You Do Not Have the Same Hours in a Day as Beyoncé

During the intro to this The Diary of a CEO podcast episode, Steven Bartlett mentions that 'Molly does not do interviews like this', and we all saw why. This interview had a lot of ups and downs, most notably her tone-deaf comments about her 'hard work' and 'privilege'. Although Molly-Mae is not an influencer I follow, I understand she is an idol for many young girls and I admit she has done very well for herself at the age of 22. However, this interview really got me thinking more about influencer culture, as she is definitely not the first to have made such comments.

The lines that caused the most controversy in the interview were:

“When I’ve spoken about that in the past I have been slammed a little bit, with people saying ‘It’s easy for you to say that because you’ve not grown up in poverty, so for you to sit there and say we all have the same 24 hours in a day is not correct’.

“But, technically, what I’m saying is correct. We do.”

Oh, Molly.

This is classic #girlboss gaslighting and gatekeeping perpetuated by most female influencers. Do you know why you're not successful? It's because you're not trying hard enough sweetie x

I personally feel very grateful that I did not grow up with influencers as idols as teenage girls do now. I'm not saying that the Disney Channel teens were the best role models, but I never felt like they were trying to be 'relatable' as influencers as now, and I did not constantly feel like they perpetuated a consumer culture like influencers do now. I feel I hate more autonomy over what I liked to buy and who I wanted to be that didn't revolve around money to buy nice clothes to take photos and get instagram likes.

The problem with this statement from Molly-Mae was of course because it was very tone deaf and made me realise how far away she is from reality, and obviously how young and still quite immature she actually is. At 22, she is the Creative Director of the fast fashion brand Pretty Little Thing, and admits many times in the interview that she has no idea what is going on in the board meetings. There are grown adults that have worked their whole careers for positions such as this who would have done a much better job than this, and we can all see this was definitely just a marketing move from Pretty Little Thing to make fans of Molly-Mae buy their clothing.

Using celebrities (if influencers can be called that) to promote products is nothing new. What is new, is granting jobs at such a young age to a woman with no experience in this, whose career has been built off social media of literally posting photos online and going on the reality TV show Love Island whilst the garment workers creating the products that they actually sell have been found to be working for around £3.50 per hour. This is sickening when you think about it, which is probably what most people are angry about, rather than just her comments.

Molly-Mae is a prime example of a toxic 'girlbossing' culture made to keep everyone in their rightful place. It is clear she is a straight white woman that has come from a privileged upbringing meaning she has had the correct environment and luck, as well as a bit of hard work, of course, to get her where she is now. Her comments about everyone having the same 24 hours are clearly ridiculous since she would have no where near her fame if she was disabled, poor, conventionally unattractive or a person of colour.

Sure, everyone technically everyone HAS the same 24 hours, but is Beyonce spending those 24 hours doing her grocery shopping? Cleaning? Cooking? Standing in a queue at the post office? I highly doubt it. HOW someone has to use their 24 hours is very different depending on your wealth. The first thing most people do when they start earning more money is outsourcing chores and general adulting headaches, even hiring a personal assistant to go through e-mails and get them Starbucks.

The main thing is, we need to take whatever influencers say with a pinch of salt. Molly-Mae is clearly very delusional and has known fame and money from a very young age and does not know anything else, so of course she will think the narrative of 'you can become as successful as me only if you try hard enough and believe in yourself'. She also mentions in the interview that she doesn't have friends and is constantly working all the time. Is this really what we aspire to be? Working all the time and not having any friends or free time to enjoy the fruits of my labour sounds like absolute hell to me, even if I have millions of pounds.