Are influencers in their flop era?

People are not feeling influencers the way that they used to. Well, we're broke, you know? What are you influencing me to buy if I don't have the money to buy anything? That's a good question. You know? I get the sense that people are sort of getting a little fed up. Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. It's hard to refine your taste when everything in your algorithm is vying for your attention. Is that influencer you follow giving you the right advice? What should we actually be paying attention to in our social media feeds? This week on It's Been a Minute, culture critic and host of the new podcast, Feedback, Ira Madison III, takes our hand and shows us the way. Ira, welcome to It's Been a Minute. Thank you for having me back. It's been a minute. It has been a minute. It is a pleasure to have you back. It's a pleasure to have you back. I want to talk to you about something. This is the thing. Ira is a man about town. He is a man of taste. He is a man who knows what's going on. You're plugged in. I know you have an opinion on this. The tide has turned on influencers. We'll get into some examples of this in a moment. But first, I want to know, when did you first start to notice that things in the influencer economy were shifting? I feel like you always notice when something is shifting when people pivot. You know, to when they switch up either what their brand has been or they start looking for other sources of income. Like when Charli D'Amelio went to Broadway. Yes, you know, but I feel like that was trying to legitimize herself. You know, there's a lot of reality people going to Broadway or, you know, the Chicago pipeline. Listen, I saw I saw Ann Juliet with Candy. Did you? Did you like it? I mean, I saw Ariana Maddox in Chicago. I saw her final night and she was fantastic. You've made a really good point. Like there's some sort of like pivot. It's like maybe if your content before was all about, I don't know, cheese pulls, like maybe you've switched to current events. A lot of people are doing current events. Maybe a lot of people should not be, you know, you've noticed that that was a big pivot to for not just influencers, but podcasters as well. It was let's all talk about current events and the news. And it's is that your brand? Is that your brand? They all want to be Jennifer Welsh. You know, they want that. I've had it moment, you know, where she came out against Trump and had the big rants. And I also have noticed, though, like in addition to sort of like the pivoting that we're seeing, I think if we zoom out, there's almost like people are not feeling influencers the way that they used to. I feel like for the past decade or so. They've kind of been in some ways a prevailing form of entertainment. I feel like audiences are starting to kind of turn on influencers to a certain degree. I mean, there's a few high profile moments that I can think of right now. But I get the sense that people are sort of getting a little fed up. Well, we're broke, you know, what are you influencing me to buy if I don't have the money to buy anything? You know, it is a good question. It's interesting to be an influencer, to be, you know, influencing people to buy a product or live this certain lifestyle. And it's, well, if we can't afford that, then your job is sort of moot. Yeah. I mean, which might explain why people kind of might switch to a current events type thing, right? Yeah, exactly. Like I think about the pivot, I think some of what's baked into that pivot is that it's not enough anymore to just post and go. Like you have to, like people want you to stream, people want, nightly or daily. Oh, they want you constantly. Listen, someone commented yesterday on a post of mine, weekly book recs. And I'm like, we'll see about that. I'm busy. The concept of like recording a podcast and then also writing and then also making social content as well. Because, I mean, you get this now. Podcasts have turned into a full 360. You're doing everything, you know, so you're making content now that we didn't used to have to make. No. No, because you've been doing this about as long as I've been doing this. I have. That was not the case back in the day. It certainly was. Listen, I didn't have a pen and paper. I hit the mic and pressed record. Driver, roll up the partition, please. Literally. Literally. I feel like we literally. We literally walked in, sat down, recorded, and left. If people knew how many episodes of my early podcast I recorded in a sports bra on a Saturday. Yes. Please. That would not fly today. I will say, if we're going to talk about influencers, I have to bring up one of the biggest. Come on, bring up old girl. And maybe it's controversial influencers right now. Bring up old girl. Nara Smith. We're going to talk about Nara Smith. Yes. She recently appeared on Call Her Daddy and expressed some genuine confusion. At the idea of being called a trad wife. She, in fact, said she had to look up the word. Let's let's look at a little clip of that right quick. Well, I had to look up the term because to me, because I wasn't familiar with that. Right. I didn't quite know what it means. But the fast answer is a trad wife is a woman who embraces or promotes a traditional model of marriage and family life where she typically prioritizes being a homemaker and a primary caregiver for kids takes primary responsibility for cooking. Cleaning and managing the household supports her husband's role as the primary breadwinner, often values traditional gender roles within marriage. So with that definition and those points, I'm none of that. OK, so in her words, in her words, she's a working mom who happens to enjoy cooking for her family and people have pigeonholed her into a category that otherwise doesn't fit her. I have my own thoughts on Nara's perspective. But I. Nara, I want to get your initial thoughts on this. When you saw that clip and I know you saw it. What did you think? Well, there's this there's this sort of argument that she's creating and it's giving her stance like a way to defend her in a way that she's saying, I'm a working mom. Like, I've never been a trad wife. No one thought you actually were a trad wife. No one thought. We saw you modeling. We saw we saw the European blonde husband. We saw the. Designer clothing that you were making. Right. Like we knew that you weren't actually living in yesteryear. OK, but the whole thing about the trad wife aesthetic online was that you were promoting it to your followers. You know, you were living in that aesthetic. That's the whole point. Like you were you were using it to gain followers. You were using it to gain sponsors, et cetera. And. It was paying your bills playing as a track. Yeah, no, no one thought you were actually, you know, living on the farm, but you presented as I'm cooking this from scratch, you know, I mean, she's a whisper. Yeah, the register that she's speaking in in this interview with Alex Cooper. A.S.M. Nara. Hello. Like, I've never heard her have this much base in her voice. I've never heard her speak above a certain decibel because in her videos, she's using that very like, you know. And when you say. It's a performance. A lot of her defenders have been like, it was always a performance. It was satire. One, it wasn't satire. Two, even if it's a performance, you're still performing it. You know, you weren't being Stephen Colbert hosting the Colbert report, you know, like that satire. You were performing it in the way that, you know, people perform masculinity to their followers. You know, toxic masculinity. Don't go anywhere. They're able to sort of get one over on an audience because they know that black women are marginalized in many spaces. And I mean, as a black person in general, not just a black woman, you know, like as a black person, you have this sort of intrinsic desire to protect other black people. We've got more coming up after the break. In every single other in-between moment in previous interviews, that performance, she's not taking it off. It's not like if you say like, OK, I had a boyfriend at a point in time who is who is super invested in WWE. So I watched hours and hours of WWE. I mean. And then like there's one way that people are inside the ring. In the past. In the past. That was me. That was you. Wait, who was your favorite? Well, I mean, early on. It was early on. It was like Triple H. And I was, you know, I was I had a tweet once where I called him the Erica Kane of WWE. Perfect. Perfect. The way he got with Stephanie McMahon, like worked his way into the company, you know, it's just like it was so like soap operatic and fun. And I was going to say, and also just like a perennial favorite, someone you love to hate. Yeah. But. But those people to that point though, like all of those people are playing characters inside the ring and outside you know they're living a totally different life i mean that's why they have like the wwe divas had like a reality tv show for a while on e the whole point was to show that there was a difference between who they were in the ring and outside of it but up until literally in my opinion up until literally this video until this interview with alex cooper on call her daddy very recently in my opinion nara smith was kind of playing whatever character she was playing the character was pretty much all we saw of her so how i guess it's interesting to me i felt like she was turning the question back on the viewer back on the audience like well how come you didn't know and it's like well how would i know yeah but i mean the other thing i'll say that kind of stuck out to me about this whole kerfuffle is the way that nara smith stands reacted okay i just want to say for the record i did not know i didn't i did not know she had shooters yes i didn't know that i know i didn't know people rode for the smiths like that the the shooters coming out was wild to me and i commented on this on threads a lot of the shooters were black women which i was very shook by because i did not know black women were consuming her content like that i had no idea i called it overperforming solidarity there's this talk to us about that there's this sort of weird new trend right of black women who are kind of scamming and they're able to sort of get one over on an audience because they know that black women are marginalized in many spaces and you sort of have an intrinsic i mean as a black person in general not just a black woman you know like as a black person you have this sort of intrinsic um desire to protect other black people and over identify so i think that's a good point because i think that's a good point because i think that's a good point sometimes yeah and you over identify with them you know it reminds me of um kanye back in the day you know when he was getting into the fashion industries right and it was sort of like i should be able to be running this like this etc you know but ignoring all the racism and like um not helping other people other black people into the space it was more no i i just need to be in the space it was about him you know yeah and um we've seen this sort of with um tommy the um author of children of blood and bone oh tommy adyemi right where there's like a movie series the first in the series of movies is coming out and she's been going on social media and yeah being unclear on the details as to how she was kind of slighted by the movie production process but but she also has had a lot of shooters even though they're working off of limited information they're working off of first releasing text messages from amanda stenberg on tiktok right which is crazy contextless by the way and then releasing a video where you're sort of like trembling huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf like you just you're just there's there's no there is no information in that video whatsoever it's completely vague and she doesn't really say much of anything and she doesn't really say much of anything and she doesn't really say much of anything and then you have people like going to the mat over that and like nothing was said yeah fighting i mean and i compared it to um i compared it to our online i brought up when um sort of charlie xcx was talking about the concept of anti-marketing is new you know it's uh and i love charlie but she'd just be talking um she's a leo so it makes sense and an august one at that but the whole anti-marketing thing right which is like you know it's like you know it's like you know it's like she said that people are going to want experiences you know like the more intimate and they want less of the big marketing push etc i'm like yeah you're just leaning into what the industry has been doing forever the the fans are marketing your work now you know like yes you don't need to market anything the stands are going to push the album they're going to post about it online like they're going to do everything that you used to have to do in a traditional marketing push for an album or yeah for an influencer you know like that people are reposting your stuff all the time you know marketing budgets are so much smaller now because they expect fans to do everything for them and when you talk about um in absence of new music right it's the lambs who every year take mariah carey to number one for christmas i mean i'm a lamb so i support it i know but you know it's it's stuff like that you know you know where it's that there's a there's a difference between it though it's um okay we're supporting our favorite artists get to number one on the charts because we love this song we feel like she deserves it etc right but then you cross over into like celebrating that your favorite artist is like number two on the forbes billionaire list it's yeah we're celebrating someone becoming a billionaire well i mean even beyond that right like um i mean i think one of the first celebrities to really harness this is beyonce right like her fans run interference on pretty much any threat to her reputation and sometimes even her husband's reputation um no matter what i mean the carters rarely even have to release statements to the public at this point because their fans are essentially fighting proxy wars on their behalf across social media right i think we've aged on it a little bit but i think we've aged on it a little bit but i think we've aged on it a little bit though as a beehive member i think we're a little grown now the beehive used to be a lot more fierce they used to sting i mean listen beyonce just did it to us this morning i woke up as she releasing remixes of morning dew exactly i know which is a song i have never heard before until um a month ago oh well yeah it was a demo that was um yes you know circling around the internet i know circling yes but now this remix i mean she she had me literally this morning but i mean the thing is though is that i'll say that as much as like standing an artist it's it's honestly kind of a fool's errand and i mean you say that some people age out of it but many people don't but the thing is though is that at least stands of musicians like they get something out of it or even standing a movie star they get something you can go you can buy a ticket and go see a movie you could get some great art you can um tours performances um with an influencer it's just a parasocial relationship and well that's what i'm saying identifying you you you feel close to them yeah but like but that is i don't know i guess i'm wondering is like what does that like feeling close to a moderately well-known stranger yeah they're giving you they're giving you something yeah i mean i hadn't really ever thought about this just like um intellectuals intellectually but the idea of you can re-listen to music you can re-watch a movie etc and so i'm i had never in my head imagined someone like like re-watching nars reels over it over again like that's your content that you re-watch that's crazy to me i mean i even think about like i watch love island everybody on the show is tired of me hearing about love island everybody who listens to this i'm sorry i'm if you're watching i'm sorry i'm gonna bring it up again okay and something that i noticed i've been watching love island off and on for like 10 years between us and uk and like people really be like they start like stan armies while the people are still in the ola dolls the ola dolls are that's another thing where it's unhinged and it's performing solidarity with someone because you had stance like celebrating wins and things like that like every time alandra would get like a new brand deal and it's what what are we doing here she's a beautiful girl she is and she should be working that's great i support her working i support her getting these brand deals yeah why are you at home in your studio apartment celebrating someone getting a brand deal like it's wild to me and when alandra and nick broke up you know like they made the public announcement i saw yeah many people who need to hop on the zoom with their therapist getting online saying well i don't believe this to be true because she speaks to us directly she would have let us know right what's going on i'm like listen i like reality tv i watch plenty of it you can grow affection for the people that you watch seeing them you know if you on your screen for like weeks at a time or months at a time or even years right in case of someone like anini leaks or countess luann right i mean i went to the 20th anniversary of um housewives last night celebration and it was i'm like these i've been watching these people for two decades right i mean i get i get growing affection for people that you watch on screen that's why any of us follow any influencers or watch any sort of tv or listen to any sort of music you grow affection for these people and their personalities to us yeah exactly exactly i get it it's very human but there's like a whole other thing where it's like again like you're standing uh someone who you watched compete on reality show for six weeks Maybe, right? Because they have to make it to the end. Maybe six weeks tops. And then you're celebrating that they have an opportunity to sell you something. Right. That you may not even be interested in buying. Like, I see, you know what I mean? Like, how many Poppy ads can a person take in? I don't know. I can't believe it. I'm so happy she got a Poppy deal. I can't wait for her to sell me Poppy. Like, that's what you're saying. Like, don't go anywhere. You know, I think cultivating your taste is really just what are you into and grabbing it. And always keep smarter people around. I will say, like, even though, obviously, social media influencers, stand-up is, like, one end of a spectrum of, like, extreme love. And, let's say, devotion to social media influencing. And it is kind of showing the ways in which I think that sort of whole economy is starting to curdle to a certain degree. There is an opposite end of things. You know, as these stands are activating in the real world, influencers have been experiencing at least a tiny bit of pushback. Recently, a fancy woven basket store on Nantucket, the fancy summer vacation island off the coast of Massachusetts, it put up a sign that reads, No Influencers. In all caps. Very beautiful sign. The store's owner told CNN that it was just a lighthearted way to set boundaries. But influencers, many of whom don't even have any reason to go to Nantucket, don't, maybe, who knows, maybe don't even want to go to Nantucket, right? Maybe have never been. They took serious issue with this sign, saying that it is anti-successful woman. Another Canadian influencer recently said that hating. What's that? Keeping a girl boss down. It is kind of anti-girl boss, actually, when you look down to it. But, I don't know. I mean, another Canadian influencer recently said that hating influencers is just another way to say that you hate women or another way to hate women. Some of her audience, I will say, for what it's worth, didn't really, like, they weren't really walking with that interpretation. They kind of felt like, okay, girl. Well, good. Good for them. It's, I don't know, the Atlantic had a piece recently about, like, the extras are tired. And it was about how. It was about how, when you're in the wild and influencers or people filming dancing videos, et cetera, are just, they're in your damn way. Or I'm in the video and I don't want to be. And we've sort of just been forced to accept that they can do that wherever. And you're forced to just, like, sit there and put up with it. Oh, my God. Or go to a fitness class. I don't cross through Washington. I don't cross through Washington Square Park. Okay? You're smart. Because they come up to you with the little microphones and they start asking you. Which is crazy because it's, like, when I get off the train, like, I need to walk. It'd be easier to walk through it to get to my best friend's apartment. I go around it. I do not want one of those tiny microphones coming at me. But I wonder, like, do you think that there's any merit to what some of these influencer women might be saying? Or do you think maybe, perhaps, they're thinking about themselves too much? I think they're thinking about themselves too much. It's a female-dominated space, but it's not about the women in the space. It's about the job, you know? I just feel like. Like, I don't like robbers, you know? But, you know, it's. It's not anti-man that hate robbers, you know? No. Or anti-woman that hate cat burglars. It's just, like, you don't want people leaving. Oh. Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's just kind of, like. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. How do I put it? In my opinion. Because, I mean, some of the argument around this is they're like, well, it's. This is pushback against a class of people, which I'm like, influencers are not a class of people, okay? First of all, that's how I know y'all need to go back to work, because you have to. Either OSHA or HR will give you a training to tell you what the protected classes are, and none of them are influencers. So that's number one. But number two, like, I just feel like. One, Wicker Basket store is telling you not to film in there in sort of a cheeky way. It's just not an attack on anyone's livelihood. They weren't going to that store in the first place. No! Although. They weren't going to that store. I saw that Wicker Man trailer. Now, that's. Maybe that's what they were looking for. Maybe that's. Well, now people are going to Wicker Store. Now they want to go in a Wicker Store. Now they want to go to a store. Yeah. Now they're being kept out. That is anti-woman, actually. Maybe I agree with them now. I will be there, by the way, on opening night. Maybe I will go to Nantucket, but I won't film. Yeah. I'll say this. Like, the reign of the influencer has shaped a lot of the past decade. Whether we want to admit that or not, this is something that has really left an imprint on our culture. And it's clear that some people have come to over-rely on influencers. Tastemakers, even though influencers are often paid by brands whom want us to buy things, which is kind of the opposite of tastemaking. But, Ira, you have actually really beautifully, well-cultivated taste. You're always reading, going to the theater, watching movies. You know what music is currently playing at the club. Tell us, Ira, in a world that is overrun with influencers and SponCon, how can we better cultivate our own taste? Well, follow at IraTheThird on Instagram and just follow my taste. That's a good start. I'm kidding. Honestly, I have leaned into my ADHD. So, in terms of reading, right, I follow my attention span. You know, like I pick up something. I can read, you know, I read more than one book at a time, you know. So, I'm like, that's how I finish books. You know, I can hop back and forth between it. Anytime I'm interested in something, I just sort of like grab it, like I'll buy it or rent it or et cetera. Just like, just take it. And when you have it in a space around you, then eventually you'll maybe take a look at it or read it, et cetera. You know, I think you're cultivating your taste is really just what are you into and grabbing it. And always keep smarter people around you, you know. Like, ask your friends, what are you reading? Ask them, what are you listening to? Ask them, like, what are you seeing, you know, your favorite movies, like, et cetera. You know, ask them things. Ask the cool ones. I love that. Yeah. I love that. Also, too, something I've been doing more and more is when I like something, telling people around me. Mm-hmm. Like, okay, so something that I have started to like. As I have aged, which I never would have imagined, but it makes total sense when you consider what it is, is Cozy Mysteries. I love the Cozy British Mystery. They hit. They hit. I love that. They're good. I never was into them. And then something, I don't know, something switched and I got super into them. And so I started watching Grantchester recently. And me and my husband, now we walk around the house going, Grantchester, Grantchester. And then, like, some of the reactions have been like, oh, well, if you like that, I should check it out. But then, like, the other 50% of the reactions have been. And then, oh, I didn't know that you were into that. Mm-hmm. I'm going to recommend these other things, too. Oh, I love that. Turns out, talking to your friends. No. Since I started posting more about what I'm reading, you know, now friends ask me for book recommendations. Or they tell me when they've read something. And they're like, oh, I really like this. Or, like, if they saw that I've read something that they've recently read, they want to talk about it with me, et cetera. You know? I think that I always hated a book club because. Too much commitment? Yeah. It's just like life is going on. And it's like, I want to read at my own pace. And not everybody has read the book all the time anyway. But I'm a big proponent of talk to your friends when you see that they've read something that you like or whatever. You know? And I actually, I haven't done it yet. But a couple friends were reading, like, Famesick, like Lena Dunham's book. And I was just sort of like, when you all are done with it, like, let's all just. Let's just, like, go out to dinner. And we can talk about the book. Like an impromptu book club. I love that. I love that. I love that. I mean, that's really what it's all about. I think that. I mean, I think that's kind of what people want when they are kind of tapping into social media. They want community. And they want to be with like-minded people. And the influencer racket is just sort of that person becomes the community for you. Hmm. And you can't let. You can't let an avatar become the community. You need actual community. I love that. Oh, my gosh. That's the way to have taste. Community. Friendship. Real love. Yeah. Love. Trust. Bonding. Real friendship. Yes. Real friendship. Wait, did you just quote Ms. Kwa? I did. The state of love. I love her. Trust. Bonding. Real friendship. Real friendship. Oh, my gosh. Well, on that note, Ira, I mean, there's no better note to leave. leave it on action. than quoting Miss Quad from Married to Medicine. Shout out to you, girl. But thank you so much, Ira. I really appreciated this. You always are such a light in these dark times. Thank you. I appreciate it. That was Ira Madison III, host of the Feedback with Ira Madison III podcast. And to all of you watching, thank you so much for hanging out with us. 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