The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media

Influencers, now a slowly fading cliché in the Internet’s tableau vivant, found success articulating the cult of personality, and marketing themselves as direct-to-consumer-goods. The shift away from this algorithmic surrender can be traced to the macro and micro “creator economies” spawned by the likes of Patreon, Substack, OnlyFans and even Cameo... See more

What has become more and more clear to the non-influencer social media user is that things aren’t what they seemed. Influencers aren’t out to “influence” their “followers” in a positive way — they’re looking to “influence” them to purchase material goods from brands that are willing to pay them enough to advertise. Influencers are more concerned wi... See more

Audience capture is an irresistible force in the world of influencing, because it's not just a conscious process but also an unconscious one. While it may ostensibly appear to be a simple case of influencers making a business decision to create more of the content they believe audiences want, and then being incentivized by engagement numbers to rem... See more

Audience capture is an irresistible force in the world of influencing, because it's not just a conscious process but also an unconscious one. While it may ostensibly appear to be a simple case of influencers making a business decision to create more of the content they believe audiences want, and then being incentivized by engagement numbers to rem... See more

To truly read as “authentic” according to internet studies scholar Crystal Abidin, influencers have to “actively juxtapose this stripped-down version of themselves against the median and normative self-presentations of glamour, to continually create and assign value to new markers—faults and flaws, failures and fiascos—to affirm the veracity of the

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When influencers can monetize, platforms benefit: