Your feelings are 100% valid and you don't need to apologize or justify yourself for them. I think what you touched on is the reason many of us are even on these forums tbh. When you said: "There seems to be such a disparity of wealth between myself and the people I used to be able to relate to and it's chilling to realise that what I used to see as some lighthearted entertainment has become more about trying to sell me a lifestyle which seems so unattainable instead." -- this statement deadass sums it all up. I know how you feel. I started watching these Youtubers back when I was a teenager living at home with my parents -- I was seeking company and at the time it was just them talking to a webcam in their bedroom. They were relatable. Just girls around my age talking about things I could easily connect with. Now 10 years later, I'm an adult living in a foreign country paying for my own rent, bills, and a mountain of student debt, and it seems like they couldn't even begin to grasp any of the challenges I have to face on a daily basis. They no longer talk about or show anything I could possibly identify with. Our lives, struggles, and concerns could not be any more opposite. In a way, they're the embodiment of social injustice. They are working the least, yet earning the most. Getting maximum profits (insanely high paychecks, plus a neverending flow of gifts, plus all the time in the world) while the rest of us get nothing at all (low wages, zero freebies, 45+ hour weeks and no free time). How could they possibly be enjoyable to watch for people like us? Especially when the gap didn't seem as huge back when we started watching them--we literally watched as the gap between us and them grew bigger and bigger over the years. Why would I enjoy watching a girl whose parents are multi-millionaires as she sits in her West London house not doing any work for weeks in a row, when I come back to my tiny flat exhausted after a 10 hour work day and haven't taken a day off in months? Naturally it won't make me feel good. I don't think you're being bitter at all. I think people like Jess are just unconsciously highlighting how unfair this society is. Back in the day there were no PR gifts, no PR trips, no sponsored instagram posts, and most of them were posting videos alongside their day-to-day job or activities (such as uni). The dynamic is, unfortunately, completely different now. It's sickening really--there shouldn't be such insane disparities between people's wealth levels/lifestyles. You mentioned "Self-regulating" and it's also not as easy as it sounds right (it's the old influencer disclaimer: "if you dislike me or my content you can just click off!") ...we GREW UP watching these people and clearly our feelings were MUCH different at the beginning than they are now. When you have followed someone for years, feel like you've grown to know them pretty closely, have kind of developed a habit of watching them...it's not that easy to just click off and ignore what's happening right before your eyes. The familiarity is there. It's all the more sickening when you start realizing what this has turned into and the effect that it's now having on you. Unlike celebrities (whom people follow for escapism), influencers are people that were initially sold to us as "people just like us." They were sold to us as "relatable." It's not so easy to turn a blind eye now that they have become just like celebrities.
