There was once a time when having widespread influence meant leading the world — now it means convincing millions of people to buy the $35.00 mascara that you got for free.
In late 2019, 15-year-old Charli D’Amelio went viral on TikTok for her short dance videos. Ever since, her life hasn’t been the same. Now everyone knows her name.
But with that influence comes a price tag. Sure, her “name” was the reason she hit 100 million followers before she could even vote, but it’s also the reason people felt the right to publicly vote on whether or not she was worth all the attention she was getting.
What if someone were as cynical as I, and wanted to write about the “rise of the micro-celebrity,” and talk about everything wrong with a young influencer who is getting more attention than them?
Let me stop you right there. If you think that’s what I’m here to do, you’ve got it wrong. I’m not criticizing D’Amelio, in fact, I’m empathizing with her because that could have been any one of us. It has been.
D’Amelio wasn’t the first, and she wasn’t last, just one of many.
Let’s take a look at influencer and singer Addison Rae, another young girl brought to fame by a record button and a ring light. Or what about influencer Bella Poarch? Or even Piper Rockelle.
When you set your camera up, ready to record, there’s a chance you may never put it down, because those girls never did. The moment you hit post, you’re risking the forceful broadcast of your life every single day just to feel accepted by the tap of a like button.
But here’s the thing, you aren’t “accepted” at all. You’re judged, critiqued, put under a microscope for every person with a phone to look through. Sure, seven million people liked your Sephora partnership, but eight million more rolled their eyes and scrolled.
But who cares? Publicity is publicity, right? Wrong. Your crown could be taken at any given moment for any given thing.
Once a lot of people love you, a lot of people hate you, and they will rummage through your past to find any reason to validate their hate —as if they’re perfect and have never said or done the wrong thing in their entire life.
Some people don’t deserve a platform, and sometimes the platforms we give them are the reason they don’t deserve it.
It’s a common cliche, but it’s true. Fame ruins people. You can sit up there on your high horse and talk all you want about these “problematic influencers,” but if all eyes were suddenly on you at fifteen, who knows how you would turn out by 21.
Social media isn’t the only place where we witness this. What about reality television? “Big Brother?” “Love Island?”
It’s all a way of putting young, vulnerable people in a stressful situation and broadcasting it for the entire nation to see. And for what? Sponsorships? Money? Well, of course.
Social media and reality television come together in times like these to make the worst of the already awful. After your meltdown is streamed by the country, they take it to X to let everyone know exactly how they feel about you.
To make matters worse, the majority of reality television shows don’t allow contestants to have internet access during their time on the show, so it is not until they fly back home and have working wifi that they are allowed to see what the world has been saying about them.
This has driven people insane, literally, with some even taking their own lives or threatening to.
Over the summer of 2025, Love Island showed its seventh season. Many of us are familiar with the “controversial” contestant, Cierra Ortega, who was asked to leave the Villa during episode 30.
Once Cierra returned home, she realized she was kicked off the show due to a post resurfacing of her using an anti-asian slur.
It was reported by her close friends and family that she was inconsolable for days, threatening to take her own life as she couldn’t deal with the backlash. She received death threats, along with her parents who also allegedly received threats from people, stating they would “call ICE on them,” according to E News.
Was what she posted right? No. Should we hold people accountable for their actions? Yes. But do we have the right to berate, threaten, and torture other human beings because they said something we disagreed with 10 years ago? Of course not.
From harassment, to death threats, the Salem Witch trials never ended, but took another form. At the end of the day, we are all people, we have all made mistakes, but we are not all famous and that’s the only reason we have not all been burned.
