I want to know how many men are actually behind these faceless accounts, preying on women on an app owned by men that has made a lot of money by making women feel like they're not good enough.
I had that thought too. I definitely have met a few “growth hacker” guys over my years working in marketing / going to conferences that I’m certain would jump at the opportunity.
Really interesting read. This same discourse has been happening in the bookstagram (it’s a real thing) community as well. I haven’t seen the course aspect yet, but the increase in popularity of faceless accounts has definitely taken hold. What makes this trend particularly worrisome in that community is that identity plays such a big role. There’s a big difference between thinking you’re following a BIPOC creator and voice vs *actually* following a BIPOC creator and voice. It can sway who gets published, read, and, ultimately, the power to influence public opinion.
It’s so freaky and fascinating in equal measure. AI will make it entirely possible to do this without the facelessness before long, too. (Well, the tech already exists, but it’s not as accessible yet). Just make a model and keep using her. Take a class from a catfish.
5 years from now what little human touch there is in these accounts will be gone. AI picked, AI written, just ongoing funnels of AI info that tastes like ‘helpful’ but without the calories.
It works, primarily, because Instagram has eroded all sense of community and real human connection in their app. When you saw someone’s breakfast coffee most mornings, you knew them well. Now you might follow someone and never see their posts, but when you loop back around, the familiar-feeling content and the high numbers on their page make you feel like they’re trustworthy, like you’ve been with them all along. I’m not usually a doom mongerer but the golden days of the internet really do feel behind us at times like this.
Eroding all sense of community and human connection definitely onto something there I think. I’m reminded this is one of the principal tenets of Neoliberalism all for one and none for all. Everyone is out there to manipulate and exploit each other all we share in common are the marketed and manufactured dreams illusions we crave so intensely in our hapless lonely lives.
Thank you for this! I was pulled into one of these accounts recently. I made a smaller purchase and it ended up being useless. It never occurred to me that the person posting may not even be the person featured on the channel. Hope this trend ends quickly.
Faceless account here, but I don’t claim to be able to make anyone rich. Nor do I wish to scare women and children by including any of the rest of my body or parts thereof.
Big yes to everything you've pointed out, including what the heck are they selling?! I hadn't seen these specific types of accounts, but I have been targeted by other ones that use the same tactics.
I'll add that as a voice person, the overly familiar ("I'm so glad to have you here darlings"), vaguely inspirational ("reach deep inside your inner delulu and BELIEVE that is possible"), infantilized tradwife ("I tell this man everything" while followers are "girls") tone sends me.
The whole thing makes me want to stay off the internet forever. You're a hero for tackling it.
I have been thinking all of these thoughts!!! Thank you for transmitting it so well. what a crazy life, and yea I’m over here sweating shooting actual pics of myself and my family to share about our real Buisness, where I also teach all the classes, do all the marketing, answer all the emails, and handle all the real interactions with clients- both the happy grateful ones, and the grumpy, disgruntled ones. and it is A LOT OF WORK.
I fell for Marie Forleo’s exact hustle of this nature except that she put in way, way, way more of her own team’s work (but then resold the same package using a scarcity model over and over again, with paid consultants to keep little tech-oriented topics current with a bit of classroom talk-back) to create a Popular ATM/Big VIP Talking Head YouTube channel, blog, and Instagram funnel to her fortunately-only-once-a-week email funnel and all that MLM stuff (and yes, I got funnelled to it by an injured-woman-self-care-WOO blog). That year, that Influencer-And-Friends kind of stuff just proliferated (unfortunately I was a witting consumer of that content) and subdivided and leapt from platform to platform while I learned (via the hustle) how to build a website, create a lead magnet for a mail list, create the funnels and promote over social media and it was so much work, it was F-ing exhausting and completely non-remunerative. Also I was spent (as in bad vibe annoyance) just dealing with the social layer of what kind of marketing they were doing, and seeing what my other course takers were saying (my class cohort was mostly dreamy lifestyle maven types, selling frivolous products and platitudes and Woo, rather than practical objects and tools – and there’s a lot of unwitting toxic femininity, especially in Woo circles). After a year of this kind of mind-melting stuff following me around on the Internet I blew away one Facebook account, killed all my browser histories and deleted all cookies, closed a Gmail account and moved a Youtube account to another email address, and stopped trying to “do” anything on Instagram. I’m too “old” for this sh*t. Finally the MLM marketing left me alone.
If anyone says “still worth it!” about a failing endeavour, that’s what I call commitment dissonance, someone who hasn’t learned about the sunk cost fallacy and is still trying to wring something out of it. It was not worth the money and time, not by a long shot. I feel chagrin about falling for that foolishness.
And I was trying to promoting my _own_ (non-Woo, but still practice-based) content to build up the base for a tech platform idea… I shoulda just skipped the whole endeavour, especially the excessively-time-wasting “create a course” nonsense, and just build the intended platform without the audience base, or else build the audience for someone else’s take on the platform and then change their platform accordingly (still, all for free). You see, this is really all about making gold from selling shovels to prospectors.
The messaging about You Can Do This to wantrepeneurs is very, very seductive, and wantrepreneurs see themselves as wanting to learn how to actually do the technical aspect to the work, to understand the mechanics of making sales to real customers, and then the mechanics of running a real business (which is how the course was sold, though it was really only about online marketing) to a high enough level that they actually make it. But those that present themselves as “made it” are… selling you on how they made it. Really?
There’s a song I heard once with an excellent lyric that applies to a lot of folks, yours truly included: “You’re a try-hard who shoulda tried harder.” And another, which we all know: Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.
I love when Substack’s recommend reading sends me down a ginormous rabbit hole of googling and Reddit threads, and an hour later I come up for air and get back to the place I started. This was fascinating and weird, speaking as someone who was caught up in the Make Money Blogging era 15 years ago. I agree with the “cringe” observation. Thanks for a very interesting read.
I want to know how many men are actually behind these faceless accounts, preying on women on an app owned by men that has made a lot of money by making women feel like they're not good enough.
I had that thought too. I definitely have met a few “growth hacker” guys over my years working in marketing / going to conferences that I’m certain would jump at the opportunity.
Really interesting read. This same discourse has been happening in the bookstagram (it’s a real thing) community as well. I haven’t seen the course aspect yet, but the increase in popularity of faceless accounts has definitely taken hold. What makes this trend particularly worrisome in that community is that identity plays such a big role. There’s a big difference between thinking you’re following a BIPOC creator and voice vs *actually* following a BIPOC creator and voice. It can sway who gets published, read, and, ultimately, the power to influence public opinion.
It’s one of the most cringeworthy trends right now!
It’s so freaky and fascinating in equal measure. AI will make it entirely possible to do this without the facelessness before long, too. (Well, the tech already exists, but it’s not as accessible yet). Just make a model and keep using her. Take a class from a catfish.
5 years from now what little human touch there is in these accounts will be gone. AI picked, AI written, just ongoing funnels of AI info that tastes like ‘helpful’ but without the calories.
It works, primarily, because Instagram has eroded all sense of community and real human connection in their app. When you saw someone’s breakfast coffee most mornings, you knew them well. Now you might follow someone and never see their posts, but when you loop back around, the familiar-feeling content and the high numbers on their page make you feel like they’re trustworthy, like you’ve been with them all along. I’m not usually a doom mongerer but the golden days of the internet really do feel behind us at times like this.
Eroding all sense of community and human connection definitely onto something there I think. I’m reminded this is one of the principal tenets of Neoliberalism all for one and none for all. Everyone is out there to manipulate and exploit each other all we share in common are the marketed and manufactured dreams illusions we crave so intensely in our hapless lonely lives.
I didn’t know about this!! It’s so hollow and empty. Making $200k in a month? Come ON
but Leigh YOU CAN DO IT TOOOOO
suddenly I see the light (it’s a ring light)
Ah I have NEVER heard of this. Great deep dive!
Thank you for this! I was pulled into one of these accounts recently. I made a smaller purchase and it ended up being useless. It never occurred to me that the person posting may not even be the person featured on the channel. Hope this trend ends quickly.
Great essay and mic drop with that final image! 🤣
thank you!!!! hahah
Faceless account here, but I don’t claim to be able to make anyone rich. Nor do I wish to scare women and children by including any of the rest of my body or parts thereof.
I sure am glad I deleted my Instagram account!
Big yes to everything you've pointed out, including what the heck are they selling?! I hadn't seen these specific types of accounts, but I have been targeted by other ones that use the same tactics.
I'll add that as a voice person, the overly familiar ("I'm so glad to have you here darlings"), vaguely inspirational ("reach deep inside your inner delulu and BELIEVE that is possible"), infantilized tradwife ("I tell this man everything" while followers are "girls") tone sends me.
The whole thing makes me want to stay off the internet forever. You're a hero for tackling it.
I have been thinking all of these thoughts!!! Thank you for transmitting it so well. what a crazy life, and yea I’m over here sweating shooting actual pics of myself and my family to share about our real Buisness, where I also teach all the classes, do all the marketing, answer all the emails, and handle all the real interactions with clients- both the happy grateful ones, and the grumpy, disgruntled ones. and it is A LOT OF WORK.
Ahhh I’ve wondered wtf those accounts are.
I fell for Marie Forleo’s exact hustle of this nature except that she put in way, way, way more of her own team’s work (but then resold the same package using a scarcity model over and over again, with paid consultants to keep little tech-oriented topics current with a bit of classroom talk-back) to create a Popular ATM/Big VIP Talking Head YouTube channel, blog, and Instagram funnel to her fortunately-only-once-a-week email funnel and all that MLM stuff (and yes, I got funnelled to it by an injured-woman-self-care-WOO blog). That year, that Influencer-And-Friends kind of stuff just proliferated (unfortunately I was a witting consumer of that content) and subdivided and leapt from platform to platform while I learned (via the hustle) how to build a website, create a lead magnet for a mail list, create the funnels and promote over social media and it was so much work, it was F-ing exhausting and completely non-remunerative. Also I was spent (as in bad vibe annoyance) just dealing with the social layer of what kind of marketing they were doing, and seeing what my other course takers were saying (my class cohort was mostly dreamy lifestyle maven types, selling frivolous products and platitudes and Woo, rather than practical objects and tools – and there’s a lot of unwitting toxic femininity, especially in Woo circles). After a year of this kind of mind-melting stuff following me around on the Internet I blew away one Facebook account, killed all my browser histories and deleted all cookies, closed a Gmail account and moved a Youtube account to another email address, and stopped trying to “do” anything on Instagram. I’m too “old” for this sh*t. Finally the MLM marketing left me alone.
If anyone says “still worth it!” about a failing endeavour, that’s what I call commitment dissonance, someone who hasn’t learned about the sunk cost fallacy and is still trying to wring something out of it. It was not worth the money and time, not by a long shot. I feel chagrin about falling for that foolishness.
And I was trying to promoting my _own_ (non-Woo, but still practice-based) content to build up the base for a tech platform idea… I shoulda just skipped the whole endeavour, especially the excessively-time-wasting “create a course” nonsense, and just build the intended platform without the audience base, or else build the audience for someone else’s take on the platform and then change their platform accordingly (still, all for free). You see, this is really all about making gold from selling shovels to prospectors.
The messaging about You Can Do This to wantrepeneurs is very, very seductive, and wantrepreneurs see themselves as wanting to learn how to actually do the technical aspect to the work, to understand the mechanics of making sales to real customers, and then the mechanics of running a real business (which is how the course was sold, though it was really only about online marketing) to a high enough level that they actually make it. But those that present themselves as “made it” are… selling you on how they made it. Really?
There’s a song I heard once with an excellent lyric that applies to a lot of folks, yours truly included: “You’re a try-hard who shoulda tried harder.” And another, which we all know: Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.
It was always a Time getting through B-School season, when all of her affiliate marketers went nuts offering bonuses upon bonuses.
I love when Substack’s recommend reading sends me down a ginormous rabbit hole of googling and Reddit threads, and an hour later I come up for air and get back to the place I started. This was fascinating and weird, speaking as someone who was caught up in the Make Money Blogging era 15 years ago. I agree with the “cringe” observation. Thanks for a very interesting read.
Thank you so much for this comment! It really is quite a rabbit hole.
It DOES reek of MLM and lots of the active members or past members of those companies are the same ones selling MRR and “digital marketing” courses.