London (CNN) – When Daanish Hussain, 21, fled London for Dubai on New Year’s Eve, he did what he does almost every day – picked up the phone and documented his journey to his 550,000 followers on TikTok.
His video montage – which showed him exchanging the gray sky for the sun in the United Arab Emirates – would be the envy of many Britons, who were banned from making all but international travel for months.
“I noticed that a lot of influencers left – like a lot of influencers,” Hussain told CNN, admitting that he saw some anger in the comments in his travel videos.
The travels of British influencers have not escaped the attention of the UK’s insatiable tabloids – screenshots of their foreign parties have been placed under unflattering headlines for weeks.
And influencers do not have to leave the house to provoke an adverse reaction. Last month, a top National Health Service (NHS) official was forced to urge people not to follow the advice of Gwyneth Paltrow, who wrote on his blog that he mitigated the effects of the long Covid with a variety of superfoods like kombucha and kimchi.
Gwyneth Paltrow was criticized by British health leaders after writing that certain superfoods helped her to combat the effects of Covid-19.
Axelle / Bauer-Griffin / FilmMagic / FilmMagic
But as young people become restless in confinement and the launch of the vaccine is headed for the millennium generation, concern is growing both inside and outside the influencing industry that their laissez-faire approach is passing on to followers .
“One of the reasons marketers use celebrities in their campaigns is because they know it has an impact because consumers, especially young people, want to emulate their behaviors,” said Linda Bauld, professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, to CNN by email. “Social media influencers are today’s celebrities. They must recognize the responsibility that comes with this and work to promote public health, not harm it.
“Influencers have a great attraction – it’s in their own name, they influence,” added Keith Herman, whose company Trending Travel uses a network of influencers to promote locations around the world. “You have to be careful when using them.”
‘People look at you as a model’
“We need to take Covid seriously seriously and apply serious science. All influencers who use social media have a duty of responsibility and a duty to take care of that.”
UK Interior Secretary Priti Patel also protested against the stars flying to sunnier locations. “We see a lot of influencers on social media showing where they are in the world – mostly sunny places,” she said in Parliament, emphasizing that people simply shouldn’t be traveling.
But if the British media is any indication, the warning has not been filtered by the community of influencers.
A look at the comments about any influencers currently relaxing abroad shows that not everyone feels the same way. “Working hard! I hope you are enjoying the pandemic,” wrote a user under a recent image from ex-reality show James Lock, showing it on a jet ski in Dubai. Similar posts by influencers often see a flood of messages in which fans say they will no longer follow the star.
Hussain, who became one of Britain’s TikTok stars last year under his “its_danzy” command, insisted that the outrage is misplaced. “Some people don’t realize that social media is a job,” he told CNN.
As for his own reasons for traveling, Hussain said he “had to go for business reasons”, but also “we were in a confinement and it was on my birthday”. He added: “And I knew it would be good for the content as well. People love different countries and things like that.”
The university student is under no illusions that his sudden platform has any weight, even when its content goes against the official council. “People look at you as a role model … when people value your point of view and value everything you say, in a sense, I think it has a certain influence.”
And he admitted that he regretted, “to some extent,” posting about his travels. “You are telling people to do what the law says not to do.
“But if I were there for reasons of business or influence … I wouldn’t say you should go, too,” he added. “If an influencer doesn’t do what he is supposed to do, he won’t make money.”
Others were less relaxed.
Herman, whose Trending Travel uses a network of influencers to promote locations around the world, said he made the costly decision to tell the stars not to post content from abroad.
“We realized early on that every time someone posted, they were absolutely slaughtered because of a sensitive issue,” he said. “I think some of them are more naive than anything … We just told all the influencers we had (on holiday destinations): please don’t post.”
‘Followers are everything’
Elma Beganovich, an influencer with 700,000 Instagram followers who capitalized on her social know-how to start a marketing company, told CNN that online stars must follow a crucial rule: “You cannot be deaf.
“Spreading champagne by the pool at some exotic resort … it just won’t be socially acceptable,” Beganovich told CNN. “It was unpleasant to say, look how ostentatious I am, when you know that so many people have lost their jobs or have their loved ones hospitalized.”
Dubai skyline in February. The city received a flood of tourists from the UK and elsewhere earlier this year, before an increase in Covid-19 cases forced it to tighten restrictions.
Paula Bronstein / Getty Images
“For influencers, followers are everything,” she said. “They can lose their contracts, shorten them or pause them”, if brands consider their behavior out of reach.
Most urgently, health experts are worrying about the impact of carefree content at a time when most of the world is still agonizingly trapped under the Covid-19 cloud.
“Celebrities and public figures influence public perceptions, attitudes and behavior, which comes with great responsibility,” said Ilan Kelman, professor of disaster and health at University College London. “We expect all influencers and people known to the public to make their comments on a scientific basis and their actions clearly within the rules,” he said.
“We know from other public health topics that images or reports of celebrities engaging in harmful behavior play a role in other people’s belief that the behavior is acceptable or normal,” added Linda Bauld, Bruce and John Usher, Professor of Public Health from the University of Edinburgh. . “There are a number of studies that illustrate that celebrity smoking in movies influences smoking among young people, and that endorsement of alcohol by influencers increases the risk of alcohol abuse in teenagers.
“So it is plausible that if we see influencers breaking the blocking rules in the press, it will normalize this type of behavior, making it more acceptable,” she said.
“There are many things that could be said to be a little irreverent and irresponsible” online, added Heidi J. Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project, a research group at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine created to combat vaccine hesitation.
“The reality is that (young people) were less affected by this pandemic,” she added. “(E) they were very exposed to this misinformation.
“We must not delude ourselves about the wave of hesitation that we will see in different environments, especially with the youngest,” she said.
But if they offer a challenge, influencers can also present an opportunity.
The British government tried to bring them aside. Last month, he appointed Alex George, a participant in the reality show “Love Island”, who returned to work as a top physician during the Covid-19 crisis, to be a Mental Health Ambassador. And last year £ 63,000 ($ 88,000) was given to 42 influencers in exchange for promoting their coronavirus testing and screening program.
“I think it’s a good thing – we’re going to need a variety of types of voices,” said Larson. “It is important to have some reliable and authorized voices on social media.”
Even travel companies like Herman’s are looking to use influencers in a new way, encouraging them to start posting about what Covid-safe hotels look like once they restart promotions.
And Beganovich is predicting lasting changes in the industry’s influence, with a new interest in the content of health experts. “I saw emergency room doctors who have gained a lot of popularity through Instagram,” she said. “Even influencers are influenced.”