Like Follow Subscribe by Fortesa Latifi is a fascinating look into the online influencer world of social media and YouTube.
Like, Follow, and Subscribe by Fortesta Latifi was published in 2026, so it is a new release.
Like, Follow, Subscribe by Fortesa Lafifi’s subtitle is Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online. That is exactly what this book is about, but it is also about so much more than that.
This book gives you a behind the scenes look into the social media influencer world.
It gives you a look at what influencers do, how much money many of them make, how they got started, and how it has changed their family.
This book also discusses how much the online blog and influencer world has changed over the last twenty years.
Like, Follow, Subscribe by Fortesa Latifi was a five star read for me. It will probably be one of my top nonfiction reads for this year. It will definitely be a book that I think and talk about for a long time.
It is a book that I want more people to read so that I can discuss it with them. I have yet to convince anyone in my real life to read it, so maybe I can convince you to read it so we can talk about it together.
I have been working online since 2008, when I started Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures. I started From Our Bookshelf in 2016 with my daughter. I continue to write and work on both sites.
I have social media for both Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures and From Our Bookshelf, but I have never considered myself an influencer because I don’t have a huge social media following.
Most of my work is on the actual websites and my email newsletters. Because of this, I found the author’s perspective on how things have changed fascinating.
While I did find this book fascinating, I also found it incredibly sad and a bit maddening.
Life, Follow, Subscribe takes you into the world of influencers and their families. The families that show their whole lives online. The good and the bad.
It talks about the consequences of putting your family and your kids out there for others to see. It shares the money some of the influencers make, but also what it costs their family.
It talks about the dark side, where influencers show difficult things and hard situations their families go through to get more clicks and views.
The author also dealt with the fact that most of what you see on social media is not reality.
These large social media accounts want you to think they are experts and have it all together.
The reality behind the scenes is usually very different.
They are only showing you what they want you to see.
This book also made me think about the buy-buy-buy culture of social media.
Influencers make us discontented with our own lives. They convince us that our house needs to be decorated a certain way. Our clothes are not trendy enough, and our kids are not playing with the best toys.
The reality, though, is that most of our homes don’t look like those of influencers, and we don’t need them to.
Most people can’t remodel their home every 5 years to keep up with trends and colors.
Most people can’t afford to buy new furniture for a family room and redo it every few years.
Most people can’t buy a bunch of new clothes every season just because a certain style of jeans is no longer popular.
Most people can’t travel the world or go on multiple expensive vacations every year.
Most people don’t give their kids elaborate birthday parties or take them to Disney World when they turn five.
Most people don’t have the budget of these influencers.
And yet, they often make us feel that we are less because of that.
They want us to want the fancy trips, the in style clothes, the new furniture, and more.
They want us to want what they have so they can make money off what they influence us to buy.
But do they really have all that they are portraying?
Is the life they show us really the life they live?
Or do they have nannies, housekeepers, and assistants?
The tradwifes that have become so popular who bake their own bread, milk their own cows, have a huge garden, and yet always look put together, is that really the reality of that life?
As someone who grew up in the country, who currently lives in the country, and who makes the majority of the food her family eats, I can easily say it is not.
Many of those people have help behind the scenes that you and I don’t have.
And do you know what, I am okay with that.
I love what I do online. It has been a part-time income for my family for years. I have been able to do things I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, and I plan to keep working online, but I am so glad that I never put my family on camera 24/7.
The life of an influencer is not the life I want to live. I love to talk about books, food, and recipes, but I have no desire to show a life that is not real.
I want to keep it real.
And real can be messy and difficult, and it is often best lived off of social media.
I don’t need all the things, and I don’t want to convince you to buy all the things.
I need a life with real people around me. I don’t want to live only in the world of social media. I hope you feel that way too.
This might all sound counterproductive since I work online, but I think there are many ways to work online and share things honestly, and without constantly putting your family and kids online and putting them at risk.
This book reminded me of how glad I am that I made the decisions I did about online work and limiting what I share about my family.
This book was also a reminder of how much of what influencers do is simply for clicks, and again, is often not reality. I know this, but I often forget it. Yes, I fall for clickbait too.
Influencers often share things that they know will get clicks.
They share health problems, kids throwing fits, and embarrassing moments. It is not usually to keep it real, it is to get more clicks and views.
They often also don’t tell the full truth, or skim the truth to help promote what they are currently promoting and make money off of.
I follow a large account on Instagram, which I have followed for years, both on their site and on social media. The influencer recently posted about how they started running and love it, even though they had never been a runner.
They call themselves a new runner and said they have fallen in love with running the last few months.
The problem is that this influencer has run before. They even trained for a race and shared all about the race they ran back in 2012. They even wrote a blog post about it years ago. I know this because I have followed them for years.
If it were something small, I would say this person forgot, but you don’t forget training for and running a race.
This person is trying to get clicks and followers by sharing their current running story, but it isn’t the true story. I love running. I love it when people promote running. What I don’t love is lying about being a new runner to get likes and follows.
I only noticed this because it is an account I have followed for almost as long as I have been working in the online world.
I don’t say all that to trash someone. I say it to prove that point, that an influencer’s job is to influence us, and that means they are not always honest with us.
As I was thinking about all that, I realized how many influencers share stories like that that we never realize are not true.
We want what they have, but what they are telling us they have isn’t even the true reality.
They want us to follow along. To get invested in their life and their family’s life. They want us to think they have the answers to our problems or to fix our lives.
The life they are showing, though, is not reality.
Would they be constantly buying new clothes if they didn’t get affiliate commission from all the clicks and sales they get from us buying the products?
Would they live like that if they weren’t trying to sell us a certain lifestyle?
We live in a social media-driven world that is far from the realities of the actual world we live in.
These are all things I have been thinking about and talking about before I read Like, Follow, Subscribe, but reading it confirmed many of them. And in some cases, it made me realize that the influencer world is far worse than I thought.
I know most influencers won’t appreciate the book Like, Follow, Subscribe by Fortesa Latifi, but I found it a fascinating look into a world I thought I knew, but, in reality, had no idea how bad it actually was.
The psychology and thought processes that go into the influencer world are ones I think more of us need to be aware of.
If you are interested in the current state of online social media, I think you will find this book fascinating.
If you read it, I would love to hear what you think.
I’m so excited about this book. The whole concept of influencers fascinates me, in a scientific way I guess. It bothers me, even when there aren’t kids involved but especially when there are, and the psychology of it all is a mystery to me. I’ve also been a blogger for a long time but I find that I share fewer parts of myself/life/family as the years go on. I’m fascinated by both the desire to be an influencer and the devotion to influences.
Also, I know exactly the runner you’re referring to because I thought the same thing. I even joined the running program they promoted for years and it’s what got me running back then! It’s also bothered me.
Anyway, I’ll definitely read this book!
I think you will enjoy this one! I would love to discuss it after you read it, especially since you have been in the online world for a long time like I have.
I was wondering how many people noticed that about the runner. There might be more of us that noticed than that person realizes.
I have a book buddy for you who just reviewed this one: https://open.substack.com/pub/kendranicole/p/quick-lit-may-2026?r=mrr7i&utm_medium=ios
I have not seen anyone else talking about it so thank you. I am going to go read it.
I haven’t read this book yet, but it sounds very interesting. Thank you for keeping it real, Lynn! I know exactly what you mean about the runner, and, for what it’s worth, your posts have always struck me as much more authentic. God Bless!
Thank you! I try to be real, but still keep plenty of the real off of social media.
Thanks for the recommendation. This one is going right to the top of my summer reading list. Having spent many years working with children, the topics shown in the table of contents look like things I’ve had thoughts about for a long time. I’m glad to see someone is finally addressing these concerns and am really looking forward to reading this one.
I think you will enjoy it! Let me know what you think.
Okay, I have so many thoughts about this book. You called it incredibly sad and a bit maddening, and that’s exactly how I feel about it too. Honestly I feel sad and maddened by the author just as much as the content.
When 2/3 through the book, she admitted her own current struggle of whether or not to put her child online, I had to close the book and walk away for a while. I wanted to say to her, “Have you not paid any attention to what you’ve been writing about this whole time?!?” While I appreciate her honesty, it struck me as difficult to understand her dilemma after all the negatives she’d been telling about.
A bit later, she was saying how she relied on mommy vlogs to help feel normal after the birth of her child, and I felt compassion for her loneliness and sad that she’s fallen into the comparison game that our culture and social media enflame. My heart kind of broke for her.
As for the content of the book, I guess I was a bit disappointed the financial aspect was the most highlighted issue. Although privacy and safety/risk were covered, they seemed to take a back seat to the monetization of family vlogs. The book was very informative and I learned a lot about the family vlogging industry but I think my expectations of the content weren’t quite lined up with what it ended up to be. That’s on me, not on the author.
Interestingly, the final paragraph of the final chapter said exactly what I was waiting and hoping would be focused on all along. And that, too, made it a bit maddening for me. It wasn’t a conclusion drawn by the author, but was a quote from a vlogger. The author didn’t say whether she agreed with it or not. She concluded her book with it, and I’m still trying to decide if she intended it as a wrap-up for this book or as a carrot for another book. I may need to look for more reading on this topic to see what other authors have to say.
Thank you for sharing all of that! Since I shared this review it has been interesting to read reviews from what others have thought. I get what you said about her own current struggle putting her child online and how she isn’t paying attention to her what she is writing about. I took that as an example of the struggle so many in the younger generation have. There is so much pressure to put everything online, so even though they know the dangers, so many still do it. The pressure to do it wins out over the safety of the kids and family. That is definitely a maddening part of it all!!
On the final chapter I took it is as a possible carrot for another book.
I have multiple books in my to be read stack about the online social media world and the harm it is doing, so we will have to compare thoughts as we read more on the topic!
Thanks for your reply. I can see what you’re saying about the struggle and pressure people feel. Another thing I have to keep in mind is that young people have grown up with social media as part of their lives, and therefore the risks probably feel more normalized to them than to a middle-ager like myself.
I’d like to read a book that focuses on the emotional and psychological effects that children experience from being on these social media vlogs. My main heartbreak is about how children sometimes end up being treated as a product or an accessory to feed the parents’ need for attention, with an absence of respect for the child’s individual humanity. I have read Shari Franke’s book. Do you have any others you could recommend?
I have read Shari Franke’s book and I think we will see more memoirs like it as the children of influencers grow up.
The book that I think I am going to read next is Girls by Freya India. The subtitle is Generation Z and the Commodification of Everything. It might be more what you are looking for.
I also have three books on the rise of social media on my to be read list. They are No Filter about Instagram. TikTok Boom about TikTok and An Ugly Truth about Facebook.
I am hoping we will see more books about the negative effects of social media as more people realize how much it really has changed our lives and the younger generation.
Thank you for this book review. Along this same topic I read Famous for a Living by Melissa Ferguson recently and enjoyed it.