The Mirage of Christian Influencer Friendships

The selfies tell us they're besties, but something else is in the water.

When I first started the Beaty Beat about a year ago, I said it would include “the occasional rant.”

Well, here it is, the first rant of 2024:

Influencers, Christian or otherwise, who post photos of themselves together on social media are not friends in the truest sense of that word.

Credit: Hailey Bieber / Instagram

We all know the posts. We have all seen celebrity authors, pastors, and content creators post photos of themselves sharing a meal, standing at a conference booth, vacationing together, or otherwise doing friend-like things. The posts are ubiquitous in an image-conscious age, when public figures feels enormous pressure to show up in our feeds, captivate our attention, and sell books (more on that soon).

To be sure, we can’t know the contents of the relationship we’re seeing. Lest I sound entirely cynical — and I may have already lost you on this point — there may be elements of friendship in the off-screen relationship: mutual care, deep conversation, an alignment of values, …