Today, Explained - The influencer recession

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

An oversaturated internet filled with slop has made influencing a lot harder. It's left creators and brands scrambling for ways to regain our attention. This episode was produced by Ariana Aspuru, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King. Influencers and crew seen at Black Bear Pictures "Spa Weekend" Burbank Southwest Airlines Spa Retreat. Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Black Bear Pictures via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some surveys of Gen Z have found that more than half of them, when asked what they want to do for a living, say, influencer. So I'm going to do my game day makeup routine using all of my favorite Mabelian products. Look how unreal the packaging is. It's actual perfection. I'm literally glowing. It's a job, and for some people, it can be and has been a very good job. If you look at influencing at its sort of peak when it really matured in the late 2010s, what you saw was, and what kids saw was, like, people that were getting really, really, really, just by like having fun with their friends and being themselves. Like what kid doesn't want to do that?

But thanks to changing trends online, a certain type of middle class influencer is vanishing. It's become harder to make a living. Creator Jacqueline Hill sums it up like this. I feel like I get punished and penalized for not showing up and creating all the time. Coming up on today, explained from Vox, influencer recession. Hear that? It's your money calling. It wants a promotion.

Elevate your savings with the Scotia high-interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. You're listening to Today Explained. My name's Rebecca Jennings.

I'm a features writer at New York Magazine. You recently wrote that we are in the midst of an influencer recession. What do you mean? What is this? So it is a lot harder to be an influencer now than it was even a couple years ago. There is simply too much competition. You're competing against people that have armies of people clipping videos and setting them out onto social media platforms and stealth marketing campaigns. And there's really no way to break through the noise unless you are doing something really out of the box, which is a lot of times that means rage baiting or making such amazing content that no one can possibly compete with it.

I found this, like, finally just now, I was like, why don't I check and see what hair spread this is? Because it's really good. I found this on my dresser. I think I put fucking wood shalak for woodwork in my fucking hair. Please tell me this comes out. The idea of me being representative for the state of California came to me in a dream, in a vision, if you will. It's so vivid to me. And the reason this matters is because we are spending so much more time scrolling our phones than we ever have.

The stuff that we watch used to be, like, TV. shows, music, movies. Now it's just like regular people making content. So like the stuff that really breaks through our algorithms changes the way we interact with the world. It changes the way we behave, what we buy, how we think, everything. And so the kinds of people that can make careers making content really matters. The problem is that for the average middle class influencer, that economy is getting a lot more tricky, just like the regular economy is getting a lot trickier for a lot of us. Okay, so what exactly happened? Okay, so right now, influencers are having to compete with absolutely everything, celebrities too, regular people

too. Like everyone knows the feeling of posting online and just like, I feel like no one saw this. Like I feel like I'm shouting into a void. Jesus Christ, there's like three people that are seeing on both apps. No one is seeing my posts at the minute. These three things are making your content absolutely flop and I see so many people doing this and I just shake my head. So does anyone actually see my videos on here or am I just posting for nothing, bro. If y'all see my videos, like, just comment, I see you. And if not, it is what it is, man. And a lot of, like, established influencers with millions of followers are feeling the same thing. And so a lot of that is because the internet has so much more content

than it used to, even a couple years ago. I think AI is a huge part of that. You know, you feel like you're online and everything is just, like, slop. There's just, like, mountains of this that you have to push through. And at the same time, you also have, you know, the world's biggest pop stars, movie studios, podcasts, they are paying, you know, armies of people on Discord to flood social media with clips of them so that maybe like a couple of those videos will go viral and break through the noise and show up on new people's for you pages. It's a lot harder than it used to be. If you're not part of that sort of just like really like tiny, tiny percentage of things that will break through and end up on someone's page, then you're kind of just stuck shouting into a void.

You profiled an influencer named Audrey Peters. Tell me about what happened with her and what she learned about all this. Yeah. So Audrey Peters is an influencer that got big in the early 2020s. What your go-to drink at a pregame says about you, let's do it. My ranking of hot male foreign accents, let's do it. She was doing this sort of like upper middle class comedy videos about New York City life. My favorite dinner spots in Manhattan?

Let's do it. The zodiac signs as New York City neighborhoods, let's do it. kicking this off with the most obvious pairing, the Upper East Side, and Torres, because they have the best taste and are also the most materialistic, so obviously. And then after a couple years, like, the joke started to feel just really stale and she wasn't, like, she wasn't seeing the same kind of engagement as she used to. Then she pivoted to something that she knew really well, which was luxury. And in 2022, she said, like, luxury fashion really blew up. I know I'm late. I've been off the grid in Mexico detoxing. But did you really think I would deprive you of a luxury Christmas hall la Adla Adre Peters?

But I finally decided it was time to crack and I got the Valentino feather jeans. And I went all in and got the matching jacket to go with it. And then like all things, you know, as soon as one thing takes off on social media, then more and more people start to do it. And then it just starts to feel a little bit passe. And so she said around 24, that's when like her views just started to go down again. And she realized like she's just going to have to pivot forever because this is the way the internet works. Like when one thing works, everyone follows it. And then it gets boring after a while.

So right now what's really working is rage bait, which I think most. people on the internet are very familiar with, which is a creator making something that they know will either be misconstrued or enrage people or drive comments to like the lowest common denominator. And so the series she started was, so this is everything that I'm dooredashing to myself in a day. To the average person, this is really extreme. This is an extreme use of money and plastics and... What is she ordering? So she's...

Her thing is, she's like... Because I'm lazy, I hate cooking, and because I can. So one... And she told me, she was like, okay, I'm gonna order Starbucks today because everyone gets so mad at me when I order Starbucks, because I live three blocks from a Starbucks. This is an iced latte with almond milk, two pumps of vanilla, vanilla cream, cold foam, and cinnamon, and this was $21 and $20. Cheers!

And the funny part, this is like the opening of my story, but like, she makes this video with the Starbucks. And then she's like, actually, don't need this anymore. Do you want it? And I'm just like, but yeah. And I mean, she knows what she's doing. She is rage baiting with those videos. But it has been a real success for her. She partnered with DoorDash. And so now she's making money from DoorDash now to keep doing that series. And the idea for it came from a conversation with her and our manager about like, what about your life can be sort of like mine to get people to watch and react? And she said the reaction was like, everyone's calling my manager and me being like, oh, my God, we're seeing the comments. Are you okay? And she was like, no, this is exactly what I wanted. So it's all part of this like thing that everybody kind of does now because that's what you have to do to get attention. Okay. So this thing where I go online and I see an influencer doing something that I'm like feels completely out of control. And I'm like, oh my God. That is deliberate.

Of course. Oh, my gosh. I think a lot of children. Tadwife content, very deliberately rage bait, even though many of them won't really admit that. My husband mentioned that he was craving Coca-Cola the other day, and since we were out of soda, I decided to make him some today. Yes, I'm a Tad-wife. And I have Tad-Wife duties. We're going to the grocery store. A lot of content where, you know, it's like a hot take or something, or they mispronounce a word,

or they, you know, like, there's so many ways to rage bait that it's almost boring at this point. And I like to think that we're sort of moving past the rage bait world. And I think that's the other part of this, which is while we also have this very, like, lowest common denominator rage bait content really blowing up. At the same time, there's this real desire for actually educational, actually entertaining, actually niche novel content that is like genuinely compelling. And so that's why you see so many creators now launching substacks to be like, hey, I'm actually like very intellectual. I actually have things to say that you can't just, you know, scroll.

past that you actually have to take the time and maybe it's behind a paywall, so maybe it feels a little bit elevated, to sort of build this sort of, you know, walled garden of intellect in a world of slop on the feed. We on today's point of done coverage about lots of types of entry-level jobs drying up in the American economy. Some people speculate that has to do with AI. Some people speculate it has to do with older workers hanging on longer. Some people say, you know, the economy is just broadly shifting.

Is this another entry-level job? Is this another job career that Gen Z wants that runs the risk of just going away on them? 100%. Wow. This is just like everything, it is so much harder to start out as an influencer than it used to be because of all these reasons that we're talking about. And I don't think that's like a good thing. I don't think it's a good thing that, you know, things are more difficult than they used to be, or that you have to sort of sell your soul in this kind of gross way.

by making content that you know is a little bit icky or that, you know, that you have to gatekeep all this stuff because the only way to make money is that you have to like have subscribers willing to pay for it, which is way harder than it used to be also. So yeah, it's, you know, just like it's harder to get in as a, you know, legal aid or, you know, a copywriter, it's also harder to get in as an influencer. Where does that leave us, do you think? with a lot of disillusioned young people that are used to a lot of rejection in their lives and maybe sort of turn towards their role as like passive consumer, passive scroller,

who is just a little bit more cynical about the way things are. And they would be right to think so because it is art and it is worse. Rebecca Jennings is a writer for New York Magazine. And hey, she said something very interesting in this interview. So that's why you see so many creators now launching substacks to be like, hey, I'm actually like very intellectual. That made us wonder about the intellectual influencers. Who are they and what are they up to? That's coming up next.

Support for today's plane comes from Quince. The seasons are changing, I'm told, and that may make it a good time to assess and refresh. That doesn't mean you need to fill your closets with a bunch of junk. Take it from Quince. It's all about cultivating a wardrobe that has fewer but better ice. latems, Quince specializes in everyday staples that work harder, such as their ultra-soft, organic cotton teas and premium Mongolian cashmere sweaters. They're versatile, timeless, and transitioned seamlessly from a casual workday to dinner out. If you're hanging on to the same

worn-out basics, Quince makes it easy to upgrade. They have premium denim and tailored chinos from just $60 with the kind of perfect fit, structure, and high-quality fabrics you'd expect from a luxury designer brand. Here's Claire White. I've gotten a lot of great pieces from Quince. especially for the warmer weather. They have a lot of 100% linen items that are just perfect all day long. They have such great pieces. Upgrade your everyday.

Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash explain. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK 2. That's QINCE.com slash explain. Support for today's show comes from Vanguard. For the financial advisors listening, Vanguard has a message.

for you. So do I. Hello, financial advisors. Their message, finding real value in fixed income, isn't always easy. The bond market is enormous, complex, and often far from transparent. Some firms may steer you toward a few headline grabbing funds and leave it at that. Vanguard takes a different approach. Vanguard's bond offerings are built around institutional quality standards, and for them, that's more than a marketing phrase. advisors can access a broad lineup of fixed income solutions. That includes more than 80 bond funds managed by a global team of over 200 sector specialists. So if you're looking to give your client's consistent results, year in and year out,

you can go see the record for yourself at vanguard.com slash audio. That's vanguard.com slash audio. All investing is subject to risk, you guys. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributors. Support of the show comes from Apple News Plus. Apple News Plus has everything you're into. Newswise, of course, all in one place. Over 500 publications covering the topics that matter most to you.

I think you can even find Vox in there. Thousands of recipes from celebrated food publications around the world. Local news from all 50 states. Heck yeah. Sports coverage from across the globe. Heck yeah. Audio stories that can take you anywhere. Love that.

And daily puzzles. Not my thing. Exclusive to Apple News Plus. All of it curated just for you. new subscribers try it for free for one month at news. Apple slash learn terms apply. Beauty today explained. I'm Noelle King. We're back with Lucy McGuire.

Lucy's a features director at Vogue Business. All right. So in the first half of the show, we were talking to our colleague Rebecca Jennings about how it's becoming harder and harder to make a living as an influencer. And she said something that got us sort of fascinated, which is that there is a certain type of influencer who is doing well now. And that is an intellectual influencer. Who are they? What's going on here?

So I think there's a few factors at play here, but one of the main contributes to this is AI. We are faced with so much AI slop now on social media and faced with a lot of meaningless content. And so I think audiences are really gravitating towards content that holds meaning. And these intellectual influences, you know, whether they're film buffs.

It's the best move you ever made. Are you ready to do your letterbox four favorites? Four favorite films. We're laying in on you. Whoa! Whether they're from books, and they're recommending literature you should read. It is a hot girl reading summer. I have read a lot of books.

Eight books that I ate down for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They really have kind of offline pursuits and interests that they bring online that people want to be a part of. Okay, very cool. So give me some examples. You said books, you said films. Who are we talking about and what are they flogging or what are they drawing our attention to? So I'd say that the most powerful example right now is Jack Edwards. So he's a literary influencer. He's a book talk influencer.

You may have seen him the other day actually because he did an interview with Zendaya for the press junket of The Odyssey. Well, Zendaya, I have to ask you, what is your required reading? What are the books you think everyone should read? And she recognised him straight away and was like, I have followed your YouTube for quite a while,

have given me many book recommendations. Zendaya, you can't say that. So he goes online, he recommends literature for people. He's got a good reads account as well that people follow him on. And I'd say that he is kind of the prime example. And what we're seeing at Vogue Businesses, you know, brands want a piece of this pie. So Jack, for example, has worked a lot with Valentino.

You see him at runway shows. That would have been unheard of. You know, a few years ago having a kind of book influencer at a runway show just wouldn't have happened. But it just shows that people are really looking for meaning from their content. Do a leaper. Do a peep. She seems like she fits in this mold. I launched a podcast, which I love because it gives me the opportunity to speak one to one with some of my favorite authors.

I read as much as time allows. And while some of the books I love become book club titles, others, remain private passions. I'm a reader who loves to be immersed in a novel, and I mean really deeply in it. It's quite funny because people do say that it's performative, and we had the whole performative male phenomenon as well, where men were kind of reading outside on the pavement.

But I do think, you know, the stars like us want to do things that are meaningful. You know, Duelap is a big pop star, maybe that doesn't hold as much kind of intellectual power, so she's kind of broadening her scope and being like, yeah, you know what? I actually, in my spare time, do go offline. I do pick up a book and I'm going to share that with you.

So I think people are interested in it. I mean, obviously some people criticize the approach, but I think a lot of people really engage with their recommendations and her content as well. When you and I and other people who are watching the influencers online watch this stuff, what is it that we want to get out of it? Is it just like, oh, here's a book recommendation from somebody whose name and face I know? I think the key thing is that we all feel like we're constantly being sold to right now. We actually did a study earlier this year with Gen Z, and the main takeaway from it was that they feel like social media is mindless and that they feel like they're just being sold to it all the time.

Like everyone's an influencer and everybody's selling. I think it's interesting to zoom in on Gen Z when we're talking about how culture is moving in this way because a, you know, book talk, film talk, all of these intellectual influencer crazes are proliferating on TikTok. And as we know, the majority of TikTok users are Gen Z with an increasing cohort being Gen Alpha as well. So A, you know, Gen Z are the ones that are consuming a lot of this culture. But B, Gen Z are the ones also driving culture. We found again and again that the younger people in the household are the ones who are driving brand awareness, influencer awareness. So they're the ones who are showing this content and sharing this content and talking about this content around the dinner table. So I think it's important, you know, when we're having these conversations to really zoom in on young people and why they love intellectual influencers right now.

I know you're tired of just doom scrolling without any purpose. So here are some influencers that I love that generally make a difference in my physical and mental health. I'm trying to consume less brain-wrought content. And so these are some of my favorite creators on this app that intellectually stimulate or inspire me or just add value to my life. In today's essay, we're going to be talking about how to build an intellectual life. And what also is really interesting about Gen Z, of course, is their spending power. They might have cultural influence, but also they haven't expected spending power of 12 trillion by 2030. That's according to a 2025 report from the Bank of America.

So not only are they driving culture, but also they are going to be driving the performance of a lot of businesses looking ahead. Tell me more about what Gen Z told you guys in this study. What were you asking and what did you find that distinguishes Gen Z as a generation? So the really interesting thing was the idea of friction. So they feel like we've now entered this world where shopping, social media, everything is completely frictionless. And so they've kind of lost the thrill of the chase. So we found that a huge majority of them, you know, no longer feel like shopping is an event. they actually have a lot of doom and guilt because they kind of do it mindlessly and then regret it later.

So my favourite start from the study is that 72% of the Gen Zs we surveyed said they would rather own a Walmart working than an Hermes Birkin. Now a Walmart working is kind of a dupe of an Hermes Burkin, the most coveted luxury handbag that you can own that retells for in excess of $10,000. A Walmart working is a dupe that you can get for much, much less than that, but looks kind of similar design-wise, has a similar size. the materials look the same from far away. Real Birken bag, the real Birken bag that people are buying, they're only buying those bags because it is a display of wealth and like a class status symbol.

You're just buying that for the label, for the status. I just like the way Birken's look, but even if I could afford a $10,000 plus dollar bag, I would never spend that much money on a bag. And I just think it's really funny that Gen Z's, you know, it's kind of tongue-in-cheek

that they would rather spend their money elsewhere on experiences and on their daily luxuries like their matcher than save up their life-saving to buy a luxury handbag. I think it shows us a lot about where their taste is at right now and how they perceive luxury today. That is super interesting. Do you think that that is just part of being young? Like, I'm a millennial, and I remember the whole wrap on millennials was like, millennials want experiences, they don't want stuff. It sounds like you're saying something similar, except I don't know how many millennials knew what a burkin was when we were their age.

Like, I don't remember knowing about things that were that fancy. What do you think is distinct about Gen Z? Or do you think this is just what it means to be young? I think with Gen Z, you know, they're extremely aware of brands. And actually, you know, they're more aware just of culture than we were as millennials. I'm a millennial too. You know, because of short-phone video, because of platforms like TikTok, they're seeing the same content that people of all ages are seeing.

And they're so aware of luxury culture and, you know, celebrities, and what brands they're wearing. But I think that they also see a lot of content online that kind of questions the value of luxury goods. So when the tariffs came in in the US this last year, there were loads of videos from factories in China claiming to be the manufacturers of luxury goods and saying that they make the bags for $50.

And it's these brands who are hiking up the prices. And whether they were true or not, whether the claims were true and all these videos were authentic, they went so viral on TikTok with young people kind of being like, yeah, we're validated. This isn't worth the price. And we're going to spend our money on other things.

I will never buy a designer bag off the shelf retail price. Never, ever, ever. That you're buying a luxury brand out of theater. You're buying it to show people to put on a costume of wealth and to put on a costume that you're of a certain social class and to put on a costume that allows you a certain amount of like social currency. And so I think, you know, the difference is that they have so much more information at their fingertips. And whether it's true or not, they really jump on the bandwagon of the idea that luxury isn't worth.

it. You know, underpinning all of this is always going to be the fact that we do live in capitalist economies, right? And so companies are going to want to find ways to make money off of people. If we're shifting toward, it's cool to be an influencer who talks about books or other intellectual pursuits. Who makes money and how? Well, the influencers made money through brand deals and a lot of brands are trying to cash in on this more intellectual economy, let's call it. A good example I mentioned earlier, Valentino is working with book talks Jack Edwards, who's kind of the king of literary influence right now.

Also, Meamu is, you know, tapping into intellectual pursuits. They have a book club. They also have a film night where the spotlight women directors and they invite local communities. So actually, you know, brands are really like ploughing money into this. And we actually just published a story-on-vode business about ballet and how ballet is emerging as kind of an unlikely new opportunity for fashion. It's obviously been tied to it forever, you know, Coco Chanel was outfitting the ballet back in her day.

But we're seeing more and more brands invest in ballet patronage, invest in ballet events, work with ballet dancers in campaigns. Because again, it's an intellectual pursuit that's kind of hard-earned in a world where anything can be generated and online things are quite meaningless. Something like ballet that requires years and years of work is something that brands want to attach themselves to. It's kind of a refined pursuit. So yeah, I would say the money's coming from the brands and these intellectual influences

are really cashing in. Is there something, this makes me all feel, a little bit optimistic and I'm not quite sure why. Tell me why I'm feeling it matters that young people want to be smart. I think it certainly matters that young people want to read and think books and other, you know, other arts are worth pursuing. But you have an eye on the big picture. Is this just another sort of like moment where is this another capitalist flash in the pan and then, you know, five years from now the young people just want stuff again? Perhaps, but I actually think that what we're seeing in our initial research of Gen Alpha is that this kind of, you know, touch grass, unplugging movement isn't going anywhere. I think the way that Gen Alpha are growing up, you know, their parents who are younger millennials and some of their parents are Gen Zs are limiting their screen time significantly more than millennials' millennials' parents were. You know, I think that they are growing up in a world where the computer and the iPad and the phone is kind of an accoutrement to life.

rather than the central point. So the rise of the intellectual influence are maybe flashing the pan in terms of, I'm not sure if we're all going to be watching book talk forever. But I do think that this kind of unplugging touchgrass movement in culture is going nowhere. The way that Jan Alpha are growing up means that we've got way more to come and when they kind of move into the spotlight as consumers. So I think it's an exciting time where we're actually searching for meaning and connection more than ever and it will take us offline. That was Lucy McGuire with Vogue Business. Ariana Espudo produced today's show and Amina El Sadi edited.

Patrick Boyd and David Tadishore engineered and Gabriel Donatov was on facts. The rest of the team includes Hadi Mawaddy, Denise Gera, Miles, Brian, Peter Balinon, Rosen, Danielle Hewitt, Kelly Wessinger and Dustin De Soto. Our supervising team is Abashai Artsy and Jolie Myers. We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder. Miranda has France in her pants. Sean Romsferm has sand in his pants. They're both back on Monday. Lord Grant Me Strength.

I'm your half-white son. Today explained is distributed by WNYC and the show is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. For more award-winning podcasts, you can visit podcast.orgast.com. Listen ad-free by going tovox.com slash members.