Influencer Brand Trips Out?

According to Temple University’s Dr. Jay Sinha, Gen Z, in particular, places more trust in micro-influencers than celebrities or even “professional” influencers because they’re “real people” who actually engage.

Hailey and her team took a page out of the well-trodden Trippin’ with Tarte-style brand trip playbook: create desire by limiting access. That strategy worked in the boom times of the last decade, but in our current era of economic anxiety and wealth inequality, it’s giving young people, to quote one Reddit commenter, “the absolute ick.”

Matilda Djerf is a prime example of an influencer-turned-business-owner-turned-human. As Ethan Price writes, “The role of the influencer today is to never fall, despite how hard she is pushed; she must remain pristine in her humanity, and therefore not human at all... The It Girl exists within the moral grey areas of life, but with the existence of... See more

Of course, Rhode’s beachside fantasy is far from an outlier. J.Crew’s recent Puglia activation and Reformation’s Ref-in-Residence getaways — as well as the booming resort pop-up economy that Bloomberg reported on last week — reflect how influencer marketing is evolving to be more immersive. Immersive, as a strategy, works! But against the backdrop... See more

Hosting a lavish brand trip after raising prices, owing to tariffs and the “global supply chain,” is not a great look, and if Rhode thought their fanbase wouldn’t notice this, they don’t know the Gen Z consumer as well as they thought they did.

Influencers are the physical embodiment of capitalism in human form; merely a vessel for consumerism to feel friendlier, girlier, and more bubble-wrapped (eco-friendly, vegan, and compostable, of course!).