TikTok makeup influencer Mikayla Nogueira has come clean in a vulnerable series of videos about why she feels pressured to edit the photos she posts to Instagram. And honestly, her truth is pretty damn heartbreaking.
The beauty guru, who boasts more than 15 million followers on the platform, recently got hitched, and during her honeymoon, she decided to take a month-long break from posting vids. As she was chilling TF out, she had a bunch of realisations about her career, the person she’d been portraying online, and the immense pressure she feels since her following exploded and she needed to hire a team to help her run operations.
She decided to share her new-found perspective in a series of videos uploaded to TikTok.
“When I began this career I loved it so much and I still do but now it’s different. When I began this career in 2020, I felt I could be so myself and open. And then, the pressure just exploded in my face,” she told the camera whilst doing her makeup.
“With that growth has come more people in my ear, telling me what I can do and can’t do, should do and shouldn’t do, can say and can’t say, and it’s just like…shut up!
“I have become so robotic and so calculated and less me and it sucks.”
Mikayla also spoke about the immense pressure she felt to be perfect and how her time online as a public figure has had a negative effect on her own body image.
“The pressure to be pretty, the pressure to be perfect…I fucking hate how I look now,” she explained.
“I didn’t feel that way whenever I began this career, but now I fucking hate myself which is so shitty dude.
“That’s why I edit my photos so much. And that’s obvious. I don’t even want to post on Instagram anymore because I can’t even look at myself in the mirror, let alone a camera. I can’t express to you how mentally terrifying this career can be to someone like me,” she went on.
“It’s my problem comparing myself to all the other beauty influencers. I cannot be doing that. Obviously.”
For a hot minute now, Mikayla has been called out by her followers for her heavily FaceTuned pics. And while I don’t think editing pics helps anyone, it’s sad to know the self-loathing that made her feel like she needed to in the first place.
As she continues her makeup throughout the three vids, Mikayla explained how she felt like she’d lost herself within her work and perfectionism.
“I got to the point where the only thing I gave a shit about, the only thing I put time and effort into out of fear of failure was this career,” she explained.
“I’m neglecting my family, partner, my friends…and I felt like my soul literally left my body. I’m like ‘Where’s Mikayla?’ She’s not here right now. I felt really lost.”
“It’s brought me back to fucking earth because I got lost in the sauce. I am back and I am not going to let the pressure get to me anymore. I’m not going to worry about what I say – I mean, I am – but less. I’m going to worry less, I’m not going to care about being cancelled for the tenth time. I want to do what I love every day.”
For those playing along at home, Mikayla has been cancelled a couple of times. Once was after she challenged her followers to “try and be an influencer for a day” after she clocked off at 5:19 pm. You can see how the nice people working nine-to-five gigs didn’t loooove that comment.
She also copped a lot of flack back in January for chucking on some fake lashes when doing a paid Tiktok promoting a mascara brand. While it’s the norm in most mascara ads on television, her audience hated the lack of authenticity by the trusted makeup creator.
While there’s no question Mikayla hasn’t always been the perfect influencer, girlie-pop is only human. I can only imagine how fkn difficult it would be to have 15 million people watching your content and giving their (often quite harsh) opinions about how you look.
I’m glad she’s had this realisation and sounds like she’s in a good place. We may give influencers a lot of shit but i genuinely do think it’s a harder job than it seems.
