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00:00Sylwia, please tell us, how many followers have you currently?
00:03About 600,000.
00:05Today's uber-famous internet personalities have amassed growing power
00:10and intense cultural scrutiny.
00:12But who is the influencer, really?
00:15I'm an influencer. Are you an influencer?
00:17The prevailing perception of the influencer trope is that they're lazy,
00:21famous due to luck rather than anything special about them,
00:24opportunistic and vapid, and above all, self-obsessed.
00:28What have you been up to? Tell me everything.
00:30Well, actually, I've been working on a book of essays.
00:32Okay, I was obviously just asking to be polite and it's very weird of you
00:34to assume that I care.
00:35But we're also starting to see stories that give us a more realistic
00:39portrait of the modern influencer, likely someone who's hardworking
00:43to the point of being stuck in a constant grind, anxious or insecure
00:47about being replaced by competitors
00:49So exhausting.
00:50It's very competitive.
00:51I take, like, anti-anxiety pills, but who doesn't?
00:54and creatively trapped by answering to sponsors who care only about
00:58the bottom line of their views and conversions.
01:00Olympus Nutrition.
01:03I'm afraid that their products will be associated with this type of stuff.
01:07A recent, standout narrative that gets to the heart of the modern influencer is Sweat.
01:12If you want to get all the love that I have today,
01:16come to Krakow and my next training of Krakow on the weekend.
01:20Come, I'll be there!
01:21This new release, a much-talked-about hit at Cannes,
01:24is a fascinating portrait of the split personality of the modern influencer
01:28through the character of fitness influencer Sylvia.
01:31In public, she's the motivational personal trainer
01:34who inspires religious levels of rapture from fans whose lives she transforms.
01:38In private, she's a vulnerable, lonely young woman
01:51who has to live with the scarier realities of fame in an industry
01:54that lacks an established infrastructure to protect her.
01:57Here's our take on the tragedy of the influencer,
02:02a human symbol of what we all may be losing
02:05by trading away our privacy for views.
02:08Everything about you is a f***ing lie!
02:26And you pretend to be some cool LA chick, but you're full of s***!
02:30The common perception of the influencer in many of our minds is a cartoon,
02:34narcissistic, occasionally problematic, and famous for no real good reason.
02:38Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Gina Linetti is a send-up of the archetypal influencer,
02:42full of herself, over-the-top, and immune to self-doubt.
02:46And then God, a woman, said,
02:49let there be Gina!
02:53She follows her whims to accrue millions of followers
02:56via her cult of personality, rather than through strategy or hard work.
03:00I have an idea for a second book.
03:02It's a memoir, and it's made of memes, so it's called a meme-war.
03:06Meanwhile, Sweat investigates the reality of the day-to-day of an influencer
03:11who actually does attract a cult-like following like Gina's.
03:14As we see, it's a lifestyle that entails a lot of repetitive and isolating work.
03:19One of the early lines we hear Sylvia say is,
03:22and while she's just flattering a follower here,
03:27there's another level to these words,
03:29because she's well aware that in her field there are so many others
03:33waiting in the wings seemingly able to do her job.
03:36Brooklyn Nine-Nine jokingly implies that this weird new-age job of influencing
03:40is paler-made for Gina's combination of superhuman confidence
03:44and middle-school-esque obsession with popularity.
03:47Complete overlap of ego and id. It's been theorized, but I never thought I'd see it.
03:52The character's larger-than-life pre-existing personality
03:55I feel like I'm the Paris of people.
03:58plays into the perception that the person on camera is the real person.
04:02But Sweat interrogates this conflation of the influencer's public and private selves.
04:07The movie opens with Sylvia's private moments before she faces her public,
04:19and we see the effort of having to build herself up into her persona.
04:23The film's mise-en-scene also establishes this split personality by mirroring Sylvia
04:28with the version of herself reflected back from her phone.
04:31And whereas a cartoon influencer like Gina can gain her following just by blindly following her impulses,
04:37when Sylvia impulsively releases a video that gets too real,
04:41she's professionally punished.
04:43This bottom-line moment reminds us that the influencer is, at its core,
04:49a solution to a capitalist problem.
04:52Over the last two decades, as consumers became fatigued with traditional forms of advertising,
04:57companies looked for people with followings to promote their products
05:01in a more authentic, organic way.
05:03Self-marketing.
05:05If people want you, they'll want what you've got.
05:10Whereas celebrities of the past were glamorously aloof,
05:13the influencer is expected to be completely accessible.
05:16This can spur a feeling that viewers are entitled to this person.
05:20In a number of these stories, the influencer character has a stalker.
05:24Just as actual influencers have faced this scary reality.
05:27This person was outside my house at 4 a.m.
05:30Over the past year and a half, maybe two years,
05:33I have been getting messages from this person on social media.
05:36Yet their industry doesn't offer them much security
05:39relative to their level of exposure and vulnerability.
05:42So these narratives underline that we aren't sure how to properly care for these people,
05:47nor is our culture really interested in their mental health.
05:50Even Sylvia's family, after making fun of her career in this new profession
05:54they don't understand or respect,
05:56victim blame her for having a stalker.
05:58Influencers as a group have been the focus of intense scrutiny and criticism,
06:09in part due to a number of highly unrelatable, unlikable,
06:13high-profile behaviors and scandals by certain individuals.
06:17I've made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgment.
06:21The general vitriol felt toward influencers in the abstract manifests
06:25in a subgenre of horror movies where influencers are the victims.
06:29In Shook, the essence of beauty vlogger Mia's character is fakeness.
06:33I'm here for the super-exclusive, invite-only, red carpet for Sakani cosmetics.
06:39And hypocrisy.
06:41She's happy to performatively look after her sister's dog
06:44when there's a dog killer on the loose.
06:46I just really feel like it's necessary to be selfless during this time.
06:49But she didn't even help care for her dying mother
06:52because she was so focused on building her following.
06:54So the implication in this subgenre is that influencers bring punishment
06:58on themselves by being selfish, vacuous people,
07:01and the slashers targeting them are cathartic manifestations
07:04of a wider cultural hate.
07:06I'm saying you were supposed to take care of a dog,
07:08and look what's happened.
07:09I tried.
07:10You tried?
07:11You mean by spending all your time texting your worthless friends?
07:14There's a lot of blame projected onto the influencer
07:17if we perceive any disconnect between their two personas.
07:20His ego is so big that he will think that everything is about him.
07:24Or their online character doesn't come across as 100% authentic.
07:29Stay-at-home mommy, blogger.
07:30Sunrise cannot be this happy unless blending functional mushrooms
07:34in your almond latte is the grail we have all been seeking.
07:36Yet, given that most of us share pieces of ourselves online,
07:39most of us also probably project a more flattering image
07:42than the messier person we are in our private moments.
07:45So the practice of chastising influencers for being fake
07:48serves the purpose of purging our fears that we too aren't living
07:52our most genuine existence.
07:54It looks like he's got a lot to live for.
07:56He's eating food.
07:58Or is he?
08:00Because is that just what he wants you to believe?
08:03At the same time, what's common to both Gina's and Sylvia's stories
08:07is that as influencers they take on a savior-like role for their viewers.
08:12Over one million people are living their lives according to the Gina Mandments.
08:15They're like the Ten Commandments, only there's more and they're better.
08:18This reflects the truth that however much we might criticize influencers,
08:22they're the role models that young people are increasingly looking to
08:25for guidance and frameworks to live their lives by.
08:29Thank you Sylvia for the training.
08:31It was great!
08:33I'm sort of famous for being almost famous.
08:44The concept of the It Girl dates back to the popularity of Clara Bow,
08:48star of the movie It.
08:50While Bow was a movie star, she was a relatable kind,
08:53ushering in an appetite for audiences to see celebrities who were just like them.
08:57She didn't identify with movie stars, she identified with her fans.
09:01She called them my wonderful fan friends.
09:03She was just one of them who had been elevated to be a movie star.
09:07Meanwhile, over the decades, fame has also become explicitly divorced
09:11from traditional entertainment and taken on a performative, fictional quality.
09:16In the 60s, New York socialites like Edie Sedgwick, Candy Darling,
09:20and Baby Jane Holzer became Andy Warhol's superstars,
09:23largely through the pop artist's act of declaring them as such.
09:27In 1984, self-made celebrity Angeline bought up billboards in Hollywood
09:31and plastered them with her image and her name,
09:34creating a cult of personality out of thin air.
09:37Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian acknowledged their debt to her.
09:41After the rise of our era's definitive famous-for-being-famous celebrity Paris Hilton
09:45and the sidekick who would surpass her Kim Kardashian,
09:48narrativizing one's own life to capture the public imagination
09:52has become a lucrative, ubiquitous form of performance art.
09:56When they look at these influencers and they think,
09:57wow, this is an amazing life, but people don't realize.
10:00Most of the time it's not real.
10:03The reality around influencers today is that,
10:06far from most being whimsical, fame-hungry narcissists,
10:09they tend to be canny entrepreneurs
10:11who collectively represent a burgeoning professional class.
10:15The influencer category is a $1 billion industry,
10:19and it's projected to grow to $2.4 billion in just two years.
10:23Much of the more toxic influencer behavior stems from economic factors,
10:28like a saturated market that makes people feel they need to resort
10:32to over-the-top, attention-seeking behavior for views.
10:35Even being called out for bad behavior, problematic language,
10:39or in some cases, outright racism has become par for the course.
10:43Just another step in the influencer cycle,
10:46which is followed by the apology video.
10:48I'm gonna focus on what happened, the conclusions that I've come to,
10:53and most importantly, holding myself accountable for my own actions.
10:57You guys are going to have 15 minutes to run anywhere you want on set,
11:00and to film a one-minute, no-editing, apology video.
11:05In Sweat, we meet Sylvia at the exhaustion and breaking point stage
11:09of the influencer cycle, as she deals with the fallout
11:12from posting a video of her not-very-on-brand emotional breakdown.
11:16But her crisis and introspection don't lead to real change,
11:20because the burnout and breakdown are yet more steps
11:23in the social media formula.
11:25After these feelings are documented, the figure reinvents themselves,
11:28and all this is transformed into more human entertainment.
11:32I've had three nervous breakdowns since I started this job three years ago,
11:37which is par for the course.
11:38You know, time flies when you're breaking down.
11:41When we leave Sylvia, she's right back where she started,
11:44performing for her core audience, as if real emotion is just something
11:48that needs to be publicly purged.
11:50When I realized that I'm a mom, it's so stupid, but I started to call everyone
11:57because I'm really super happy.
12:02Because how does it make sense if you don't have to share with you?
12:05Much of our culture's animosity towards influencers stems from our discomfort
12:10with the broader trends in social media, advertising, and consumption
12:14that have fundamentally altered all of our lives.
12:17Many of us are now feeling the impacts of excessive onlineness
12:21through increased anxiety, isolation, and issues with self-image.
12:25Consider the increase in online time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
12:29Americans spent an average of 82 minutes a day on social media in 2020,
12:34seven minutes more than in 2019.
12:36And it's clear that this problem is likely to get worse.
12:39The sad irony of social media is that while it sells the promise of connecting us,
12:44it's damaging our ability to make real-life connections.
12:47People don't even look up anymore. The sky could turn f***ing purple
12:51and you f***ing wouldn't notice for a month.
12:53Sylvia exemplifies this paradox as someone a lot of people express love for online,
12:58who privately questions whether any of her social media connections
13:02truly care about her at all.
13:10Despite her fear and outrage towards her stalker,
13:13Sylvia relates to his feeling alone.
13:16Ingrid goes west explores this picture from the point of view of the so-called stalker.
13:28Look, I'm not a psychopath or anything. I just want to be her friend.
13:33Lost and lonely Ingrid pursues a friendship with Instagram influencer Taylor,
13:37convinced that the validation of friendship with this beautiful person
13:40will solve all her emotional problems.
13:43But being allowed into this exclusive world doesn't provide Ingrid
13:46with the true human bonds she needs.
13:49In a final ironic twist, Ingrid's sharing her rock bottom online,
13:53I know there's something wrong with me, but I don't know how to fix it.
13:58at last gets her the social media acceptance she's been seeking.
14:02Thousands and thousands. Your inspiration, babe.
14:07Yet this isn't a happy ending, because it leaves us to assume that Ingrid
14:12will just keep looking for love in these wrong places.
14:15Meanwhile, in eighth grade, we can see how influencer culture trickles down
14:19to how young people interact with each other.
14:22Shy teenager Kayla copies influencer behavior she's seen,
14:26Gucci.
14:27Creating vlogs, which because she doesn't have an audience,
14:30end up being more like motivational speeches for herself.
14:33Being yourself is like not changing yourself to impress someone else.
14:37Warhol followed up his famous quote,
14:39In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes,
14:43with the line, In 15 minutes, everybody will be famous.
14:46And this was an accurate prediction of our current social media environment,
14:50with its proliferation of micro-influencers.
14:52The very first hurdle to becoming an influencer is hitting 10,000 followers.
14:57But you're a certified influencer, if you will, at around 100,000.
15:02This vision of society with numerous gradations and levels of influence
15:06is exaggerated in Black Mirror's Nosedive,
15:09which depicts a world where everyone lives their lives according to their social ranking.
15:13I see there's one standby seat on another plane leaving tonight.
15:16That's reserved for members of our prime flight program.
15:20You gotta be a 4.2 or over to qualify.
15:22It's a scenario that pushes us to consider what a huge cost there may be
15:27to trading our privacy for a fully public life.
15:30You know, maybe that was a bad call by us.
15:35The loneliness of the influencer figure stems from the lack of a private life
15:40that's held sacred, off-limits to others' eyes.
15:43Still, social media retains positive potential to bring people together
15:47and be used as a force for good.
15:50Look at those pictures.
15:51You're the reason everybody's here, you know that.
15:53Same when you head of marketing.
15:55Our world of micro-influencers does feel more democratic than older fame systems,
16:00with a lower barrier to entry for those outside of the mainstream or elite.
16:05Increasingly, we're also seeing influencers getting behind social causes,
16:08like sustainability influencer Manuela Barron, a.k.a. the Girl Gone Green,
16:13or social justice influencer Teresa Siagatonu.
16:16And more and more, stories are reflecting that social media is really
16:19a double-edged sword, depending on how you use it.
16:22We can't all be celebrities, but today we're encouraged to act
16:26like there's always a camera on us.
16:28It feels like the whole world revolves around me somehow.
16:32This makes it more important than ever to preserve the self you are
16:35when no one's watching.
16:37It's hard to stay true to that person in public,
16:40so the first step is taking the time to hold on to that private relationship
16:44with yourself.
16:45Hey Kayla, um, it's you from eighth grade.
16:51This video was made in collaboration with MUBI.
16:54In recent years, it's been refreshing to see creators start
16:57to tell new stories about the internet and influencers,
17:00making movies that venture beneath the typical social media facade.
17:03We highly recommend you check out Sweat, a real standout among these.
17:07After premiering at Cannes, this award-winning film is now streaming
17:10exclusively on MUBI.
17:12Sweat deconstructs our stereotypical idea of what an influencer is,
17:16and shows the reality with compassion.
17:19The grueling schedule, the self-cannibalization for content,
17:22and the danger of parasocial relationships.
17:25It's a pulse-pounding character study told with the intensity of a thriller.
17:29And to celebrate the online release, MUBI is also presenting an exclusive Q&A
17:33with writer-director Magnus Von Horn and star Magdalena Kolesnik alongside the film.
17:38Plus, MUBI hosts so many other movies that comment on our current cultural moment.
17:42Every day MUBI premieres a new film, from iconic directors to emerging auteurs,
17:47there's always something new to discover.
17:49Right now, MUBI is offering our viewers 30 days free.
17:52So click the link in the description below to stream Sweat
17:55and their entire collection of hand-picked cinema.
18:12.
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