Blog Post #1: Meghan Rienks Unfiltered



Hello everyone!

I thought for my first blog post I would share with you a podcast I have been loving recently called Don’t Blame Me by social media influencer Meghan Rienks. Her weekly podcasts only make up a fraction of her success, where she spends most of her time dedicated to her YouTube channel and her acting career. Her podcast was created to embrace inner confidence within a critiquing society. Many of these podcasts are filmed and posted directly to her YouTube channel, where anonymous callers are able to ask their most personal and vulnerable questions without being judged. Her advice is raw and honest while Meghan incorporates her own struggles and personal experiences on camera, shattering the perfect image she is known and expected to hold up to on her various social media platforms. I was immediately attracted to her podcast as it was a new way for her to connect with her viewers and subscribers beyond her crazy lifestyle videos. She connects herself to relevant issues we as human’s face, a way to remind us that no one’s life is perfect no matter how many filters or edits are incorporated into a single photograph. She is commonly known for her comedic and uplifting videos, where her podcasts are a way to stay in tune with her audience in her most genuine form.

In addition to Meghan’s podcast, she is also the author of her own novel titled You’re Not Special, where she discusses in-depth her childhood and history with mental health, which are topics often left out of the social media realm. Her followers on Instagram are often attracted to the lifestyle she strategically curates online, where outlets such as her own podcast and writing her own novel allows audiences in behind the scenes of the life she has decided to document for the world to see and criticize. Both Meghan’s podcast and novel touch on the realities of adulthood, assuring her dedicated fans that she is too on the road to discovering herself and that no one has it completely figured out.

I think that the work of Meghan Rienks is relevant to mention in this course as we talk about forms of interaction and communication within the realm of media and technology, how messages become lost and misinterpreted along the way. Apart from Meghan’s social platforms and the main content of her YouTube channel with over 2 million loyal subscribers, she has continuously made the effort to break these barriers of miscommunication between the sender and the receiver. A common understanding is formed through her unfiltered dialogue on screen and on paper for individuals to break down and decode these messages on their own time, rather than watching a quick 8-minute edited lifestyle video or scrolling through a “high quality” picture on Instagram only to double tap it and forget about it 5 seconds later. Linked below is one of my favourite podcasts that Meghan created with one of my other favourite influencers, Claudia Sulewski, discussing more light-hearted topics talking through relationships and love lives with callers from around the world:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p74vJe-fqEo&list=PLn9l5aXDGjQoB9-eocLJSvNUxXO_euxnY&index=19



Comments

  1. Liv KellySeptember 26, 2018 at 1:30 PM

    Hello!
    Let me start off by saying that I love Meghan Rienks and I think she is just such an inspiration. I watch her content as well and I think it's absolutely amazing. Your sentence “She connects herself to relevant issues we as humans face, a way to remind us that no one’s life is perfect no matter how many filters or edits are incorporated into a single photograph” describes her perfectly, as she really is such a genuine and positive person who is trying to spread happiness and joy around the world while discussing such important and relevant topics that we all face. Her series Don't Blame Me I think is incredible as well, and I think it honestly helps a lot of people. I loved reading your thoughts on her and how she connects with the course content and I 100% agree with all that you said!
    Thanks so much for sharing!
    -Liv

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