A Conversation With Stay-At-Home Girlfriend & Content Creator Kendel Kay
Thoughts on Being an Object of Discourse & Promoting "Aspiration"
This post is somewhat of a sequel to my post “The Stay-At-Home Girlfriend Phenomenon.” I suggest reading that one first (linked here) before reading this one, though it’s not entirely necessary. Enjoy!
Upon being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would often blurt out something along the lines of “pop star,” “actress,” “princess,” or some other kind of highly visible profession. From an early age, fame has always felt like something coveted. A form of power disparate from fortune that is tough to put your finger on but somehow carries the weight of the world. Indisputable and unmistakable influence. Gazing upward at celebrities as a child, it’s easy to assume that they have the whole globe in the palm of their hands because they seemingly have the whole globe’s attention.
Social media has, in essence, made it simultaneously easier and more challenging to harness attention and morph it into fame. A 2019 survey from Morning Consult found that about 86% of people between the ages of 13 and 38 years old would be willing to try their hand at influencing for a career. It’s hard to imagine that number being the case for a career like a surgeon or a firefighter, largely because the barrier to entry is little to none. If you have a phone and an Internet connection you can certainly try your hand at “influencing” (also known as posting content on social media).
In middle and high school, I remember my obsession with celebrity culture transforming into an obsession with influencer culture. This was amid the Great YouTube Era of the 2010s, when “lifestyle” creators like Bethany Mota, Tyler Oakley, Joey Graceffa, Troye Sivan, and Zoella reigned supreme. Influencers felt more in touch - more reachable - than pop singers and movie stars because they used social media mechanisms and handheld devices - both of which I also had - to leverage their fame. Instead of watching Britney Spears perform onstage like some untouchable fame alien, I could watch Tyler Oakley engage in an internet challenge or Bethany Mota tell me about her favorite skincare products as an older sister or friend would. Their relatability was their star power - allowing them to amass significant followings to pump out sponsored and non-sponsored content.
I knew many people in middle and high school who wanted to become influencers, transforming their profiles into even more manicured, methodical accounts designed to draw people in. I mean, who doesn’t want to post social media content for a living - we’re all doing it already. Nonetheless, few people in my personal life found success with online content creation, struggling to break through the unceasing online noise as a unique voice. Those who were able to catch a break had won the lottery. Or so it seemed.
While influencers are often the subject of widespread Internet admiration, they can become objects of scrutiny just as quickly. This is what happened to content creator Kendel Kay when her “Day in the Life of a Stay-At-Home Girlfriend” posts started blowing up and reaching Internet users outside of her usual following. I wrote at length about the politics behind the stay-at-home girlfriend TikTok trend here, I suggest reading that post before continuing the rest of this one.
I got an opportunity to chat with Kendel Kay, a real-life content creator, and learn more about the ins and outs of navigating internet stardom, criticism, and what goes into “influencing” as a career. Talking to Kendel allowed the lush, velvet curtain of internet celebrity to be pulled back ever so slightly, allowing me to peek in at all its glamour and peculiarity. Truly a middle school dream (and let’s face it, a present-day dream) come true. Here’s what I took away from our conversation.
Kendel’s career came about in a unique manner - largely because it occurred accidentally. Kendel and her friends enjoyed taking high-quality photos of themselves and sharing them on social media. And one day, about five years ago, one of their photos found its way onto the explore pages of more Instagram users than usual - allowing them to gain hundreds of thousands of followers quickly.
At the time, Kendel had been studying architecture in college but shares she didn’t find significant fulfillment from it. She was able to profit off her social media following and figured why not run with it? Around 2019, she moved to Los Angeles, a city chock full of other social media influencers trying to make it big, and her career continued to take flight.
Today, the 25-year-old is largely based out of Puerto Rico, but when I spoke to her she was in Vancouver B.C. amid the beautiful fall foliage. This is just one stop on what’s been a long travel sequence for Kendel and her crypto-entrepreneur boyfriend Luke Lintz. “Creating content is so fun,” Kendel says. She shares that the best part of being an influencer is the community, as it’s motivating to have a group of people enjoying what you create and rallying you continuously.
On the other hand, keeping up with the lightning speed of social media trends is a challenge for her profession. “You have to keep up with trends to stay relevant,” Kendel says. “You can do one trend really well, but then you could drop off a week later.” With the help of algorithms to expedite the rotation of aesthetic and social trends, Kendel says keeping her audiences interested is an obstacle.
To stay on top of what’s “in,” she too consumes a great deal of social media content, but despite what many may think based on her job, she puts a bar on her consumption. “I set a strict limit with myself because it’s so easy to overconsume and compare yourself and then feel like you’re not doing enough,” Kendel says. She says she gets some of her best ideas by just seeing what videos others are posting and replicating them. “Especially on TikTok, you could completely copy someone else’s video and it’s not a bad thing,” she shares.
Scrolling through Kendel’s TikTok page is akin to scrolling through a Pinterest board - thumbnails displaying white sundresses, slicked-back blonde hair, gold jewelry, and lots and lots of matcha lattes. She describes herself as a content creator because that’s exactly what she does. And the content, in question, is best described as “lifestyle” content. She posts recipe videos, clothing and makeup hauls, largely drawing inspiration from other videos on her social media feeds. But what Kendel has become most known for is her “Day in the Life of a Stay-At-Home Girlfriend” videos, in which she documents her daily routine largely in relation to her boyfriend of a year and a half. In these videos, Kendel can be seen engaging in domestic tasks, including making meals for her boyfriend and herself, doing laundry, dropping her boyfriend off at the gym, and more.
As I mentioned in my previous article on the matter, Kendel has received a lot of criticism for her stay-at-home girlfriend content, largely because many believe the videos promote relational dependency. And in my opinion, much of this criticism has been valid, as many of her videos promote a way of living that isn’t entirely realistic for the average financially independent person. People on Twitter and TikTok have engaged in an abundance of discussion on this genre of videos, debating Kendel’s happiness, competency, and whether or not the stay-at-home girlfriend lifestyle should be romanticized.
One of the insightful conversational moments I had with Kendel occurred when I asked her about how she responds to this criticism online. She vocalized that there often isn’t anything to respond to, as the critics in her comments section are often talking about her, but not to her.
“It’s almost like what they have to say to me is not meant for me. They’re just writing something in the comments to write something,” Kendel says. “They talk to me as if I’m not going to see it.”
Becoming an object of discourse - a spectacle that stimulates deliberation - is an aspect of social media influencing that I hadn’t considered. While having a following can come with immense privilege, I can imagine that being reduced to a subject of conversation - as if you’re not even in the “room” - can feel rather inhuman.
Not to mention, so many of us partake in debating about the lives of influencers online when we know little about what transpires off-camera. So many (including myself) have been quick to make assumptions about Kendel’s competency, career, intentions, and relationship based on the videos she posts online. However, far fewer have considered that these videos may have a scripted, pre-meditated nature that’s whizzing entirely over our heads. Kendel even acknowledges the “character” she portrays in her videos.
“They’re judging this tiny part of my life and I know that they just don’t know [all] the details of my life,” Kendel says. “They’re just judging this character of a video. They don’t even know who I am on a day-to-day [basis].”
How interesting is it to consider that the arbiters of Twitter discourse, coming in all high and mighty to castigate the actions of an internet stranger, may be the ones getting duped all along? After all, I hadn’t known anything about who Kendel Kay was until people started debating her TikToks on my timelime - now she’s the subject of two pieces on my blog. It can clearly pay to have a persona.
“I love catering to the people who are nice,” Kendel says of how she responds to unsavory feedback. She shares that she tries to focus on the positive comments on her content, even taking requests for video ideas. In the longer term, she’s looking forward to shifting to longer-form video content on YouTube, specifically in the form of vlogs.
“I want to keep creating content that caters to women and just try to create aspirational content that encourages women to take care of themselves and tap into their feminine side,” Kendel says of her career goals. “My videos aren’t exactly inspirational, but I just hope that they can be aspirational in a way that they can show women that they can live a slower life and focus on self-care and find fulfillment through that…They don’t necessarily have to tap into hustle culture to find meaning in life.”
A lot to unpack there.
Based on her content alone, Kendel and I’s opinions may differ regarding the value of “inspiration” vs. “aspiration,” what it means to be “feminine,” and what self-care looks like (for example, if it must be a visible thing that one has to “look at” to have achieved). However, I think we can both find common ground on the harms of hustle culture and connecting one’s worth to one’s productivity. You won’t find me promoting my nonexistent slow life as a stay-at-home girlfriend or engaging in an extensive skincare routine to “do” wellness as it goes against my principles. But finding pockets of “slowness” in my days has been key to combatting my own pervasive bouts of anxiety and dread. And, even though I type this with slightly gritted teeth, I’d be lying if I said influential women like Kendel who have posted videos of themselves journaling and feeling at peace with just existing hasn’t helped me reject harmful “girl boss” notions. The romanticization and buzz word-ification of “self-care” has put self-care into mainstream conversation, for better and for worse. We’re each finding ways to live slowly - even if the means of getting there are quite disparate.
“Taking care of yourself physically and mentally is number one. And also, socially. I think keeping your circle small and with people you really truly care about personally fulfills me a lot,” Kendel says on how she defines wellness.
In closing, I’ll leave you with this: I had walked into Kendel and I’s Zoom call with preconceived notions about the influencer profession. Debating such notions on social media can surely produce entertaining articles and help prevent the dissemination of backward sentiments. And, at times, they can strip subjects of their humanity at the expense of “discourse.” I think it’s just as useful to consider the ways in which we may be wrong on many accounts, as well as right. Many of us social and cultural critics talk our talk about how social media isn’t what it seems. However, far fewer discuss how complex, intersecting layers of online deception can keep even us, critics, from seeing the Truth with a capital T.
“Character” is a word Kendel used to describe her videos, and I think that’s one that can translate to all social media users and the way they perform on their profiles. Whether they’re professionals or not. Whether it’s performing self-care, slow living, girl bossing, or happiness. Or even being a stay-at-home girlfriend.
Well done !