On Jillian Harris’ Reddit Snark Being Shut Down

And how we should be talking about influencers in ways that aren’t gross

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Gah! Yesterday I opened my Instagram to find dozens of messages alerting me that Jillian Harris’ Reddit snark page was officially shut down. Umm… Is the timing coincidental that my piece on Jillian and those Eras tix went out the day before? Reddit pages are (rightfully) shut down when comments get ugly; my best guess is there was more activity than usual on that page making it hard for mods to keep up with managing comments, it got reported at the right time, and was a perfect storm. I’ve already written about Reddit vs. Your Fave Influencers for Vita Daily and why these pages pop up in the first place. I want to expand on that by looking at how we should talk about influencers; what sparks productive conversation, and what doesn’t. They warrant conversation because they help shape part of our culture, and anyone that dismisses that should check their misogyny (last time I checked, it was okay to have lively debates about sports and male entrepreneurs but when the conversation involves women it becomes petty and ‘who cares’).

The actual job of an influencer is persuasion. Social feeds are flooded with advice on what to wear (with affiliate links of course), meal suggestions, parenting hacks, the perfect aesthetic for your kids Transformers bday, and more! There are so many great writers doing the work on how influencers have a chokehold on us stateside, which means there are many avenues to break down what you’re being fed all day through critical thought and discourse. Oh, you’ve travelled down the devout Mormon-women-turned-influencers pipeline? Lucky for you, there’s a sub’ for that! Plus hundred of academics, writers, and even a show(!) about this phenomenon that helps you make sense of what you’re looking at, and why you can’t look away. I’ve had the great fortune of chatting with some thought-leaders in this space on my podcast, which is how I discovered Substack. ‘In Pursuit of Clean Countertops,’ by Sara Louise Petersen is my favourite for all things momfluencing; Anne Helen Petersen’s ‘Culture Study’ was my gateway to Ballerina Farm, and most recently, Caro Claire Burke and Katie Gatti Tassin’s podcast ‘Diabolical Lies,’ has introduced me to things I would otherwise have missed, like ’conservative Cosmo-esque’ Evie Magazine and their ‘raw milkmaid dress’ (yowza, that’s loaded). And you know what? Trad Wives are more popular than ever. The think-pieces, subreddits, and online discourse certainly hasn’t hindered their bottom line, if anything, it gave them more exposure to people who otherwise wouldn’t be interested. Nara Smith is starring in Aritizia campaigns now; that’s about as mainstream as it gets!

Big fishes in a small pond make it hard to rock the boat.
Unfortunately for us in Canada, we don’t get to have the same dialogue; our population is significantly smaller than the US, which means the big influencers we have are much bigger fish in a small pond. So, nobody wants to cross them. Brands keep working with them over and over again (my hot take is that a micro-influencer with maybe a few thousand or tens of thousands of very targeted followers is better for brand engagement than the one’s with millions of followers and low engagement), and influencers exist in this sort of self-congratulatory echo chamber that doesn’t allow for growth or critical thought. Sure, we saw some embers of self-awareness during Covid when some of the usual suspects started to highlight brands founded by poc or publicly made an effort to educate themselves on their privilege, but that work has long dwindled off like it was just another disposable bandwagon trend. Where are the think-pieces on that? Or on how the ‘babes supporting babes’ crowd all look like each other (mostly rich, white, thin, and conventionally pretty). Who is taking a critical look at how small businesses that collaborate with influencers do in the long run, or why supporting small business is preached about performatively in a sea of Amazon affiliate links? Not enough people are doing the (good) work, so existing and former followers are flocking to Reddit, mostly, to make it make sense and seek validation (am I crazy or is this crazy?).

Snark pages as a form of community have existed since the dawn of the internet.
I have always been (embarrassingly) a little chronically online. I used to frequent the OG tv snark site ‘Television Without Pity,’ well before snarky blogs like Go Fug Yourself, Perez, or Lainey Gossip even existed (fun fact, co-founders of GFY Heather Cox and Jessica Morgan were early recappers at TWP well before starting their own blog, that’s how long snark sites have existed). Language matters greatly, and I think if you don’t understand the origins of snark sites, you can’t understand that these pages are one of the many ways to have constructive conversation online while building community. They are called snark pages because of history, but it’s meant to be a gathering place for discourse. Obviously, in the early aughts and peak of Perez Hilton, the internet was at its grossest and nothing was off limits. But as we’ve moved into this shift of critically kind commentary, we’re asking people to either say something nice, or shut the hell up. At its worse, snark pages can be dark. Nobody should have their looks or families dissected, or have harm wished their way. When this does happen, it chips away from the good and productive types of conversation we should be having. In the case of momfluencers, many of their followers are desperately trying to be ‘good’ moms by buying all the things they’re recommended, filling their toilets with cereal for that pesky ‘Elf on the Shelf’ they’re probably regretting, and painstakingly buying organic groceries they can’t afford because the MAHA movement told them to. For these current and former followers, these subreddits serve as a sounding board to different perspectives and hopefully, insightful commentary that helps them unpack what they consume online.

When you boss babe too close to the sun
We have Sophia Amaruso of Nasty Gal to thank for the girl boss and boss babe movement (I hate it so much and whyyyyyyy is it still being used!?) Are we also going to call successful men boss-bros? Ugh. These are successful women in business, and infantilizing it as being a ‘boss babe’ continues to enrage me. Anyway! I’ve always been more of a lurker in online forums than a participant. I like reading about a show, pop culture moment, or influencers because as a culture stan, it’s a helpful way to gage the temperature of a moment, and unpack my own feelings. That being said, I’m pretty active at writing yelp and google reviews (good and bad), for businesses and services that I’ve used. Nobody bats an eye if you leave a review that isn’t all gold stars, and most people would find it helpful to know that plumber you used was a dud who overcharged you, or the quality and service of food at a restaurant you used to frequent has had a slow decline (RIP to Heirloom restaurant in Vancouver iykyk). There is no yelp for influencers though, so when people are unhappy with a purchase or confused why an influencer praises slow fashion and small business but makes a killing off Amazon links, where do they engage in this discussion? If they comment directly on an influencer’s post, it’ll get deleted or dismissed. Reddit serves as a tool for almost evening the playing field because one-way communication becomes two-way. A criticism of their business is perceived as a personal one because they ARE the business. There is no differentiation between the business/brand/influencer when you decide to commodify your existence (sorry?).

People will always find a way.
I have way too much to say about the different ways you can find community, and will devote further Substacks to that once Jillian stops giving me things to talk about (ha!) The people messaging me yesterday about the subreddit being shut down only had one question; what happens now? Honestly, I don’t know, but I know that part of the human experience is finding spaces for community. Within a few hours, subreddits had opened up in different places on Reddit, including both the Canadian Influencers and Bachelor forums. What I found most interesting is how wildly different the discourse was between the two. In the former, there was discussion around how to be a good-faith steward on Reddit, why they joined the subs in the first place, and how to move forward. When my previous article on Jillian was posted in the Bachelor subreddit… well, suffice to say, nobody ‘got it.’ And that’s okay! Why would a (mostly American) forum focussed on the Bachelor cinematic universe care about how and why a Canadian Bachelorette from 2009 secured tickets to the hottest show on Earth!? They don’t, and they shouldn’t, because this is not the right community for that. Find your people where they are! This is also a great example that the online communities you love can disappear, just like that. It’s part of why I started this Substack; it gives me a guaranteed line to people who want to engage with my content incase my Instagram disappears (this is your cue to subscribe). I’ll leave you with the growth chart for the Jillian x Eras tickets article I wrote that may have caused some ire.

The spike that could

That giant spike happened immediately after the subreddit was banned, where the number of eyeballs reading the piece increased by 5x (!). Can we surmise that forbidding things make them a little sexier? Like I said, people will always find a way. Let’s just please keep it classy-ish.