For over a decade now, people have been spellbound by ‘influencers’ on social media — a tribe of people who endorse products and lifestyles that they claim they have personally benefitted from. What is now an industry with a global turnover of $21.1 billion, though, was not always intended to be a magic wand for marketing. It began fairly simply, with people sharing their everyday lives and routines on social media, often influencing others to do the same. But, as is often the case, the market smelt blood and enticed influencers to endorse products for a fee. Social media is now flooded with influencers telling people what to eat, wear, buy, watch, read and so on. Such is their sway over the consumption choices of their community of followers that they are billed to generate $199.6 billion in global revenues by 2032.
But it appears that the influencers have met their match in Newton’s third law. In the last year or two, the spell of the influencers has been on the wane owing to the rise of an equal and opposing force — the ‘de-influencers’. The only — conscientious? — goal of de-influencers seems to be to introduce an element of moderation to the mantra of mindless consumption. Thus, de-influencers strive to reveal concealed truths about the products that influencers want people to buy, urging consumers to carefully consider their purchases or even refrain from buying to save money. The de-influencers’ moral crusade comes with challenges. Not only do they not make money from social media but, worse, they also face legal hassles from irate companies resisting attempts at exposure: one de-influencer in India was issued a legal notice by the makers of a popular health drink because of the former’s attempt to publicly reveal the high sugar content in that product.
De-influencers are being hailed as the new knights in the battle against unethical products. They are being viewed as champions of ethics and principles — transparency and ecological consciousness, for instance — that are necessary to rid consumption of its warts. But it can also be argued that the phenomenon of de-influencing is just old wine in a new bottle. After all, de-influencers, too, aim to affect and alter lifestyle choices of their followers. In fact, many de-influencers have fallen prey to the market’s predatory instincts: some de-influencers have been known to post negative reviews of some products in a bid to promote their rivals. These anxieties notwithstanding, de-influencers definitely represent a new dimension of the modern culture of consumption. Widening their arc of influence could make consumers more aware of not only the authenticity of the products they want to buy but also the pitfalls of ceaseless consumption.
