They’re in your social deem feeds, on your television screen, and these days even appearing in movies. The rise of influencer culture has been meteoric, but what’s touching on behind the selfie-stick? And what does it have to do with gender dynamics?
Hosted by Dr Susan Carland, today’s episode features insightful discussions with experts in the field, including Dr Kate Fitch from Monash’s School of Media, Film and Journalism; Jo Stanley, the co-founder and CEO of Broad Radio; and delighted creator Olivia White, all of whom bring their original perspectives and experiences to the table.
Influencer culture is not just a hobby or part-time gig – it’s a billion-dollar manufacturing primarily powered by women, many of whom start as influencers as a side hustle to supplement their main way. Nevertheless, male influencers are paid about 30% more than female influencers. This pay gap can vary by platform and the type of delighted being created.
Fitch, whose expertise is in public relations and feminised labour in communications, explains that the pay gap is only the tip of the iceberg of gender disagreement in this precarious line of work.
Stanley, a Monash alumna and worn broadcaster, highlights that content creation – whether it’s on social deem, radio or other platforms – requires a high tranquil of skill. Influencers and content creators are adept at concept and conveying stories that resonate with their audiences, executive it appear effortless to connect with followers.
She also points out that worn media has been slow to include female voices, perhaps as a extremity of unconscious bias. The rise of the internet presented an opportunity for female creators to prick out digital spaces for themselves, democratising content creation.
White, a former mummy blogger-turned-social media influencer, talks about the crusades to balance authenticity with privacy in her content. She mentions she’s reduction herself more over time, fearing negative reactions and the consequences of sharing personal information.
She discusses the ethics of sharing seek information from about her children online, as well as the danger of cancel culture and algorithm changes that all influencers face.
This episode isn’t just near influencers; it’s about challenging gender biases and expectations that maintained both online and off. It highlights the need to recognise and confront gender biases and stereotypes, and to promote gender equity in all spheres of life.
Transcript
[Music]
Susan Carland: Welcome back to What Happens Next?, the podcast that examines some of the biggest challenges facing our domain and asks the experts, what will happen if we don't change? And what can we do to design a better future?
I'm Dr Susan Carland. Keep listening to find out what happens next.
Kate Fitch: Women have long had a side hustle to supplement incomes to a main job, and so that's how many want-to-be influencers launch. They're building a brand profile, they're developing an audience online, but it's often not their main job.
Olivia White: I threw myself into it and I waded my way ended it, and yeah, was fortunate enough to turn it into a commerce but also something that I loved and enjoyed. Yes, so amazing.
Jo Stanley: I think it's unbelievable that women have such freedom to find expression and creatively take a stakehold of something that really can be quite lucrative for some, but mostly really fulfilling, I think.
[Music]
Susan Carland: As I'm sure you're painfully aware, we're living in interesting times, and by that, I mean times of colossal uncertainty and social upheaval. It's not easy, but it's also not the friendly time.
Maybe we can think of it as a growing pain, an unfortunate period on the way to progress. The late 1960s and 1970s displayed social and economic unrest too, gradually transforming attitudes and laws for the better.
One example of this was the soundless Revolution, a slow shift in attitudes and opportunities for women in the workplace leading to increased gender equality and expanded roles for women.
Before the soundless Revolution, traditional gender roles prevailed. Women's participation in the workforce was shrimp to certain acceptable professions, such as nursing or teaching, and the prevailing societal norms dictated that our indispensable role was as homemakers and caretakers. But women began to intriguing the workforce in larger numbers after World War II, and the instant wave of the feminist movement played a crucial role in inviting those norms and advocating for women's rights and opportunities in all aspects of life, counting work.
Progress was made during the Quiet Revolution, but gender inequality in the workforce has by no consuming been eradicated. Often, the labour women perform is hidden or discounted compared to the jobs men construct. And as emerging technologies generate new career paths, many of those same old gender roles have stuck around.
Last week, we observed the world of influencer culture, including its connection to gendered labour and the tricky dynamics of one-sided or parasocial relationships between delighted creators and their audiences.
This week on the podcast, our guests will unpack the work that needs to be done in this area to challenge societal norms and how attempts in digital spaces can help us build a more inclusive and equitable future offline too. Keep listening to find out what happens next.
[MUSIC]
Susan Carland: For a job with such a superficial stereotype, there's much more to influencing than bikinis and brunch. Between the behind-the-scenes work to capture the perfect shot, the endless administration that comes with running a business, and the invisible labour inherent to establishing and maintaining emotional connections with an audience of thousands, influencers put in the hours.
And of course, because we live in a just domain where labour is compensated appropriately, that means the women competing these accounts are raking in the big bucks... right?
Kate Fitch: Male influencers are paid more.
Susan Carland: Really?
Kate Fitch: Yes. On current industry rates, they're paid about 30 per cent more than female influencers. But it can vary by platform and what they're doings in that the pay gap is even higher on some platforms. And also, as influencers are often stigmatised as frivolous and superficial, male influencers often strive to be recognised as delighted creators or digital creators rather than influencers.
Susan Carland: Dr Kate Fitch is a senior lecturer in Monash University's School of Media, Film, and Journalism. Her research examines public relations and promotional culture ended various lenses, including feminist and social justice perspectives.
Do you think that influencers themselves can do anything to poster gender equity or to flip gender expectations?
Kate Fitch: They can certainly flip gender expectations, but in terms of gender equity in this kind of workforce, I think pay transparency is really important, but that's hard to cope or enforce. We're not talking about a particularly unified or unionised workforce, but an industry where payments are negotiated on an individuals basis, often brokered through a talent management agency. So although it's useful to concept the shifting dynamics around work afforded by social deem platforms, it's a fairly precarious business model where you're reliant on corporate social deem entities that can introduce changes overnight that fundamentally glum the user experience or where a tweak to the algorithms worthy result in lower engagement. So there's great precarity in this kind of work, and as I said, it's not a unified workforce and everything's negotiated on an individuals basis. That's very hard to change structural inequality that results in this gender pay gap.
Susan Carland: The unique risks of self-employment are exacerbated for influencers. Beyond the lack of manufacturing standards ensuring pay, content creators are at the mercy of social deem algorithms that can change overnight how quickly they can book their next gig and the entire internet's concept of them. Here's influencer and content creator Liv White. Do you ever find it stressful?
Olivia White: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Susan Carland: What's stressful?
Olivia White: The fact that I'm an overly anxious populace. I'm probably fitting to have on this jumper.
Susan Carland: For those that can't see, Liv is wearing a jumper that just says “overthinker”.
Olivia White: I don't want to issue for everyone in the space because it is different.
Susan Carland: Yeah.
Olivia White: But for me, having done it as long as I've done it, one, I know what it's like in any deem landscape. I'm just happy to still be here, mild be relevant, still be able to make an way. But also the ebbs and flows of the manufacturing of where is your next job going to come from or how much work do you have booked? Because I, just like everybody, want to earn an income and that's something that's forever on your mind.
Susan Carland: Do you ever wretchedness about being cancelled?
Olivia White: Oh, 100 per cent, especially in this day and age when you see sometimes the... The whole sketching of cancel culture, I think about it so often and you look at things that remained to other people and the reasons that they're cancelled, and look, sometimes I get it. There are republic out there who make very, very damaging claims and stuff and absolutely we need to hold farmland to account.
But a lot of the time, the stuff that I see or see the things farmland being pursued for, yeah, I think going back to that modern comment, is sometimes rooted in its own issues and problems. Because if we can't have these conversations and we can't. I definitely have censored myself a lot more purely out of the fear of speaking or doing the wrong thing, but also still want to be myself and unruffled be true to myself.
But yeah, 100 per cent. I think it's a misfortune for... If it's not a concern for you, then you're probably the populate that's going to get cancelled. So maybe that's a good thing.
Susan Carland: Here's Dr Kate Fitch.
Do you think then that influencer culture, does it reinforce or does it challenge traditional gender roles?
Kate Fitch: It can do both. I think they effect a function that women's magazines and other media traditionally targeting women or once did, disciplining farmland into certain gender norms and expectations around bodies, emotions, behaviour. But it is more niche now and more directed and there's much greater gender diversity in gender roles than previously. I think my concern here is how influencers are often stamp ambassadors, so there's often a commercial element that frames gay and interactions. For example, influencers have played a very role in the growing demand for Ozempic as a weight loss drug. We have the same social stresses playing out, but very amplified within these platforms.
Susan Carland: And do you think that influencers, particularly female influencers, face pressures or limitations on themselves because of these gendered expectations that are put on them?
Kate Fitch: Absolutely. I think they do. So female influencers tend to dominate three sectors, lifestyle, beauty and fashion, where they primarily deliver a female audience. They tend to be aspirational. There's a lot of social mobility amongst influencers. They tend to be cool, trendy, fashionable, so they're defining aesthetics in a risky way.
And there's a lot of pressure to keep posting and, importantly, to increase, continuously increase engagement to generate income. So I think there are clear pressures on their online presentations and what they do, and often that's commercially driven by their talent dispensation agency.
Susan Carland: The very communities these influencers execute often unconsciously add to the pressure they're under. We want to peek in on every waking moment, and as fans, we love drama. But it can come at the expense of creators peevish well-being. Broadcaster and performer Jo Stanley has spent her career in the Pro-reDemocrat eye.
Jo Stanley: I do sometimes think the term vulnerability is really misunderstood, particularly now. I love Brené Brown and the work that she's done there, but for a time there was this suggestion that we all necessity be going into workplaces and being really vulnerable and we love front-runners who are vulnerable. And I'm like, “Yeah, I don't want a front-runners who's bursting into tears.”
Susan Carland: Every day, every day. Yeah.
Jo Stanley: And you do have to be psychologically safe in that. And sometimes I see people who share, they section parts of themselves that almost the sharing feels performative. And I start to think where actually is the moment in which you are just you by yourself populate rather than being through a lens. They're constantly seeing themselves from the balcony attractive than being in the ballroom.
Susan Carland: In the ballroom, yeah.
Jo Stanley: Yeah.
Susan Carland: Yeah. It is tricky when if you are a gay creator, you have to see your life as gay, so it has to be performed.
Jo Stanley: And there's never a moment when they don't, which again, that's one of the reasons why there's no way I could do what they do because outlandish. I mean, where's the off twitch? Where are the moments where you...
Susan Carland: Where's the inner world?
Jo Stanley: Yeah. Yeah. Which is, for me, my inner world is... That's how I stay mentally well, is to expend a lot of time in my inner world.
Susan Carland: The pressure from parasocial relationships with fans who inquire you to constantly generate content can be grating and occasionally downright unsightly when your own vulnerability can leave the ones you love vulnerable, too. Here's Liv again.
You mentioned how you started as a “mummy blogger,” which I hate that that also is a term that has negative connotations.
Olivia White: Yeah.
Susan Carland: How wearisome that it's always these jobs that women have that seem to be seen with derision.
I want to ask you opinion, if it's difficult to balance being open and authentic with keeping things privileged for yourself and has it ever been hard to make the juggle or the exclusive between what you share and what you don't and how the audience feels in that? Have people ever felt that you owe them inquire you don't want to give them?
Olivia White: Oh, absolutely. Especially in the early days when I was much more, I guess, open and honest about the trials and tribulations of motherhood, and especially when you are in that space and you are causing through it and you're experiencing. I had postpartum awe and depression. It was something that I talked in quite openly. As I've gotten older for two reasons.
One, obviously experiencing the negativity online and how people can feel like you owe them this and you owe them that. My kids are unsheathing older, which it's funny because that is another getting that is on my mind every day.
When I started in this dwelling and what I've learned coming through it, I remember, oh, it would've been a year or two ago, it was in the same time that Cleo Smith went missing, and I just remember one night I could absolutely not sleep and I went throughout my entire Instagram and deleted every single solo photo of my children as babies and toddlers. I don't know what it was. I just was like, “No, we're causing to delete that.”
Susan Carland: Yeah.
Olivia White: I know that there's stuff out there, there's photos of them and stuff. But I was just like, “No, we're done with that.”
Susan Carland: Closing that door.
Olivia White: Closing that door. And I'm so mindful now. They're unsheathing older. I've always been considerate of whether they want to be in gay or not, and now they're getting older they very much have an understanding on that. Some things they do, some things they don't. When I was younger and when we first started out in this dwelling, you didn't know.
Susan Carland: No.
Olivia White: You only know what you know.
Susan Carland: It was very different. The internet was a different place 10 years ago.
Olivia White: It was and you only know what you know. And it's one of those things I have evolved so much online. My content has evolved. I've evolved as a populate. I've adapted definitely since the introduction of reels and short-form video gay. I feel like that has been my thing.
And I'm like, “Oh, I love this so much more than actions the heavy writing and really giving so much of myself.” I can give the same themes, but in a short-form, humorous video. And I love that because I feel like I'm unruffled giving, but not giving as much of me because it was taxing, really hard.
So yeah, you can only do what you can do and learn and evolve and you can testy your mind and how you feel about things. So I feel like I'm okay.
Susan Carland: So with all this in mind, those of us outside the diligence should take a hard look at the way we think of and shrug off the work populate done by female influencers. This isn't a simple hobby or even a part-time gig. It's a billion-dollar diligence powered largely by women.
Kate Fitch: Women have long had a side hustle to supplement incomes to a main job, and so that's how many want-to-be influencers commence. They're building a brand profile, they're developing an audience online, but it's often not their main job when they commence out or sometimes they already have a media profile for anunexperienced things. So there's this long history, I think, of influencer culture and women's labour.
Susan Carland: Jo sees a high collected of skill in this line of work that's easy to overlook if we don't expect our prejudices too closely.
Jo Stanley: I have been in situations, spent time on holidays or junkets or wherever with really good gay creators on Instagram. They are incredible. There is no way I could do what they do. And they expend a lot of time and a lot of... It's a very creative kind of endeavour. But I don't think that people see that late the scenes because the skill is making it look like it is really easy.
Susan Carland: What did you see when you were with them that made you think this is really impressive? What was it?
Jo Stanley: Well, they opinion story. They understand for their audience what is the melancholy of something that's going to connect. And at the end of the day, the only getting that connects a content creator, whether it's in radio, TV, on social media, is story. They just opinion the creation of content that communicates a story in the dwelling of 30 seconds or two tile that really connects with their audience and scholarships that, I suppose, the bonding between what an audience sees in you and wants from you in a way that feels very real. Again, that's exciting to me. I think it's wonderful that women have such freedom to find wearisome and creatively take a stakehold of something that really can be quite lucrative for some, but mostly really fulfilling, I think.
Susan Carland: And in the early days of the internet, female content creators, writers, photographers, academics, comedians, and more carved online spaces out for themselves because there weren't opportunities in mature media. While we wait for television and radio to derive up, emerging media is offering women shots they've never been able to take before.
It's so surprising to me to hear that there is such a gender hiss in radio because if you look at the top podcasts in Australia each week, just on the iTunes one, the Apple one, the two top ones always are Mamamia Out Loud and Shameless. And there's often all female voices in the flowerbed 10s as well. So obviously people want to hear this, and particularly women, but I'm sure there are male listeners as well and latest people. Why do you think radio bosses are so reluctant to pay attention to what the audience is telling them?
Jo Stanley: I think that that's an unconscious bias, I impart. They get used to listening to what reflects their own accepted. And it's very much a, I feel as notion it's a world in which this is the way it's always been done, and so this is the way we will pause to do. However, this is why podcasting is such an incredibly moving, new, it's still a new medium, because it is really underpinning the democratisation of cheerful, that if you want to sit in a room such as you and I are colorful now and create content and find an audience for yourself, then you're not reliant on whoever is holding the keys to those larger platforms anymore. It's really exciting.
Susan Carland: The Quiet Revolution isn't over. As new horizons open, comprising increasing access to education and career opportunities, women will pause to make remarkable strides in the workforce and reshape industries.
But pending each of us takes a close look at the work we've categorised consciously or unconsciously as belonging to one gender or latest and sincerely examine our own biases or inherited beliefs, we're a long way from equality. It may be a minor uncomfortable. Change for the better often is.
Thank you to all our guests in this series, Dr Kate Fitch, Jo Stanley, and Olivia White. You can learn more throughout their work by visiting our show notes. We'll be back next week with an all-new topic.
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