ICYMI | 9-to-5 Influencers and Social Media’s Relatability Trap

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Candice Lim and Kate Lindsay are joined by Slate senior culture editor Jenny G. Zhang to discuss @Hubs.Life, an influencer who made content about his 9-5, only to become so successful, he quit. Connor Hubbard first gained traction online for his day in the life videos which were interesting to some, depressing to others. Despite their low entertainment quality, Hubbard’s TikTok videos gained him nearly 1 million followers from people fascinated by his typical life working a corporate job. Then, Hubbard announced he had quit his job to pursue content creation full-time, going as far as renting out a co-working cubicle to continue making content for his fans. Has Hubbard fallen into social media’s relatability trap, and why did Hubs Life’s unconventional attempt at rebranding fall flat for some viewers? This podcast is produced by Olivia Briley, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim, and Kate Lindsay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm Candace Lim.
0:14.9	And I'm Kate Lindsay.
0:16.6	And you're listening to I see why am I.
0:18.7	In case you missed it.
0:20.4	Slate's podcast about internet culture.
0:22.6	And we have a special guest today.
0:24.6	Joining us is Slate Senior Culture Editor Jenny G. Zang.
0:28.6	Hello, Jenny.
0:29.6	Hi, great to be here.
0:31.6	Great to have you.
0:32.6	And the thing is, Jenny, this is not your first time on ICYMI.
0:35.6	But this is the first time we're about to ask you the question.
0:39.4	What is your first internet memory?
0:42.4	Yeah, I've been thinking about this since you told me you would be asking me this.
0:46.8	I feel like I have a lot of internet memories,
0:49.6	but the one that came to me most clearly with this prompt is,
0:58.3	do you guys know the website go gia.com or Gaia online?
0:59.2	No.
1:06.7	It was essentially, I guess, like one of those mass online role-playing game websites slash like forums.
1:08.6	It was like one of those early ones.
1:09.0	Yeah.
1:12.3	And I was just like really obsessed with them for some reason.
	...

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