Why are strangers your biggest supporters?

So, when I first started this blog I didn’t show anybody. I linked it to my Pinterest and every so often I’d get a view of two. I was so worried about what people would think.

My Instagram was always private and then, when entering a competition I had to make it public. I started using hashtags on my photos and I remember being astonished at getting over 100 likes on a photo of my bed. I started to hashtag more and gain new followers and the children started to rep for businesses. It’s from there that I began our Instagram journey. I would look at people who would be gifted items and get paid ads and thought it was amazing. Who doesnt want freebies? I didn’t actually realise how hard they worked for them at the time but I thought it was fab. I began to make my Instagram look nicer. I made some friends and we all supported each other. I googled soooo much, it was unreal. I wanted to know if I was wasting my time, if I had what it takes to join in with other influencers and I wanted to still be me. I began to notice that people who were supposed to care about us, stopped liking and commenting on photos of the children. Some even unfollowed us. Once I turned my Instagram into a blogging account it meant I could see stats and I had an app which showed me ‘ghost followers’ and the people who supported me the most. It really surprised me that my biggest supporters were strangers and that people who were supposed to be my friends were in the least supportive section. I see them view all my stories but not interact, yet take the time to comment on celebrity photos. Really? It’s actually quite upsetting. Is it spite? Is it jealousy? I can’t even understand why. I feel like saying sometimes ‘instead of just stalking what I do, why don’t you just unfollow me if you can’t actually be a friend’. We all know the difference comments on the grid and interactions on the stories make to our reach and stats. I’m the first to be there for anybody. If you come to me for help then I’ll do whatever I can without question. So why is it that people can’t be supportive? It’s not just me. So many influencers experience the same thing and I can honestly say that not one person I have spoken to isn’t phased by it. We are all saddened that the people who are supposed to love us are the least supportive, especially on photos of our children. So why are strangers the most supportive? Is it because we stick together and understand one another? We are there for each other, we see the photo and we comment. We see the different interactions on the stories and we make sure we do it. Why? Because we want them to thrive. We want our support network to be real and we want success for each other in a competitive world but most importantly we understand how soul destroying it is watching your ‘friends’ drop you, call you annoying, say the jokes about ‘oooh she’s an influencer’ and we understand that we need to be there for each other. We work really hard to get the things we do and alot of time and effort goes into our Instagram accounts. It might not be for some people but a little support goes a long way. If you can comment lovely things on one friends photo of their children then why can’t you do the same on ours? Just because we have thousands of followers more it doesn’t mean we care less. It means so much more when we recieve comments from the people who are supposed to love us and it genuinly upsets you as we see you watch our things and not make the 1 second effort to comment on photos of the children.