The Influencer Illusion
Reclaiming Relationship in a Culture of Curated Connection
It began, as it often does, with a teacher’s question.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
The responses, once peppered with dreams of firefighting, flying, and healing, have given way to a new, disconcerting consensus. The overwhelming answer: “A Social Media Influencer.”
To a sixth-grader’s mind, it’s the ultimate hack—attention without proximity, fame without friction, applause without accountability. Be the star. Get paid. Stay online.
It’s almost too easy to scoff at this. But the deeper question isn’t what’s wrong with our children. It’s what, precisely, have we taught them to value?
We live in a world where the light of our screens increasingly eclipses the light in our eyes. Connection has been compressed into likes and loops. Friendship reduced to “engagement metrics.” And influence—true, enduring, relational influence—has been distorted into something performative, parasocial, and, quite often, hollow.
I say this not from a seat of condemnation, but from experience.
Full disclosure: you might say we are a family of "influencers." For our marriage and family movement, our children grew up in front of the camera—weekly videos like these, our IGNITE Radio Live program, and countless speaking and hosting events. Today, three of them have taken this mantle to remarkable levels:
Seph Schlueter, a #1 charting Christian recording artist with Sony/Provident (“Counting My Blessings”), has reached over 100 million people.
Dominic Schlueter hosts The Running Effect, one of the top youth sports podcasts in the country, sponsored by major athletic brands and inspiring a rising generation of runners.
Anne Marie Stroud ministers especially to young wives, mothers, and women seeking a godly identity and purpose, sharing encouragement and truth as @CatholicHypeWoman on Instagram. Her husband, Colin Stroud, has cultivated a formidable presence on LinkedIn, where he inspires thousands through practical wisdom and generosity in the travel-points space at GoSomewhere.world.
Collectively, their reach numbers in the hundreds of millions. And all this to say: I get it. The attraction. The potential for good. The capacity to speak into lives, to encourage, to evangelize.
But with that front-row seat has come something else: a deep, intimate awareness of the real challenge—keeping it real. Maintaining authenticity, emotional integrity, and truly rooted relationships in a world that constantly lures you into becoming a pixel-pushing persona. As parents, we are profoundly proud and encouraging of each of them. They are navigating a tumultuous spiritual sea with admirable grace. But it is, indeed, a sea—one in which we remain ever mindful that Screwtape’s insidious whispers are as diabolical as they are relentless.
So yes—we believe in social media. We believe in the power of story, shared presence, and digital reach. Our movement—Image Trinity—exists, in part, through it. Our conviction is this: these platforms must serve what is real. They are not the destination. They are a tool, at best, for pointing us back to the sacred, messy, healing ground of real human relationship.
At the heart we believe that each person is fashioned in the image of God—not a static snapshot, but a capacity for dynamic communion; an authentic, intimate union with others, a living icon of the Trinity. God is not a distant monarch. God is Relationship. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the original “followers” of one another, bound together in eternal, complete, irrevocable, joyful, ever-pouring-out, self-gift.
This is our greatest yearning. And so are we made. Not for curated content, but for covenant. Not for “influence,” but for incarnate love.
That’s why the home, messy and miraculous, is the irreplaceable school of Trinitarian formation. No delegate, no algorithm, no virtual mentor can replace the sacramental shaping of the soul that happens around dinner tables, bedtime prayers, and the ten thousand ordinary acts of familial fidelity.
G.K. Chesterton, in his characteristically brilliant way, called the family “a cell of resistance” against the curated life. In Brave New Family, he observes that the great adventure of family is that we don’t get to choose them. In a world that promises you can custom-order your community like an Amazon cart, family forces us into the discomfort—and gift—of being known, loved, and sanctified through those we did not select.
That friction—siblings squabbling, toddlers wailing, parents weary—is the fire through which God tempers us. It's the birthplace of magnanimity, forgiveness, and resilience. These are not algorithmically optimized traits. They are Christ-shaped.
This is why, even as I marvel at the technological wonders of our age, I grieve what we’ve lost: the competency for real relationship. And here’s where the data, sobering and sharp, catches up with our theology.
A 2024 study in Frontiers in Psychology revealed that influencers who spend over five hours daily online experience significantly more negative emotions and relational anxiety. Strikingly, as follower counts and income rise, so too does relationship avoidance—particularly with parents and close friends.
In other words, the more "connected" one becomes in the digital ether, the more disconnected they often are in the flesh.
Influencers, it turns out, are not only selling an image—they’re living one. Their livelihoods depend on projecting curated vulnerability, strategic intimacy, and pseudo-relational engagement. As research from Carleton University (2025) shows, their success hinges on followers forming parasocial bonds—one-sided emotional investments. Yet the influencer, continually receiving admiration without real reciprocity, often finds actual relationships burdensome, awkward, even threatening to their crafted persona.
The most reputable, peer-reviewed research—like that from the University of Portsmouth (2025)—points to a clear, corrosive influence: unrealistic beauty standards, increased anxiety, lower self-worth, and compulsive comparison.
The platforms that promised to connect us have succeeded mostly in curating us. But curation is not communion.
Let me be direct: God did not become man to trend. Christ did not enter time and space to be retweeted. He came to dwell among us—to touch the leper, to weep with friends, to eat with sinners, to wash the feet of the proud. He came not to influence from a distance, but to love up close. Personally. Painfully. Permanently.
And so it is with us. The image of the Trinity we bear is not fulfilled in polished avatars but in sacrificial presence. St. John writes, “No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us” (1 John 4:12). This isn’t metaphor. It’s metaphysics. To love—to be truly, vulnerably with someone—is to reveal God.
Which brings us back to our children.
What do they want to be when they grow up?
If we want to change the answer, we must change the question.
Instead of asking what they want to do, let’s show them who they are. Let’s live before them lives of courageous, consistent, incarnate love. Let’s teach them not to perform, but to persevere. Not to build a platform, but to build a home.
At Image Trinity, we are doing just that. Through our daily Live IT Today reflection (LiveITToday.us), our weekly radio program (IGNITERadioLive.com), Eucharistic adoration, men’s and women’s groups, couples’ retreats, and family encounters, we are reawakening the deep truth of our nature and mission: that we are made for God through one another. Especially in the wake of COVID, where digital disembodiment became the norm, it’s time to reclaim God’s vision for real relationship—what it looks like, what it costs, and how to heal what stands in the way.
Let me leave you with this:
Influence isn’t measured in followers. It’s measured in faithfulness.
The question isn’t how many people like you—but who knows they’re loved because of you.
So unplug. Show up. Be known. Get awkward. Forgive often. Laugh more. Eat together. Stay.
Because in the end, the real "influencer" is the one who dares to be with others in love.
Just like Christ.
Just like the Trinity.
Just like you were made to be.
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Greg Schlueter is an author, speaker, and movement leader passionate about restoring faith, family, and culture. In addition to directing communication and marketing for the Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership, he leads Image Trinity, a dynamic marriage and family movement, including a popular daily devotional (LiveITToday.us), and offers thought-provoking commentary on his blog, GregorianRant.us. He hosts the popular radio program and podcast IGNITE Radio Live (IGNITERadioLive.com) alongside his wife, fostering meaningful conversations that inspire transformation. They are blessed with seven children (one in heaven) and a growing number of grandchildren. Recent books: The Magnificent Piglets of Pigletsville, Twelve Roses, and Slaying Giants (SlayingGiants.us).
HELP US SLAY GIANTS at SlayingGiants.us, with a forward by Fr. John Riccardo—a story being called "Captivating," "Beautiful," "Powerful."
