I’ve been watching the brilliant BBC comedy series Amandaland and it’s been a little triggering. Very funny, and Lucy Punch as Amanda is painfully hilarious, as the mum who has ambitions to be a massive social medial influencer and runs her own lifestyle brand ‘Senuous’.
Some of it feels a little close to the bone. Rewind 10 years, and I was part of the mum influencer world. I cringe to say it now, but I aspired to be one myself, but never managed to get the high numbers of followers that the heavy hitters achieved (they had hundreds of thousands). I always felt like I wasn’t ‘good enough’ — I got offered the odd sponsorship deal but nowhere near the big bucks the successful mum influencers got.
This world revolved around influencer events where attendees would be gifted lovely goodie bags, lots of free stuff, and would pose next to whatever new product/book/podcast was being launched that particular week. Just like Amanda, each woman had a side hustle - a niche that she was trying to make money out of - and it felt highly pressurised. Especially as many of us, myself included had babies or small children to take care of at home.
There were lots of positive mantras shared on social, but the reality was quite the opposite. It wasn’t #goodvibes, put it that way. Competition was fierce, there were arguments between the those at the top of the tree, and there was a serious pecking order.
The top mum influencers were picky in terms of who they’d speak to at events and if you had fewer followers than them… well, they probably didn’t want to sit next to you or have their photograph taken with you either. It was like being back at school. I was already a bit older than the other women, having had my kids in my forties, and I found the mean girl atmosphere difficult to navigate. I felt frazzled and discombobulated from early motherhood and didn’t feel there was much discussion about that at the time. There was one brilliant website that shared the real experiences of mothers, but when you were out at events, it was hard to penetrate the inner circle and feel accepted.
It took me years to realise that I didn’t want to be part of this inner circle anyway because it was actually pretty toxic. I observed women posing for selfies with one another and then the next minute, slating someone they’d just air kissed. The majority of women who followed these influencers were new mums, and of course this can be a vulnerable time.
© BBC/MermanAt the centre of the mum influencer world is the drive to sell products. Of course now we’re familiar with this model but back then it was still in its infancy. Some portrayed a kind of motherhood that just wasn’t realistic (there were exceptions of course as some became famous for ‘telling it like it is’). On the grid you’d see photos of a mum who’d just had a baby, posing with an immaculate new buggy, a glittery frock, not a hair out of place, perfect make up, and this could make you feel like you’d failed. I also discovered that many of them were married to wealthy men so didn’t in fact need to make an income. Their side hustle was more of a hobby than anything else.
‘She thinks she’s getting that collab but she’s isn’t because I’ve just signed a deal with them,’ or ‘She’s so damn cringey, she tries so hard, and she’s always trying to bag freebies, it’s sad.’ These were the kinds of comments you’d overhear in the loos or waiting to go into another book launch with free drinks and canapés laid on. The irony was that everyone was trying to bag free stuff, the goodie bags would often be interrogated, the contents emptied out and then dissected to see if there was anything of value. ‘This one is just full of adverts!’ and then the bag often tossed in the bin.
There would be book launches where mums would smile, congratulate the writer, but also jealously point out in private, ‘I have no idea why she’s written a book! Who wants to read about her birth story anyway?!’ There were a couple of scandals and epic fallings out and then in 2020, lockdown sort of drew a line under events and it went a bit quiet. My kids got older, I got wiser and I started to crave writing properly instead of trying to get more traction on Instagram.
What Amandaland does so well is showcase the delulu mindset of influencers back then. You start to believe that you’re really famous. When I started to get more followers (mainly through association with other prominent influencers) I felt a bit carried away. It took me a while to realise that nobody knew who I was. Nobody cared.
I once went on a podcast with one of the writers of Amandaland (when they’d just written Motherland). Later, I worried that perhaps they’d based some of the character of Amanda on me. But that was delusional. The truth was, I wasn’t important or interesting enough.
And that’s why we love Amanda so much. She hasn’t realised that she isn’t the centre of the universe. She’s blissfully lacking in self awareness. And perhaps that’s quite a nice place to be?
