Babes, are you OK? You’re barely deinfluencing.
The year is 2019. Someone breaks their silence. Tati Westbrook says “Bye Sister” in a tell-all YouTube video to James Charles. A whole new saga that eclipses Twilight’s, begins. At one point, it feels like tides turn, the Earth stops spinning and the whole world breaks its dimension.
Oh my gosh, time and place – who remembers when beauty Youtubers, influencers and gurus were bona fide celebrities? Sipping tea on the sun porch and it spills. It might not be cinema to Martin Scorsese but it is to so many – surely something Nicole Kidman would explain at AMC venues.
Enter 2023 and the new era of “deinfluencing” where the (beauty) influencers’ industry is hanging by a thread. Their reputation is in tatters, and their quest to reach celebrity status is being challenged. What is it all about?
What is deinfluencing?
The list of new terms popping up once in a while is getting longer, from quiet quitting, millennial pause, Gen Z’s shake to goblin mode and core-core. The Oxford Dictionaries team is taking notes. Deinfluencing is the latest buzzword crawling its way into TikTok vortex of things and pop culture. Everyone and their mothers are throwing their hats into the ring and writing ten different analysis pieces about it. Buckle up.
As the name suggests, deinfluencing is all about encouraging people to avoid impulse purchases and think twice before buying any products. The hashtag is currently racking up 122 million views on TikTok and not showing any sign of slowing down. All brands, consumers and influencers head towards TikTok as one top shop. It’s a thriving marketplace where you can buy from a giant two-litre BPA-free bottle to high-end fashion dupes with the delivery of fewer than three days. TikTok users spent $2.3 billion on the app in 2021, an increase of a whopping 77% over the $1.3 billion it scored in 2020. It’s a viral spending frenzy out here, therefore, a “lucrative platform” for creators and influencers.
But people are now thinking thoughtfully about what influencers on TikTok have to say whose, sometimes, entire job is to convince us to make a purchase. Gen Zs and millennials continue to reject the idea of capitalism, consumerism and the cult of TikTok products. The deinfluencing and “anti-haul” trend is the latest attempt to prevent the surplus in consumption.
Is it what it seems, though?
Some people might argue that deinfluencing is just another trick of capitalism, or Rolling Stones calls it “a trend selling the same bullshit with a new label”. When influencers try to tell you not to buy something, but to purchase another product that is “so much better” or “half the price” instead – because they are more sustainable or environmentally – not much exactly has been solved. It’s another deception sold. It still encourages consumerism at the crux of it. Some people label it as a new form of greenwashing, too – it’s like “preaching the values of sustainability while still promoting consumption.” TikTok is now the most popular influencer marketing channel with 56% of brands using it for influencer marketing, jumping ahead of Instagram (51%) for the first time, and well ahead of Facebook (42%) and YouTube (38%). With more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, you do the math when it comes to product recommendations and purchases.
But the influencer industry has never been financially better. Research company Kantar found that almost half (44%) of Generation Z has made a purchase decision based on a recommendation from a social influencer, compared with 26% of the general population. The industry is expected to grow to approximately $21.1 billion in 2023, but facing stricter scrutiny more than ever (probably only second to Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher’s red carpet chemistry).
When everything manages to be in and out of fashion concurrently, is deinfluencing harbouring hope for the industry that is already losing its credibility?
The answer is seldom cut and dried. We can hope that it’s heading in the right direction even though there needs to be a lot of footwork to tiptoe the line. At least we’re heading somewhere. Fashion and beauty industries have been notoriously famous for fostering overconsumption and creating environmental issues. Shush! Is that Shein? The numbers are also not lying – for example, the $532 billion dollar beauty industry is implicitly linked to other industries that pollute the earth, and is found to contribute 120 billion units of packaging and 1 billion tons of CO2 a year. Forbes points out that 79% of beauty consumers have doubts about whether to trust the industry’s sustainability claims; therefore, anyone with a genuine attempt to be more sustainable, reducing over-consumption and consumerism should get a pat on the back.
It shouldn’t be just products review, it should be about providing people with knowledge of how to be more sustainable: mix and match your wardrobe, recycle, maintain and take care of things. Tyra Banks is rooting for you, and we’ve been rooting for that. But where does influencer marketing sit in this current economy and culture? Well, culture is a special place. People are now fed up with filters more than ever – Facetune is shaking. For example, Norway and the UK are proposing and passing laws that make it illegal for influencers to hide when a paid-post on their social media is retouched. The whole pay-to-play model is broken. It should be about genuine connection and community building. Zoe Scaman, one of the most prominent voices in this space, says that brands should focus on a community-building strategy or a “peer-to-peer, participative players model”. When brands and influencers understand the very thing of human connection, they shall succeed.
There’s nothing wrong with keeping up with a shiny new term and there’s nothing wrong with influencers breaking their silence – which might or might not be an old phenomenon polished and marketed in a TikTok fashion. It’s wrong to not spend more than one minute thinking critically about such terms, though. But what do I know? I have a seven-second attention span.
