Swipe Up for More!

Portfolio/Penguin An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC penguinrandomhouse.com Copyright © 2023 by Stephanie McNeal Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: McNeal, Stephanie, author. Title: Swipe up for more!: inside the unfiltered lives of influencers / Stephanie McNeal. Description: [New York, NY]: Portfolio/Penguin, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2022061215 (print) | LCCN 2022061216 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593418604 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593418611 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Internet personalities—United States—Biography. | Social media—United States. Classification: LCC PN4587 .M36 2023 (print) | LCC PN4587 (ebook) | DDC 302.23/1092 [B]—dc23/eng/20230301 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022061215 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022061216 Cover design: Sarah Brody Cover image: Phamai Techaphan / Moment / Getty Images Book design by Nicole LaRoche, adapted for ebook by Estelle Malmed pid_prh_6.0_143790368_c0_r0 For my parents, who always believed I’d write a book, and made me believe it too. CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Acknowledgments Notes _143790368_ 1 A wise Instagram caption once said, “One day you will be at the place you always wanted to be.” That’s how I felt when I first stepped foot in a place I had spent hours staring at on social media: the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah. I know, it doesn’t sound like a bucket-list-worthy destination. But to me it was. Sure, I’ve swiped through photos of the beaches of Santorini and lusted over the breathtaking views from the mountains of Cape Town. But mostly? I have swiped and scrolled and liked and commented on photo after photo taken in Provo, Lehi, Alpine, and Draper. I have heard of their chain restaurants, and even know the specialties to order. That’s because this stretch of highway among the jagged rocks of the American West is the fertile crescent of a slice of the internet that I have spent the past decade of my life obsessed with. In many ways, the world of bloggers and influencers was born here. It’s jarring to visit somewhere you have spent so much time visiting virtually from a phone screen. Scenes look both familiar and foreign. The Utah suburbs are a Candy Land soaked with rugged beauty and dusted with the air of new money and fame. Custom-built McMansions dot the scenery like Chiclets, hanging off the side of rugged hills so majestic and awe-inspiring that they could make even the most devoted skeptic believe in the existence of a god. In the valleys below, young adults with smooth hair and even smoother skin carry their babies close to their chests as they walk through the shiny strip malls filled with everything you could ever need to live a peaceful suburban existence. This is the land of fast-casual anything; you can get any type of cuisine you wish in a bowl from a counter. You can buy an outfit for a night out at myriad chain stores. You can buy yourself a Diet Coke loaded with heavy cream and a splash of coconut, but it’s hard to find a Starbucks or a glass of wine. As foreign as that Diet Coke is though, it’s also not, because you have seen video after video of people trying it. After all, it’s gone viral on TikTok. I made my pilgrimage to the land of Mormon influencers in January 2022. By then I had been reporting and writing about bloggers and influencers for more than five years, and following, engaging, and thinking about them for more than ten. Finally, I was in my subjects’ natural habitat. Excited would be an understatement. I had come to Utah to visit one of these influencers after nearly two years of talking with her about her career and the impact it has had on her life. Shannon Bird had been sharing her life and that of her family with thousands of people on the internet for a decade, and now she was willing to give me a peek behind the curtain, to see what her family actually looked like offline. Instagram versus reality, if you will. A perky, blond, Mormon mother of five, Shannon is an OG “mommy blogger,” the group of women who took over the mid-2010s internet with their version of aspirational parenting. These women, many of whom are Mormon and live in close proximity to Shannon, were some of the first to live their lives for the masses online, make significant amounts of money doing so, and be true internet celebrities, with their lives dissected on gossip forums and blogs. Shannon isn’t the type of mommy blogger you may be envisioning. If the typical mommy blogger posts a beautiful photo of her quiet, serene children coloring in front of a dreamy background, Shannon’s kids are on her stories showing off their rabbits (who may or may not be having babies of their own) and roaring around on dirt bikes. If others may show their kids only in perfect outfits with perfect hair, Shannon’s kids often look like, well, kids, with messy curls and sometimes just a diaper. And when some moms post idyllic Christmas shots of their brood in matching pajamas, Shannon uploads a video of her husband, Dallin, taking a chain saw to the trunk of their Christmas tree in the middle of the living room, surrounded by her cackling kids. Shannon is her own person, and thus her own influencer, and she wants to post only what she thinks is actually good content. She could post videos of herself putting on makeup and her kids doing homework in sepia tones, but what fun would that