My [26F] girlfriend [24F] thinks she’s an Instagram influencer and it’s driving me crazy!

A Reddit user (26F) is struggling with her girlfriend (24F), who has become increasingly obsessed with Instagram, treating it like a full-time career. Despite posting multiple times a day, her account is far from a profitable influencer gig. This obsession is putting a strain on their relationship, with the girlfriend often prioritizing social media over the user’s attention and well-being. Read the full story below to learn more about how this influencer fantasy is affecting their lives.

‘ My [26F] girlfriend [24F] thinks she’s an Instagram influencer and it’s driving me crazy!’

When I met my girlfriend 3 years ago, I knew very quickly she was addicted to Instagram. She was posting maybe 3-6 times every single day and barely an hour of her day wasn’t in her story. This didn’t really bother me at first – I actually found it kind of hot? Mainly because all the pictures of food and buildings and clothes became pictures of me – I felt, I guess, a little like a celebrity (she had 6,000+ followers back then I think).

Other than that, it’s been a great and fulfilling relationship, but this addiction has been like a tree root splitting us apart. Every day is punctuated by “Insta time” where I’m not supposed to distract her, she gets up at bizarre times to post and maximize engagement which throws off her (and, by extension, my) sleeping habits, she’s taking 2 hours to get ready for a 20 minute shopping trip, which is then stretched into over an hour for Instagram content… It’s ridiculous.

We’ve squabbled about it before, obviously, and she brings up things about me that irritate her (for the sake of balance, I’m extremely messy and frankly, plain lazy. I’m trying to work on it), but recently she stunned me during an argument.

It was routine stuff, I asked (well, snapped) at her to put her phone down and pay me some attention, and she gave me a horrible stare and said ‘this is my career, if you don’t like it, get out’. So the thing is, it’s absolutely not her career. She desperately *wants* it to be, but so do probably millions of others.

She’s been unemployed and claiming benefits for 2 years, but I didn’t realise all that time she was ignoring me for IG, she was actually trying to make money from it. I know she made about €20 about 6 weeks ago for advertising some makeup start up, but that was basically for a friend of a friend.

Essentially, this is draining me to death, and it’s gone from being flattering to intrusive. Before you say it – yes, I’m probably going to break up with her. But the thing is, she’s got a really good heart and I genuinely want to help her, even if the relationship doesn’t survive (if it does, that would obviously be a plus). Is there anything I can do to convince her to put the phone down and be a good, attentive girlfriend, and actually get a job that helps pay our bills?

Tldr: girlfriend thinks she’s an Instagram celebrity because she made €20 through a friend, is actually just seriously addicted to the platform.

Here’s the comments of Reddit users:

littlesisterv −  That’s wild but I don’t think you can do anything to help her except tell her straight up about how bad her addiction is and how it’s created such a negative impact on your relationship. It really is up to her to want to change. You can’t do anything for her if she’s not willing to change.

ghostblonde −  It would be less cringy if she hasn’t been unemployed for the last two years, living in a fantasy land where she’ll get paid by posting her life…hoping to be “discovered” and then be paid to post about products.

She’s taking that small, one time, amount of money she made as a sign that she’s gonna “make it.” It’s sad, more than anything. You’re right, there’s countless people who would love to make money from just posting about themselves on social media but yeah, doesn’t really happen.

If she had a stable job and then tried to market herself when she could, that’s a lot more realistic and mature. But this is just an escape from reality and a poor attempt at avoiding a normal job. This probably isn’t savalagable. I’m glad to see you already know this.

There’s nothing you can do to change her mind, she needs to hit rock bottom. Her benefits need to be cut off for her to see how this is in no way helping her. She needs consequences to her actions. And this is just dragging you down, too. Help yourself by breaking up with her and finding someone who lives in reality.

huxley00 −  My partner is an ‘influencer’. What a lot of people don’t understand, is that a lot of ‘influencers’ are ‘influencers’ not because of their focus on Instagram, it’s the focus on the other things that they’re doing, that people are interested, that happen to use Instagram as a platform for communicating.

For instance, my partner has her own business. A lot of this translates over to social media for those who engage her business, attend her events, like her fashion sense and what she is doing. How much money does she make from Instagram? Not much really. Almost all her money is derived from her business directly.

Just look at other Instagram celebrities, what are a lot of them doing? Not just posting pictures about things that look cool. They post about their job and what they do day to day. I think your girlfriend is really confused about what an influencer is and is focusing on what is the bottom of the barrel of the industry and not easy to achieve (random fame for just posting random pics and getting paid for it).

Lucretia123 −  Well, she made it clear that instagram comes first.. Not sure where you go from here.

[Reddit User] −  Of course she’s an influencer! She’s just influenced you into to finding a new girlfriend!

[Reddit User] −  My wedding photographer has over 1 million followers on Instagram and another 1 million on YouTube. (I booked her before she got ultra popular, lol, couldn’t afford her rates now) We are still on speaking terms and friendly, and she straight up told me, she still has to work to make a living.

So let that sink in… She is a photographer, and puts out YouTube and Instagram content every week on top of that. That’s a lot of f**king work! The truth of the matter is, Instagram and YouTube influencers had their moment 10 years ago. That moment is gone, the ‘market’ is now saturated.

You can’t make a livable wage off one platform anymore unless you are already set up, or like a freaking Kardashian. You CAN use these platforms as tools to help build a legitimate business though. They are basically free marketing tools. But the whole ‘lifestyle influencer’ thing is b**lshit now a days.

DrMcFoxyMD −  You can’t save people from themselves, nor should you. If this is how she wants to live her life then she is free to do so. If it’s not how you’d like it to go, then leave her. She doesn’t need “help” so she can be some ideal “better person.” For the record I hate people like this and find social media and the people addicted to it pretty disgusting. I’m not condoning her behavior but neither am I yours.

jade_havok −  Man, if she’ll pick a “job” over you in the first place…meh. Also someone that’s just leeching the system for an addiction, will do the same to you.

Proseph91 −  I’m sorry I can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness. What has social media done to some people…

aftrallthistime_alws −  Instagram is one of the worst social media outlets. Guilty of using it and so I deleted it when I realized I was starting to upload everything. Best thing I ever did. If only you really got paid to post and spend countless hours wasting time with with it. It didn’t take me long to delete it once I got on it just like with Pinterest. I barely even post on fb now. Don’t hate me but cameras and the social media term influencers are really overrated now.

Do you think the girlfriend is overly invested in an unrealistic Instagram dream, or should the user have a more patient approach to help her? How would you navigate a relationship where one partner is increasingly consumed by social media to the point of neglect? Share your thoughts and advice below.