VIDEO SUMMARY: What being an influencer REALLY like?
Description: Here is a detailed insight into my everyday routine and how a typical work day looks for me.
ps - I am not a criminal.
Yes she spells the title of the video wrong, I think she's re-uploaded it anyway now.
Starts off with a huge title saying "a day in the life of a content creator"
She must have run out of ideas....
Helga has set up HelgaVision and put a camera in her room to pretend to wake up in front of. You're fooling no one girl.
She yells morning to Fiwl who's bought her majesty a tea in bed and continues to yawn loudly every 5 seconds
She tells Fiwl her plan of filming a day in the life of a content creator
Fiwl grunts and she says "yeah."
She tells us/Fiwl that she's replying to DMs and she gets overwhelmed sometimes because she gets a lot of them
She feels like a prick because she can't reply to everyone.
She tells the camera that she just wants to do a really nice day in the life, and she ISN'T going to call herself an INFLUENCER because she doesn't like calling herself that, so she's calling herself a CONTENT CREATOR
Fiwl's off to work so she must suck his soul out with a kiss before he leaves
He ducks in and out for the fastest kiss ever
"I got quite a few fings to do today.... it's quite a STANDARD day"
7:40am, they always get up at 7am everyday as Fiwl gets ready for work and he has to make her a tea in bed.
She's scrolling on her phone in bed and telling herself she needs to get off her phone and get up and go
About 8am... well it's 8:10am now... and she'll put on her shit kickers or gym stuff to take her dogs on a "brisk" walk in the morning, she does about 4 to 5km
Dogs are barking at the Hello Fresh delivery, Helga yells at them.
She then goes downstairs to let them out of the dog dungeon in the utility room. Poor dogs.
She aggressively shoves her face into them. Poor dogs.
She says the most difficult part of her day is getting the dogs on their harness. They hate it. Poor dogs.
And they're off. And now Helga is babbling to us about things she thinks about. Today is her criminal name and the crime she wants to commit
"I'm called the PAMPAS BANDIT and the crime is going around stealing peoples pampas grass, right. Because EVERYONE'S into dried flowers, y'know dried vases... and pampas grass is REALLY POPULAR!!! "
"So I was thinking wouldn't it be kewl... well, wouldn't it be a GREAT crime or a GREAT BUSINESS to go around in the middle of the night and steal people's pampas grass and then sell it on etsy for like five pounds a stem."
Fucking idiot.
"I'm NOT gunna do it..." she says as she points out a really good harvest that she sees every day on someone's property.
"I'd like to make a disclaimer.... I'm not going to go around stealing people's pampa grass!!! DON'T GET ANY IDEAS OKAY!!!"
"If I hear that there's been any pampa's FEFT don't... don't.... IT'S NOT MY FAULT!!!"
Fucking idiot.
She stops to stroke someone's horse in a field.
Then films Lola standing by a dog turd while Helga picks up the ball to throw with a throwing stick.
Home now.
Dogs are being fed now, but not before she kicks the dogs outside while she prepares their food because she can't stand Dee being at her feet, it gets on her nerves. Poor dogs.
Coffee and breakfast time. She gets her willy mug out for this one.
Now it's time to get ready. And says she uploaded a full face of skin care routine.
WTF happened to her face, it's broken out so much
While some products are "sinking in" to her pie hole, she does other tasks, like make the bed. She still has to play with her face.
She chucks a huge pile of clothes from the floor to the bed
"Some of it is Fiwl's... WOT A SURPRISE!!!" bitch, your clothes are there too.
She's back putting her face on and claims that she doesn't wear much makeup day to day. Fucking LOL.
She's all done and claps "LETS GET WORKIN'!"
"So, I have the option of working at the dining table, or in the living room on my laptop. Or uhm... in the office. Now today I just feel like workin' in ere"
Says she "normally" starts working between 10am/11am. She likes to start at 10am but blames the filming of this as slowing her down a "wee bit"... slow you down from what? Answering 4 emails and then eating?
"I aim to finish around 6pm but sumtimes I finish lata I got fings to do in der evenin'"
She's got lots of notifications from her manager this morning. She beams as Hello Fresh want to work with her again.
She's basically repeating her fucking calendar video on how she organises shit and what apps she uses.
She's going to finally edit her PODCAST (Have we any volunteers to listen and summarise when it comes out?)
She's got a BAND meeting this evening. Remember that's still a thing.
She's currently getting her feedback and approvals from her sponsored content coming through.
We're now seeing her work in double speed now, but she's mainly scrolling on the track mouse pad, sipping coffee and doing whatever these faces are below:
She yells to herself "POSS CHA! POSS CHA!!"
And then has to put on a B*witched song as it's stuck in her head.
She's finished her emails, done her admin and spoken to her manager. Now it's time to edit her skincare video.
Lunchtime and she's gotten REALLY INTO sandwiches and crisps at the moment.
She now scrolls through the questions she's got people to ask her on IG and she says there are loads of questions on there
I've slowed down and counted roughly counted around 50 questions, if I can be arsed a bit later I'll try and screenshot them all as she was scrolling up to the very top and bottom, there wasn't a lot and there are loads of the same people asking multiple questions
Back to the video, she's got her lunch dessert and she's going to finish editing. She gives herself a time limit on how long to edit things and this video has half an hour to go but she's finished it in 20 mins. Yay for rush jobs!
She downloads some free music to go on her video. She doesn't really know what she's looking for.
Cut to a bit later and she's trying to edit her podcast but it's coming out a bit "shady" and not what she wanted it to.
She's got background noise in there which makes her sad so she's contacted her mate who she's doing the podcast with (I bet it's Kat her PT)
She's distracted and made a size chart for her plant.
She's heard back from her co-host on the podcast and she has to re-record it.
Band meeting time and now she's having an "angry 5 mins" because nothing is going right and zoom won't let her into her band meeting... you sure it's zoom who doesn't want you there Jelly Belly?
In the band meeting, they talk about them finally copyrighting Sunny Bones Band, and the new song Echoes of You is going to be uploaded on the 31st. They talk about getting the artwork for the EP cover. Helen just yeps her way through the meeting while putting faces in the camera.
She's doing a TikTok and thinks she can get away with filming it on her phone.
"I normally have days where I'm primarily either on my laptop editing, doing admin, catching up on... or I'll have days where I'm just filming, filming, filming so you know, I'll do my hair properly, I'll do my make up, I'll... uhm.... wear something.... uhm...." She shrugs and pulls a face. Even she doesn't know what the fuck she does.
She rambles on her active days and desk days. No one cares.
Fiwl is back home now. She rushes down to the garage where he is hiding from her and asks him "you're not hurting yourself are you?" he mumbles something back and she walks off saying that she was just seeing how he was.
Back to editing her reel now. "MY LITTLE MOOD BOOSTAAAAAAH!!!!"
Now she's pointing out things in her house. Living room, which is tidy, Fiwl the grease monster who's sitting down, and a beer which he's cracking open.
She's now got a glass of gin and is going to do a QnA, but not before she sneezes LOUDLY in her glass. Fucking gross.
It's her Friday night BEV ER RARGE (remember she said she never drinks weekdays, trololol)
She thought it would be really KEWL to do a QnA because she had a lack of things to film.
She's not over the "weirdness" yet of calling this her job, but she's getting better.
She feels like she hasn't been taken seriously about this being her job because people say things like "oh when you have a REAL job" and the negative connotations around being an "influencer" and the kind of "shit" influencers get.
She feels that it's a bit embarrassing. That's cos it is, love.
SHE SAYS SHE THINKS SHE'S A PRETTY HARD WORKER
"I'm reliable and I get things done and I'm a bit of a PERFECTIONIST and I've got such a HIGH STANDARD"
....... girl...... GIRL..... you don't fucking PROOF read any of your shit and you try to edit your videos in 30 mins!!!!!
"Wiv out sounding like I'm shootin' me own hoop, you've got to sell yer self" ....do you even hear yourself?
Right... ready for the QnA? This is what she says:
Q1. Do you follow the same structure every day?
A: "so I have my schedule which I, I suppose the morning I like to keep pretty much the same every single day... but..... uh..... what I do every day changes all the time. I will kind of plan out chunks of days so, for example, Monday morning will be admin planning and then Monday afternoon might be edit vlog you know, Tuesday morning might be real content and Tuesday afternoon might be film main channel video Wednesday morning film reel content or add catch up admin so I don't really I kind of timetable out what I want to do on each day but until I've planned my week ie on the Monday, I don't know exactly what I'm doing but I do try and keep it I do like to keep a bit of routine but everything changes all the time especially when I'm doing, like paid or sponsored work that's all down to like other people's that's all down to kind of a collaborative timeline"
Q2: do you miss having colleagues or co-workers?
A: During the day so I have my manager, Ryan, who I speak to regularly throughout the day.... but I really do miss being in a working environment. I miss the small talk, I miss the support...... I miss..... you know, the moaning. I miss the birthday's celebrations, Christmas parties all that I really miss it.... and i love being my own boss don't get me wrong and I love, you know, not having to answer to anybody and being in control but I do miss like, office life
Q3: do you worry about this possibly not being a long-term career?
A: I did up until I started going to therapy and this actually was down to my own insecurities and my own self-worth issues. so I would get like real bad anxiety, like every new year, thinking about the year ahead thinking this is going to be the last year that this is going to work out for me, I'm going to have to start looking at other career options, I'm going to have to start thinking about other ways I can earn money to pay my mortgage .....and I'd really worry about that kind of stuff I, I mean I spoke to my therapist about it he's also a bit of a life coach and is actually taking credit for what I can do and what I've achieved and accomplished, that makes me not so worried about it.
Like if youtube didn't work out for me in a year's time I would just adapt to do something else you know you don't just wake up with no career things happen, like most the time, things happen over time and progression happens over time you're not just gonna like two weeks time this is all going to be over for me..... unless something really terribly drastic happens which is very unlikely, like your natural career, your career progression happens naturally and over time
Q4: the best and worst parts of being an influencer?
A: The best parts of being an influence are probably like, the fact that I'm my own boss I can work when I want to, I find it uh I find the actual making content enjoyable and relatively easy because I'm...... I've got good at it uh but the worst parts are probably I don't like being called an influencer and I think the sort of flag.... the.... the flack..... that comes with being called an influencer is almost like you can always almost preempt the eye roll or the negative stuff but maybe that's just me maybe that's how i think people think about me which is something else I'm working on um..... And also i think the expectation it's like I'm just a normal person sharing the that i like um fashion inspiration my positive outlook on life whatever i'll try to, and i think i don't like being given the responsibility or people saying that I'm not a good enough influencer because I'm not using my influence properly.
a) i didn't really ask for it I'm grateful for it i don't ask for it and b) like i can't physically be everything for everyone you know "you should be influencing this you should be using your platform better" like you know there's some people that are disappointed in the stuff that you put out there and some things that you say or don't say.... um because you don't meet their expectations but i mean the thing is is like I'm getting better at dealing with that because I'm acknowledging that it's not it's not my problem if people have high expectations. it's just becoming so placid these days and just like really don't give a FUCK and I LOVE IT!!! You know there is always an element of responsibility but I'm just learning that i can't please everyone and I've cut I'm totally cool with that
Q5: do you ever want to quit and just get a random nine to five job instead?
A: no
Q6: how do you do all your admin and account type stuff?
A: i do like my emails and I do planning and talking to people but then my manager also does a lot as well he doesn't he does all my sort of brand deals side of stuff I'm.... I can't I'm rubbish at it!
Q7: how do you work through periods of feeling uninspired?
A: it's difficult like I'm not going to say that it's easy all the time
but i often just when I'm uninspired I kind of clock off and do research, so by that I mean I just watch other people's things...... I watch loads of videos I switch off a bit.
you can't just like schedule in time to create or think of ideas I can't write songs if I say, I'm going to have song write between two and four chances are I won't be able to write a song but I'll be able to write a song when I'm driving to the supermarket or I'm in the bath or I'm walking the dogs so I will switch off and I'll just go do something completely unrelated and I can guarantee something will just come to me so it's just taking the pressure off yourself
Q8: do you tend to work set hours or just make sure you do what you need to do?
A: most the time I like to work within hours for mainly the fact that I have a partner and also it sets boundaries, but then sometimes if I don't have too much on I can get everything I've done need to be done in the morning and then I have the afternoon off..... so if, if there's one thing on my to-do list in a day and I get it done in an hour and then I have the rest of the day to not really do much else I'm not gonna feel bad about it because you know some days I'm really really really busy and working all hours of the day and other days I'm not. it's just the way it works
Q9: how much of your time do you spend editing?
A: a lot of.... a lot of time editing a lot of editing is done
Q10: how do you find motivation?
A: motivation is quite a popular one question here. I do because I have to and I'm used to it. and I set myself goals I set myself like little schedules throughout the day and if I come you know I'm really bad I'm like I...I... I do set myself a schedule to do stuff and but I'm really bad at being focused like my brain is like a ping pong ball like this and I'm always.......... and it's one thing I'm really working on is being more focused and sticking to a plan and that's the goal of mine so I really do try the.... my motivation is just trying to keep on track and my own schedule um and i and I give myself a realistic schedule as well like I don't like today I got a handful of things done today I took my time with it and I'm, I'm feeling content yeah I edited a video
Q11: how long were you doing youtube before it became your full-time job?
A: god I don't know I think, I think I was doing it for about a couple of years..... and there is another question of how did I do that which I'll tie in. So I was doing youtube like for fun and then um it got more and more popular and what I did was I started decreasing my hours at my work and then I went on like um a self-employed thing where I basically invoiced them for my time so they were contracting me, so I went from being employed with them to self-employ them and then I just ended up going I can't work here anymore, because I got signed to an agency my first agency and also it was a combination of reducing my hours and having consistent income from youtube and knowing what I was earning um and then the agency thing and at the time also I was... I was living in a band house the rent was dirt cheap I didn't have a mortgage it had barely any outgoing so I felt secure and knowing that i could quit my job because I could afford to live um and then yeah it just picked up over time and here I am in my house with a mortgage with lots of responsibilities
Q12: do you feel people underestimate how much work you do?
A: uh.... yeah, I think that a lot of people see the tip of the iceberg and then the rest of it is underneath the surface the water. This ties into my insecurities about why I don't like to say that it's my job or I'm going to work, because I've had years of people underestimating me and thinking that I've got it easy and I've got a really easy life and I'm really, really privileged and really, really lucky.
And I know I am to a degree but I do feel bad that I do feel like at times I can't ever complain about it or say that I've had a hard day my closest, my closest friends understand it I do feel like my family don't always understand it, they're getting to understand it, my boyfriend definitely understands it.... but it's like this like there's so much that goes on behind the scenes there's so many ways that you have to think about being able to generate revenue from being an online personality because it, it's like a new industry and it's quite uncertain you have to put yourself in a place where you can have your finger in so many different pies so yes you see me vlogging and you see me youtubing and living my life on instagram wow she just uploads pictures and videos that's so super easy but there's so much more that goes behind it and i really take pride in like the quality of my work the integrity of my work i really am quite decisive about who i work with but equally it's like you know you've got to think about how you shoot things how you edit things how you put yourself out there and i do make it look easy because i'm good at what I do and that sounds really really arrogant but like, phil put it in a perfect way, okay so you've got a brick layer an apprentice brick layer he might only lay 200 bricks on his first day when he's an apprentice yeah if you've got a bricklayer that's been a bricklayer for 30 years he might be able to do 2 000 bricks in the same amount of time because he's been doing it longer and he's more experienced so that's with me i've been making film and editing since i was 13. and i went to uni and did film i've done photography so i can do my job really easily really quickly because i'm good at it and and that's because i'm experienced so yeah i do make it look easy because i'm good at what i do
Q13: Do your friends find it frustrating that you don't get the chance to switch off?
A: no they don't then my friends are really understanding, to be honest, I do switch off like if I don't vlog something because I'm actually ...actually spending time with my friends, and if there is something I want to vlog with my friends, I'm like guys I'm going to film this and they're like cool and they get really involved and they get really supportive and they help me, um, so no my friends are really good they understand............ should we? shall we have the tacos? (she says to Fiwl)
Q14: how do you schedule and plan video blogs and posts?
A: So I plan all my content on trello so I have a trello board with different categories video igtv reels TikTok blog posts all that I wrote all my ideas down like that and then each Monday morning when I plan my week I will figure out what I'm going to film each week or what's doable that week and then I'll kind of tick it off and then I'll schedule it in on my diary what's going to be uploaded when I'll think of ideas and put them in my notes though like oh that's a good idea put in my notes and then I'll put it on my trello board
Q15: do you think you'll always show so much of your life online?
A: I don't know, I've got this thing I... I... I've got this like battle if when I have children... i don't know if I will share my children
Q16: how much do you compare yourself against other influences?
A: I used to do it quite a lot but now I don't do it really at all I think that's just more of a self-acceptance thing because I just used to get the impression that I was useless that I wasn't very good at what I did, and that other people are doing it better than me and I didn't work hard enough and I wasn't doing enough you know therapy and working through some things of myself I've realized, actually, no that's not true it's not true so I don't really compare myself anymore
Q17: how do your contracts with certain brands work?
A: So basically this is how I get sponsored work so either I will get an email, email coming to my inbox saying hi Helen we want to work with you and I'm like cool and I'll forward it on to my manager Ryan. I'll say that's cool I'm going to forward you on to my manager he'll be able to help you out or my manager Ryan will just say we've got this brand so gleam who are my management they have like teams of people that work with brands um and sales teams and sometimes brands will go to gleam and say we're looking for this is the campaign and we're looking for someone that can produce this kind of stuff and he'll pitch me into those brands he'll say like, oh, this is Helen, she's interested, and he'll pitch me forward, and sometimes they come through sometimes they don't, sometimes they don't want to work with me or sometimes people will just come straight through to and say they want to work with me so it's a mixture of direct contact or being pitched in for work but I'm very picky and I'm quite picky with them who I work with and the kind of content that I create. sometimes I worry that I'm too picky but I'm just so conscious about being honest being like being genuine and being like real and so there that's it really.