Social media influencers have been around for some years now. De-influencers are a more recent trend, really just in the last year or so, but they are enjoying quite a moment recently.
As influencers make millions of dollars promoting goods and services they probably don't even like or use, and the majority of corporations now routinely include a healthy budget for such online influencing costs, a backlash was always going to happen. Many consumers are becoming disillusioned and skeptical with the barrage of competing spending imperatives. Enter the de-influencer.
De-influencers promote less consumption, more financial responsibility, more honest product reviews (and often negative ones), and generally a more minimalist approach to life. Often, they will propose more affordable alternatives to pricey name-brand products which, in a period of belt-tightening, is a timely move. It's about making people aware of just how influenced they are, and how insidious and sophisticated influencing has become.
However, it's not like influencing is going to just go away any time soon - the Harvard Business Review estimates it is a $16 billion industry, and that's an old 2022 figure - but it's good to know that there are people out there doing something to counter its most insidious effects.
Of course, some of these de-influencers are also starting to promote competing products, and it's probably only a matter of time before significant numbers of them get co-opted into an influencing business of their own, but so it goes.
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