In the age of social media and its huge impact on popular culture around the world, the rise of the social media influencers has grown alongside it.
The role of the influencer has changed in the past years due to social shifts and current events. The COVID-19 pandemic brought rise to the new ‘relatable’ influencer.
The new influencer
In popular culture there have always been people that have influenced the general public about what to buy and consume. In the past this has been people like movie stars and athletes, but now with the rise of social media, these people with large amounts of influence are just regular people. And that’s what makes them likable.
The influencer or celebrity was once someone to look up to, with their exorbitant amounts of wealth, popularity and material luxuries. Now, we praise people like Julia Fox, who recently went viral on TikTok for her apartment tour which was a small, cluttered apartment littered with her son’s toys, minimal furniture and mundane kitchen. People were surprised by her humble living because it was normal, it looked like it could belong to anyone but it belonged to a celebrity, and people loved her for it.
Influencer loyalty
This new brand of influencer may be due to the impact of the pandemic or that people are tired of rich people showing off their overt wealth, especially in a time when a lot of people are struggling to get by. They want someone they can root for, to champion, and that person isn’t someone with private jets and fancy sports cars.
Influencers like Emma Chamberlain who have built their brand on being relatable, even though due to her social media following has become very financially successful over the years, she still maintains her relatability online. This could be due to her openness about her own mental health or her openness in general. This realness has helped her maintain this ‘every man’ quality about her which made her so successful in the first place.
Chamberlain made her start on Youtube as a teenager and has built a level of trust among her followers. They trust her opinion on clothes, culture, fashion, so much so that every one of her Instagram posts starts a new micro trend in seconds. This level of influence is very powerful, but took years to cultivate through trust and authenticity.
It seems that this want for authenticity is here to stay with the popularity of TikTok and the rise of the ‘real’ influencer.
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