Dear Diary, my 6 year old thinks I'm famous

No one on Threads has ever heard of me, though.

Last weekend I was invited to visit a new restaurant (this one, in case you’re interested…) in exchange for social coverage, and, as it was the last day of the Easter holidays, we took Max along, too, after carefully — and yet apparently really haphazardly — explaining to him that the reason we were here was because it’s Mummy’s job to take photos of places like this, and also to write about them.

In other news, Max is apparently 14 now…

When we arrived, the manager of the place came out to meet us, and said he’d like to make us some drinks: mocktails for Terry (who was driving) and Max (who is 6), and a cocktail for me (who was very happy to accept, because it was the last day of the Easter holidays, and guys, that ‘break’ lasted about 84 years, not even joking…). My drink arrived last, and when the manager brought it out to us, Max eyed it with suspicion, then looked at the man and said, “So, does my mummy get a special drink because she’s going to write a book about your restaurant?”

“Er…” said the manager, looking confused.

“When I grow up, I think I’m going to be an illustrator,” said Max, unperturbed. “And I’ll draw pictures for mummy’s books, so I can get cocktails too.”

“I, um, don’t think he’s quite grasped what it is that I do, exactly,” I started to tell the manager, but Max instantly jumped in again.

“I do so!” he said indignantly. “I do know what she does! I forgot one thing, though: she also plays guitar!”

Dear Diary, I gave up piano, and now I'm learning guitar

Honestly, I’m not sure me fumbling my way through ‘Traitor’ by Olivia Rodrigo at 80% speed¹ can be accurately described as “playing guitar”, really, but I let it slide, and the manager went back to the kitchen, no doubt to regale his staff with tales of the famous, guitar-toting blogging author who was, at that very moment, drinking an espresso martini in the restaurant, while trying to persuade her child to remove his coat before he spilled something on it.

Max, however, wasn’t quite done with us yet. A few minutes later, a waitress appeared with our food, and his face lit up.

“I’M SO GLAD MY MUMMY IS FAMOUS,” he yelled at the top of his voice. “BECAUSE IT MEANS THAT I’M FINALLY GETTING MY FIRST MEAL!”

“I have no idea why he said that,” I told the startled waitress. “He has had meals before, I swear. We do feed him. Also, I’m not famous. And I’m not even THAT good on the guitar.”²

How do you accurately explain to a child what a ‘social media influencer’ is, though? I mean, I haven’t even properly figured out what to say to adults who ask me what I do for a living (“I used to be a blogger, but now I also write books, but that doesn’t earn enough on its own yet, so I sometimes post stuff on Instagram that people pay me for, even though I don’t really have enough followers to be an ‘influencer’…”), let alone a child. So it’s tricky. And it reminded me a bit of the time back in high school French class, when the teacher went round the room and asked us all to say (in French, obviously) what our parents did for a living, and everyone else just had to say their dad was a teacher, or a dentist, or whatever, while I had to try to figure out the French for, “He’s the parts and purchasing manager for a firm who make cranes, forklifts, and other specialist manufacturing equipment often used in forestry.” Which just didn’t trip off the tongue quite as easily, you know?

In the end Monsieur Smith and I agreed that my dad would be referred to as a “homme d'affaire”, which, although not totally accurate, at least had the advantage of sounding vaguely glamorous. I expect Max will also one day figure out an easier way to say “blogging-author-who’s-currently-on-a-12-week-guitar-playing-streak-in-Simply-Guitar” in a foreign language, but, until then, I’m left with the issue of having to explain to him that I’m not famous (and if I was, I wouldn’t be providing social media coverage in exchange for a free meal, would I?), which is slightly disheartening to me, because I have to admit, it’s quite nice that there’s someone in the world who thinks that I’m kind of a big deal, what with the guitar playing and all.

One thing’s for certain, though, and it’s that no one on Threads thinks I’m a big deal. And I know this because recently I’ve been trying to use the platform to build a community of bookish people, and, because my Threads account is connected to my author Instagram rather than my regular Instagram, rather than starting it with the built-in audience of all of the Instagram peeps I’ve known for years now, I was pretty much starting from scratch, as ‘Amber Eve’ rather than ‘Forever Amber’. And, wow, but that’s an easy way to make yourself feel totally irrelevant, trust one who knows.

I’m persevering, though, because although I’m sure Meta will find a way to screw it up, like they have with Instagram, for now, the Threads algorithm is pretty good, so I almost exclusively see content about books and Taylor Swift, which is what I’m there for. But the Boostagram/Swiftie audience tends to be skew quite a bit younger, so I’m not gonna lie, I feel a bit like I’m everyone’s mum, desperately trying to fit in and be cool, while blatantly failing at that, because everyone is so young and earnest, and I’m … not.

Also, literally everything has the potential to turn into an argument on Threads. Like, I posted what I thought was a light-hearted comment about how I wouldn’t be able to listen to the new Taylor Swift album as soon as it’s released because I’d be in bed at the time, and within minutes someone had started lecturing me about how that was a choice I was making, and I could do it if I really wanted to³. Minutes later, another Threads user posted a groveling apology because she’d said something about how she hadn’t met her goal for pre-orders of her book yet, and it seems this had been very ‘triggering’ for another user, who didn’t have as many pre-orders as her, and who now felt ‘less than’ as a result. Cue drama. And apologies. And everyone promising to do better in future.

So it’s that kind of place, basically. And, honestly, I kind of feel like ALL of social media is That Kind of Place now. It’s as if everyone is so consumed by the need to prove that they’re a good person, and to make sure that everything they ever say takes account of the subjective experience and opinion of every single person in the world who might see it that there’s very little room left for … well, fun, I suppose. Or even just what used to pass as normal human interactions. And that makes me sad.

It also makes me really miss the ‘old days’ of blogging, when I could post something and know that I’d get tons of responses to it, because I had a large enough audience for that to be virtually guaranteed, and people — for the most part — weren’t reading with the intention of being offended, or of starting an argument. I miss having a community. And although starting over (whether it be on Threads, or here on Substack) has its advantages, it has also left me feeling… not like the new kid in school, exactly, because I’m so much older than most of the people the algorithm shows me, but I guess maybe a bit like a substitute teacher who people can’t be bothered getting to know, because they don’t know how long I’ll be around for, or if I’m worth the investment. Which is fair enough, but still a bit … humbling. To say the least.

But my 6 year old thinks I’m a big deal.

And that’s not nothing, is it?

Until next week,

1. Hold the phone: I can do it at 100% now. Badly, obviously. But still.

2. And by “not that good” I mean “I’m really terrible, actually…”

3. I ended up blocking her because I genuinely don’t have the energy to argue with strangers about why I won’t be getting up at 5am to listen to an album, so the conversation isn’t there now, should you go looking for it…