Yes, Influencers Are Stressing You Out and Making Society Worse

I mean, if the internet were around during the heyday of Mother Theresa, we'd be calling her an influencer. The same could be said about every historical figure, really. The internet is just how you get highlighted nowadays. 

But the act of trying to become an influencer can drive people to do some seriously bizarre and messed-up stuff. Whether that's purposefully making a mess in public establishments, or even pretending to inject liquid into people with needles. 

Sydney Watson recently covered this phenomenon on her channel and lists off many influencers who have gone above and beyond to get their 15 minutes, some of whom ended up being arrested, and some who've even died. The vast majority of them are just annoying, inconsiderate, and intentionally ridiculous, but some take it way too far. 

And as I watched this video, I started feeling stressed, which activated an old habit in me. I started thinking about thinking. 

I was feeling a bit more than stressed watching these people. I felt demoralized, and I wanted to figure out why. So, I dove into some research and found out what was going on in my head, and likely yours, whenever you see these people. 

Starting from the top, whenever you see people like the kind Watson shows being stupid and/or over-the-top, it actually elevates your cortisol, your stress hormone. It elevates things like your irritability and anxiety, ultimately ending with you feeling mental and physical exhaustion. Your body doesn't do well on that kind of hormonal diet. Yet, social media algorithms are designed to keep you hooked and scrolling, resulting in you effectively becoming addicted and stressed. 

This is known more colloquially as "rage baiting," and it's such an effective way of getting your attention that the term was made 2025's Oxford "word of the year."

Sadly, the entire reason you keep seeing them pop up in your feeds is that these kinds of things result in engagement. Social media algorithms don't care if the bait is positive or negative; they only care about getting you to interact. People leave angry comments, which sparks a flame war, which then results in the video or post appearing during your scroll. You see it, and maybe leave a comment denouncing what's happening or expressing frustration and anger, and the algorithm gives the post more momentum to appear in everyone else's feeds. 

Now, everyone is seeing the influencer, getting angry, and everyone is more irritated and frustrated with society than they were yesterday. 

And on and on it goes. 

Another odd side effect is the desensitization issue. You become so demoralized and tired that actual issues start to reduce in importance in your brain. All you want to do is check out, and in many ways you do, so that your stress levels deflate. Your compassion starts to take a back seat as you shrug off everything for your own sanity. 

So, we have a small group of people stressing you out by acting like fools, which then causes you to reduce your stress load by throwing up your hands and walking away, leaving what could be important issues on the table unsolved because your body just can't take any more. 

What's sad is that this is so much of the internet. Anger makes for interaction far more than anything else does, and so you'll never see the end of the stressors until you put some personal boundaries on your social media time and curate your feeds like a third-world dictator. 

But these people who are being labeled as "influencers" will never go away. At least, not until the internet takes some kind of different form that doesn't facilitate raw attention with money and fame. A new one will be born every day and do something that causes you to get frustrated, which will only get you to watch and interact, and thus make it more popular. 

It's a vicious cycle.