What's it like being friends with an influencer in real life?

Awful. One of my best friends fell real hard into Instagram.

And for a few years it was tolerable and understandable, albeit strange and annoying.

Everything needed to be documented in specific ways, so lots and lots of photos, even if it took away from the moment. But the strange part

was how, when it happened, she'd share things, and the captions always told a slightly different

story than what actually happened. Like, just off enough for me and my other friends to say,

huh, that has a weird quality to it. Fast forward a couple of years, and she gets engaged,

boom. This was the

catalyst for the worst of the influencer mentality to come out. I was in the bridal party and

it was a nightmare. No gratitude, just demands. Demands for expensive trips and expensive parties

and all kinds of things that were above and beyond the means of her closest friends,

and all the demands were because she had a following and had certain expectations to meet.

It was really heart-wrenching to witness someone belittle their best friend and maid of honor

for trying to plan a sweet bridal shower because it wasn't going to be at an expensive restaurant

or art gallery. It reached its peak for me

when, after the in-state wedding became an expensive destination wedding, there was the demand for an out-of-town

bachelorette party a few weeks before. I was honest and said, I couldn't afford the bachelorette.

Mind you, I made about a thousand sacrifices over these months to afford what I could,

and I was promptly Bride-Zillard and told I ruined the whole experience, and that I was an awful,

fake, inauthentic person. It got so bad that the bridal party fractured and disintegrated. She lost two

of her best friends. Myself and the maid of honour didn't even attend the wedding after all her

behaviour and blow-ups, and we've barely spoken since. All so she could have an Instagramable wedding

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