Explaining Females’ Envy Toward Social Media Influencers

ABSTRACT

Social media influencers are online celebrities who exhibit their personal lives to many followers via social media. Media studies have analyzed influencers’ display of the luxurious life to which ordinary women can only aspire. Applying a quantitative method to previous findings, this study examined the psychological process through which social media use and personality traits affect females’ envy toward influencers through social comparison. Specifically, this study tested whether social media use variables (exposure to influencers’ social media, interest in specific content on influencers’ social media) and personality traits (public self-consciousness and self-esteem) are associated with the frequency of comparison of one’s life with that of influencers, which, in turn, predict envy toward them. A two-wave online survey was conducted in South Korea (N = 1,064 at Wave 1 and 782 at Wave 2) among female smartphone users aged 20–39. A path analysis revealed that all four independent variables at Wave 1 indirectly influenced envy at Wave 2 through social comparison at Wave 1, when envy at Wave 1 was controlled for. The findings extended the scope of social comparison theory and provided a critical view of influencers’ self-representation from a feminist perspective.