Over the past few decades, society has transitioned to turning to the internet for everything. Shopping, watching movies and shows, keeping in touch with our friends and family members, and even as a way to turn regular people into celebrities. Today, the idea of the influencer is nothing new, as the word has even been in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary since 2019, but depending on who you ask, the word can have a positive or negative connotation.
It has never been easier to stumble upon 15 minutes of fame, yet not everyone handles that small amount of fame with grace. Reddit user JesseB342 recently started a conversation by asking, “What’s the smallest amount of internet fame/clout that you’ve seen go to someone’s head?” And hundreds of readers responded with the cringiest stories imaginable.
Below, we’ve gathered some of the best responses that might make you glad you never went viral on TikTok, so be sure to upvote the stories featuring people you would never follow on social media. Keep reading to also find interviews with Sue Scheff, author of Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate, and Dr. Jenna Drenten to gain some insight from a couple experts on the topic of influencers. Let us know in the comments if you have any personal experiences with people who let gaining a tiny platform go to their heads, and then if you’re interested in checking out another Bored Panda article featuring influencers that deserved to be shamed online, you can find that right here.
#1
A new local tv anchor woman was trying to pay for her dinner at a restaurant with a check. Restaurant doesn’t take checks, it’s posted all over the front door she walked through. She stands up and starts screaming at the waitress “Do YOU know who I AM?!?” The waitress says no and walks off to get her manager. She didn’t get to pay with a check…
Two weeks later, the same anchor woman comes into the department store I worked at. She has a mound of clothes in her arms and throws them on the counter and asks what kind of discount she gets for being a local celebrity. My co-worker tells her such thing does not exist. She pushes the pile of clothes off of the counter and tells my co-worker that she needs to learn how to treat the upper class better.
She’s not our local tv anchor woman anymore.
Image source: ZayleeLeila, Ron Lach
#2
My friend’s family immigrated from the USSR. He was born and raised in the US and went in to the military. After some time in the service, like everyone else, gets a ton of participation ribbons. Those ribbons would got to his head. He would walk around in dress uniform when he was off duty and people would walk up to him and thank him for his service, never mind that only time he saw bullets fly was in training.
One day, he decides to visit his grandparents in his dress uniform. His grandfather looks at him and said “son, I fought from Stalingrad to Berlin and got one ribbon. How many planets did you have to invade to get all those ribbons?”
After that he never wore his dress uniform out in public again.
Image source: noreenholman, Jeremy Bezanger
#3
I work for a company that books luxury travel, think $20000 packages.
A woman contacted us wanting a free trip in exchange for posting it on her blog, proudly proclaiming that she had 800 followers.
My coworkers’s dog photo account has more followers.
Image source: AnastasiaSheppard, Mateus Campos Felipe
#4
I worked as a hairstylist (certified but can’t do it anymore due to nerve damage) and this lady made an appointment for her newly 1 year old child.
At first, all she wanted for him was to clean up around the ears and neck because it was getting kind of long.
Kid is SCREAMING. This is his first haircut ever. I’m being super patient and slow. It was my last one of the day so I’m not worried about time.
She then says “I’m an influencer and I take photos of my kids all day. I need this to look perfect. This is his first haircut and you’re f*****g it up.”
So to try and calm her down while also still keeping my composure, I asked, “oh, an influencer? What do you do? Like what platform?” And she looked me dead in my eyes and said, “well I gained fame because my daughter died.”
…..
I got silent from there.
But just as we were starting to finish up, she says, “I hate it. Can you do a skin fade on him?”
Girl HES 1!! He’s screaming at scissors. I’m not taking loud clippers next to his head. I tried to explain that if he moves while I have clippers near him like that, it could just make it even worse.
I told her there’s a barber shop right across the street if she wanted to try going there.
She took photos of me without knowledge or permission and posted them on her instagram (100k followers) and bashed me.
I was 20 and had just graduated hair school. I did tell her that before to the appointment as well.
When she posted photos of his head the next day, not only had he just woken up so his hair was messy, it also looked like she had tried to “fix” it at home. The other (senior) stylist that had been with me in the salon during the whole thing saw how I did his hair and she was shocked at the posted photos because it is not how I did it.
It still cracks me up a few years later, but now I don’t trust mommy bloggers
Image source: LizzieW1, Jason Lander
#5
There’s a kid I work with who’s (I believe) 7 years old, and he’s a “YouTube influencer.” By that, I mean the kid’s parents made a YouTube channel that follows the same format as stuff like Ryan’s World, got lucky with one video that got around 10,000 views (all of their others barely have a hundred), and it immediately went to their head. The kid’s dad refers to himself as his “manager” and answers questions on the kid’s behalf, they hand out business cards with all their social media info, and they even GOT THE KID’S NAME LEGALLY CHANGED to the name he uses on YouTube.
The worst part is the kid seems indifferent at best to all of this. It’s 100% his parents pushing it on him.
Image source: astaten0, Hannah Nelso
#6
My daughter got 20k followers on TikTok and decided to leave her husband and 6 year old daughter to go be part of the convention circuit.
She dresses up and gushes about meeting “famous” people.
Image source: love_my_aussies, petr sidorov
#7
Oh I’ve been sitting on this for a while, waiting for the perfect moment…
So before TikTok, we had Vine. A girl I was friends with posted a few videos on there and they blew up, I mean really blew up. She was interviewed by a tv station at one point and newspapers, done sketches for the local radio station… And for Scotland, that was pretty shocking because we don’t normally do well in this sort of thing. She quit her managerial job in a supermarket, convinced that she was going to be famous from Vine, this was when being an “influencer” or “content creator” was relatively new. She cut everyone out of her life that was dragging her down, that included me, someone who had been friends with her for around 7 years at that point.
Long story short, she failed. She now works in a nightclub on the bar, she had three months of fame before she realised no one gave a s**t about the videos and she couldn’t come up with anything funny to write and star in after it.
* Oh before I forget, she auditioned for the Star Wars movie when they done open auditions here, and she legit put on her headshot – “model, actress, vine star”
Image source: IrnBruDependant, Ivan Samkov
#8
I was at a birthday party at a very popular restaurant that had a huge line out the door all night, every night. When the reservation was made, the host was warned that 30 minutes past that time slot, anyone who hasn’t showed up yet would have to wait in line with everyone else. Of course, some people showed up super late, made a scene at the door, and texted the host to tell them that they were just going to go to another party instead because the line was too long. The host decided the best way to handle this would be to go on social media and encourage his followers to @ the restaurant and make wildly false accusations. The host and his friends were boasting that the restaurant had no idea who they were messing with and would surely regret this once it blew up on social media due to his “very large following”.
The owner of the restaurant got a notification about the mention and knew it was our table because the host had already complained about the bouncer. The owner came over to very politely explain the reservation policy and ask that the comment be taken down since the restaurant did nothing wrong and this was uncalled for. The keyboard warriors shrank like children being scolded by their parents; I don’t think I’ve ever had more second-hand embarrassment.
Image source: Vegetable_Salad86, mentatdgt
#9
Salt bae. Sorry.
Image source: SharkBait209, @nusr_et
#10
A guy from my hometown who was sort of a skeezeball helped some elderly folks escape a fire. The act itself was commendable and he deserved the recognition he received in local media and he went viral for a week or two but uh….5 plus years after the fact he was still using that as a way to try to get out of tickets or being cut off at the local bars after refusing to pay tabs. My brother encountered his Instagram recently and his self description says something like “Unspoken hero, DM me for details” lmao
Image source: FartAttack911, Davide De Giovanni
#11
Friend was in a video at a car meet that went viral back say 2011-2012. He said like 8 words and couldn’t see him but you could hear him. He would go around telling people after he is “famous” for being in a viral YouTube video. I was like “if you have to announce you are famous, you might not be as famous as you think Broski”
Image source: HoneyMussy4goodBoy
#12
In college, a girl I knew was elected Student Body Vice President. She almost instantaneously became the most insufferable person I’ve ever met, complaining about the plight of having the lives of 20000 people rest “in her hands.” She would use it to try and get better service at restaurants. It was like something out of a comedy. We stopped being friends with her.
Image source: ElsaAlex, Fallon Michael
#13
I entered a blog competition to my uni the summer before I started. I won, and myself and two others were given a free laptop on the understanding we’d keep publishing blogs as ‘Insiders’ for the uni to use as a marketing tool. I put one up a week, and enjoyed it. They were decently entertaining and linked to on the uni website, but probably got no more than a few dozen reads.
On my birthday a few months into the year the bouncers at a club wouldn’t let me in as I appeared too drunk. I got into a pedantic argument with them about whether the pavement was public property or not, then shouted at them I was going to write about it in my Uni-sanctioned blog.
I woke up hungover the next day and *did not* write about the incident in my uni-sanctioned blog.
Image source: Fascinatedwithfire, Fabian Albert
#14
Back in the day when I played WOW there was a guy on my server who had a tiny amount of name recognition. He was good at the game and spent a lot of time and energy organizing things. People on the server knew him and would ask for his help, or show him deference in order to get his attention on things.
One day he put together an optional raid and at the end of the raid a particularly rare item dropped. Instead of an open roll – which was the standard at the time – he simply gave the item to his friend. When people complained, he said something like, “I’m so and so, I’m the most important raid leader on this server, you’re all lucky to even be here right now, so shut up and deal with it.”
Well screenshots were taken and links were sent around. Dude ended up transferring off the server less than a week later because nobody would give him the time of day.
Image source: shaidyn, ELLA DON
#15
A classmate of mine got invited to a pyramid scheme through instagram. She started planning her entire influencer career. Got real mad when I wrote an extensive explanation on what a pyramid scheme is, and showed her I’d gotten dozens of those DM’s before.
Image source: heyitsamb, Mikhail Nilov
#16
I used to have a friend that became one of the most insufferable [jerks] you could imagine because he got 200 followers on Instagram
Image source: Klurd, cottonbro
#17
My ex girlfriend (bless her soul) had a Tiktok get to 1m views which I thought was cool! But she developed this notion that she all of a sudden had a dedicated and fanatical audience she had to please and thus TikTok,IG, and Twitter became her life and posted her entire existence (by extension me) This went on for some time till she recognized the addiction and left TikTok.
Image source: Ok-Breakfast-5790, Laura Chouette
#18
Not internet fame but my buddy’s father unfortunately passed but he inherited like 700k. Well he bought himself and his wife a great house (we’re all 30) and now him and his wife spend their time telling us we need to be buying houses. They think they earned that money and it makes me boil.
Image source: mibbledibbley, Zac Gudakov
#19
I used to answer the unsolicited submissions email box for a very large consumer products company – basically the address where people sent in ideas, be they marketing or products or whatever.
I can’t tell you the number of people who tried to sell us a license to their “hit viral song” that had “nearly 10,000 views on YouTube.”
I appreciate the hustle but no one is paying to use a song with 10,000 YouTube plays. That is not “viral” or “famous.”
Image source: CorpCounsel, Yogas Design
#20
Not a friend of mine, but someone I know through a mutual friend. He’s a ‘streamer’ and occasionally he will hop in discord with us to talk with said mutual friend. But, being a ‘streamer’, he’s pretty much always streaming whenever he’s on/gaming… And he will talk to his stream while sitting in our discord, won’t even mute himself, and will literally just talk over other peoples’ conversations in discord.
And some of us will rightfully be like “wtf?” and his response is always “can’t help it guys, I’m a streamer, can’t leave my stream hanging”… His stream will literally have like 5-10 viewers max at any given time, and he’s been streaming for years.
Its f*****g embarrassing and everyone ridicules him. Him being IRL friends/coworkers with the previously mentioned mutual friend is the only reason anyone *tolerates* his presence. And I use *tolerate* extremely loosely, everyone hates him and wants him blocked, but we’re all good friends with the mutual friend, so no one is trying to stir up s**t over that idiot since he only occasionally comes around.
Image source: Hartagon, Yan Krukov
#21
I worked with a guy and every time he met someone new he had to tell them he was an actor. He had a YouTube channel with 47 subscribers and called himself something embarrassing for a man his age.
Image source: Graceland1979, Patrick T’Kindt
#22
This girl I went to school with was an… aspiring actress. She was in some low quality YouTube short film and she basically was trying to convince everyone that she was famous and that all these companies wanted her because of it. She even had these head shots that she would bring into class to show everyone… and nobody cared. She really thought she was better than everyone and even acted like a celebrity. Like she would come in with sunglasses and basically treat everyone as if they shouldn’t even be breathing the same air as her. It was honestly sad.
Image source: shroomssoup, Dmitriy Zub
#23
I saw someone once act like they controlled the whole internet in person, threatening to show videos she recorded to her “leagion of fans”.
She had 1,000 followers. On instagram. No other big followings.
Image source: the_original_toast, Ivan Samkov
#24
Back in high school I commented on a Childish Gambino instagram post and it got a like from the account. I proceeded to tell every single person in my class; my friends were singing my praises: that’s so cool, wow THE Childish Gambino, you probably got the biggest celebrity acknowledgement via social media, etc.
I find out later it was a Childish Gambino fan account with the same profile pic that liked my comment. I never told anyone.
Image source: kzo_shadow, NASA HQ PHOTOFollow
#25
Corey Worthington. Had to Google him to remember his name but he was this stupid kid who threw a party in 2008 that he blasted on Facebook & hundreds ended up showing up. The cops came. The neighbourhood went crazy. The media showed up. He tried to milk that one night for years. These days people just remember him as that dumb kid who threw a party & looked like a tool.
Image source: OldTiredAnnoyed, Jacob Bentzinger
#26
I started a fantasy football podcast with some friends a few years ago and after one episode with like 5 plays, I thought, “Man, this is easy. We’ll get big in no time.” So I talked to the guys about setting up a Patreon and seeing what they thought about talking to fantasy football platforms to be their official podcast lol.
The high of sharing something you created with the world like it’s god’s gift to mankind. We went on to do the show for a couple years and definitely tempered our expectations after a few episodes, but it was a lot of fun either way.
Image source: kingbuttshit, cottonbro
#27
Just go to any anime conventions, some volunteer staffers would abuse the slightest amount of power they have to make everyone’s life difficult. This isn’t just the ones you see on the floor but it can go all the way to the top of the food chain.
Don’t trust me? Go volunteer at your closest anime convention, you will be disgusted.
I knew a guy who was probably bullied all his life but he had a high ranking position at the local con. He once fired a volunteer because they looked at him the wrong way.
That being said, I did meet some really good and kind hearted people volunteering. The sad thing is that they eventually get burnt out by those assholes.
Image source: Vaivaim8
#28
I remember this guy about a decade ago (forgot his name) who did some comedy videos, but mostly made super niche metal music that was themed around some heavy handed fantasy story he wrote (“the Thalrogs are fighting the Bromthean war against the Melohomiroglites,” type s**t).
Anyways, he had like 10k subs and then one day uploaded a video basically yelling at his fans and blaming them for not making him a famous rockstar. Totally missing the forest for the trees saying things like “you all just want my comedy videos but none of you buy my music, f**k you,” over and over again on video before shutting down his channel.
Image source: zachtheperson, Jakayla Toney
#29
Ages ago the Washington Post used to have a free tabloid, one page featured quotes from various local blog posts.
My blog would get quoted sometimes and I’d think it was sort of neat, but some of the other bloggers got OBSESSED and would, like, go scoop up a thousand copies of the tabloid to hoard because they were now Famous Bloggers.
Image source: rotatingruhnama, Marcus Silva
#30
An Ex of mine ran a Pokémon RP forum in the late 2000s, even designed the art for Fakemons of her own and coded the site and everything.
And boy howdy, did she think she was an absolute GOD to the like, 6 people that used that forum. Nobody even inflated her ego about it, it was as if she had stuck a bicycle pump directly to her head and never stopped pumping.
In a non-negative context she really did put A LOT of effort into the site and art and lore and I understand why she was disappointed all that work never amounted to anything but she took everything as an almost literal, purposeful attack on her digital baby. Her one Mod wasn’t present for the site’s official Launch Date and you’d have thought the Mod tossed her dog off a bridge. Again, she had ever right to be proud of the work she put in, honestly it was pretty great and took a lot of time and dedication- but it really, really went to her head and ego. Hell I even got scolded for not attending opening day- a date I wasn’t even told about.
Image source: anon
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