What (not) to do with 9,000 new followers

It felt like it was out of nowhere. I have been on instagram for way too many years. Sharing with friends, family, old co-workers, gals I met for a long weekend at Hotel Man Repeller (hi!) and many in between. But this year, over the course of a couple weeks my instagram profile gained nearly 9,000 followers. At first I felt pride and excitement but then something unsettling set in… a performance anxiety I hadn’t anticipated. A feeling that these new followers were expecting a specific version of me that I have never fully been.

In late February I shared a slice of life reel on instagram. Our area of Mexico had been affected by some cartel shenanigans and the American news media was telling travelers to cancel their vacations to Mexico. Our town is a vacation and surf destination for travelers from all over the world. The media coverage was greatly affecting the small businesses and tourism in our area. I had friends and family around the world calling, texting and asking us about our safety. We were completely fine and our town completely insulated from this singular situation. In response to the calls from friends and family as well as the American media I decided to post a ‘ditl’ to showcase the calm, normalcy and beauty of our everyday life.

The post went viral almost immediately reaching 100k views in just under 24 hours. It was picked up by local personalities, small businesses and even the state of Jalisco’s secretary of tourism reposted it. I was dumbfounded. I was proud. I was also dealing with online criticism for the first time in my life. I was not trying to go viral. I was just posting the calm and the ordinary. The truth about a place I love and call home.

A few weeks later I posted a six second video showing the day we finished construction on our pool in Mexico and were filling it for the first time with the garden hose. It was spliced with a video of our current view of the pool, the garden now lush and the kids in the distance splashing. A striking juxtaposition ripe for views, shares and ‘how did they do that!?’ comments. That video also went viral, currently sitting at 886k views and today nearly five months later continues to inspire comments and follows.

These two videos brought in nearly 9,000 new people as followers on my instagram account @lydialauer. These two videos present a version of who I am. But not the whole me.

What came after was too many DMs asking for a quick call to talk about how to make a move like we did. Followers expecting tutorials on how to ‘make it work’ abroad. And an underserved audience hungry for more construction stories and BTS than I desired to share. I had to take a look in the mirror and ask myself some questions:

Am I an expat living in Mexico?
Yes, for part of the year.

Am I a gringo colonizing Mexico?
No, I am a white presenting Latina (there are many of us) connecting with her roots and raising her sons with a direct connection to their heritage.Do I have any desire to HGTV my house, my life, my family?
Not at all.

Am I a lifestyle guru who wants to convince you that you should move abroad?
Nope.

I have friends who post prolifically, invest in shreditors (IYKYK), and create genuinely great content that converts. And even they bemoan the content train. They want to slow down but can’t for fear of losing momentum or god forbid:

In finishing the much talked about book Yesteryear last week I was struck by something. The anti hero in this book was so consumed by performing for everyone around her that she loses the thread of who she actually is. Reading it felt like a warning label for what could happen if I let 9,000 strangers decide who I am.

The book really hit on a few subjects personally. Firstly, the eldest daughter discourse and parentification of siblings, two things that deserve their own post from my pov. But the theme I want to explore today is performance. How we show up online. Sure I am guilty of this to some extent. We all are when we say ‘cheese’ to a camera. That smile is forced and often disingenuous, we are performing because the camera is on us.

The book has us observing the main character from all angles. We see good(?), bad and ugly. We are surveilling her and watching her perform in different situations. Looping in and out of control of the scene.

I can argue both ways about it. The assumption being that personal content is performance by definition. However, each person’s specificity and uniqueness might be the opposite of performance. Walk around your house and observe the ‘ugly’ stuff or look in the mirror and think about what bothers you. For me some days it is a house full of imperfect thrift finds smashed together trying to resemble a stylish home. My five year old who only will wear hand me down soccer jerseys- stained and too big. When he has a closet full of really cute shit I’ve saved or collected for him. Gray hairs on my head and wrinkles on my skin. None of that is curated, it is just what’s there. That is not performance, that is real life. If we crop some of that stuff out occasionally does it become performance? Or is it just seeing your life through rose colored glasses? I think so. And I think that’s okay. Selective is not the same as fake. Curated is not the same as performed. The line for me is whether what I’m sharing is true not whether it’s complete.

So no, I am not a teacher. Not a template. Not a lifestyle guru. I am not more qualified than the next person to tell anyone how to move abroad or go freelance or raise their kids and more importantly it is not my place. Because this life is not transferable, it is just mine.

What I actually want is quieter and harder to game: bring a smile, offer a new way of seeing something, live out loud and trust that my people will find it useful or funny or true. Bonus points if they think it is worthy enough of a comment or share. That is my how-to. So who wants my e-course or downloadable pdf!? ;)

As a brand and creative strategist I find it genuinely interesting to observe what resonates and where. I was actually able to use my own instagram as a case study recently to land some new work which is super validating. Those two videos were rocket ships, fed by the algorithm, fast and wide. And yet I have been showing up here, in the long form, for nearly six years. No rocket ship in personal writing. The climb is slower and the hacks feel hollow and unearned.

So why does any of it matter to me? Why do I care how many followers I have or whether the numbers go up? If I am being honest with myself: comparison creep. That quiet, corrosive habit of measuring your real life against someone else’s curated one. I am not immune to it. But naming it helps.

And maybe that’s the whole point. Not the followers or the algorithm or the rocket ships. Just showing up specifically enough that the right people find it useful or funny or true. This is my real life. I’m glad you’re here for it.

xx Ly