Recently I learned many YouTube “content creators” and their channels are now owned by “private equity firms” – which are private investment funds. The image of the lone content creator is a myth – the big channels have a behind the scenes staff, and with new investment funds, are working with the fund’s business analysts and marketing staff to identify and tweak their content to feed The Algorithm that determines what YouTube recommends and shares. Everything is now a business, tuned to meet the needs of The Algorithm.

Shortly after learning about this, I encountered a couple of online content influencers – both highly successful. It’s great that they have built very successful businesses – but that is not the image they portray in their online personas!

Ballerina Farm

There’s a Youtube channel out of Utah hosted by a “Mom” – who is a “traditional” wife and home maker with eight kids – with cooking videos and family life on the farm. 

Their public image in their own words:

“Everyday I share a glimpse into our rural farm and family life here in the mountains of northern Utah.”

“Daniel and I left the city for farm life 4.5 years ago. With the ink still wet on the real estate contract for our new little farm, we drove to the nearest farm goods store to buy muck boots, overalls, gloves, and straw hats. We had zero experience. Zero background in farming.”

But behind the scenes, the story is far different:

• A young couple, after living in Brazil for 4 and 1/2 years, moved back to the U.S. and bought a 328-acre farm for $2.75 million in 2018. They apparently bought another farm in 2017 as well.
• How did they afford that? Her husband is said to have worked in tech’ish executive positions and online sources suggest his net worth was between $6M and $20M. His father was the founder of JetBlue Airways (US), Breeze Airways (US), WestJet (Canada) and other airlines and his wealth may have played a role.
• The Ballerina Farm business (farm, online content, online retail sales of farm goods, kitchenware, clothing, social media content) is estimated to generate at least $5 million/year (some estimate it at many times that now)
• Their business, which shows Mom and kids (lots of them) on the farm or in the kitchen employs 43 people
• They are building a 14-acre retail complex in Kamas, Utah that will feature Ballerina Farms merchandise
• They employ a teacher to home school their kids
• They have a full-time personal assistant for family support
• She was Miss New York City 2010, Miss New York 2011, Mrs Utah 2021, Mrs South Dakota 2023, and Mrs American 2023 (not Mrs America-both pageants are run by the same promoter). Pretty privilege is a real privilege. She attended expensive Julliard to earn a degree in Dance.

Just an ordinary quiet, wonderful family farm life that you too can aspire too – if you are gorgeous, fit and have shiploads of money!

It’s a legitimate business for sure – but just not what you think it is when they see the online content!

(I will try, later, to go back and link the sources for the above data items.)

Pioneer Woman

The Pioneer Woman – homey and family stories, cookbooks about farm life in Oklahoma, a nice cooking blog she started in 2006 …

From online sources:

• they have a 433,000 acre ranch, generating $3.6 million/year in cattle sales
• they receive $2M/year in government contracts related to wild horses and burros
• they run a $12M/year restaurant/retail store in OK
• they produce a Food Network TV show
• they run a cookbook publishing business that has sold at least $8 m in books
• they run kitchen, home and clothing retail brands (revenue unknown)

It is a legitimate and successful business – but like the above, it’s hardly what the online marketing image presents!

I visited their cooking and farm life blog – it’s homey and pleasant farm life! And while the founder is still running the business, they have a staff of professional content creators and editors.

Everything on social media is fake!

Cottage Core

A while back I looked into the “Cottage Core” phenomenon. These are online influencers who adopt the persona of an imaginary (usually) English country side farm life with lots of home crafts, home baked sourdough bread, tea and coffee – and gardening and flowers. Nearly all feature an attractive young woman, with long hair (seems to be a requirement, often blonde), wearing frilly dresses and wandering about a beautiful outdoor setting, pondering life, the universe and everything – harking back to a simpler time, free of technology.

But doing so while linked to high-speed Internet, using high-end video equipment and computers for editing, and enjoying all the fruits of modern life – while pretending they are not!

I ran across one “cottage core” promoter who admitted it was fake. She said she worked a full-time job – and bought a mountain cabin. On weekends and days off, she went to the idyllic cabin and shot numerous “cottage core” videos – and created an online persona and image of an idyllic simple country life. Meanwhile, M-F, she lived in a suburban house and worked a 9-5 job!

As Co-pilot AI says:

Influencers Who’ve Acknowledged Partial Cottagecore Living

• Rebecca Stice (@aclotheshorse)
  Lives in a gatehouse in Northern Ireland but has shared that much of her content is stylized and staged, often shot during travel or in curated settings.
• Ramona Jones (@monalogue)
  Creates calming videos from a cottage and garden, but has hinted that her content is selectively framed, and not all aspects of her life reflect the aesthetic.
• Rachel Maksy (@rachel.maksy)
  Known for vintage and cottagecore-inspired videos, she’s been transparent about living in a suburban home and using costumes and set design to evoke the aesthetic.
• Paula Sutton (@hillhousevintage)
  Lives in a country house in Norfolk, but has discussed how her feed is curated for visual storytelling, not a literal daily diary.
  
  🧠 Why This Happens
  Cottagecore thrives on nostalgia and escapism, and many influencers use:
• Weekend cabins or rentals for filming
• Gardens or parks as stand-ins for rural settings
• Vintage props and costumes to evoke the aesthetic

On social media, everything is kind of fake!

There do not appear to be any men doing “cottage core”, although there are men doing “back to nature” type living videos, from homesteading to homemade small cabins or retreats.

Influencers

Like “cottage core” many of the influencers portray a life of glamour and luxury. This is why attractive young people (usually women) are featured traveling the world at exotic locations, resorts and in expensive surroundings.

One admitted to her fakery – her IG makes it look like this is all she does – travel the world in luxury. In reality, she booked weekends away from her regular job, at very nice resorts, sometimes in the Caribbean and other locations – and spent the entire weekend shooting posed photos that would then dribble out over, say, 8 weeks, making it look like she was out traveling full time.

Once they have established a following, they get paid sponsorships.

TikTok

Back in 2019, internal documents from TikTok revealed they used a combination of automatic/machine learning and human moderators to evaluate channels and content.

TikTok tweaked their Algorithm to promote good looking young people, doing interesting things, and typically showing a high life with wealth. Everyone else was demoted and their videos were largely not seen by others.

TikTok’s tremendous success led Instagram to turn itself into TikTok, and IG/Facebook to adopt The Algorithm approach. Their Algorithm decides what you will see. This is why, as of 2025, just 7% of the posts you see on Facebook come from your friends – The Algorithm has decided it can engage you for more minutes by selecting better eye candy just for you.

Social media is no longer social – and no longer about sharing things with your friends.

Social media is just another streaming media platform that thinks it knows a lot about your interests based upon your prior “likes” (the sole purpose for the like button is to learn about your interests). What they think they know about you can translate into advertisements targeted just at you and your interests.

The effect today is that content is no longer from your friends – but from “content creators” who are seeking to make a business from it.

Everyone is tweaking their content to satisfy The Algorithm.

A side effect is that ever more tricks are used to engage your eyeballs – more pretty faces, more exaggerated claims in titles, and sometimes, more emotional click bait (politics and the culture of outrage).

AI Content Creation

Where does this go? Incredibly, FB announced it has experimented with AI generated posts, images and videos to engage eyeballs. Ultimately, they could go to mostly AI generated content as cheaper than sharing revenue with content creators!

Twitter/X

On X I have 1,650 followers but each post I make is seen by just 1-2% of my followers. My posts never appear in their timeline so they never see what I share.

I asked Grok AI about this and it evaluated by posts and concluded that “wholesome” content that I share does not attract attention – politics and the culture of outrage delivers more feedback and interaction. Basically, non-controversial happy subjects are dead on social media.

Abandoning Social Media

Many people are abandoning social media or are intentionally reducing their use of social media.

• I deleted both my TikTok and BlueSky accounts a week ago.
• I deleted the Instagram app from my phone; and never had the FB app on my phone.
• I used to check into FB daily from my desktop PC – today, I have not checked in for over a week and suspect I will now check in a couple of times per month.

Social media did this to themselves. Many began noticing this a couple of years ago and by 2025, there are a great many people writing blog posts and, funny enough – posting on social media! – that social media is dead!