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Image / Living / Culture

Oenone Forbat on her new book, being an influencer and overcoming Catholic guilt


By Sarah Finnan
31st Aug 2023
Oenone Forbat on her new book, being an influencer and overcoming Catholic guilt

Bad Influence; your next unputdownable 2023 read. 

A podcaster, influencer, comedian and now, published author, Oenone Forbat has worn many hats over the course of the past 29 years but this might just be her favourite chapter yet. 

And with her debut memoir, Bad Influence, on shelves as of today, now is as good a time as any to get acquainted. Beginning her social media journey at a time when Instagram was the “hot, new thing”, Oenone started out as a fitness influencer – growing her following as she prepared for her first bikini competition. 

Fast forward a couple of years, and her star is only on the rise. Downloaded over four million times her podcast, Adulting, has garnered international acclaim for the relatable way in which she and her guests approach topics ranging from politics to sexuality, relationships, privilege and institutionalised racism. “My default position is sort of the ignorant privileged host learning via much more intellectual guests. I think we all feel quite humble in the fact that we don’t necessarily know what we’re talking about, but we can, you know, figure it out together,” Oenone tells me over Zoom.

Her Instagram is, by and large, an extension of those conversations. From sustainable fashion to book reviews to nuanced conversations about botox and ageing, her social media has grown with her, acting as a hub for other 20-somethings (me included), also traversing uncertainty at this critical time in their lives. “I really like it when Instagram is a two-way thing,” she smiles. “I think when I find my social media pretty draining is when I feel like I’m just shouting into the void. But I love having these really fascinating conversations. That’s what’s so nice about my ‘Let’s talk about series’ (a weekly ‘ask me anything’ call out Oenone does with her followers, where they pick a topic and then discuss it together). I like that it’s useful to people and it’s great that my audience also gets a platform and a chance to talk. I like that sort of merging of voices and ideas.”

Approaching a publisher with the idea for a book over two years ago, Bad Influence has been a long time in the making. “I’ve always wanted to write a book but writing nonfiction was never something that I was planning on doing,” she admits. “Now that I’ve done it, I feel like it was a really good exercise.” A memoir that chronicles the good and bad of a life lived online, getting words down on paper was challenging at times. “It was difficult in some ways, because of that self-consciousness that comes with writing a memoir. I got my book deal, and then I basically didn’t speak to my publishers, I just wrote the whole book in one go. I was really nervous about them reading my work. From there, it got easier because I got the cream off the top that I wanted to say, and then I could filter it and edit it and go through it chapter by chapter.” 

“Some bits just sort of came out – there are some passages and chapters that I basically just wrote in one sitting and it was all perfectly, exactly how I wanted to say it. And then other bits, it would be like eking it out of me,” says Oenone. “I think because the book is about me, it’s a weird thing where you’re kind of in a fight with yourself. It doesn’t feel normal that you’d talk about yourself or your life for that many pages, so you kind of want to not do it! I had to keep reminding myself, ‘No, this is the point of the exercise’. I kept worrying about being really self-involved but you kind of have to be to write a memoir, which is funny.”

When it came to deciding what to include, it was a precarious balancing act between honesty and being overly generous. “I don’t think any author owes anyone so much of their personal trauma. I think I’m quite lucky in that some writers may have never been in front of an audience before, but the thing with being online is that I’ve learned to kind of work out how to boundary things and what I do and don’t want to say. I remember hearing Dolly Alderton say that she really regretted being so open in her memoir Everything I Know About Love which she wrote when she was 28 – I was 28 when I started writing mine – and that was always in the back of my mind; make sure that you don’t give everyone everything. At the same time, I wanted to say enough that it was still very personal, but there’s a lot that I decided just wasn’t relevant.”

Without giving too much away, the book touches on many pertinent issues – some of which Oenone has never publicly talked about online. “I think I still have some sort of inherent Catholic shame about certain things and I worry about what people are going to think but there’s so much power in talking about things, sort of normalising it I guess and letting it breathe.”

A snapshot of Oenone’s life from university student right up to present day, the phrase ‘influencer’ is central to the story… but it’s a label she grapples with and often shies away from. “I think it is partly internalised misogyny but also I think it’s a bit of ego. I think it’s a bit of me feeling put down by the word. And because of people’s assumptions about you when you say the word ‘influencer’, I still find it embarrassing. I found the book a really cathartic exercise because the whole thing is kind of me unpacking why I hate being called an influencer…. if everyone could read it, I wouldn’t hate it, because I’d feel like they’d understand! 

“I should really just accept the label, but I’m definitely resistant because I feel like I’m being tarred with a brush that I don’t associate myself with. But at the same time, I am an influencer so I should champion it and re-narrativise what people think of it rather than running the other way.” 

However, regardless of how people might perceive it, Oenone felt that writing this book was important. In her own words, “Some parts are written like a memoir that read more like a novel, and other bits are more zoomed-out reflections on society, our generation, and our relationship with social media as a whole. It’s both about my life, being an influencer, and about how culture and society was (and is) shifting as I was growing up – and how that in turn manifests itself in today’s digital age.” 

Beyond that, this project was significant to her personally. “There’s a quote I read in the book Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow where a character says, ‘There comes a time in a creative’s life when your taste exceeds your ability but you have to create anyway’ and that’s how I felt. I’m not yet the writer I dream of being but the only way to get there is to start.”

Though she often plays devil’s advocate throughout, Oenone is still a fierce defender of social media and its positive attributes – despite its often negative reputation. “Social media arrived, and immediately everyone was on it and using it way more than we should have done. We’re going to have to retrospectively introduce education around legislation and safeguarding around it but I think that it can be a really good tool when it’s used correctly. I personally find social media really positive, and probably through virtue of being someone who’s online and sees behind the curtain of how things work, I’m really lucky in that I don’t tend to get that horrible comparison feeling.” 

That said, as with anything, social media is only good in moderation. “I think that it’s how we’re using it and how we’re allowed to use it that’s the issue – if you’re on it from nine in the morning till 10 o’clock at night, you’re not going to have a healthy life,” she rightly points out. 

“I’ve made loads of mistakes, and I’m sure I’ve been really embarrassing and said things I shouldn’t have said and done things I shouldn’t have done but I feel like I’ve learned from those experiences. So I don’t know if I would change anything, but only because I think it’s all a learning process.”

What’s next for her? She can’t give too much away but writing is definitely on the cards. “I would love, love, love to write fiction – probably on a very different scale from Bad Influence in terms of content and what it would be about. I’d also love to write sitcoms, that’s something I’d love to go into.” In other words, watch this space…

Bad Influence by Oenone Forbat is published by Quercus Books and is on sale now.