Join us for a Meet the Author talk with Lee Tilghman, author of "If You Don’t Like This, I Will Die: An Influencer Memoir". Tilghman began blogging when she was seventeen, amassing a large following for her blogs For the Love of Peanut Butter and Lee From America, both of which helped shape the early wellness influencer landscape. She was born and raised in Connecticut and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. "If You Don’t Like This, I Will Die" is her first book. Lucy Biggers will moderate the conversation.
@LeeFromAmerica—was one of the very first wellness influencers. To her nearly 400,000 followers, she shared daily updates and advice on everything from skincare and sleep hacks to smoothie bowls, travel tips, and workout routines. She embodied #SelfCare. Her sponsorships with such brands as Madewell and Subaru netted an income of over $300,000 a year. On the grid, her life seemed perfect.
But behind her carefully curated posts, Tilghman was in crisis, suffocating from the unrelenting demand of keeping up her online facade. Her friendships frayed from an inability to enjoy any activity, even a simple dinner, without taking hundreds of photos. She found herself viewing everything she did as potential content for Instagram. The more she shared, the more her followers craved. Her romantic relationships suffered from the pressure to “hard launch.” Her job’s focus on food led her to develop a severe fixation on healthy eating. At her lowest point, she looked around her apartment to realize every item she owned had been given to her by brands in exchange for posting. After a stay in a mental health facility to address her disordered eating and psychological decline, Tilghman quit influencing as her primary career and set out to discover who she really was.
"If You Don’t Like This, I Will Die" is a sharp, self-aware look at life inside the influencer economy and a relatable story for anyone who has struggled with the unreasonableness of online expectations. With over half of Gen Z aspiring to be influencers, nearly three out of five teen girls experiencing “persistent sadness and hopelessness,” and the US Surgeon General calling for a social media warning label, Tilghman’s memoir couldn’t be more timely and necessary.
Moderator Lucy Biggers is the social media editor at The Free Press. Before joining The Free Press, she worked in social media as a producer and host at NowThis News. In the 2010s, she was a climate influencer.
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