Deinfluencing Highlights How Little Brands Know About Social Media
Almost a decade after fashion brands harnessed the power of influencers— some are flipping the script.
“Deinfluencing,” the act of encouraging friends and followers to not buy that new trending thing— has been a topic illuminating screens the last few weeks. Like most viral, pithily-named trends of late, it’s been driven largely by TikTok, picked up by major news publications, and thus launched into our cultural-vernacular. All this attention has many speculating. Could be the end of influencer culture as we know it?
Deinfluencing isn’t a separate act from influencing.
In reality, the idea behind “deinfluencing” isn’t new, nor is it ushering in a new era of what influencing means. Around 2009 fashion brands began to notice their well-funded relationships with magazines were no longer leading the cultural conversation. Then emerged the Blogger, individuals with no-skin-in-the-game giving their two cents on everything from trends to brands themselves—and the world took notice.
To summarize, the adoption of influencers gave brands a more intuitive feeling way to capitalize on social media, while newly minted content creators sought ways to monetize their carefully curated aesthetics. “Real people” seemed to be the salve, until they weren’t. Realistically, influencers should be oscillating between influencing and deinfluencing often and honestly.
While the majority of influencing happens online, digital platforms have real-world consequences.
Once brands realized how much power influencers held, and just how lucrative their audiences could be, the content creation boom kicked into high gear—a scheme where both creators and social platforms share a percentage of ad revenue. And as broader culture weathers its first viral storm in what it means to influence and be influenced, it’s worth noting that conversations around skepticism and discernment will only continue to grow as we dive further into Web3.0.
While nearly all influencing (and now, deinfluencing) happens online, let’s make one thing clear: the digital and physical worlds are both reality. The behaviors of brands, influencers, and individuals have real consequences. People are turning a more judicious eye towards who they follow, purchase from, and trust. In WTF 2023, our yearly trend report, we unpack what it means for brands when culture is experiencing a trust recession en masse.
Don’t be fooled, self-aware content creators who are encouraging you to cease cyclical trend-purchasing have not reached a higher plane, we’re a few more TikTok trends away from mixed-reality utopia. For example, part of deinfluencing seems to be tied directly to dupe culture. Meaning, an influencer may earnestly tell you not to purchase a $50 foundation but will instead route you to the cheaper $15 version.
One scroll forward, two scrolls back.
Regardless of where you stand on deinfluencing, it’s shedding light on overconsumption and online-integrity
The way brands and influencers interact with each other may change, and they may not. Some brands may see this as a reason to further vet the influencers they choose to work with in the hopes of ensuring positive consumer perception. Others may see this as an opportunity to shift their communication strategies and take a more curated approach to how they’re serving products to people who are growing more intentional with their habits. As the pendulum swings, this ultimately isn’t a conversation about influencing vs. deinfluencing. Rather, it’s about the tension between the two points— this tension highlights our uneasy relationship with consumption.
Until recently, the majority of us have turned a blind eye to the commercial function of algorithms and how content creators are pawing at our wallets. Dance challenges and get-ready-with-me headbands seem benign at first glance, but they effectively take the edge off the inherently predatory function of social platforms.
So, what now?
Moving forward, we can expect content creators and the brands they align themselves with to face increased scrutiny. We can expect new mediums of “realness” to emerge as current platforms lose relevance and deflate. In today’s hyper-critical context, we absolutely can expect brands to run out of credible ambassadors. In a world of eroding trust, brands should put some thought against taking stock of, if not mustering up their own credibility by engaging with culture and ideologies of today.
Brands were once one-way conversations with consumers. Over the last decade networks of trust have developed by way of peer-to-peer review, mass adoption of reality-based entertainment, and yes—influencing too. One-way conversations no longer work, and trust networks are degrading. Instead of relying on conduits to connect with people, brands must rely on themselves to change their approach.
Anna Pompilio
Senior Cultural Strategist
Building dialogue between your brand and people is tough, especially during a trust-recession—but it’s not impossible. We have methodology, new tools, and fresh practices designed to help brands connect with culture in our annual report, WTF 2023. If you’d like access to the report, or to be notified about upcoming invite-only training sessions, roundtables, or workshops, then sign up here. No spam, we promise!