Is Deinfluencing Just Another Aesthetic?

“Stop buying this.”

It’s a jarring sentence to hear on a platform built on aspirational consumption. Yet, across Instagram and TikTok, influencers have increasingly embraced the phenomenon of “deinfluencing” — the movement on social media where creators urge audiences not to buy the latest viral (and often pricey) product. Deinfluencing is contrasted with “influencing” — the practice of leveraging social media platforms to shape viewers’ habits and purchasing behavior, which has long been the currency of the creator economy. Against the perpetual backdrop of massive clothing and makeup hauls, hyper-consumption foodie mukbangs, and incredibly extravagant brand trips, deinfluencing initially felt like a welcome rebellion: a call for moderation and greater authenticity.

But as the trend has grown, so has a quiet irony. Deinfluencing, meant to challenge the influencer economy, has gradually started to run the risk of becoming its own kind of attention and consumption-seeking performance, losing the very authenticity-centric promise that it was built upon.

Deinfluencing took off in Jan. 2023 as a direct response to the mounting disillusionment with online consumer culture. The TikTok creator @sadgrlswag catalyzed the trend by posting a video listing popular products she advised against purchasing, including the Dyson Airwrap and Stanley cups. In the video, she declared, “I am here to deinfluence you,” directly challenging the prevalent culture of overconsumption on the platform.

This approach resonated with a broad audience, leading to a surge in similar content from other creators. The hashtag #deinfluencing quickly amassed millions of views, reflecting a growing desire among users to resist the constant barrage of product recommendations and to promote more mindful consumption habits.

The appeal was obvious, of course. After years of pandemic-fueled online shopping and endless targeted ads, audiences were exhausted and sought any scrap of realness in the sea of relentless “influencing.” Authenticity became the newly coveted trend: the new social currency. Deinfluencing promised something radical: a refusal to treat every personal recommendation as a sales pitch.

In many ways, deinfluencing started as a cultural correction. Studies have shown that social media-driven consumerism can fuel anxiety, loneliness, and distorted perceptions of reality. Deinfluencing offers a pause for users, forcing them to stop and reflect: “Do I actually want this, or am I just being persuaded by marketing?” At the height of its prevalence, deinfluencing provided that rarity people grasped for online: honesty without ulterior motives. It validated the idea that not every product improves our lives and that owning less can feel better than owning more (of the unnecessary); It reassured people that resisting impulse-buying is actually an act of self-respect — not something to feel FOMO about.

Even more than that, deinfluencing reframed conversations around how people defined their notions of value and need. These creators were advocating for increased intentionality and mindfulness in a realm engineered to exploit instant gratification. They acknowledged that consumer choice had become psychological and environmental, influenced by what viewers witnessed in other people’s lives rather than purely based on evaluations of true, personal needs. And so, for audiences tired of the constant “add to cart” energy that defined a lot of their feeds, deinfluencing felt like a breath of fresh air.

But, as soon as profitability enters the picture, authenticity can ride a slippery downward slope.

As the deinfluencing trend gathered millions of views, savvy influencers realized that promoting not buying could still drive engagement — and, naturally, income. Creators started mixing genuine critiques with affiliate links, gently pushing people to not buy Item A and to purchase the less-expensive, lesser-known Item B instead – in the process, rebranding it as the less-consumerist option. Instead of the $160 Nike Airs, buy this $50 pair that will serve the same purpose.

True, perhaps this reduces the hyper-consumerism plaguing our generation, raises awareness of small businesses, and promotes more careful and informed buying decisions in the age of positively reinforced, impulsive retail therapy. But even thoughtful consumption, when packaged for virality, can quietly reinforce the same patterns it claims to resist.

The irony is clear here. Even those videos that appear to critique overconsumption can subtly pivot into suggestions for other products — not a call to buy less, but rather, another appeal to our capitalistic desires. Deinfluencing was supposed to question that relentless cycle of trend-based buying, but instead it has started to function as just another aesthetic, just another way to seem relatable, trustworthy, and strategically casual. This process has caused the concept of “authenticity” to lose its essence of exactly that: authenticity. Having been absorbed into the influencer marketing playbook, what consumers believed to be “authenticity” was really just the original faux-authentic content, repackaged to appeal to those exact consumers desperately seeking realness but blinded to what truly was “real.” Eventually, when everyone tries to “be real,” authenticity itself becomes a brand.

Brands, meanwhile, have already adapted to these shifts in consumer sentiment. In fact, marketers are now actively recruiting micro- and nano-influencers who build trust through authenticity and deinfluencing-style content as they have recognized that audiences are more likely to engage with creators who appear “real” and self-aware.

The rise of performative deinfluencing now raises an uncomfortable but urgent question: How can audiences tell when a creator is being genuinely critical of trends versus when they are calculating methods to build trust for future monetization?

The unfortunate truth is that such a distinction may soon become impossible to parse. Social media algorithms, after all, are designed to reward engagement, not honesty — and many of the most viral deinfluencing videos still offer a curated version of authenticity. They make the viewer still feel included in a desirable lifestyle, demonstrating the same behavior of seeking the next perfect product. Only the branding – to appear less blatantly materialistic – has changed. And, that is exactly the danger: When critique becomes just another form of marketing, meaningful resistance to the ploy fades. The system swallows its own opposition, rebrands itself as a trend, and essentially returns to what influencing was in the first place.

Ultimately, deinfluencing does hold potential. The key is that it has to stay inconvenient.

Real authenticity might mean losing followers instead of gaining them. It might mean advocating for buying nothing, not just buying differently. It might mean creating content that doesn’t flatter an audience’s self-image or neatly fit into the latest aesthetic wave.

It is tempting to believe that better marketing will fix the problems that bad marketing created. But sometimes, the solution is not a new trend; It’s an uncomfortable, unfashionable, brutal honesty — the kind that doesn’t optimize well for views.

The original power of deinfluencing lay in its refusal to be viral and saleable. If we want it to remain meaningful and induce change upon the influencing landscape, it must resist the lure of its own success — not by rejecting the spotlight but by refusing to let it redefine the message.