Would you consider yourself an influencer? In a sense, social media is a stage. We have the potential to platform ourselves and our beliefs. What you do or don’t post affects others in their faith. If Jesus is Lord over all of our life, then the way we use our social media must be thought of as a way to worship.
I interviewed Rachel Seo, who wrote the article “What ‘Wedding Night’ Videos Say about Christian Influencer Culture” for Christ and Pop Culture. We discussed why it is important for Christians to think about the Internet, how churches and pastors should handle their social media, and gave warnings and encouragement for those looking to start and build up their online presence. You can also find the audio here.
Editor’s Note: Below is an edited version of the conversation. It has been condensed and edited for clarity and length.
Aaron Lee: Tell us about your most recent article for Christ and Pop Culture.
Rachel Seo: It’s an article about Christian wedding night storytime videos, which is basically this online trend — a very niche trend, not a super pervasive thing. Basically, Christian YouTubers and content creators, and couples specifically, will make videos telling the story of their wedding nights. Those kinds of videos and kept on popping up in my [YouTube] feed.
I thought, “I don’t want to watch these because this is just really weird and a little bit cringey.” But then I thought, “This would be a really interesting thing to write about for Christ and Pop Culture because internet culture is a huge thing and there’s a lot to talk about there.”
So I wanted to talk about this weird intersection of how Christianity and religion play out online and the forms of content that come out from that. The article was about that kind of trend and what it meant for influencer culture in general.
Aaron Lee: So when you saw the video, you’re like, I don’t know if I want to watch this, but it sounds a good article, so I’m going to do it anyway?
Rachel Seo: In general, in evangelical culture, there’s a lot of conversation around [the wedding night] and what marriage entails. Obviously, there’s a huge emphasis on marriage, getting married, starting a family, and all of that. I thought it was interesting how Christian couples would just be like, “We’re just going to talk about this online.” I’m thinking, “Do you want to talk about it online?”
Aaron Lee: I shared your article in our link roundup for SOLA called TGIF, and I’ll link to it again so people can read it. So what exactly is Christian influencer culture?
Rachel Seo: It’s a really generalized thing [so] there’s no one working definition for it. The way that I would position it is that Christian influencer culture is the byproduct of Christians who profess to be Christians on the internet, who have some kind of claim-to-fame or who do something that gives them a public platform.
In some sense, we’re all Christian influencers. We have social media accounts, we’re always posting content, and a lot of us profess to have faith on the Internet. But what I was looking for specifically was the kind of language that comes up [and] the kinds of content that come up as a byproduct of these beliefs. The Bible is the Bible — it’s God’s word — but what is very interesting is the ways that those convictions that people draw from the Bible play out online, play out on the internet, and the kinds of content that they create. So that’s what I would define as Christian influencer culture.
Aaron Lee: You’re in the game yourself. You have a YouTube channel, you’re on Instagram, you’re on Twitter. What are the pros and cons of your platform? What are some lessons learned? Any warnings or encouragement for those looking to start and build up their own channels?
Rachel Seo: There’s like a slight conflict of interest when I’m writing about YouTube [for an article] because I’m a YouTuber and I’m a Christian. I’ve been taking a break from YouTube partially for that, [but] also because I thought, “Do I even want to do this?” So there’s been a little bit of an existential creative social media crisis for me on that end.
I empathize and sympathize with anybody who does social media and content creation for an actual living because it’s really hard to navigate those lines that I talked about in my article. It’s hard to maintain creative and spiritual integrity while also working within those systems and trying to do well on them, obviously, because we’re told to work for the glory of God. And on social media, doing well means getting more views.
The pitfalls of the platform are [that] it’s really hard to come up with stuff. It’s really hard to make sure that the metrics are not your self-worth, to make sure that they’re not your identity, and also to separate yourself from your personal brand — to make sure that there’s an actual divide between public and private personas.
I stopped a couple of months ago because I don’t like what’s happening and I don’t like how tied into the views that I am. That is just really hard, and that’s always going to be a tension that’s there. [That’s] why, when I was writing my article, I was thinking, “I don’t want this to be like a case study on Nick and Chelsea’s channel. I don’t want it to be a scathing thing because it’s really hard.” I don’t blame them. I can really empathize with it. That’s part of the reason why I was really interested in writing about it. I know a lot of these issues from both ends.
So in terms of warning and encouragement for people who would want to start their channels, I think that first and foremost, make sure that you really want to learn how to make things and enjoy the process of creating. If you go in thinking, “Oh, I’m going to build an audience,” because it’s a slow build. Most people don’t do very well within the first couple years of putting out consistent weekly content. So you really have to love being creative, and you have to love making things. That was what sustained me for a bit, and then after a point, I was like, “It’s not worth it for me anymore.”