There was a time (prehistoric, if you ask anyone born after 2000) when “influencer” was practically a slur. It was the advent of the internet, a time when Myspace was making way for Facebook, magazine editors still ruled the roost, and celebrities were the only genetically-blessed humans called upon to sell a product. Fashion girlies, as they’d now be known, poured over magazines like the best of them, but were slowly yielding to the appeal of bloggers. Fast-forward a few years and those bloggers graduated from the .com to rule Instagram’s feed: faces of campaigns, founders of brands, arbiters of taste. But just as fast as they rose, the shine has begun to dull like an old ring left out in the sun. The algorithm is tired. And guess what? So are we.
At first, influencers felt like the antidote to sterile ads and vapid celeb endorsements. They felt real. Like a good friend recommending a cleanser that actually worked. But after a decade of #sponcon, dubious skincare routines, and a million brands soft-launching in stretchy sets and self-care soundbites, we’ve reached peak influence exhaustion. As the French would say, “Je suis fatigué.”
Influencers, once a live wire, have become white noise. Carousel posts pass unnoticed.
Sponcon is something to scroll past as your eyes glaze over. Branded endorsements blur into a sea of snooze-inducing sameness. The line between endorsement and earnestness? Almost imperceptible.
The influencers who once sold us serums alongside self-actualisation are slowly being edged out. Not because influence itself is obsolete, but because the mechanics of trust have changed. According to Vogue Business, the Instagram-born brand founder with a pastel grid and a polished product line is no longer moving the needle. And as Forbes notes, the meteoric rise of the relatable creator, the ones with day jobs, side hustles, and a lo-fi aesthetic, reflects a deeper truth: audiences aren’t anti-influence, they’re just done with the false theatrics of it all.
Welcome to the anti-influencer era.
The influence bubble is deflating
If there’s one thing we humans hate more than anything else, it’s to feel like we’re being deceived. We crave authenticity as much as the air we breathe. And increasingly, …
…we can sniff out when it’s missing. We are savvy, we know what a spawn-con looks like, and deceit feels even more treacherous when it’s dressed up as being genuine. According to Vogue Business, brands that built their identity around highly-curated Instagram founders are seeing diminishing returns, because audiences have grown weary of the polish, the sameness, the sense that it’s all been stage-managed. Meanwhile, Forbes reports a distinct shift toward creators with “day jobs and depth”, the kind who don’t pretend to be perfect, who speak plainly, and whose content isn’t dictated by PR cycles. In other words: people who feel real.
Oversaturation is another pressure point. There are too many faces, too many products, and too little discernment. Everyone’s an influencer now, and that makes influence… well, less influential. Consumers are no longer impressed by reach alone. The signs are everywhere. A glut of faces, filters, and recycled discount codes that blend into one long, muted scroll. Strategic partnerships now get side-eyed if they feel too broad, too bland, or too transactional.
And the symptoms of the burst bubble are everywhere. Fake reviews and filter scandals. One-size-fits-all gifting strategies that reek of cold-call desperation. Viral backlash from disingenuous collabs, like the influencer overload at NYFW. Audiences have peeked behind the curtain, the PR boxes, the affiliate links, the deals made in DMs, and they have questions. Who actually uses this? Who actually cares?
Welcome to the age of cultural fluency
Behold the next wave of influencer marketing. It’s subtler, slower, more steeped in substance. Cultural fluency, not clout, is the new currency. Rather than chase reach, smart brands are chasing relevance. They’re partnering with insiders: people who hold authority within their niche because they live and breathe the culture, not because of a staggering follower count. Think chefs, stylists, runners, designers, community leaders. People who carry social capital because they’ve earned it, not because they optimised a grid.
Think Salomon’s ongoing collaborations with trail runners and sneakerheads that feels more authentic than any big-name partnership. Ghia’s buzz that came from bartenders and moodboarders, not viral TikTokers. A24’s rollout of merch and marketing through meme pages, artist collabs, and niche creators that gave it resonance beyond the typical film promo playbook. Even Dries Van Noten leaned into tapping working creatives over the traditional roster of fashion influencers.
This is what cultural fluency looks like: earned relevance, not purchased reach.
Move from influence to involvement
To thrive in the anti-influencer era, brands need to move from influence to involvement:
Stop looking for influencers. Start looking for insiders. The people worth betting on aren’t always in the front row. They’re often the ones shaping culture behind the scenes — stylists, editors, community builders, curators.
Replace “reach” metrics with “relevance” metrics. A smaller, more dialled-in audience with genuine engagement beats a disengaged mass every time.
Co-create, don’t just feature. Involve collaborators from the ground up. Let them shape the product, the process, the message.
Invest in relationships, not just impressions. The best partnerships take time. Build with people who understand your brand, rather than just post mindlessly about it.
Prioritise contextual alignment over follower count. If your campaign could work with anyone, it’s not working hard enough.
We’ll never inhabit a world without influence. From Cleopatra anointing herself with rare oils to Princess Diana in bike shorts, cultural cues have always been passed down from aspirational figures to their followers. But what’s shifting now is how, and where, that influence accrues.
Like the bloggers who dethroned glossy magazines, or the kids of Tumblr who rewrote fashion codes, today’s anti-influencer movement isn’t about rejection as much as it is readjustment. This is a decentralised model of influence that privileges genuine alignment over tired affiliation, community capital over algorithmic clout.
In the end, the question isn’t whether influence still matters. It’s: influence from whom, and for what? Brands who get this are building deeper, smarter, more culturally literate ways to move through the world. And, as both brand builders and culturally-savvy consumers ourselves, we are here for it.
