{"id":73166,"date":"2026-06-30T05:08:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T05:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/73166\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T05:08:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T05:08:40","slug":"how-social-media-influencers-are-ruining-london-for-the-rest-of-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/73166\/","title":{"rendered":"How social media influencers are ruining London for the rest of us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"STYLE\"<\/p>\n

Influencers<\/a>, already everywhere you look in London anyway, are growing more brazen in their practices. What was once a small coterie who haunted restaurants like Sexy Fish in Mayfair has grown into a mass of aspiring social media messiahs willing to go to great lengths for the perfect snap. They pose on people\u2019s doorsteps, disturb restaurant diners and have a penchant for filming content in busy Tube stations, leaving the rest of us squinting in the glare of their ring lights<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"Social<\/p>\n

Social media influencer Chixpudding poses for a selfie in front of AI images of kittens<\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

Notting Hill is famous for its rows of rainbow coloured houses<\/a>. For passers-by, they\u2019re a joy to behold. For residents, they\u2019ve become a nightmare<\/a> to live in. \u201cI\u2019m being driven literally mad,\u201d says Tara, whose once quiet, pastel-hued street has become a hotbed of activity. Her house is baby pink and a favourite backdrop for influencer\u2019s photo shoots. \u201cIt can be pouring with rain, it can be snowing, it can be a wind tunnel, and they\u2019re still coming. They\u2019ll take their coats off in the middle of the rain and stand on my steps, taking turns to photograph each other,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Tara\u2019s street is named in a number of TikTok videos about \u201cwhere to find colourful houses\u201d in Notting Hill, which has led to the influx of influencers. Although the street is near the bustling Portobello Market, it used to be \u201cincredibly peaceful\u201d and had very low footfall, she said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that the influencers take pictures of each other. Tara is an artist and spends all day weaving tapestries in her living room. Anyone who looks through the window can see her surrounded by tendrils of wire and thread. Many cannot resist taking a snap of the artist at work, no doubt thinking it will be a perfect, authentic snapshot for their Instagram grid<\/a>. \u201cSometimes I\u2019ve turned around and I\u2019ve had maybe 15 people opposite, just looking at me and taking photographs of me working.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2018They can be really foul\u2019<\/p>\n

While taking a photo of someone through their window without their consent could be deemed an invasion of privacy, Tara\u2019s complaints to the council and the police have been met with a shrug. Around 20 times a day, she has to go outside and ask people to stop. \u201cOn the whole they\u2019re polite, but sometimes they\u2019re really foul and tell me to f*** off.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s incredible is the sense of entitlement \u2014 it\u2019s just massively invasive<\/p>\n

Tara, Notting Hill resident<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the noise, too. \u201cIt\u2019s constant,\u201d sighs Tara. \u201cI like to work in quiet, and hearing people talking outside my door all day drives me mad. I\u2019m thinking of moving \u2014 that\u2019s how maddening it is.\u201d Tourists looking for photo ops in the area are nothing new: thousands flock to Portobello every weekend, posing outside the Travel Bookshop<\/a> which featured in the film Notting Hill. But Tara says influencers are far more bold: \u201cWhat\u2019s incredible is the sense of entitlement \u2014 it\u2019s just massively invasive.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is happening across Notting Hill<\/a>. One local took to documenting the influencers who ran rampant on his street on TikTok. The videos show people lying across front steps, spraying red flares and letting go of bunches of balloons for the perfect snap.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Influencers are drawn to Notting Hill for colourful pictures for their social media pages<\/p>\n

Alex Lentati<\/p>\n

Residents who live in any of the brightly coloured houses in the area will often open their doors to find an influencer or three posing on their front steps. Peter Lee, a pensioner who lives in a distinctive pink house, said influencers dancing on his steps in high heels caused \u00a32,000 worth of damage to the tiles. Yet the 77-year-old views the situation with surprising equanimity: \u201cThat was obviously frustrating, but really I find it all quite amusing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was less amused when a professional camera crew showed up unannounced and began to photograph a sportswear clad woman as she swung from his railings. When he went outside to take a video, the crew asked him to stop filming as it was \u201cdistracting\u201d for the model. \u201cIt\u2019s my house!\u201d Lee told them. The model turned out to be former Made in Chelsea star Binky Felstead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anywhere beautiful seems to get overrun by the Instagram crew. Greenwich Park is famous for its cherry blossom trees, which bloom with candy pink flowers every April. Nowadays, you can barely see them for the hundreds of people who are using them as a backdrop for their content creation. There\u2019s no point trying to go for a walk: all the pathways are blocked by tripods. \u201cIt\u2019s a shame locals don\u2019t get to enjoy the short time these beautiful trees are so picturesque,\u201d said one on a Greenwich residents\u2019 Facebook group. Others have seen influencers shaking the branches so that they can get the perfect action shot of blossoms raining down around them. \u201cIt\u2019s terrible. They\u2019ve really damaged the branches. Some are hanging off having been snapped,\u201d added another. <\/p>\n

\"Beyond<\/p>\n

Made In Chelsea star Binky Felstead (left) <\/p>\n

Rob Parfitt\/Channel 4\/PA Wire<\/p>\n

Content is dictating lives<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, restaurants<\/a> have become overrun by the tyranny of the phone-eats-first types. It\u2019s one thing to take a sneaky snap of your meal when it arrives, but influencers often pitch up with a full ring light and tripod or repeatedly use the flash on their phones, which is particularly galling in any dimly lit dining room.<\/p>\n

Some restaurants try to discourage diners from using their phones<\/a>. \u201cThey are the barrier to conviviality,\u201d St John<\/a> founder Fergus Henderson once told the Standard. \u201cYour phone is not your tool for eating, it should not be on the table with your knife, fork, glass and bread.\u201d The Clerkenwell restaurant has a sign outside its dining room asking patrons not to use their phones.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very intrusive when you come for dinner and you see everyone on their phones<\/a>. If you want to be on your phone, stay at home,\u201d says Martin Kuczmarski, owner of The Dover<\/a> in Mayfair. The sultry New York-style Italian restaurant has been one of the hottest tables in town<\/a> since it opened in 2024, and many social media mavens have been desperate to get through the door. \u201cI\u2019ve been approached directly by people who say, \u2018I\u2019m an influencer, I have 1.5\u2009million followers, can I come for dinner \u2014 table for four \u2014 in return for one post?\u2019\u201d says Kuczmarski. He always turns them down, because he would not want to create a \u201cfake image\u201d of The Dover, nor does he think it is fair on paying guests, who then have to put up with the endless photo taking. \u201cI think too many restaurants in London are using these techniques,\u201d he adds. <\/p>\n

Is there no peace in this world any more? Not even the London Underground<\/a> is safe. I saw a TikTok of an influencer<\/a> trying to take an \u201caesthetic video\u201d at a Tube station, death-staring at any commuter who dared walk in front of the shot. She was at Oxford Circus, one of the busiest stations in London. Perhaps it was rage bait. Consider me baited. This is the fresh hell we live in: an expectation that people should happily let some random person\u2019s content creation dictate their lives, even if only for a few seconds. I miss the days when people had a little shame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Influencers, already everywhere you look in London anyway, are growing more brazen in their practices. What was once…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[3134,27,3762,142,1598],"class_list":["post-73166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-influencers","tag-london","tag-notting-hill","tag-social-media","tag-tiktok"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116837332057641714","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}