Slowly, and without really admitting it to myself, I realised I was never going to make it as an influencer. Not in a “I’m going to be famous” way, but because on paper, I probably should have.
Marketing is my background. I understand what builds attention. I know how audiences grow. I know consistency matters more than talent, and visibility compounds over time. If you show up enough, in the right way, momentum follows. And for me, it did.
When I first entered this space, the majority of my followers were men. If we’re being honest, part of that was the novelty. “Oh my god, there’s a girl talking about the sport I love.” As I shared more of my voice, the audience slowly balanced out.
I’ve always loved writing. That was never the issue. I could sit and shape sentences for hours. I still can.
And I love taking photos too, just not of myself. I’ll take an absurd number of pictures of the same thing and narrow them down to one. I care about how things land. The cool events I went to. The ones I held myself. The clothes I bought. The food I ate. The small details of a life being built.
I took my written “day in the life of…” series and turned it into a podcast. I wasn’t just growing an audience. I was being noticed. By media. By brands. By people who wanted my opinion or wanted access to the niche community I’d built. And honestly, who could blame them?
So, the opportunities came. First other podcasts. Then radio. Eventually social media lives. Sometimes TV. Each step felt slightly surreal, slightly exposing.
Before every media appearance, I would research the presenter, the format, past episodes. I’d try to anticipate the questions so I could prepare thoughtful answers. I didn’t want to ramble. I didn’t want to freeze. I didn’t want to come across like a fraud.
Then came the comments. I remember appearing on Nat Coombs’ radio show and within minutes someone was on social media asking how I dared to call myself NFLGirlUK, as if the handle was a claim to authority rather than a Twitter name that did exactly what it said on the tin. Someone else said I sounded robotic. Scripted.
It knocked my confidence more than I expected. Thankfully Nat, and others, had my back. But still, it lodged somewhere.
And of course, there were comments about my appearance.
Not pretty enough.
Horrible teeth.
Not made for television.
The truth is, I’ve never seen myself as someone who fits the conventional version of pretty. Certainly not the kind that translates easily to TV. But hearing strangers confirm it, publicly and repeatedly, is different. It stops being abstract and starts being personal. I wish I could say it rolled off me. That I laughed it off. That I told myself they were jealous. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. So, I sat there and cried about it. Often.
Influencing, at least the version that grows quickly, requires a certain comfort with being seen. Not just heard but seen. It rewards speed. Volume. Repetition. A thicker skin than I naturally have.
I am thoughtful. I am slower to speak unless I mean it. I edit myself because I care about what I put into the world. That works beautifully in marketing. It works beautifully in writing. It is less helpful when the algorithm wants immediacy and personality at full volume.
I could have pushed harder. Posted more. Shown more of myself. Leaned into controversy because I understood the mechanics of engagement. But somewhere along the line, I realised that becoming that version of myself would require more performance than I was willing to give.
So, I didn’t. I never became an influencer. For a while, I felt frustrated about that. I knew that if I had put in more effort, been more confident, been louder, I might be in some of the spaces I see others in now.
But that isn’t me. Not naturally. And the imposter feeling would only have grown. So instead, I’ve stayed where I feel strongest. A voice within the community. A fan with a blog. Someone who writes because she wants to, not because the algorithm demands it.
I still write. I still create. And maybe I’ll get invited once again into rooms, like the NFL UK media days I attended in the past. And maybe I’ll be more involved in the conversations that matter to me. Just in ways that feel steadier. More considered. More me.
And maybe that was always the point.