A powerful and illuminating memoir that exposes the stark and rarely-seen reality of influencing as a career.
Lee Tilghman—also known as @LeeFromAmerica—was one of the first wellness influencers. To her nearly 400,000 followers, she posted about skin care routines, sleep hacks, smoothie bowls, travel tips, and other rituals of #SelfCare. Her sponsorships with such brands as Madewell and Subaru netted an income of over $300,000 a year. On the grid, her life seemed perfect.
But behind her carefully curated posts, Tilghman was in crisis, suffocating from the unrelenting demand of keeping up her online facade. Her friendships frayed from an inability to enjoy any activity, even a simple dinner, without taking hundreds of photos. She found herself viewing everything she did as potential content for Instagram. The more she shared, the more her followers craved. Her romantic relationships suffered from the pressure to “hard launch.” Her job’s focus on food led her to develop orthorexia: an unhealthy obsession with eating “perfectly.” At her lowest point, she looked around her apartment to realize every item she owned had been given to her by brands in exchange for posting. After a stay in a mental health facility to address her disordered eating and psychological decline, Tilghman quit influencing as her primary career and set out to discover who she really was.
If You Don’t Like This I Will Die is a bold critique of the influencer economy while also a relatable story for anyone who has struggled with the unreasonableness of online expectations. With over half of Gen Z aspiring to be influencers, nearly three out of five teen girls experiencing “persistent sadness and hopelessness,” and the US Surgeon General calling for a social media warning label, Tilghman’s memoir couldn’t be more timely and necessary.