Influencers stopped caring about the pandemic. Here’s why that’s so dangerous.

Influencers are acting like the pandemic is over. It’s not. 

Jake Paul threw a massive house party last week at his Calabasas mansion amid soaring COVID-19 cases in California. Videos from the party show dozens of attendees crowded in the controversial YouTuber’s living room, with no regard for the recommended six feet of distance to limit potential virus spread. Nobody visible in the videos wore a mask. 

The community of Calabasas was rightfully furious at Paul — it’s not the first, and likely won’t be the last time he’s angered his neighbors. 

“They’re having this large party, no social distancing, no masks, it’s just a big huge disregard for everything that everybody is trying to do to get things back to functioning,” Calabasas mayor Alicia Weintraub told Fox 11. “It’s just a party acting like COVID does not exist, it’s acting that businesses aren’t closed.”

Roughly four months after most of the United States established stay-at-home orders in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the pandemic is still raging. The country has seen more than 3.8 million cases and surpassed 141,000 COVID-related deaths as of Wednesday, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control. Los Angeles County, which includes Calabasas, hit a record high of hospitalizations on Monday as well, with 2,232 people hospitalized for COVID-19 symptoms. And of those hospitalized, the Los Angeles Times reports, 26 percent are in intensive care. 

Alarmingly, cases among younger adults are on the rise. Almost “50 percent of cases” occur among people younger than 40, L.A. County director of public health Barbara Ferrer said after the Fourth of July. It’s roughly a 20 percent increase from cases in early April. California Gov. Gavin Newsom blamed it on the “young invincibles” returning to work and attending social gatherings. 

Large parties aren’t only hotspots for coronavirus transmission, they’re also hell for contact tracing. In Florida, health officials struggled to keep track of potential COVID-19 exposure because of the state’s relentless partying, despite closed bars and restaurants. In New York, Rockland County officials had to issue eight subpoenas to partygoers in their 20s who refused to answer basic questions from contact tracers. 

“Going a single party can completely exhaust the capacity of the health department to be able to do contact tracing.” 

Dr. Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist who specializes in infectious disease at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, worries about the strain that large parties like the one Paul hosted will have on health departments.

“It becomes very difficult to be able to nail down who was within six feet of somebody for 15 minutes or more,” Dr. Rimoin said in a phone call to Mashable. “Going a single party can completely exhaust the capacity of the health department to be able to do contact tracing.” 

In an interview with WebMD, Dr. Anthony Fauci implored young people to continue social distancing, blaming them for “propagating the pandemic” by “not caring.”

“By allowing yourself to get infected or not caring if you get infected, you are propagating a pandemic,” Fauci said. “Because it doesn’t end with you. You get infected and you have no symptoms. The chances are you’re going to infect someone else, who will then infect someone else.”

At that point, the virus could infect someone who’s older or immunocompromised. 

“And then someone who’s vulnerable to severe consequences will get infected. That could be [somebody’s] father, mother, or grandmother. It could be a sick child who’s immunodeficient,” Fauci said. “Then, all of a sudden you’re not operating in a vacuum. You’re part of the problem as opposed to being part of the solution.” 

While Fauci noted that “blaming [young people] won’t help,” even though the virus’ spread has been linked to the reopening of bars and restaurants, influencers with large platforms can and should be doing more to stay at home. They have immense reach and unique access to younger populations that health officials are struggling to find. In his interview with WebMD, Fauci emphasized the importance of reaching young people, which is why he’s appeared on Julia Robert’s Instagram Live and Lil Wayne’s podcast. 

But those with massive platforms, like Jake Paul, who ignore social distancing recommendations are undoing much of the country’s progress. 

“People who are in prominent positions in the media and in particular, these influencers, have exactly that: influence. And they could be doing their part to help stop the spread of this virus.”

“People who are in prominent positions in the media and in particular, these influencers, have exactly that: influence,” Dr. Rimoin added. “And they could be doing their part to help stop the spread of this virus. What we know right now is that masks and social distancing work. We cannot rely on any other kind of magic bullet. This virus doesn’t care whether or not you believe in it, this virus is going to spread.”

Paul isn’t the only one to ease up on social distancing. Many TikTok stars have been meeting in person to collaborate on videos. Jason Derulo congratulated Dixie D’Amelio on the release of her new single “Be Happy” with a joint dance routine in late June, and featured viral beatboxer Spencer X in another video the next week. Then he joined Brent Rivera’s creator incubator Amp Studios to shoot a few more videos in early July. D’Amelio posted a video from the Sway House, another creator incubator, on Monday. Members of the Sway House danced with beauty YouTuber James Charles over the weekend. Charles appeared on Logan Paul’s podcast Impaulsive a few days before. Charles also featured the D’Amelio sisters in a YouTube video posted Tuesday. Several popular creators, including Tana Mongeau, were spotted at a birthday party for Larray, a member of the TikTok collective the Hype House. 

Predictably, none of them were wearing masks in their videos, much less maintaining six feet of distance between each other. They may be getting tested before meeting up with each other, but continuing to record themselves in large groups sends a conflicting message to their often impressionable audience. 

Do social distancing recommendations just not apply to influencers? 

Like Fauci said in his WebMD interview, none of us can exist in this pandemic in a vacuum. Every social interaction runs the risk of spreading infection further. Every time you interact with someone outside of the people you’re already quarantining with, the web of potential infections grows. And while it’s possible that everyone collaborating together is part of the same giant “quarantine bubble,” ensuring the necessary exclusivity to limit virus transmission to anyone outside of the group is increasingly difficult. As the New York Times reported on quarantine bubbles, the ideal bubble would be a “closed loop” — nobody inside the bubble interacts with anyone outside of it. 

“The ideal thing is that we just stay home forever and never see anybody, but that’s just not sustainable,” Dr. Zoe McLaren a health policy researcher at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland told the New York Times. “Each additional person you add adds in more risk for everybody else in the group. Keeping the pod size small is really, really key for minimizing your risk.” 

It’s highly unlikely that the influencers gathering are all quarantined together, much less agreeing to any sort of exclusivity. 

Disappointed in the lack of consideration for social distancing, some former followers are taking it to the influencers’ home turf to publicly shame them. In response to a group video posted by laurenkettlecorn, a TikTok creator with roughly half a million followers, user icryatnightcheck added a side-by-side screenshot of a Time article about California’s spiking COVID-19 cases. TikTok user kyleto3 made a similar side-by-side video using one posted by Blake Gray, who has four million followers, and cheekily added “we dont care” over Gray’s side of the video. 

Public shaming doesn’t seem to work. 

Is public shaming effective? Critics of cancel culture can hem and haw over how being “canceled” can ruin someone’s life, but some frustrated former followers of certain influencers found that their idols didn’t respond well to being called out. Despite the risk of traveling, We Wore What founder Danielle Bernstein spent the Fourth of July in the Hamptons. 

The Instagram account influencerstruth criticized Bernstein in a post shortly after she attended a Fourth of July party and a dinner. In response to critics, Bernstein claimed attendees had to “submit testing results ahead of time” to prove that they weren’t infected. Her followers were disappointed in her for attending in the first place. 

“There are 2.4 million people seeing her invite people into her home  and attend parties and then people will think it’s OK to do [too.]” 

One of Bernstein’s former followers runs an account called wedonttakecovidseriouslywhat, collecting screenshots of Bernstein’s frequently deleted Instagram stories in an effort to hold her accountable before the stories time out.

“I was a long time follower but her behavior in the Hamptons/Montauk community has been pretty terrible in terms of partying and seeing tons of people,” wedonttakecovidseriouslywhat said in an Instagram DM. They preferred not to share their name. “[It’s] deeply upsetting because COVID cases are rising in the U.S. and there are 2.4 million people seeing her invite people into her home (very high risk) and attend parties and then people will think it’s OK to do [too.]” 

In response to the criticism, Bernstein blocked wedonttakecovidseriouslywhat, according to the person behind the account. 

While the government’s rush to reopen for the sake of the economy has muddled public perception of just how dangerous the coronavirus still is, Dr. Rimoin believes that many influencers have the opportunity to stress the importance of social distancing and mask wearing. To have a large platform with as much reach as many influencers do and not use it for the sake of public health is a missed opportunity. The pandemic isn’t an individual issue — it’s a societal one that everyone must collectively work toward curbing. 

“Everybody needs to take responsibility. People who have a social platform, and have the ability to influence others, have an obligation to do the right thing,” Dr. Rimoin concluded. “Our economy depends on it, our ability to get back to school depends on it, our ability to get back to normal depends on it. So everybody needs to be doing their part. There’s no excuse.”