Dec. 30, 2025
In 2025, One of the Most Dangerous Professions in the World: Influencer
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RSS Feed This year it felt like there were weekly, sometimes daily headlines about social media influencer deaths. Dozens and dozens of young men and women trying to gain subscribers and get likes were either murdered, died while attempting content, or more commonly, died by suicide. Amy and T.J. go over what experts say is the root cause to most of these sad stories. There’s a lot of pressure and competition to get the most views and likes, which leads influencers to do riskier things, even risking their own mental health.
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00:00:11
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Tuesday, December thirtieth, and as we wind down this twenty twenty five, it seemed that this year was a year that being an influencer became a deadly occupation. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. We have been talking about this and doing an episode about this for probably months, but you and I keep our eyes on a lot of news, and it seems like there was a great frequency of influencer deaths for various reasons.
00:00:48
Speaker 2: Correct, and it felt like we were seeing an influencer death, a tragic death, and a lot of them, younger folks dying once a week.
00:00:59
Speaker 3: And we just started noticing it.
00:01:00
Speaker 2: And once we started noticing it, it actually became a pattern that was hard to ignore.
00:01:05
Speaker 3: And I started.
00:01:06
Speaker 2: Googling and researching, and yeah, people are taking note this was happening.
00:01:11
Speaker 1: Then, you know, it's a good way to put it. We weren't paying enough attention to until it became something you couldn't ignore. It has become that, and so we're here and we're talking about it, and actually, roll this is such an important thing to point out. We have actually been sitting on this full disclosure waiting to do this story, and we didn't want to because, wow, it's the end of the year, it's the holidays. It feels like a dud. It feels like a downer of a story. But the more we talked about it, this is such an important thing to point out. This was a significant year for death a deaths among influencers, and the reasons for it of something we should all pay attention.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: To, absolutely, because when you start thinking about it, when you make your living trying to get attention and get likes and get advertisers to then sponsor, you your constantly seeking validation. You're constantly pushing the ball. You're trying to do things maybe that you wouldn't normally do. You might be a little bit more reckless in a sense to do something that would get attention. You're also letting people know where you are all the time, where you're not, you're live streaming. And then people become obsessed with some of these influencers of the debts we saw baby. It's sad, but many of them were murdered because they had obsessive fans. But people have these that's part of what their job is to get connected to others, make people feel like you're their friend. You're their cool friend that is going to tell them how to eat, what to shop, where to go, all of this. So there's just so much pressure. And then the mental health aspect of it. You're constantly living and breathing and you're paying your bills based on who likes you. That can mess with a lot of folks.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: I mean it should mess with I think most of us. What you just described, I thinking down in my seat. To have that weight, that life that you have to man. The way you put it, you have to be validated daily, constantly in order to make a living. That is scary as hell. And so when you put in those terms right, it looks all fun. Anybody can be an influencer now and it looks like a good time. But roabes every single person who is doing that, who was out there, And that doesn't matter how successful. It takes a toll.
00:03:31
Speaker 3: It has to it does. Even celebrities talk about it.
00:03:34
Speaker 2: People who are at the top of their game and the biggest names in Hollywood will tell you when they read negative reviews, when they see the awful comments, it affects them.
00:03:44
Speaker 3: It affects all of us. We're human beings.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter if you do this for a living, if you put yourself in the spotlight for a living, you still have feelings that can get hurt easily, even by strangers. And especially when you're an influencer. You're seeking that attention, You're seeking it likes. You need people to like you.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: Man. So yeah, I'm actually pausing road because we are. And again, we were doing this in real time. We didn't record this earlier. There's a big story going on right now with Cardi B. You just mentioned even celebrities talking about the toll that takes on them. She just put out a whole video with it yesterday on Instagram, really going on about you all. It's getting a little much, it's getting too mean, and she did in her Cardi B way, but she took a moment to say, you all, I'm reading, I'm seeing it, I'm feeling it.
00:04:35
Speaker 3: Please stop it. Yeah, please stop that. It's too much. That mean is mean.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: And so yes, some of these notable deaths we're talking about our suicides because a lot of these folks, we don't know all the answers, but they had loving a lot of them were in loving relationships.
00:04:52
Speaker 3: Some of them were mothers.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: Some of them were you know, they had full lives and just constantly putting yourself out there to be talked about, ridiculed, commented on, you know. And the worst is you start to build this following and you start to feel really good, and you love the likes, and you love the good comments, and you believe them and they make you they give you your value, and then when all of the mean ones come or you did something people didn't like, that the opposite effect of that is devastating.
00:05:21
Speaker 1: Where I learned that that you can't put too much into the good comments you get, because then you have to put so much value into the negative ones because you're saying that the good people they're strangers to me too, but they're validating me. They make me feel good, so I believe them. But then you end up you have to believe the negative and that's not a good way to be bro. This is you know what you're describing in waves now that I want to go take Sabine's phone from her right now you're describe it in such a way and she's about to turn thirteen where all bets are off. Now, see she passes the tests on all these these apps and whatnot, so it's it's terrifying, but oh yes you have. And again we're not talking about a handful necessarily of deaths, and it's hard to keep an accurate count.
00:06:13
Speaker 2: I actually don't have a full count because also some of these were pretty notable deaths and.
00:06:18
Speaker 3: They were international. It's not just here in the United States.
00:06:20
Speaker 2: This is obviously you know, people know folks who are influencers in countries all around the world, which is really cool in a lot of ways. But it just shows you how widespread this is. But I was just looking at the different deaths. These are the notable ones. There are so many more than this, babe. I think it probably was more than one a week because we were seeing the headlines. But I was just able to collect some of the notable ones. One they really stood out, and this actually was just sad I wanted to point out because this one, I don't know, it touched me.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: Haley Okola.
00:06:47
Speaker 2: She was known as known as Nurse Haley. She was a nursing influencer. She died at thirty three after giving birth. You know, it's just, you know, you it's just and people were along for it, and they were there and in fertility issues, and she talked about it and everyone followed her. So that's also devastating for the people who are looking to her as someone who's encouraging them and an inspiration to them. And then you see something tragic like this that affects all of her followers. But then you even had Alicia Bernie, she was a YouTuber. She died at twenty four from a fatal asthma attack.
00:07:21
Speaker 3: So it's like you start to see just I think.
00:07:24
Speaker 2: In some moments when you have medical emergencies or medical issues, it does raise awareness, but it's also scary as hell.
00:07:32
Speaker 3: She was in Mexico on vacation.
00:07:34
Speaker 2: She was actually a food influencer, and she dies of an asthma attack. So it's just you start to see, I don't know if she put herself into harm's way, if she put herself in a situation where she could have.
00:07:48
Speaker 1: Those are random, those are incident, those which are awful for people who have these huge followings. But again to your point, it does raise awareness that these people are people pay attention correct right to these folks, but you know those are that can happen anywhere. But man, it's that that's as tragic as that is. I don't know, Robes, it's I'm thinking about some of these others right that we're talking about that you're about to get into. And is it dangerous now to be an influencer because we talked about think of all the professions we know about, is it that are that many people dying in other professions? Suicide and other professions. I don't know what the rate could be. Are these just high profile, but it seems there's a there's something going on in this community that we need to pay attention.
00:08:44
Speaker 3: Correct.
00:08:45
Speaker 2: No, because if this many journalists were dying doing their job, If this many doctors or lawyers, or celebrities, even actors, if this many people were dying.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: You know, for varying reasons, but because.
00:08:59
Speaker 2: Of the job generally speaking, that would raise eyebrows. And so you start to look at this and say, what is the threat?
00:09:06
Speaker 3: What is tying this all together?
00:09:09
Speaker 2: Here are a few that will actually make a lot of sense, and these are certainly tied together. So you've got Valeria Masqua Marquez. She was a Mexican beauty girro. She was shot and killed while she was doing a TikTok live stream. So she accepted a package and it was someone posing as a delivery man and he was actually a gunman and he targeted her and killed her on her live stream. Something happened very similarly in Colombia with an influencer model on her live stream. Then you also had Rodney Finley and his wife Tanisha. This made a lot of headlines in Las Vegas. They were YouTubers. They were fatally.
00:09:47
Speaker 3: Shot by a fellow streamer who had a feud with him.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: So it's just this, right, they're competing for likes, they're competing for followers. There was a Venezuelan TikToker this year, Jesus Sarmiento. He was on a live stream because he denounced a gang a drug game, and so they found him. They knew exactly where he was because he was live streaming. He had said something negative about them, and he was murdered there in New Jersey. This was a big one. Christopher White, a New Jersey TikTok influencer, was tracked from his live stream and murdered.
00:10:19
Speaker 3: I mean this, I'm telling you, I have chills right now.
00:10:22
Speaker 2: I just kept reading all of these folks who were found by their assassins by their killers because they were on a live stream. Bruna di Castro was stabbed to death for rejecting romantic advances and he was on a live stream.
00:10:38
Speaker 3: It's just I mean she was on a live stream.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: Where was that one?
00:10:41
Speaker 3: I don't know where that was.
00:10:42
Speaker 2: This was Bruna di Castro, so I think it was somewhere in South America. Pakistani TikToker Sana Yusov killed by a fan turned stalker for rejecting his friendship attempts and he found her because she was live stream.
00:10:55
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, o' say that again. Who was the one that was killed? Was a man or woman?
00:11:00
Speaker 3: It was a woman, sona.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: She was killed by a fan turned stalker because she rejected his friendship attempts, so he knew exactly where to find them. So anyway, there are sadly and there are some here in the States. This isn't just in a scary country. This was New Jersey. This was Las Vegas. So a lot of these folks unknowingly put themselves in harm's way and put a target on their back because they are live streaming, and anyone who they might have rejected or who they might have upset, unknowingly by not responding to them. They know exactly where to find them, they know exactly where to target.
00:11:36
Speaker 1: What should we understand now? This is the risk you take in doing this job. And it seems bizarre to think that something you can literally do by just sitting on your couch is now a threat to your health.
00:11:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think this needs to be heard. Parents need to hear these numbers and these stories and these names, and kids need to recognize. I think, yes, the kids feel invincible. Isn't that what kids always feel like? Oh, no one's gonna hurt me, No one's gonna it's not gonna You always think it's crazy to see my daughter's friends all know exactly where they are, they track them. That we look at that as a potential threat or as something scary.
00:12:16
Speaker 3: Why do you want so many people knowing exactly where you are?
00:12:20
Speaker 2: But I don't think kids, and certainly these younger influencers, understand how dangerous it is to let the world know exactly where you are all the time.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: As you're talking ish about some of those people, as you're rejecting some of those people, right as you're engaging sometimes with some of those people you are, it shouldn't be right. I guess we should understand now it comes with the territory, but it shouldn't be the case we all understand. But I don't robes. I don't know this is one I we talk about the stalker kind of aspect of it. There the other side of it, the other side, And I don't know. You've looked at more of the cases than I have, And I don't know if you have some kind of a breakdown or a feeling that the majority of the deaths came from those types of incidents of murder or suicide.
00:13:19
Speaker 2: Suicides and a couple of them we can go over are also just from folks taking massive risks, climbing things, dangling off to get a picture and literally fell to their deaths.
00:13:30
Speaker 1: And you highlighted some of the homicides there. But I would have to assume overwhelmingly the deaths we're seeing are suicide and not how much that I say those be rare, There was a lot.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: There were a lot of murders, babe, and I didn't even get to all the oh this year, this is this year only, and it didn't take long to hunt for this. And yes, the suicides are significant, and and they range in ages thirty seven, twenty seven, thirty one, thirty one.
00:14:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just all.
00:14:01
Speaker 2: Young twenty nine, and I was reading all of these stories of these folks who were loved and who people did not recognize.
00:14:09
Speaker 3: They did not see the science until it was too late.
00:14:14
Speaker 1: All right, we'll stay here, folks. When we come back, we'll go through some of what is really probably the most concerning aspect of some of the deaths we've seen among influencers in twenty twenty five, sty.
00:14:30
Speaker 3: Hear, Welcome back, everyone.
00:14:41
Speaker 2: We are talking about something that I bet a lot of you might have noticed. If you read the news like we do, if you pick up your phone, you're looking at headlines, even on social media. It seemed like I was constantly we were both looking at headlines of social media influencers dying, and a lot of them dying young, and a lot of them dying at the hands of a stalker, and unfortunately sometimes dying by suicide.
00:15:09
Speaker 1: That's the one I think I saw most, I mean, asked suicide. That's the one. I swear it felt like one a week it.
00:15:14
Speaker 3: Did, it did in March. This was a big one.
00:15:17
Speaker 2: TikToker Joshua of Blackledge he died by suicide at the age of sixteen. That one was really sad. YouTuber Mikiela Rains this was a big one. She took her life at twenty nine. There was a Oh, yes, there was a Tucker Janelle. I don't know if I'm saying his name right, but this is really this was just in December, this was a big story. Social media influencer died by suicide at age thirty one. So many folks did not did not see that one coming at all, and it was just one thing after another, and everyone said they did not recognize that those influencers were in pain, that they were even suicidal or having any sort of Who have?
00:15:58
Speaker 1: Who would have? Because isn't the point of this to social media? Or are we trying to put our best face forward all the time? I know we talk about there are moments when people are vulnerable, and those moments get a lot of attention, But babe, aren't we I don't, Oh, are we missing signs because there are none if we're only looking at them through social media.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: We want people to think if you're an influence, an influencer especially, you want people to think your life.
00:16:26
Speaker 3: I would think for.
00:16:27
Speaker 2: The most part is special or cool or good, a reason to follow, right, something that's different than the than the rest. And so you're trying to put your best foot forward and show what's great and what you're learning and what you're doing and where you're going and who you're with. But the pressure of that, if it's not all real, and of course it probably isn't, you feel like a fraud and those feelings just unfortunately, but it is incredibly, incredibly said. I was reading from studies that show correlations between screen time and feelings of depress anxiety.
00:17:00
Speaker 3: We see that with everybody, right our kids.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: But think about that, that's not just true for the fans, it's true for the creators as well. And if they're spending that much time creating the content, then they also have to go on the screens to then upload the content. Then they have to read the comments, then they have to react to the comments. So they are literally on their phones or on their devices the entire day. That is what they are doing for a living. So it's on steroids from what we even see from our kids. And I saw this quote from a psychologist who was weighing in on this epidemic of social media influencer suicides, and she said humans are not built to absorb daily criticism from strangers at scale.
00:17:45
Speaker 3: And I just thought that was such a powerful quote.
00:17:47
Speaker 1: Yo, what is wrong with us? We have lost it robes, we have lost our minds. This is who we are now? Are worth is in likes? This is not who in God's name. It's like a daily roast ye that you're volunteering for.
00:18:08
Speaker 2: And if you have other influencers, influencers who are competing against you. I mentioned meek Kayla Rains, that's one of the women who young women who died by suicide. Her husband said this after his wife's suicide, and this kind of just hits it. He said his wife had been dealing with ridiculous claims and rumors and she felt as if the entire world.
00:18:29
Speaker 3: Had turned against her.
00:18:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what they feel like when suddenly they get a bad something, a comment, and then it goes off or someone tries to say you did or didn't do something.
00:18:41
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, the world's turned against you and you can't.
00:18:45
Speaker 2: See a way out. Oh my god, isn't that just so sad? But it makes so much sense, It makes so much sense. And then I did mention some of the behavior that people engage in because they're trying to make the content has led to several deaths. In twenty twenty five, Hannah Moody thirty one years old, big Instagram content curator, and she did her She had big hiking adventures. So in May she went for a solo hike in Scottsdale. She was later found dead. They said it was a heat exposure that she died. So she's putting herself out there doing these hiking videos. She goes on solo hikes, that's what she's known for, and it ended up killing her.
00:19:25
Speaker 3: Influencer Andreas Tonelli.
00:19:27
Speaker 2: He's forty eight years old, uploaded a video of himself biking solo in the Dolomites and then he never returned. They found out later he died falling six hundred and fifty plus feet while he was creating content on his bike. There are a couple influencers who died from during a complications from cosmetic procedures to try and look different, look better.
00:19:48
Speaker 3: That was a couple of sad ones right there. And there was another one.
00:19:52
Speaker 2: Mary, her name was okay, that's a screen name, Mary Magdalen. That's just what she went by, but she was also known for her cosmetic procedure. She died falling from a high rise apartment building. So it's just getting a picture. So it's just you see this risky behavior, you see this this need for validation, and once that goes away, and if you feel like all of a sudden people have turned on you, you feel like you have nothing to live for. There's just a it's extremes. You're living in extremes, and unfortunately in all of these you're giving away your power because you're letting other people dictate how you're received, how well you're liked, and how much money you're making in a lot of ways.
00:20:32
Speaker 1: Oh, this was tough. I'm you know what, I just I don't know, because there's so much value in it in social media, right, there's so much value, that's so much fun, and that's so much money there is.
00:20:52
Speaker 3: There's a lot of money to be made.
00:20:54
Speaker 1: That I think some of these things, I don't think we consider it the health hazard that it is.
00:20:59
Speaker 2: Yet you're the one who said to me earlier before we started, can you think of a more dangerous profession in terms of what we've seen this year with influencer deaths as a whole, as an industry, and I actually cannot think of.
00:21:16
Speaker 3: Just collectively.
00:21:16
Speaker 2: I cannot think of a deadlier choice of profession given these headlines and given all these stories, and again I just touched on it. There are so many more than what I mentioned. It wasn't hard to find it all when you googled, and I thought, wow, we all need to talk about this, and at least for ourselves, for our children, and hopefully anyone out listening who is a social media influencer, just to know that it is risky for a lot of reasons, and some of it just has to be based on I guess, staying grounded if that's possible, and keeping that face to face communication as the most important part of your day in terms of your.
00:21:53
Speaker 3: Well who your relationships are with. You need actual people.
00:21:57
Speaker 1: Right, well, all, thank you as always spending some time here with us. Yeah, as we wrap up twenty twenty five, this how many we've had this prepared for? How long? A week?
00:22:09
Speaker 3: Maybe two, a couple of weeks actually that we've.
00:22:12
Speaker 1: Had this thing prepped and ready to go, and every time we sat down and wanted to do we need to know what people in a good mood right now. It's the holidays. Why bring people down with something? So I'm glad we got it in.
00:22:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am too.
00:22:25
Speaker 2: I think it's it's a way to reflect and maybe a way to correct our behaviors and how we our relationship with social media period for twenty twenty six. So that is the hope and we hope you enjoyed listening everyone. Thank you as always, I made me Robock alongside TJ. Holmes and we will talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Tuesday, December thirtieth, and as we wind down this twenty twenty five, it seemed that this year was a year that being an influencer became a deadly occupation. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. We have been talking about this and doing an episode about this for probably months, but you and I keep our eyes on a lot of news, and it seems like there was a great frequency of influencer deaths for various reasons.
00:00:48
Speaker 2: Correct, and it felt like we were seeing an influencer death, a tragic death, and a lot of them, younger folks dying once a week.
00:00:59
Speaker 3: And we just started noticing it.
00:01:00
Speaker 2: And once we started noticing it, it actually became a pattern that was hard to ignore.
00:01:05
Speaker 3: And I started.
00:01:06
Speaker 2: Googling and researching, and yeah, people are taking note this was happening.
00:01:11
Speaker 1: Then, you know, it's a good way to put it. We weren't paying enough attention to until it became something you couldn't ignore. It has become that, and so we're here and we're talking about it, and actually, roll this is such an important thing to point out. We have actually been sitting on this full disclosure waiting to do this story, and we didn't want to because, wow, it's the end of the year, it's the holidays. It feels like a dud. It feels like a downer of a story. But the more we talked about it, this is such an important thing to point out. This was a significant year for death a deaths among influencers, and the reasons for it of something we should all pay attention.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: To, absolutely, because when you start thinking about it, when you make your living trying to get attention and get likes and get advertisers to then sponsor, you your constantly seeking validation. You're constantly pushing the ball. You're trying to do things maybe that you wouldn't normally do. You might be a little bit more reckless in a sense to do something that would get attention. You're also letting people know where you are all the time, where you're not, you're live streaming. And then people become obsessed with some of these influencers of the debts we saw baby. It's sad, but many of them were murdered because they had obsessive fans. But people have these that's part of what their job is to get connected to others, make people feel like you're their friend. You're their cool friend that is going to tell them how to eat, what to shop, where to go, all of this. So there's just so much pressure. And then the mental health aspect of it. You're constantly living and breathing and you're paying your bills based on who likes you. That can mess with a lot of folks.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: I mean it should mess with I think most of us. What you just described, I thinking down in my seat. To have that weight, that life that you have to man. The way you put it, you have to be validated daily, constantly in order to make a living. That is scary as hell. And so when you put in those terms right, it looks all fun. Anybody can be an influencer now and it looks like a good time. But roabes every single person who is doing that, who was out there, And that doesn't matter how successful. It takes a toll.
00:03:31
Speaker 3: It has to it does. Even celebrities talk about it.
00:03:34
Speaker 2: People who are at the top of their game and the biggest names in Hollywood will tell you when they read negative reviews, when they see the awful comments, it affects them.
00:03:44
Speaker 3: It affects all of us. We're human beings.
00:03:45
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter if you do this for a living, if you put yourself in the spotlight for a living, you still have feelings that can get hurt easily, even by strangers. And especially when you're an influencer. You're seeking that attention, You're seeking it likes. You need people to like you.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: Man. So yeah, I'm actually pausing road because we are. And again, we were doing this in real time. We didn't record this earlier. There's a big story going on right now with Cardi B. You just mentioned even celebrities talking about the toll that takes on them. She just put out a whole video with it yesterday on Instagram, really going on about you all. It's getting a little much, it's getting too mean, and she did in her Cardi B way, but she took a moment to say, you all, I'm reading, I'm seeing it, I'm feeling it.
00:04:35
Speaker 3: Please stop it. Yeah, please stop that. It's too much. That mean is mean.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: And so yes, some of these notable deaths we're talking about our suicides because a lot of these folks, we don't know all the answers, but they had loving a lot of them were in loving relationships.
00:04:52
Speaker 3: Some of them were mothers.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: Some of them were you know, they had full lives and just constantly putting yourself out there to be talked about, ridiculed, commented on, you know. And the worst is you start to build this following and you start to feel really good, and you love the likes, and you love the good comments, and you believe them and they make you they give you your value, and then when all of the mean ones come or you did something people didn't like, that the opposite effect of that is devastating.
00:05:21
Speaker 1: Where I learned that that you can't put too much into the good comments you get, because then you have to put so much value into the negative ones because you're saying that the good people they're strangers to me too, but they're validating me. They make me feel good, so I believe them. But then you end up you have to believe the negative and that's not a good way to be bro. This is you know what you're describing in waves now that I want to go take Sabine's phone from her right now you're describe it in such a way and she's about to turn thirteen where all bets are off. Now, see she passes the tests on all these these apps and whatnot, so it's it's terrifying, but oh yes you have. And again we're not talking about a handful necessarily of deaths, and it's hard to keep an accurate count.
00:06:13
Speaker 2: I actually don't have a full count because also some of these were pretty notable deaths and.
00:06:18
Speaker 3: They were international. It's not just here in the United States.
00:06:20
Speaker 2: This is obviously you know, people know folks who are influencers in countries all around the world, which is really cool in a lot of ways. But it just shows you how widespread this is. But I was just looking at the different deaths. These are the notable ones. There are so many more than this, babe. I think it probably was more than one a week because we were seeing the headlines. But I was just able to collect some of the notable ones. One they really stood out, and this actually was just sad I wanted to point out because this one, I don't know, it touched me.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: Haley Okola.
00:06:47
Speaker 2: She was known as known as Nurse Haley. She was a nursing influencer. She died at thirty three after giving birth. You know, it's just, you know, you it's just and people were along for it, and they were there and in fertility issues, and she talked about it and everyone followed her. So that's also devastating for the people who are looking to her as someone who's encouraging them and an inspiration to them. And then you see something tragic like this that affects all of her followers. But then you even had Alicia Bernie, she was a YouTuber. She died at twenty four from a fatal asthma attack.
00:07:21
Speaker 3: So it's like you start to see just I think.
00:07:24
Speaker 2: In some moments when you have medical emergencies or medical issues, it does raise awareness, but it's also scary as hell.
00:07:32
Speaker 3: She was in Mexico on vacation.
00:07:34
Speaker 2: She was actually a food influencer, and she dies of an asthma attack. So it's just you start to see, I don't know if she put herself into harm's way, if she put herself in a situation where she could have.
00:07:48
Speaker 1: Those are random, those are incident, those which are awful for people who have these huge followings. But again to your point, it does raise awareness that these people are people pay attention correct right to these folks, but you know those are that can happen anywhere. But man, it's that that's as tragic as that is. I don't know, Robes, it's I'm thinking about some of these others right that we're talking about that you're about to get into. And is it dangerous now to be an influencer because we talked about think of all the professions we know about, is it that are that many people dying in other professions? Suicide and other professions. I don't know what the rate could be. Are these just high profile, but it seems there's a there's something going on in this community that we need to pay attention.
00:08:44
Speaker 3: Correct.
00:08:45
Speaker 2: No, because if this many journalists were dying doing their job, If this many doctors or lawyers, or celebrities, even actors, if this many people were dying.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: You know, for varying reasons, but because.
00:08:59
Speaker 2: Of the job generally speaking, that would raise eyebrows. And so you start to look at this and say, what is the threat?
00:09:06
Speaker 3: What is tying this all together?
00:09:09
Speaker 2: Here are a few that will actually make a lot of sense, and these are certainly tied together. So you've got Valeria Masqua Marquez. She was a Mexican beauty girro. She was shot and killed while she was doing a TikTok live stream. So she accepted a package and it was someone posing as a delivery man and he was actually a gunman and he targeted her and killed her on her live stream. Something happened very similarly in Colombia with an influencer model on her live stream. Then you also had Rodney Finley and his wife Tanisha. This made a lot of headlines in Las Vegas. They were YouTubers. They were fatally.
00:09:47
Speaker 3: Shot by a fellow streamer who had a feud with him.
00:09:50
Speaker 2: So it's just this, right, they're competing for likes, they're competing for followers. There was a Venezuelan TikToker this year, Jesus Sarmiento. He was on a live stream because he denounced a gang a drug game, and so they found him. They knew exactly where he was because he was live streaming. He had said something negative about them, and he was murdered there in New Jersey. This was a big one. Christopher White, a New Jersey TikTok influencer, was tracked from his live stream and murdered.
00:10:19
Speaker 3: I mean this, I'm telling you, I have chills right now.
00:10:22
Speaker 2: I just kept reading all of these folks who were found by their assassins by their killers because they were on a live stream. Bruna di Castro was stabbed to death for rejecting romantic advances and he was on a live stream.
00:10:38
Speaker 3: It's just I mean she was on a live stream.
00:10:39
Speaker 1: Where was that one?
00:10:41
Speaker 3: I don't know where that was.
00:10:42
Speaker 2: This was Bruna di Castro, so I think it was somewhere in South America. Pakistani TikToker Sana Yusov killed by a fan turned stalker for rejecting his friendship attempts and he found her because she was live stream.
00:10:55
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, o' say that again. Who was the one that was killed? Was a man or woman?
00:11:00
Speaker 3: It was a woman, sona.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: She was killed by a fan turned stalker because she rejected his friendship attempts, so he knew exactly where to find them. So anyway, there are sadly and there are some here in the States. This isn't just in a scary country. This was New Jersey. This was Las Vegas. So a lot of these folks unknowingly put themselves in harm's way and put a target on their back because they are live streaming, and anyone who they might have rejected or who they might have upset, unknowingly by not responding to them. They know exactly where to find them, they know exactly where to target.
00:11:36
Speaker 1: What should we understand now? This is the risk you take in doing this job. And it seems bizarre to think that something you can literally do by just sitting on your couch is now a threat to your health.
00:11:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think this needs to be heard. Parents need to hear these numbers and these stories and these names, and kids need to recognize. I think, yes, the kids feel invincible. Isn't that what kids always feel like? Oh, no one's gonna hurt me, No one's gonna it's not gonna You always think it's crazy to see my daughter's friends all know exactly where they are, they track them. That we look at that as a potential threat or as something scary.
00:12:16
Speaker 3: Why do you want so many people knowing exactly where you are?
00:12:20
Speaker 2: But I don't think kids, and certainly these younger influencers, understand how dangerous it is to let the world know exactly where you are all the time.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: As you're talking ish about some of those people, as you're rejecting some of those people, right as you're engaging sometimes with some of those people you are, it shouldn't be right. I guess we should understand now it comes with the territory, but it shouldn't be the case we all understand. But I don't robes. I don't know this is one I we talk about the stalker kind of aspect of it. There the other side of it, the other side, And I don't know. You've looked at more of the cases than I have, And I don't know if you have some kind of a breakdown or a feeling that the majority of the deaths came from those types of incidents of murder or suicide.
00:13:19
Speaker 2: Suicides and a couple of them we can go over are also just from folks taking massive risks, climbing things, dangling off to get a picture and literally fell to their deaths.
00:13:30
Speaker 1: And you highlighted some of the homicides there. But I would have to assume overwhelmingly the deaths we're seeing are suicide and not how much that I say those be rare, There was a lot.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: There were a lot of murders, babe, and I didn't even get to all the oh this year, this is this year only, and it didn't take long to hunt for this. And yes, the suicides are significant, and and they range in ages thirty seven, twenty seven, thirty one, thirty one.
00:14:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just all.
00:14:01
Speaker 2: Young twenty nine, and I was reading all of these stories of these folks who were loved and who people did not recognize.
00:14:09
Speaker 3: They did not see the science until it was too late.
00:14:14
Speaker 1: All right, we'll stay here, folks. When we come back, we'll go through some of what is really probably the most concerning aspect of some of the deaths we've seen among influencers in twenty twenty five, sty.
00:14:30
Speaker 3: Hear, Welcome back, everyone.
00:14:41
Speaker 2: We are talking about something that I bet a lot of you might have noticed. If you read the news like we do, if you pick up your phone, you're looking at headlines, even on social media. It seemed like I was constantly we were both looking at headlines of social media influencers dying, and a lot of them dying young, and a lot of them dying at the hands of a stalker, and unfortunately sometimes dying by suicide.
00:15:09
Speaker 1: That's the one I think I saw most, I mean, asked suicide. That's the one. I swear it felt like one a week it.
00:15:14
Speaker 3: Did, it did in March. This was a big one.
00:15:17
Speaker 2: TikToker Joshua of Blackledge he died by suicide at the age of sixteen. That one was really sad. YouTuber Mikiela Rains this was a big one. She took her life at twenty nine. There was a Oh, yes, there was a Tucker Janelle. I don't know if I'm saying his name right, but this is really this was just in December, this was a big story. Social media influencer died by suicide at age thirty one. So many folks did not did not see that one coming at all, and it was just one thing after another, and everyone said they did not recognize that those influencers were in pain, that they were even suicidal or having any sort of Who have?
00:15:58
Speaker 1: Who would have? Because isn't the point of this to social media? Or are we trying to put our best face forward all the time? I know we talk about there are moments when people are vulnerable, and those moments get a lot of attention, But babe, aren't we I don't, Oh, are we missing signs because there are none if we're only looking at them through social media.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: We want people to think if you're an influence, an influencer especially, you want people to think your life.
00:16:26
Speaker 3: I would think for.
00:16:27
Speaker 2: The most part is special or cool or good, a reason to follow, right, something that's different than the than the rest. And so you're trying to put your best foot forward and show what's great and what you're learning and what you're doing and where you're going and who you're with. But the pressure of that, if it's not all real, and of course it probably isn't, you feel like a fraud and those feelings just unfortunately, but it is incredibly, incredibly said. I was reading from studies that show correlations between screen time and feelings of depress anxiety.
00:17:00
Speaker 3: We see that with everybody, right our kids.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: But think about that, that's not just true for the fans, it's true for the creators as well. And if they're spending that much time creating the content, then they also have to go on the screens to then upload the content. Then they have to read the comments, then they have to react to the comments. So they are literally on their phones or on their devices the entire day. That is what they are doing for a living. So it's on steroids from what we even see from our kids. And I saw this quote from a psychologist who was weighing in on this epidemic of social media influencer suicides, and she said humans are not built to absorb daily criticism from strangers at scale.
00:17:45
Speaker 3: And I just thought that was such a powerful quote.
00:17:47
Speaker 1: Yo, what is wrong with us? We have lost it robes, we have lost our minds. This is who we are now? Are worth is in likes? This is not who in God's name. It's like a daily roast ye that you're volunteering for.
00:18:08
Speaker 2: And if you have other influencers, influencers who are competing against you. I mentioned meek Kayla Rains, that's one of the women who young women who died by suicide. Her husband said this after his wife's suicide, and this kind of just hits it. He said his wife had been dealing with ridiculous claims and rumors and she felt as if the entire world.
00:18:29
Speaker 3: Had turned against her.
00:18:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what they feel like when suddenly they get a bad something, a comment, and then it goes off or someone tries to say you did or didn't do something.
00:18:41
Speaker 3: All of a sudden, the world's turned against you and you can't.
00:18:45
Speaker 2: See a way out. Oh my god, isn't that just so sad? But it makes so much sense, It makes so much sense. And then I did mention some of the behavior that people engage in because they're trying to make the content has led to several deaths. In twenty twenty five, Hannah Moody thirty one years old, big Instagram content curator, and she did her She had big hiking adventures. So in May she went for a solo hike in Scottsdale. She was later found dead. They said it was a heat exposure that she died. So she's putting herself out there doing these hiking videos. She goes on solo hikes, that's what she's known for, and it ended up killing her.
00:19:25
Speaker 3: Influencer Andreas Tonelli.
00:19:27
Speaker 2: He's forty eight years old, uploaded a video of himself biking solo in the Dolomites and then he never returned. They found out later he died falling six hundred and fifty plus feet while he was creating content on his bike. There are a couple influencers who died from during a complications from cosmetic procedures to try and look different, look better.
00:19:48
Speaker 3: That was a couple of sad ones right there. And there was another one.
00:19:52
Speaker 2: Mary, her name was okay, that's a screen name, Mary Magdalen. That's just what she went by, but she was also known for her cosmetic procedure. She died falling from a high rise apartment building. So it's just getting a picture. So it's just you see this risky behavior, you see this this need for validation, and once that goes away, and if you feel like all of a sudden people have turned on you, you feel like you have nothing to live for. There's just a it's extremes. You're living in extremes, and unfortunately in all of these you're giving away your power because you're letting other people dictate how you're received, how well you're liked, and how much money you're making in a lot of ways.
00:20:32
Speaker 1: Oh, this was tough. I'm you know what, I just I don't know, because there's so much value in it in social media, right, there's so much value, that's so much fun, and that's so much money there is.
00:20:52
Speaker 3: There's a lot of money to be made.
00:20:54
Speaker 1: That I think some of these things, I don't think we consider it the health hazard that it is.
00:20:59
Speaker 2: Yet you're the one who said to me earlier before we started, can you think of a more dangerous profession in terms of what we've seen this year with influencer deaths as a whole, as an industry, and I actually cannot think of.
00:21:16
Speaker 3: Just collectively.
00:21:16
Speaker 2: I cannot think of a deadlier choice of profession given these headlines and given all these stories, and again I just touched on it. There are so many more than what I mentioned. It wasn't hard to find it all when you googled, and I thought, wow, we all need to talk about this, and at least for ourselves, for our children, and hopefully anyone out listening who is a social media influencer, just to know that it is risky for a lot of reasons, and some of it just has to be based on I guess, staying grounded if that's possible, and keeping that face to face communication as the most important part of your day in terms of your.
00:21:53
Speaker 3: Well who your relationships are with. You need actual people.
00:21:57
Speaker 1: Right, well, all, thank you as always spending some time here with us. Yeah, as we wrap up twenty twenty five, this how many we've had this prepared for? How long? A week?
00:22:09
Speaker 3: Maybe two, a couple of weeks actually that we've.
00:22:12
Speaker 1: Had this thing prepped and ready to go, and every time we sat down and wanted to do we need to know what people in a good mood right now. It's the holidays. Why bring people down with something? So I'm glad we got it in.
00:22:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am too.
00:22:25
Speaker 2: I think it's it's a way to reflect and maybe a way to correct our behaviors and how we our relationship with social media period for twenty twenty six. So that is the hope and we hope you enjoyed listening everyone. Thank you as always, I made me Robock alongside TJ. Holmes and we will talk to you soon.