Influencer fatigue is real — and I am proof. Indian fashion influencers were once fun, relatable and original, but after religiously following their content over the years, I’ve cleansed my feed now because I’ve had enough. “Influencer marketing is usually outsourced to an agency,’’ says Naina Redhu (@naina on Instagram and Twitter), one of the pioneers of the fashion blogging scene in India. “For most agencies, sponsorships and collaborations are just a number play. There’s no long-term thought process or strategy.”
Redhu, who runs her own brand building workshops, is one of the very few influencers who is vocal about the deterioration of fashion content on social media and the lackadaisical attitudes of digital agencies when it comes to working with influencers. “I can say no to campaigns,” she says, “but it doesn’t matter because even if I don’t, someone else will. And it will go on and on and on.”
Since it doesn’t have to go on, at least not on your personal feed, here are five reasons to unfollow influencers:
1. Insipid and irrelevant
The style advice that Indian fashion influencers are giving out today is either incredibly boring, like ‘5 Ways to Wear Jeans’ (an actual video that someone put out recently), or impossible to execute in real life. Wearing a blazer without a shirt might be great for the ’gram, but not for the office.
2. Cloned captions, corporate content
Perhaps what really pushed me over the edge is the sea of identical sponsored posts with captions that are right out of the brand’s corporate communications playbook. Only recently, a number of influencers posted long, sentimental captions with family memories only to end them with how a diamond jewellery brand was the centerpiece of what was otherwise a very intimate memory.
3. When sponsored posts are too many
Sponsorship, in many ways, has taken over the authenticity that was once the influencer’s calling card. Many aren’t transparent about their sponsored content either. While it is understandable that this is the business model and they are vital to sustain one’s career, paid posts are a lot like TV ads. If I see more ads than actual programming, I am most definitely going to change the channel.
4. Research not a priority
It is evident that while many brands are enthusiastic about working with influencers, they do little, if not zero, research about their profile, and vice versa. Case in point, an online luxury marketplace that was heavily promoted by influencers, recently shut down its page after paying customers exposed the site for heavy delays and, at times, fake goods.
5. Influencers aren’t influential
Influencers were imagined to be that cool friend we all adored and trusted for their views and opinions. Today, they’re more of an annoying acquaintance. Maybe in real life, we’d be forced to listen to them go on and on about their fabulous all-expenses-paid vacation, the sponsored chocolate that they’ll be feeding their brother during Raksha Bandhan, and the designer clothes they were able to buy from the money they earned promoting a toothpaste they don’t use. But thankfully, this isn’t real life and the unfollow button may be the best thing that ever happened to your Instagram feed.
Lavanya Mohan is a social media junkie who manages growth and fashion partnerships at Vue.ai, an AI platform for retail
