Keeping up with content creators used to mean watching Charli D’Amelio’s dance moves and Alix Earle’s Get Ready With Me videos. But lately, it feels like there’s a darker side to the world of influencing. In March, TikToker Joshua Blackledge died by suicide at 16. In June, SaveAFox Rescue YouTuber Mikayla Raines took her life at 29. The list, unfortunately, goes on and on. So what is happening?
One possible answer is the evolution of the term “influencer.” It used to be synonymous with people like Emma Chamberlain and Addison Rae, who had millions of followers and reach that had grown beyond the platforms where they started. Today, there are more quote-unquote influencers than ever. “When the category is that broad, tragic events get grouped together in a way that makes it seem like a trend,” psychotherapist and Therapy Nation author Jonathan Alpert exclusively shares in the latest issue of Us Weekly. “Influencers live so much of their lives online that their struggles and deaths stand out in a way that doesn’t happen with private individuals.”
After Blackledge, who had 1.2 million followers, died at home in Newport, North Carolina, his family said he had “exhibited behavioral changes” over the past year. Raines’ husband, Ethan Frankamp, shared in an emotional video that his wife had been dealing with “ridiculous claims and rumors” and explained that Raines — who had autism, depression and borderline personality disorder — had felt “as if the entire world had turned against her.”
We know the proliferation of social media has detrimental effects on mental health, with reports finding correlations between screen time and feelings of depression and anxiety. Turns out that’s not just true for fans but creators too.
“Humans aren’t built to absorb daily criticism from strangers at scale,” Alpert says. “Chronic negativity can create stress, anxiety and a distorted sense of self. If someone is already feeling isolated or vulnerable, that level of public pressure can intensify everything.”
Risk-taking behavior is another piece of the complicated puzzle. “There’s a lot of pressure and competition to get the most views and likes, which leads [influencers] to do riskier things,” psychiatrist Carole Lieberman tells Us. Before the death of Hannah Moody, 31, the content creator had around 50,000 Instagram followers who tuned in for her hiking adventures. In May, she set off for a solo hike in Scottsdale, Arizona, and was later found dead. (The Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner ruled her death from environmental heat exposure as an accident.) Two months later, influencer Andreas Tonelli, 48, uploaded a video of himself biking solo in the Dolomites, then never returned. He had died after falling 656 feet, according to Italy’s L’Unione Sarda.
Whether there is a rise in content creator deaths or not, the impact of these losses is certain. “Followers feel connected to influencers because they see them every day and feel invited into their personal lives,” Alpert says. “Even if it’s one sided, the sense of intimacy is real. When an influencer dies, it feels like losing someone familiar.”
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