Do influencers make fame feel less special? Influencers distort our ideas of where wealth and fame should come from, and often provoke our hate-follows in the process. We discuss the power of influence and its humble beginnings in the blogging world, the metamorphosis into big business and a curated lifestyle, the exhaustion of the influencer life, and why influencers are so often destroyed by the followers who created them. What happens to them when their influence dies down? Is it better to bow out early, or hang on until the bitter end? And most confusingly of all: are we influencers?

Louise O'Neill is the best-selling author of Idol, Asking for It and After the Silence.

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