Are you familiar with the concept of de-influencing? How about re-influencing?
De-influencing isn’t about the decreasing of influencers as the name suggests, but rather about giving bad reviews to products. This isn’t, however, the finger up to capitalism that it seems, but rather an opportunity to then re-influence by suggesting a BETTER product. This is how it was explained to me by a knowledgeable and patient person in The Unpublishable comment section:
Influencer Allana Davison created a YouTube video which had the term ‘#deinfluencing’ as a part of the thumbnail and the title of the video was ‘We Need to Talk About This’. In the video, Davison mentions that she has seen the trend but generally doesn’t talk negatively about products because it’s so personal. Like successful influencers do, Davis is honest (genuinely or not), and the audience responds positively to this, which is what the comments show us. This, knowingly or not, strengthens Davison’s connection with the audience, which comes in handy for selling products and maintaining community. This is not a slight towards Davison. She has successfully built a solid community using honesty as just one of the tools. Videos share elements of her life; work she’s had done etc. so Davison talking with her audience about de-influencing is not out of place.
Is it too far a stretch to say Jesus was the original influencer? Perhaps his disciples the blueprint for fandoms?
Last month, I wrote about the optimisation of self and being ‘that girl’. Earlier this week, I was presented with the above video on my YouTube homepage. I do not identify as a Christian. I was about to say I have no problems with religion, but that’s not entirely true. Yet, each to their own.
I am not sure how many of the influencers I follow are religious. I know of two. One of them says ‘Thank God’ and sounds like she means it. She also has a cross above a door in her house and a tattoo of a verse number (?) on her finger. The other includes bible reading as a part of her routine. As Christianity is not something I value in my life, I don’t seek out content that involves religion, and to be honest if there’s too much of it, I won’t watch again. It’s unclear to me if the algorithm is presenting me with ‘that girl’ content or testing the waters based on the other two channels I follow, which I just mentioned.
Ashley Hetherington (creator of the video above) says the purpose of her channel is ‘Here to help you grow in your faith and reach your God-given potential.’ Some of you may not be shocked that this content exists. Living in my own filter bubble, I am a little. When I think about it, I can see how it of course would be available, and people are able to commodify everything, why not their religion, but I think the fact it entered by sphere feels different. Like, whenever I see vlogs that involve whole families, I think ‘Oh yeah, people are into this.’
Hetherington’s ‘that girl’ video explores way to be the best version of yourself through a more theological lens, her morning and night routine are both, as she describes, ‘biblical’ and her vlogs have been renamed ‘holy girl diaries’. There is one with the title ‘modesty’ on the thumbnail, but I refuse to click on that one for the sake of my watch history. I did read the comments. One states, I really needed to see this. Ive been struggling with my relationship with God for a while. And also just broke up with boyfriend of 3+ years. I fell into temptation of pursuing other men dressing immodestly and lusting. And relaized how bad it is. You’re like an older sister teaching me while also reminding me of who God is️’
I wonder if she will begin to denounce other religions to promote other ones? It seems to be having an impact in the beauty space.
Would you like the soft life?
Another trend that seems to be having a moment is #softlife. According to this Bustle piece, it’s about going back to basics and enjoying what you can. Originally started by Brittany James to dismantle the idea that black women need to be strong, the trend, as trends do, has gotten legs. The comments on the original video encourage women to be the damsel in distress and embrace the more feminine side. There is a serious amount of social work being done here. I do wonder how long it will take for this movement to intercept (be appropriated?) with something like the ‘pilates princess’ era or even the aforementioned ‘that girl’.
I’m interested to look into trends overlapping but all I can find by my limited search is work on freshwater ecosystems. If anyone has any recommendations in this area (the overlap of trends, not eco systems), please let me know.