The runfluencer AI can never replace: Laura McGreen
The runfluencer AI can never replace: Laura McGreen
One of the most popular running influencers on Instagram is a hilarious lady called Laura McGreen, and she's on a mission to make the sport more accessible than ever while making people laugh.
It’s a simple fact: people want to have fun.
What form that fun takes, however, is completely subjective. For me it’s watching a movie or going to a concert. For others it might be a 12-part podcast about an unsolved murder or a 400-page book on the Gulf War. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
One well-known way to have fun is by laughing.
That’s where this week’s subject Laura McCloskey Green AKA Instagram’s @LauraMcGreen. With a steady stream of 30-second comedy skits in the form of ultra-shareable IG reels, Laura uses self-deprecation and an eye for the things that make life hilarious to make fun of and with both herself and her guests. She tells little stories about the daily details (about running) that will make you laugh. It’s probably why her audience has grown to over 200,000 in just a couple of years.
She uses these videos to help runners microdose on fun, but she also has a goal of getting more everyday runners engaged in track and field and marathoning, so let’s take a closer look at the person creating the content that we all want, and the sport maybe needs.
The Laura McGreen origin story
Laura tells me she grew up playing “all the team sports.” The middle of five children, she followed her older brother and sister into the world of cross country in 8th grade because she “didn't have a fall sport, so thought it would be a good way to stay in shape.” It was also a way to beat them at something.
“Soccer, basketball… Those are my first loves, and those are actually what I prefer to watch and follow, it's just that social media has brought me to running, but when people catch me on a day that the US women's national team is playing and the Diamond League is on, [the soccer] is where my focus is.”
Isn’t it refreshing to hear a major personality in our chosen sport say out loud that despite their extensive knowledge of running, they actually watch other sports for leisure?
On social media, however, Laura says she is fully in the weeds, as she follows many everyday or back-of-the-pack runners out of curiosity - she finds it “really interesting and fascinating and lovely to watch,” mainly because she’s trying to better understand those who got into running later in life.
The life/run/work/life balance
I’ve written about managing a running schedule while living with young children a few times now (too many times?), and as a mother of two, with another on the way, Laura’s on the same page, and with some purpose.
She talks about needing the alone time (“People are always asking me what running stroller I go with. I'm like, ‘Absolutely none. Never.’ It’s my only time doing what I want to do, and not stopping every five seconds.”), and about her challenges right now, running while pregnant (“Currently I have to pee every quarter mile.”).
We chuckle sadly about fitting long runs into our schedules; about playing with little kids after wrecking ourselves with a 16-miler. Laura trained for New York and Paris last year, and chose to run at 4am on Thursdays. The goal (achieved) was to see her kids before they went to school. The other result was “writing emails from bed.” She’s grateful for the flexibility and balance that her creator career affords her.
“An incredible privilege of this job is I start when [the kids] leave at eight in the morning, but they get home at 2pm and I'm done, I'm off. I’m not creating content while they're racing Hot Wheels in the living room. If I had one hand on my phone, checking emails, and trying to keep an eye on them, it's not good for anyone, so I'm pretty strict about it.”
Compared to the previous stage of her career as a physiotherapist, where she worked nine-hour days in a hospital, this is bliss, and along with some “hard boundaries” about limiting travel for brand activations to once a month maximum, Laura is retaining that crucial balance. Balance in her home life, her fitness life, and in her work life - her whole life.
The threat of the AI influencer
AI. Artificial Intelligence. It’s what all of us in the creative fields are talking about. Will music all be made via AI in the future? It’s just another form of muzak, in my opinion - true human artistry will always connect, and shine through. Will actors be replaced by AI versions of themselves? A pressing concern during the 2023 strikes. It’s still possible, but I point to the unstoppable parasocial draw of someone like Sydney Sweeney - a real-life person who is a paparazzi darling to the point where she was the biggest reason as many people watched that romcom with Glen Powell as they did.
What about AI-generated influencers, though? In this beautiful world that we’ve built for ourselves where companies want to pay as close to zero as possible for human services, it makes sense that if there’s a digital version of an influencer, that’s going to be a company’s preferred option. How does Laura perceive this threat?
“When it comes to anything in terms of my future in this career, I try my best not to stress. I have no control.”
“This could end tomorrow - and that's not just a figure of speech. This literally can end tomorrow. I could just be done tomorrow, or if Instagram goes down? Okay, bye. I don't have a huge following on TikTok or YouTube.”
Indeed, there are already a variety of hugely popular AI Instagram accounts that sell products and (fake) lifestyles. They’re invariably based on an idealized image of a young woman, and they all sell the idea of a different reality. Is that enough?
“There are some things that [AI] won't ever be able to do, like create community.”
That community has come for the content because it comes from the heart. As a result, Laura has been able to spend the last couple of years writing and performing her jokes full-time as her job - something that she finds hugely fulfilling as a process, but also the upper limit of her creative desires - she has no desire to “go to Hollywood, write a book, or start a podcast. None of that really interests [her].” The only thing missing from Laura’s life right now is co-workers. Her dream is “sitting around at a writer's table once a week.”
“All I want to do is write skits, and you just get funnier when other people are around you to up the joke, and up the joke, and up the joke.”
If jokes are what’s making Laura McGreen’s world go around, it’s fun (for me) to understand and acknowledge how and why that fits into the broader spectrum of running content that’s available to us, because there’s just so, so much out there.
Laura McGreen is Track & Field’s No.1 fan
When pushed on her favorite aspect of creating running content at the level she does, Laura talks about “the glamorous side.”
“Most people wouldn't even see this as glamorous - you have to be a real track nerd to understand this. The way that I get to interact with the professional runners is so top notch. It's so exciting. I am just their biggest fan, and I'm just doing everything I can to calm that down and act cool.”
“I got to go to Budapest for the World Championships last year, and I was in the mixed zone with the real print media reporters, who don't think influencers and content creators belong there. I can understand that to a certain degree, but I'm actually interviewing them as well. It's just for a different medium.”
Influencers catch a lot of heat from people for being shallow, creating disposable content, and only being there to peddle merchandise as a single cog in the vast machine of capitalism. The second part is true, but shallow? Not Laura. She speaks so fluently about her love of the sport and she talks with long-standing admiration as she reels off pro runners’ names - runners that she ran with at college (albeit at different speeds), and runners who now happily answer Laura’s DMs to collaborate on a skit.
It’s what we espouse, isn’t it? We want a variety of ways to consume high-quality content. You’re reading one of eight million running newsletters right now. This is like a four-page magazine feature. You probably listen to some of the eight million running podcasts as well. They allow for more nuance from the show host to be absorbed by the listener. Laura scripts 30-second comedy skits for Instagram. It’s eminently more digestible, but disposable? No way. Not when it’s being created with someone as intensely interested in running as Laura Green.
Now we’ve established that Laura McGreen is good, actually, what is she going to do with that remarkably polite running community that she’s been cultivating? It comes back to her love of the sport.
“Track & Field has such a long way to go in the U.S in terms of popularity, and I think one of the biggest missing pieces of the puzzle is storytelling. I'm not telling their stories in this long-form podcast but I'm showing their silliness and their personality.”
“I also know so much more about the sport than the everyday runner, and I want the everyday runner to know about these pros, so how can I bridge this gap? How can I make it more exciting? So that people aren't just watching track once every four years?”
We’ve seen it recently with a UFC-style beef between the two 1,500m track stars of the moment, Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr. The Norwegian and the Scot have been trading barbs on social media, and thus building their public personas to the point where I cannot wait to watch them race at the Olympics. Laura’s way is a little… nicer, and she cares less about the men’s side of the sport.
“I think - especially for women - we see this other side of this really intense, focused athlete, and we see, ‘Oh, they're a little bit more like me than I realize. I'm gonna root for them.’”
And if it does end tomorrow, it’s not that big a deal for Laura McGreen.
“I'll probably just go back to being a physical therapist. I have the luxury of having a backup plan that has nothing to do with this career, and AI can absolutely not replace that.”
Running Sucks Haiku of the Week
I put on a race.
I got some medals engraved.
Might do it again!
To celebrate six months of my run club here in Glendale, I put on a barely-announced 10k race, up and down Brand Boulevard. If nobody showed up, I would simply run it with my co-captain, Ezra, but there were 10 of us (!!), so I rode my bike both leading and sweeping the race. IT WAS VERY COOL.
Housekeeping
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Thanks for a look behind the scenes. I followed Laura for some time now, so it's really interesting to get to know some facettes of her.
Fun piece, Raz. Laura's content is a riot. Running needs more of that, and I'm here for it. Congrats on the race, too... My wife and I started a run club in Tacoma, Washington that became wildly popular. It was one of the most fulfilling, ripple-in-the-universe-creating things we've ever done.