever I wanted and going out that week.Â
Remi Ashton is another influencer I've become acquainted with over the years. She experienced one big weight-loss journey and it's really interesting that she documents the aftermath of such a journey. This video I watched this week made me feel better about myself - knowing someone out there who experiences such a transformation still deals with withdrawals and back steps a bit - making it feel completely normal. I feel during this pandemic my body has changed a lot and instead of constantly beating myself up about the way I'm looking it's interesting to know that someone out there - someone "famous" had influenced me to know its okay to be easy with yourself and not be so hard and judgemental on your own body.
Watching more body-positivity YouTubers on Youtube made me feel comfortable in my own body. In fact, that week as well scrolling through TikTok I saw a new trend where people were listing celebrities they would feel comfortable wearing a bikini in front of and I found it interesting to know that other people out there think about it too - like aside from the general public - we believe celebrities will judge us as well depending on the messages they spread out into the world. I don't even know if I could formulate a list like that. My mental health has been pretty stable lately - I do feel after looking at more body-related content I was actually more forgiving to myself when dressing up this week - opposed to previous week where I tried to be more productive and failed.Â
I did, as well, have a scroll through these Influencers Instagram's and follow Remi and Georgia as I had previously unfollowed. It's funny because some of them have a consistent pattern of the outlet while others don't. So Georgia Richards had a pretty consistent presence on her Instagram and her Channel - body positivity, workout different content on her stories as well that made me feel like she was one of my friends, that I could keep up with her life without missing a beat. Remi Ashton had a different kind of Instagram feed, I feel like she was still promoting a "toxic positivity" on her Instagram feed as opposed to what I was watching on her channel. And Nabela was also consistent with her Tiktok and her channel but she was less active on her Instagram. I feel like the more active the influencer is the more engaged I feel with them - thus feeling like I'm being supported more in a sense. But this week the influencers have had a positive reflection on me opposed to my findings last week. Next week is the last week I’ll be recording my findings while watching these influencers. Like I mentioned in the first blog post, it really has affected my mental health - I didn’t think it would but it has, and I guess that means it always has affected my mental health without me knowing. In the next blog post we’ll conclude our findings and see what this experience has taught me. See you then!