Swipe Up for More!

Inside the Unfiltered Lives of Influencers

By: Stephanie McNeal

Narrated by: Stephanie McNeal

Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

An unfiltered, colorful romp through the IRL world of influencers that spills the tea on the multibillion-dollar industry of content creation.

If you’re anything like journalist Stephanie McNeal—aka, a millennial woman—you spend hours every day indulging in Instagram’s infinite scroll. The influencers on the platform aren’t just providing eye candy; these tastemakers impact how we cook, consume, parent, decorate, think, and live. But what exactly is going on behind the curtain of the perfectly curated Instagram grids we obsess over the most?

Through intimate, funny, and vulnerable reporting, McNeal takes us through the looking glass and into the secretive real world of three major influencers: fashion and lifestyle juggernaut Caitlin Covington of Southern Curls & Pearls, runner and advocate Mirna Valerio, and OG “mommy blogger” Shannon Bird. Swipe Up For More! is based on three years of unprecedented, fly-on-the-wall access that offers a rare glimpse into how these influencers build their empires, struggle with the haters and snarkers, fight for creative control from the tech platforms that enable their businesses, parent in public, and try to look good while doing it.

Along the way, McNeal answers burning questions, like: Why are there so many Mormon mommy influencers? What is it like to work for a popular influencer? What do they do with all the free swag? How do brand partnerships work? And how much money do they really make?

Irresistible, juicy, and voyeuristic, Swipe Up For More! reveals all about the women some love to hate (and many actually, secretly, genuinely love).

©2023 Stephanie McNeal (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“I couldn’t stop reading this. It is so compelling, so fascinating, so fair in a way that most people find impossible to be with influencers. Swipe Up for More! portrays the influencer world with such intimacy and rigor that even the most skeptical reader will be awed and intrigued by the impact of this industry. It reads like an incredibly entertaining and engrossing conversation with a chronically online friend with a PhD in internet studies.”—Nora McInerny, author and host of Terrible, Thanks for Asking

“A sharp, concise, and often juicy look at one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. McNeal is at the top of her reporting game with this definitive chronicle of this new breed of celebrity.”—Jo Piazza, bestselling author, coauthor of We Are Not Like Them, and host of the Under the Influence podcast

"Influencing has become a massive, powerful industry, and this book explains how it happened...McNeal has the experience, understanding, and insight to explain the influencer industry and the impact it has on society."—Kirkus

A book for influencers to read and be empowered!

Get the history of influencing, reignite your passion and commiserate along the way as Stephanie shares the many sides of the social media world, very few understand or get to see.

She even shares her why on what brought her to shine a light on such a “taboo” topic and leaves the reader with a better understanding of why influencers matter and their role on pop culture and the economy to this day.

A fantastically fun summer read.

Great insight into social media world and GREAT performance by the author

As a middle aged (40) male, this was really insightful to a world I know nothing about. Much more intriguing and engaging than I was expecting. Definitely have more respect for the influencers and their impact on our culture and economy. The performance reading the audio from the author was amazing. As an avid audiobook ‘reader’, the performance matters a lot and sometimes if the narrator is new, the inexperience can show. No worries here!

Influencer groupie

It was entertaining, but not especially insightful. Most of the things shared were not surprising if you knew just a little bit about influencers/ social media marketing. Feels more like influencer fan fiction than a book about the industry

Easy and Insightful Listen

I listened to this over the course of just two days- it was such an easy and enjoyable listen. The author has a great reading voice and I liked hearing her own inflection and tone. I’ve been following blogs and various accounts since the mid aughts so I was very familiar with the content, but still felt that the reporting was informative and insightful. Definitely recommend!

Great, quick listen!

I really enjoyed this book, I do agree parts of it were a bit outdated because of how fast the industry moves but I don’t think it was enough of an impact to change the overall story! I loved the interviews the author did!

Excellent easy read!

Well researched and insightful book dives into influencer culture that has had a huge impact on our generation but is rarely discussed. If you follow a single influencer or Mormon mommy blogger you should definitely read

Underreported topic, interesting to listen to

Women’s interests and businesses are seldom taken seriously or reported on. I enjoy McNeal’s reporting and her book. Hope she writes more on the topic.

This kept me engaged. I like the Authors writing style.

This was really informative and easy to listen to. As someone who’s been a big blog reader for 20 years, I knew who a few of these blogs, that the Author wrote about, were. I very much appreciated the Authors style of writing, which was objective, and kind toward her subjects. This was a good read, because it has you rooting for the characters in her book. I would recommend this book to others.

This is worse than a hate follow.

The author only follows three incredibly privileged influencers who are completely out of touch with reality. She sympathizes with their “struggle” to keep up brand deals after they destroy their lives and followers keep them accountable. It’s truly the worst book of 2023, maybe the last decade.

Just ok

The topic is interesting and the author is clearly passionate about influencers, but most of the info presented is outdated as presented in 2023 and she started writing the book in 2020/2021. Overall the book was just lacking. This would have been better as a mini podcast series where updated info could have been presented and included conversations with influencers.