A coterie of Australian influencers are taking a particular corner of Instagram by storm, one expensive oven at a time

Name: Murfers.

Age: Varies.

Appearance: Tanned, toned, surrounded by children on a pristine beach in the golden haze of a setting sun.

Whereabouts do you find such creatures? Byron Bay, Australia. Alternatively, on Instagram.

And they’re human, are they? “Murfer” is just a portmanteau of “mum” and “surfer”. Really, they’re micro-influencers.

What does that mean? It means they spend a lot of time posting pictures of their gorgeous, beach-based lives, and earning money from it.

And they all live in Byron Bay? Yes. According to a Vanity Fair article, they are a “a cross-tagging, cross-promoting, mutually amplifying, audience-sharing group of friends living, loving, working and posting aspirational lifestyle content in a highly Instagrammable paradise”.

I hate them. You are not alone, but it is working for them. The Instagram mums of Byron are brands, exploiting themselves and their families to push either their own products or those of select sponsors.

How are they organised? Do they have a ringleader? If they do, it would be Courtney Adamo, an American mother of five and the founder of the Babyccino parenting website, who moved to Australia with her husband two-and-a-half years ago.

So she is the most major micro-thingy? She is a “mid-tier family lifestyle micro-influencer”, according to VF, with 250,000 Instagram followers, all of whom hanker after her life, her hair, her jumpers and her kitchen.

It reminds me of the Stepford Wives. It is a modern, in no way less scary version, where every picnic basket you produce must not only be perfect, but also professionally photographed and tagged online before you eat.

What if I just want crisps and beer? There are no crisps in murfer world. There is plenty of kombucha, but no crisps.

What do the critics of murfer world say? They say that murfers are promoting an essentially unachievable dream: the effortlessly elegant, brand-building, stay-at-home mum with a spotless house and a £10,000 oven.

I don’t want any of that, except the oven. Which I would then sell to buy medicine. To be a successful murfer like Adamo, it helps if you’re pretty rich in the first place.

So it’s all fake? The “slow life” they’re pushing is certainly a myth; they’re all extremely busy.

What about Byron Bay? Is that, at least, the laid-back paradise that they make out? Here’s a fun fact: Byron Bay is known as the anti-vaxxer capital of Australia.

Do say: “I want the look, but without the measles.”

Don’t say: “I’m feeling a bit micro-influenced, but that’s because I’ve been micro-dosing all week.”