Or has it just changed shape?
There was a time (prehistoric, if you ask anyone born after 2000) when “influencer” was practically a slur. It was the advent of the internet, a time when Myspace was making way for Facebook, magazine editors still ruled the roost, and celebrities were the only genetically-blessed humans called upon to sell a product. Fashion girlies, as they’d now be known, poured over magazines like the best of them, but were slowly yielding to the appeal of bloggers. Fast-forward a few years and those bloggers graduated from the .com to rule Instagram’s feed: faces of campaigns, founders of brands, arbiters of taste. But just as fast as they rose, the shine has begun to dull like an old ring left out in the sun. The algorithm is tired. And guess what? So are we.
At first, influencers felt like the antidote to sterile ads and vapid celeb endorsements. They felt real. Like a good friend recommending a cleanser that actually worked. But after a decade of #sponcon, dubious skincare routines, and a million brands soft-launching in stretchy sets and self-care soundbites, we’ve reached peak influence exhaustion. As the French would say, “Je suis fatigué.”
Influencers, once a live wire, have become white noise. Carousel posts pass unnoticed.
Sponcon is something to scroll past as your eyes glaze over. Branded endorsements blur into a sea of snooze-inducing sameness. The line between endorsement and earnestness? Almost imperceptible.
The influencers who once sold us serums alongside self-actualisation are slowly being edged out. Not because influence itself is obsolete, but because the mechanics of trust have changed. According to Vogue Business, the Instagram-born brand founder with a pastel grid and a polished product line is no longer moving the needle. And as Forbes notes, the meteoric rise of the relatable creator, the ones with day jobs, side hustles, and a lo-fi aesthetic, reflects a deeper truth: audiences aren’t anti-influence, they’re just done with the false theatrics of it all.
Welcome to the anti-influencer era.
Continue reading on our Substack, Public Opinion.
