How being a Social Media Influencer is slowly destroying my life....

 I was born in the 90's.  I grew up with cassette players and VHS tapes.  I remember when portable CD players were cool and having the best stereo system made you the best house to hangout at.  Cingular Wireless (you guys remember them) was my first real cell phone.  A razr flip phone that you had to text off the keypad; going on the mobile internet was unheard of as the price per minute was outrageous and MySpace was still cool.  I grew up where kids played outside and learned cursive, where people communicated through their mouths instead of the keyboard and where bullies were still picking on kids on the playground and lunchroom instead of being ruthless keyboard warriors.

Yes, this is me, Senior year
in high school. Class of 2010.

Its amazing that in the past few decades how fast and intense technology has increased and developed.  In today's world you no longer find paper job applications, interviews are done first through Skype or Zoom call, phones are now a necessity and social platforms are now involved in almost every aspect of our life.  I still write in cursive, did you know that almost 70% of people I meet cannot even read it (and I do not write sloppy). Can you imagine that, geez how times have changed.

Ahh Social Platforms..Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vsco, Tumbler, Reddit..etc, etc. I can go on.  There are so many social platforms now it gets overwhelming.  My first social platform ever was Myspace.  In fact you can probably still find it on the World Wide Web.  I just lost my email and password for that platform and it fizzled out as quickly as it was started.  Moving along the timeline of platforms the up and coming one while I was in high school.  In 2009 I started my first platform on Facebook that I actually monitored regularly.  At that time I was a cross country runner in high school that connected with my friends and updated my status' with stupid song lyrics and movie quotes.   As I progressed in my fitness journey, a friend of my suggested Instagram.  It was an up and coming platform and I started documenting my fitness journey , low and behold I found other people who also were on their own journeys and then I had others begin to message me about how inspiring and motivating I was to them...It was a breath of fresh air to myself, struggling with my eating disorder, body dysmorphia and low self-esteem the Gram gave me that instant gratification of my 100 followers that started following my bodybuilding journey.

As I progressed in my bodybuilding journey, my followers started to increase.  Along with the followers , I started getting companies reaching out to me about becoming brand ambassadors for them.  So for a few years I did that , showcased my journey, repped out some companies, got paid in products and slowly watched my following increase.  What I didnt realize is that the more likes and comments I got on my platform, the more trolls and negativity I would experience as well.  In a previous blog post I touch a lot on the Social Media Trolls. Click here if you want to read that article as well.    So going back a bit on the likes and gratification of the audience of Instagram, I began to notice my self esteem grew, my confidence grew in myself and my hobby as a bodybuilder was so widely accepted on this new platform that I felt like I could express myself and began to really show my audience why I could compete and stand my ground in this new hobby of mine.  However, with all new things there is also a downside.  

The more I competed and got my name out there, the more followers I gained.  I didnt train for showcasing myself or to brag about my strength, I genuinely enjoyed training and focusing on my next move.  It was my entire life. My second job, hobby and de-stressor all in one.  I got some amazing partnerships and Sponsorships with Titan Nutrition, BYOH Apparel, Magic Spoon Cereal, Built Bar, just to name a few.  These are the companies I am still repping and extremely loyal to.  With these new business ventures I actually could make some income off of my platforms and this was a huge eye opener for me.  I could promote my favorite products, showcase to my audience how I used certain products on a day to day basis and still was enjoying the process.   But now my followers were up to almost 50,000.  50,000 people were interested in my day to day life, my family, my husband, my training, my job, the vulnerability is real.  I began getting more hate messages and trolls spamming my page about how disgusting female bodybuilders are.  For every 25 positive comments, 1 negative would completely destroy my self esteem for the day.  The fact is NOT everyone will like you.  YOU can never please everyone and people will hate you just because ... unfortunately it is how the world works.  For hours and sometimes days I would allow the negative comments to infiltrate my entire mind and day, ruining my mood , my focus and there were even some times where I didn't want to train because the comments made me hate my body so bad afterwards.  I started noticing a pattern of my moods and my obsession with my social platforms began to grow.  I would refresh my page every 5 mins just so I could quickly delete a  hateful comment or creep on one of the Instagram Models that I was so envious of.  

Then I had a child, my view on social media platforms began to change.  I became a Mom, I didnt want others to see pictures of my daughter.  The paranoia set in and  I changed my Facebook to private, all my pictures of my family and daughter could now only be seen by my family and close friends. I revamped my Instagram account to pictures solely focused on training and products and stopped showcasing my family and husband.  The trolling got really bad.   I kept posting my daily motivational pics. Went through my entire post pregnancy process and my show prep during quarantine, posting everyday. Followers surpassed 100,000.  More than 100,000 people were following my journey, some copying my training in hopes to achieve a look, the strength or the motivation that I had hit. Then I hit my offseason ... Struggling myself to keep a lean and healthy offseason after a 9 month depletion for photoshoots and shows.  The body that everyone wants but has no fucking idea...I repeat...  NO FUCKING IDEA how hard it is to maintain it.  As you come onto your offseason, you see others 4-5 weeks out from their shows and you start hating yourself, doubts pile in, negativity envelopes you and it is a hot mess.  It is the process that every one of us competitors face, the horrific but necessary process of filling out and putting on fat... Males tend to enjoy this process a lot more than us females.  

During my first few days into offseason I happened to jump onto my phone setting and do an app usage breakdown of the amount of time I spend on my Social Media Platforms. Facebook was about 20mins per day...okay nothing crazy.   Instagram was over 2  hours.  2 hours of useless scrolling, liking and creeping on other people to determine my worth.  I felt like a failure.  A pit dropped in my stomach, I was wasting more than two hours of my day in the virtual world of Instagram while my daughter was learning to read.  While my husband was trying to spend time with me.  While I was passing up precious moments of my life...for What?  For fans and followers that I have never met.  Now do not get me wrong I absolutely appreciate all of you who follow my journey the support has been unreal and it is amazing to log onto a platform and give me the motivation and drive to keep on what I am doing .  Onseason and offseason the support has been unreal. 

The reported photo.

Then it happened....I had just gotten back all my pictures from a recent photoshoot I had done in Vegas.  Ready to slowly let them trickle out onto the social media world.  So on days I felt fat and gross I could post my lean and muscular body to keep my audience interested in me.  I posted a picture of me in a teal bikini, abs looking all tight and slightly wetted down with water.  Perfect picture to post for a mid-week Instagram pick me up.  I posted the picture and went about my morning routine.  Casually getting quick notifications on my phone.  Then the notifications stopped.   I knew...something was off.  I clicked on my Instagram app and there it was a message "Your Instagram Account has Violated Community Standards for Nudity and Pornography, Your account has been deleted" .  I thought it was a joke.  I quickly tried to log in to any other device, I couldnt get into my account.  I logged into my daughters private instagram account and searched for myself.  "Username not found, " I texted my husband and had him try to find me ...he couldnt. It was completely gone.  104k followers, over 3000+ images documenting my bodybuilding journey as well all deleted into the background of the web.  I was devastated to say the least.  I immediately reached out to my IT guy and he talked me through the process of requesting an appeal through Instagram but it would take some time.  I didnt eat for 2 days, I didnt train , I filed appeal after appeal to Instagram , probably 37 appeals to be exact. I felt petty as fuck. I really did. I cared so much about this, it was eating me up inside. 

Then I started getting text messages from my friends asking what happened to my account.  Then my sponsors started..."What happened to your page? Where is your audience?",  A few threatened to drop me if I didn't figure it out.  Let me say a quick note, Instagram has given me a good amount of financial freedom for my family, with social platforms and networking it has allowed me to have a good backnet of income so If I ever lost my daily job , we would be fine. Gaining over 100k followers is an accomplishment for many influencers, it means when you sell something, state something or vocalize an opinion about something, it can have positive or negative affects on yourself as well as the brands and companies you represent. I was certainly worried about losing the audience, recognition and financial backbone, that was the biggest stressor I was worried about.  I quickly made a new Instagram account, in the meantime and reached out to any big time influencers that I knew requesting shout outs and help.  It grew to about 2000 followers during the weekend but everyday I filed another appeal.  Then something happened, Saturday morning I woke up and my anxiety and stress were gone.  It was pointless to check my Social Platforms as there were basically non-existent and guess what else...No trolls. The negative comments had stopped.  I spent my entire day with my family and watched my daughter explore new things. 

In the back of my head I started to accept this new transition of less screen time and more family time.  I was already happier.  My hair hadn't been washed in 3 days and my eyebrows looked like a character out of Sesame Street but damn my anxiety was slowly trickling away.  " I would find a new net for additional income, I'll pick up extra clients, Ill make it work". I started repeating that mini mantra to myself.  I didn't want my daughter to have a mother who was more concerned with her likes and gratification from strangers, I didn't want my daughter to grow up with that kind of exposure. 4 days later with my new Instagram starting to get recognition, I decided to jump onto the Twitter platform and see what the hype was all about.  Quickly I discovered an entirely new platform, uncensored, more rogue but a lot of fun. It was quick to post something and go about your day.  Honestly, I am still trying to figure it out but to me its fun, no obsession from it. So I started doing a daily tweet with Twitter, kept focusing on my offseason and slowly kept trying to figure out a way to keep my sponsors, followers and everyone happy while I still needed to try and get access to my old platform. Then Monday morning I got an email from Instagram "We apologize for our mistake, your account was deleted accidently, click the link below to reactivate..."  , I immediately felt a wave of relief again.  Click the link and Alleluia , my account was there, all my pictures were there, all my followers were there ..A huge weight was lifted but then anxiety set in again...like immediately.  

I started stressing about what to say to my followers, what/how should I explain what happened. Then is dawned on me.  I could do this, Social Platforms are just a little snippet into our everyday life.  Let me reiterate, a picture that we want you to see. I posted a quick post updating others on what happened to my platform.  Let all my sponosrs know I was back and yes, I did keep my backup account in case this happens again. 

A picture I never posted because
everytime I post a pic in these glasses
trolls make fun of me. 

  Some influencers go through lengths to shows their bodies at a perfect angle with all lines in tact, all muscles showing perfectly through the light, hair and makeup looking like it was just done, but telling others you "woke up like this"... filtered through 80 lenses so you look sort of human meshed with an anime character.  But the reality is, we are all humans, with jobs and lives and families.  What you see , is what we want you to see.  You dont see the 3-4 hours we spend a day at the gym during contest prep or the self-pity we push onto ourselves when we miss out on another family gathering because we chose this lifestyle.  You dont see the 17,000 pictures in our phones that we dont want to post because we look fat, or the way we pinch our skin when we are criticizing our bodies in the mirror.  Its a lifestyle full of pressure, self-criticism and doubt...many attempt it and fail and eventually we all become old washed up bodybuilders.  But its a lifestyle that I cant explain, I absolutey love every minute of it. I know it seems petty to some and that's okay but its my life and my decision. 

 But overall this experience was a great teaching lesson for me.  It made me realize what is important and how precious time truly is.  How some of us are so fixated with making virtual friends we bypass the friendships we have right in front of us.  We spend time with our families with our phones in our hands, but we need to put the phones down and live in the present.  Moving ahead I still enjoy and love being an influencer but I also love being a mom and having a family and my group of friends.  I love making memories without having to document each moment through a post.  As technology advances our entire presence of being a human is slowly being destroyed.  Some people do not even know how to carry on a converation in person anymore, the days of handwriting thank you notes are not quickly being send through a text or email.  Nostalgia is not dead unless we truly make it dead.  I refuse to make it dead.  

I spend this week coloring with my daughter, reading and rereading her favorite books, watching Halloween movies and making cards for the family.  I trained in the gym with my trainer, did my quick social posts on my platform and went about my day.  My time spent on my platforms has dropped from  mins a day to around 8 mins a day.  I feel clearer and less anxious.  Social media will never go away, it will get worse as the world grows smarter through technology but if we start watching our behaviors now and teaching generations below us now how to be a decent human the world definitely will look brighter in the future.

Be kind to each other. At the end of the day, neither of us is better than the other. We are all just trying to get by in life.  We all end up dead in the end. 

Shannon