Levesque, NatalyHachey, AlyshaPergelova, Albena2024-02-082024-02-082023Levesque, N., Hachey, A., & Pergelova, A. (2023). No filter: Navigating well-being in troubled times as social media influencers. Journal of Marketing Management. 39(11-12), 1098-1131. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2023.2218858https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14078/3417Social media influencers have the ability to impact the behaviours and attitudes of others (i.e., their followers), affecting people’s feelings of connectedness, and well-being. This has become particularly apparent during troubled times such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted the importance of relationships and social interactions for people’s well-being. However, less attention has been paid to influencers’ own well-being in a monetised attention economy, which imposes tensions between the desire for authenticity and the self-presentations of influencers in online interactions. Using in-depth interviews and netnography as methodology, in this study we examine how the decision to engage with the topic of COVID-19 on social media impacted influencers’ well-being during the pandemic. We build on self-determination theory to reveal how the contentious nature of the subject led to internal struggles of influencers’ self-presentation, and elucidate how influencers navigated the boundaries of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in a quest for well-being.enAttribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)social media influencerstroubled timesCOVID-19well-beingself-determination theoryautonomyrelatednesscompetenceArticle Post-Printhttps://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2023.2218858