More reality, fewer cool walls on Instagram

I follow you on IG. Is your feed about to get more real and messy? 

Huh. 

Don't follow any influencers and follow maybe 2 who think they are but aren't lol (2 YT moms I enjoy watching)

I follow friends and family, horses, and lots of shih tzus. A few chefs. A few scrapbookers. I follow about 200 pages.

Nope! One is Samantha from Happily and Housewife and the other is Nicci from A farmhouse full

Oh, I deal with social media aesthetics daily so this is sort of my jam (but also what I try to get away from when I get home, to be honest).

Influencer is such an umbrella term that one shouldn't attach too much value to it. Numbers are numbers and not necessarily a good reflection of engagement and trustworthiness or loyalty. I understand that Gen Z influencers aren't necessarily going to be the cup of tea of older generations but they are a breath of fresh air in a world of perfect, bright, saturated photos of mummy influencers on Instagram (and elsewhere). Their aesthetic and sense of humour is very much Tumblr: it's snappy, witty, WTF-y while keepin' it real. If you enjoy a good Vine compilation like this one, you'll likely get this type of imperfection on display even if you're not part of their target audience. 

Moving away from the Instagram aesthetic vs Tumblr aesthetic debate (which is polarised by generational gaps anyway), the visual and communication trends have steadily been moving away from the oversaturated perfection for more realism. It's something you can notice in the change of filters used, the search for less harsh contrast, the trend of celebrities sharing no makeup selfies, etc. It's of course all in a bid to remain relatable to sell you stuff but it's here to stay with the current political climate and ecological catastrophe looming on the horizon. 

Reminder that Gen Z is still very young and in their rebellious age bubble. We shall see how they balance the transition into settled adulthood and whether this will affect their aesthetic or desire to share as candidly. Specialists are predicting that this generation is bound to be more "welp, I guess this is my life now" with their social media than its precedents. 

This is fascinating. She has millions of followers on Youtube and not a ton of videos either. Thanks for the insight into Gen Z & their social media habits. It will be interesting to see how they reshape the workplace as more enter the workforce. I'm the tail end of Gen X and have loved the perspectives the millennials have brought to office. Can't wait to see what cool stuff Gen Z does in the world. 

I don't yet notice any changes in the blown-out, filtered, "perfectly imperfect" young mom of moppets demographic. They're still curating ad nauseum w/their pictures all having the same "brand" look - think Freckled Fox.

I LOVE that the account above has 400K followers - gives me hope that the younger generation is rejecting all the imperfect perfection of the 30-49ish crowd.

sleepingbooty - here's a question for you - I love that you're an "insider" on this stuff: When counting "engagement" I know that likes, followers and comments are big metrics. But on comments, don't a lot of wanna-be influencers goose their comment counts by commenting on every comment themselves - usually w/an inane "true" or something like that comment. Seems like a way to inflate one of the engagement metrics artificially. Is that a fair assessment? Or do the engagement monitoring sites have a way to "throw out" those comments from the account owner to get a better representation of true engagement?

ETA: Have to say though, that first IG in the article (Emma) is just as bad or worse than the 30-49ish overblown crowd.  Just selling her body image in a different way.  Gross.  The other two mentioned are more like the accounts my teen enby follows.

Ah, engagement rate calculations, thing of the devil!    ERs are not easy to calculate and despite all the online tools telling you they have THE way, the fool-proof method, yada yada yada, there isn't one. Trust me, I've tried to to find one I could stick with and be happy with but it just isn't that simple. Professionals who work meticulously and on a one-account-at-a-time basis don't use those basic free tools nor do they rely on one to come up with their final assessment. That's the secret. But yes, we exclude the comments coming from the mother account and its associated support accounts (e.g.: for pure ER calculation for, say, @kellypurkeyshop, I would exclude at the very least @kellypurkeyshop,(at)kellypurkey, (at)babz510 and the current CT members - which can make things complicated for accounts that switch out CT members frequently like @everydayexplorersco has started doing recently). I don't want to get into the specifics but it's a bit of a detective job at times with (potential) clients fattening up their numbers by having several commenters come play up the hype regularly without disclosing this to those they're trying to work/working with. 
ERs are calculated either as a general measure for an account (broad) or for a particular post or type of post (this is where stuff gets interesting because you can start contrasting engagement for, say, sponsored posts/ads against engagement for other posts or figure out which posts are getting the most engagement before you start pairing up with sponsors to make the most out of your potential revenue). 

Emma Chamberlain is often referred to as one of the more controversial Gen Z influencers (I don't really agree based on the lack of actual scandals but that's another discussion up for debate). She's still breaking the mould of the depiction of a perfect life although, as you can see, she's also more curated than some other Gen Z influencers mentioned in the Atlantic article. But she's definitely far more sexually expressive. Her sense of humour is on point though which is what made her big with her peers.
Her total ER (non-specific for type of posts) is crazy high (it used to be around 20-25% but she's lost a bit of appeal since the start of the year) and a slap in the face of those most people think are the engagement queens like the Kardashian sisters. Gen Z is coming of age which comes with finding one's sexual identity (Emma Chamberlain is 18). I have no problems with this and, again, it was definitely part of the Tumblr blogs they grew up on. The question really remains how they will transition into adulthood. This is what's fascinating to look at from the other side: they are still babies but they're also already cynical and aware of how limiting social media platforms are when it comes to living life and finding happiness.