When I say “normie,” I don’t mean anti-creator. I mean anti-performance. A normie can absolutely be on ShopMy. The difference isn’t whether there’s a link — it’s whether the link is the point. Normies lead with taste and say, “Hey, you might like this.” They don’t start with monetization and reverse-engineer a personality around it.

The Internet enabled unprecedented access to celebrities, and the celebrities who have done best on social media are those who have leaned into this access. Influence is no longer about being an elusive star on the red carpet; influence is about being intimately familiar and relatable.

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... See more