Latest / Mini Scroll / "Flop Influencers" & The Impact of Instant Viral Fame on Creator Longevity

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"Flop Influencers" & The Impact of Instant Viral Fame on Creator Longevity · Mini Scroll

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  This episode of Infinite Scroll is brought to you by Coach Love,
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  Again, reserve your spot for the event at the link below.
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  On December 8th, 2021, seventeen year old Brooklyn Webb released
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  her first single, titled My Crown, a catchy Electro pop Bop
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  dedicated to her haters. Brooklyn is a TikTok creator
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  from Victoria, BC Canada. Like many teenagers at the time,
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  Brooklyn began posting on the app in 2019.
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  By March 2020, she had over 100,000 followers. 3 months
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  later, largely thanks to the pandemic Lockdown, Brooklyn hit
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  1,000,000 followers. After finding success from
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  posting content like POV skits, dances and lip syncs, Brooklyn
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  started using her platform to speak out about body positivity
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  and mental health, topics that subjected her to an onslaught of
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  misogynistic vitriol and unwarranted criticism.
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  This hate was further fuelled by the release of her single, with
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  lyrics like the song instantly turned into a meme, partly for
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  its cringy message and partly for Brooklyn's off tune singing
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  and obvious auto tune. But given the creator's massive
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  following of over 10 million at the time, the song's virality
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  came as no surprise. What did come as a surprise,
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  however, was her subsequent album release, appropriately
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  titled My Crown, The album, which featured 14 songs that
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  were all remixes of the same single.
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  Brooklyn did what so many creators dream of doing.
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  She trolled the haters back, admitting on December 18th in a
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  YouTube video that her singing career was fake and her content
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  was performance art. This viral stunt put Brooklyn on
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  top. She gained thousands of
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  followers, moved to LA, was interviewed by several
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  mainstream outlets, and my Crown, the album reached #7 on
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  the Spotify charts. By all counts, Brooklyn was on
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  track to be one of Gen. Z's biggest Internet stars.
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  But she would soon find out that one viral moment does not a
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  successful, influencing career make from Centennial World.
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  I'm Lauren Meisner and this is Infinite Scroll, a podcast about
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  Internet culture, the creator economy and how social media is
• 2:59
  shaping Gen. Zed, welcome back.
• 3:02
  This is the new solo Infinite Scroll, so I'll be releasing
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  these episodes on Fridays and I have something very exciting in
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  the works to replace our Tuesday viral news.
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  But bear with me for the time being because it is not quite
• 3:17
  ready yet. So as always, Please remember to
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  rate, review and subscribe, sign up to our newsletter, which is
• 3:22
  also called Infinite Scroll. On Wednesdays, we send out a
• 3:26
  commentary article about a trend, a creator drama, or just
• 3:30
  some news that's going on in the viral space.
• 3:32
  And on Fridays, we round up the five biggest think pieces on the
• 3:35
  Internet from that week. And please also join our Geneva
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  group, which is also titled Infinite Scroll, where you can
• 3:42
  chat with other people who are obsessed with Internet culture
• 3:45
  and creator drama. NT Brooklyn's story is 1 we've
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  seen repeatedly since Tik Tok's explosion amid the 2020 COVID-19
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  lockdowns. A creator goes viral, gets tons
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  of followers, quits their job, or drops out of school and moves
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  to Los Angeles to make it as an influencer.
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  A few years on, however, these creators seem to have been
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  deleted from the zeitgeist. While they might still have
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  millions of followers, their career peaked at that single
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  viral moment, and they've struggled to convert their viral
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  fame into a sustainable career ever since.
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  This career trajectory is what TikTok users are now calling
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  Flop influencers, a term that originated from a viral video
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  posted by Evan Smith on January 13th in the TikTok, which now
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  has over 1.6 million views, Evan says.
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  People think of influencers. I feel like they go to Alex Earl
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  and like Charlie Demilio and I think of like the flops, like
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  those influencers in 2020, they like moved to LA and they like,
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  quit their old jobs and now they're like nothing.
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  Evan and the viewers in the comment section went on to list
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  notable flop influencers, many of whom were part of that same
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  pandemic era boom as Brooklyn. Among the influencers that were
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  named the most were Sienna Mae and Axel Weber.
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  Sienna Mae went viral for her dance videos and posts about
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  body positivity. However, Sienna later found
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  herself in a number of controversies involving her
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  ex-boyfriend, Jack Wright, who was also a TikTok star.
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  These controversies expedited the fizzling out of her
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  influencer career. Axel Weber shot to fame in 2021
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  with a video of his very small apartment in New York City.
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  He then found fame when he posted about applying to
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  Juilliard. He eventually revealed that he
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  was not accepted to the prestigious university and this
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  actually led his fans to spam the school to accept him and fun
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  little personal fact for you guys.
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  I actually flew to New York and auditioned for Juilliard when I
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  was 17 years old and and just like Axel, I also did not get
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  accepted. But unfortunately nobody spammed
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  the school for me. I basically just went home and
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  cried. Others in the comments section
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  named Moop who went viral for her lip sync videos with
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  bloodshot eyes in 2020, and Jake Coleman who gained popularity
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  for doing dances at a service station to understand the flop
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  influencer phenomenon. It is worth considering the life
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  cycle of an influencer, which is something that many scholars and
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  journalists over the years have attempted to document.
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  But what it always seems to boil down to is the influencer
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  follower relationship. It's this relationship that
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  determines the longevity of an influencers career.
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  In a 2020 conference paper titled The Evolution of
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  Influencer Follower Relationships, a Life Cycle
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  Approach, authors Soren Kosher, Sarah Kosher, and Linda Alcare
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  examined these influencer follower relationships, focusing
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  on different aspects like follower interest, engagement,
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  and trust. The authors established 4
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  consecutive relationship stages #1 Analysis #2 affection, which
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  is also known as the peak state #3 attenuation and #4
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  alienation. So using this logic, flop
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  influence rapidly rises at the peak state which is stage #2
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  affection and declines from there.
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  It's in the fourth stage of alienation that an influencer
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  has essentially lost their influence or bond with their
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  followers. The authors right quote from a
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  practical perspective. Our findings suggest that not
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  the number of followers per SE, but the number of followers in
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  the peak stage of the influencer follower relationship, referred
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  to as the affection phase, should be considered a key
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  figure when planning campaigns in order to remain attractive to
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  marketers in the long run. Our results suggest that
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  influencers should aim at having an ample number of followers
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  situated in early relationship stages, indicating that popular
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  influencers should not rest on a large number of followers and
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  stop acquiring new followers. While these findings about the
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  influencer life cycle are not necessarily new, the rise of
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  short form video and the pandemic lockdowns changed viral
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  culture and has, unfortunately for creators, put this life
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  cycle into OverDrive. Ever since TikTok basically
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  became the pinnacle of the Internet, three key things have
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  changed one, content consumption, 2 communication,
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  and three, community building. All three of these work in
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  tandem to impact the new influencer life cycle, though.
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  TikTok is trying to introduce longer form content by upping
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  the video length limit and boosting creators who post
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  videos more than one minute long.
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  It's clear that audiences prefer short form content, at least
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  from this app, and the time constraints of short form
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  content have ultimately changed how we communicate online.
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  As Annabelle Ben David writes for Centennial World Quote,
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  watching short form content limits the opportunity to
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  incorporate context and critical thought, leaving Tiktok comments
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  sections susceptible to an endless dribble of what about
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  isms and often undue criticism. With Tiktok creators struggling
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  to communicate with their audiences effectively, at least
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  in comparison to creators of platforms, past, community
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  building has also changed. In other words, it's
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  increasingly difficult for creators to establish proper
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  connection with their audience when these audiences are often
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  misinterpreting their words or taking their content in bad
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  faith. This is part of the reason why
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  dance videos and lip syncing videos were so popular in the
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  early days of TikTok. They were appropriate for short
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  form content. Rebecca Jennings for Vox notes
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  how the algorithm has conditioned audiences to take
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  content in bad faith and in turn rewarded mediocrity and
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  superficial content. From its creators.
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  Quote TikTok fame celebrates a kind of mediocrity, the kind
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  where relatability means adhering to the internet's
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  fluctuating beauty standards and approachable middle classness
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  and never saying anything that might indicate a personality.
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  This, as opposed to the kind of relatability you get from
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  hearing someone articulate a specific feeling, or watching
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  someone else experience a similar kind of mundanity you
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  recognize in your own life. The songs, the shows and the
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  specials to come out of TikTok fame feel hollow, the opposite
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  of good art which has a point of view and a meaning beyond
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  itself. The instantaneous nature of
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  TikTok fame has also made building a community of like
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  minded and dedicated followers increasingly difficult.
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  When YouTube reigns supreme, content creators took years to
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  build a sizable and engaged following.
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  Zoella, a beauty and lifestyle YouTube from the UK, who
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  launched her channel in 2009, posted consistently for three
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  years before hitting 1,000,000 subscribers.
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  Other A list creators like Jenna Marbles and PewDiePie reached
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  the same milestone of 1,000,000 subscribers in approximately 1
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  in two years respectively. But when we look at Pandemic era
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  tik tokers like Brooklyn, they experienced growth at
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  unprecedentedly fast rates. As I mentioned before, Brooklyn
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  went from 110,000 followers in March 2020 to 1,000,000
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  followers just a couple of months later.
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  Charlie D'amelio, the platform's most followed creator, has
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  accumulated over 150 million followers since she started
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  posting in May 2019. Charlie even became the first
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  TikTok creator to reach 100 million followers just over one
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  year after going viral on the app.
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  Rebecca Jennings for Vox explains quote TikTok has
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  created a celebrity manufacturing machine that
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  operates faster and more powerfully than any social media
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  platform that has come before it, turning average teenagers
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  into international stars in a matter of weeks, sometimes days.
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  These astronomical numbers have made TikTok the golden child of
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  the social media industry over the past couple of years, and
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  many of the brands that fund this industry now funnel a huge
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  portion of their content marketing and influencer
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  marketing budgets into TikTok. This is arguably A risky move in
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  the long term, as the recent flop influencer discourse has
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  revealed an obvious but often unreported flaw in the platform.
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  Tik Tok's biggest creators, are more likely to have a large
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  following of unengaged followers.
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  Consider the nature of how people typically use TikTok.
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  Do you know anyone who regularly scrolls the following page?
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  Probably not, because the real thrill of TikTok is discovering
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  what the algorithm serves us. Most of us scroll the For You
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  page, where we are exposed to random videos chosen by the
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  algorithm. When we come across a video or
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  two from a creator that we enjoy, we might hit follow.
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  But scrolling the For You page regularly also means that we
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  might never see that creator's content again.
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  As a result, we are less likely to unfollow creators that we are
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  no longer interested in. We've seen the consequences of
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  these unengaged followers play out in a few different ways over
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  the past couple of years. One notable example is Vidcon
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  2022, where tik tokers like at Miss Darcy shared that there
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  were empty lines at their meet and greet sessions, and a more
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  recent example of this would be the rise and somewhat fall off
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  of Bobby Altoff. Since finding astronomical
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  virality for her Awkward Celebrity podcast interviews,
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  Bobby has switched up her vibe in recent months.
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  She's more warm and inviting on her podcast, and even her look
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  has gone from kind of natural and laid back to super glam
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  while she's still getting the views.
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  Because she is interviewing massive celebrities, her
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  relevance has waned. This is because Bobby has always
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  been what social media manager Julia Broome calls a cold
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  creator. Julia describes a cold creator
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  as an influencer who posts a lot of content for their audience to
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  consume without investing and turning that audience into a
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  community. Number one reason that I can see
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  her falling off for good is because she is not in the
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  slightest creating a community. She is what I like to call a
• 13:17
  cold creator. She puts out a bunch of content
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  and then leaves her audience in the cold, not engaging at all
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  and not caring about what anybody has to say in the
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  comments. To me, it's pretty clear that
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  she has no genuine interest in creating a community and all she
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  cares about is growing her audience and growing her
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  followers so that she can make more money and get more brand.
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  Deals from a commercial perspective, many Tik Toker LED
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  brands have also closed in recent years, further
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  solidifying that these creators sometimes struggle to monetize
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  their followings effectively. Take Item Beauty and Skin Care
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  by Hiram, for example. Last January, reports emerged
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  that beauty retailer Sephora dropped both brands from its
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  shelves, with both Addison Ray and Hiram Yarborough being
• 13:56
  established creators. With 10s of millions of
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  followers at the time their brands launched, it's clear that
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  large Tiktok followings do not always convert.
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  A more recent example of this is tiktoker Emily Mariko.
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  Just this week, Emily released a range of tote bags called
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  Farmers Market Totes, which she is selling for $120.00.
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  Her comment section is filled with people saying they are not
• 14:19
  interested in paying that amount of money for a tote bag, and
• 14:22
  creator at House Drama chalks this up to Emilyn lack of
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  engagement with her followers, essentially calling her a cold
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  creator. Have you guys read all those
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  comments under that video? People are like there is no way
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  I am buying this tote bag for $120.00 and one of the biggest
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  mistakes I think Emily Mariko did while being an influencer
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  was never engaging with her audience.
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  Never once has she tried to comment or like or interact with
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  anybody that supports her. But but when she wants her
• 14:53
  followers to go and support her business and buy her $120.00
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  tote bag, she'll make 5 videos about it.
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  I mean, she hasn't even made a video addressing like what kind
• 15:03
  of material. This is why it's so great.
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  All she has is a couple videos of her showing how much can fit
• 15:09
  in the tote bag. Now interacting with your
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  audience and the people that support you, your 12 million
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  followers. That's the bare minimum.
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  And when you're not even doing the bare minimum, don't expect
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  people to want to buy your $120.00 Farmers Market tote bag.
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  Annabelle Ben David for Centennial World.
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  Contrast these flops with the influence of creators from
• 15:31
  generations past Quote. On the other hand, Youtubers of
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  years past have had to carefully craft their content, building a
• 15:38
  robust fan base and consistent viewership.
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  Not only is the sense of community comforting for
• 15:43
  viewers, but it also ensures a much more stable career for the
• 15:46
  creator. Having spent the time and effort
• 15:48
  building a community, Youtubers have viewers who are more likely
• 15:52
  to follow them across platforms, buy merchandise, and even go out
• 15:55
  to meet them in person. With Evan's TikTok kicking off a
• 15:59
  viral discussion about FLOP influencers, some of the
• 16:03
  creators tagged in his comments have responded to this label,
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  including Brooklyn, who posted her own stitch of Evan's video.
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  Flop influencer here. OK, I can't talk about other
• 16:12
  people, but I can yap about myself, so I will.
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  I dropped out of high school and then I moved to LA when I was
• 16:18
  17, alone. I'm now about to turn 20 March.
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  Holy crap, time flies. But I don't know.
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  I don't really see it as a flop. Because I moved out here, I took
• 16:26
  a new opportunity. I also knew when I moved that
• 16:28
  this wasn't what I was going to do for the rest of my life.
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  Whether that was if I wanted to move into a different form of
• 16:33
  entertainment or I found out for me entirely.
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  It's just not for me. I don't really like or enjoy the
• 16:38
  limelight at all. It doesn't fill up my cup of
• 16:42
  tea. It doesn't get me excited to go
• 16:43
  out of bed in the morning. Now Brooklyn says she's
• 16:45
  returning to Canada and starting school, which she is quote
• 16:48
  really, really excited about. I actually reached out to
• 16:50
  Brooklyn through her management for comment on being a quote UN
• 16:53
  quote flop influencer and her plans for the future but did not
• 16:57
  hear back. Brooklyn's path of returning to
• 16:59
  normal life is 1. We're starting to see more
• 17:02
  creators take like Viner turned YouTube turned singer Gabby
• 17:06
  Hannah. In January, Gabby shocked
• 17:08
  Internet users after appearing as a fitness instructor in a
• 17:12
  promotional video for a YMCA in Lawrence County.
• 17:14
  Given that Gabby managed to maintain relevance for a decade
• 17:17
  online, she is not exactly a flop influencer in the way that
• 17:22
  Evan described it, but at one point, Gabby was one of the most
• 17:25
  famous people on the Internet. After finding social media fame
• 17:29
  on Vine, Gabby successfully moved to YouTube in the mid
• 17:32
  twenty 10s and became known for posting comedy skits and dating
• 17:35
  story times. She soon became a frequent
• 17:38
  collaborator with the platform's most popular influencers at the
• 17:40
  time, like Shane Dawson and the Vlog Squad.
• 17:43
  But Gabby's popularity waned as she became entangled in
• 17:46
  controversies with fellow creators like Joey Graceffa,
• 17:50
  Trisha Paytas, and Jessie Smiles.
• 17:52
  As the years went on, her fans became increasingly concerned
• 17:55
  about her mental health. This came to a head in August
• 17:58
  2022, when Gabby posted hundreds of emotional and erratic TikTok
• 18:02
  videos, leading Internet users to call the police for Wellness
• 18:05
  checks. Now, with Gabby returning to a
• 18:08
  more normal life as a fitness instructor, it's easy to call
• 18:11
  her, influencing career a flop. But many Internet users are
• 18:14
  happy to see her enter this new stage of her life, especially
• 18:17
  after social media took such a toll on her mental health.
• 18:21
  Tik Toker at katie.com put it like this quote.
• 18:24
  She is now doing something that she always said if she wasn't
• 18:28
  going to be a YouTube she wants to be a fitness instructor.
• 18:31
  So she has obviously done a lot of work in the year.
• 18:33
  We haven't seen her. We're turning to a more regular
• 18:36
  life. Is one way that influencers who
• 18:38
  reach this alienation stage react to the shift in their
• 18:41
  career the other way, attempting to reinvent themselves in the
• 18:45
  public eye. And former Vlog squad member
• 18:48
  Jason Nash is a notorious example of this.
• 18:51
  After the vlog squad's cancellation in 2021, Jason has
• 18:54
  struggled to find his place in the online zeitgeist where other
• 18:57
  vlog Squad members stepped away from YouTube, like David Dobrik
• 19:00
  who primarily posts on Snapchat. These days, it seems Jason has
• 19:04
  taken to TikTok Live as his main platform.
• 19:07
  Live streaming is one of the most lucrative features on the
• 19:09
  short form video app where followers can send the creator's
• 19:12
  gifts, which convert to money. But over the past few months,
• 19:15
  Jason's live streams have ramped up enormously and many have
• 19:19
  accused him of begging his followers for these TikTok gifts
• 19:22
  to sustain his income. Jason's shameless live streams
• 19:25
  have caught the attention of several of his famous peers,
• 19:28
  including Tana Mojo and Ethan Klein, who have both made public
• 19:31
  statements about this trajectory.
• 19:33
  Can someone make Jason Nash a fucking DoorDash account if I
• 19:37
  open my TikTok one more time to seeing him begging for roses on
• 19:42
  my Live for You page? I'm calling CPS.
• 19:44
  Jason Nash, as everybody knows by now, has gained A reputation
• 19:50
  for, and I mean this with all, with all sincerity, and I mean
• 19:55
  this and the unmetest way possible.
• 19:58
  Everybody knows him now for. Begging for money on TikTok.
• 20:03
  Live While Brooklyn, Gabby, and Jason are all creators who
• 20:06
  flopped in one way or another, it's important to also consider
• 20:09
  influencers, particularly TikTok, creators from that
• 20:12
  pandemic era who have managed to maintain relevancy and build a
• 20:16
  strong community of followers. One such creator is Brittany
• 20:20
  Broski. Brittany rose to prominence in
• 20:22
  mid 2019 from a viral video of her trying kombucha for the
• 20:26
  first time. Since that breakthrough moment,
• 20:28
  Britney has built a substantial following of over 12 million
• 20:31
  followers on TikTok and close to 2,000,000 subscribers on
• 20:34
  YouTube. She has since diversified her
• 20:36
  content with the introduction of a medieval themed talk show
• 20:39
  called Royal Court and her podcast The Broski Report.
• 20:42
  Though Britney Story does sound similar to other influencers
• 20:45
  I've covered in this episode, she differentiated herself from
• 20:48
  her peers in a few ways. First, Britney strategically
• 20:51
  crafted a personal brand that resonated with her audience.
• 20:54
  Rather than pushing the Kombucha Girl brand, she consciously
• 20:57
  distanced herself from it. In a 2020 interview with Vox,
• 21:01
  Britney acknowledged her Kombucha Girl label, but
• 21:04
  emphasized that she is much more than that quote.
• 21:07
  If that's how people know you, then that's how people know you,
• 21:10
  but you just have to keep posting what you want to post.
• 21:12
  If it does shitty, then it does shitty, but at least you like
• 21:15
  it. Being chronically online
• 21:17
  herself, Britney also understood the importance of a strong
• 21:20
  creator fan relationship. Rather than riding the wave of
• 21:23
  her initial TikTok fame, Brittany made the jump to longer
• 21:27
  form content early, a format that, as we know, is much more
• 21:30
  conducive to growing a community.
• 21:33
  She also has a private Spam TikTok account to better
• 21:35
  showcase her personality to her fans and created a cohesive
• 21:39
  brand across channels without simply repurposing content from
• 21:42
  other platforms. The surge of flop influencers
• 21:45
  right now highlights the fleeting nature of Internet fame
• 21:48
  and the volatile nature of the creator economy.
• 21:51
  Well, we've always known that being an influencer is an
• 21:52
  unstable career. It's only become harder to
• 21:55
  maintain relevance with the introduction of TikTok in recent
• 21:58
  years, which as I mentioned previously, gives us a new class
• 22:01
  of famous creators basically every week.
• 22:04
  The discussion around FLOP influencers reinforces how one
• 22:07
  viral moment is just not enough to parlay into a career these
• 22:10
  days. But the proliferation of FLOP
• 22:13
  influencers in recent years also raises the question of whether
• 22:16
  platforms should take more steps to financially safeguard
• 22:20
  creators. This discussion has been gaining
• 22:22
  attention particularly in the last year after the SAG after
• 22:25
  strike. Though platforms rely on
• 22:27
  creators for their user acquisition, financial security,
• 22:30
  and just overall success, creators find themselves at the
• 22:34
  mercy of algorithms and are forced to rely on platforms that
• 22:37
  often lack transparency about their operations and revenue
• 22:40
  models. Amanda Silverling for TechCrunch
• 22:42
  recently wrote a piece discussing how creators should
• 22:44
  be starting workers unions to protect themselves.
• 22:47
  Quote longtime YouTube Hank Green tried building the
• 22:50
  Internet Creators Guild, but the idea came perhaps too early.
• 22:54
  The project lacked the funding and momentum to keep it running,
• 22:56
  so it shut down in 2019. Now Ezra Cooperstein, a veteran
• 23:00
  in the industry, is working on a project called creators.org,
• 23:04
  which is a nonprofit aiming to act as a unified voice for
• 23:07
  creators. A similar group, the Creators
• 23:09
  Guild of America, launched in August in a similar vein.
• 23:13
  A report by the American Influencer Council and Tracker
• 23:16
  surveyed over 100 career creators, finding a significant
• 23:20
  income gap in the creator economy, something that many
• 23:23
  FLOP influencers would likely experience.
• 23:25
  There were three key findings in this report #150% of
• 23:30
  respondents, As in career creators make less than $100,000
• 23:35
  annually, #247% of the responders felt stressed about
• 23:39
  their finances, and #3 almost 50% reported that the average
• 23:44
  rate of their brand deals are under $1000.
• 23:47
  Finally, the rise of flop influencers shows how difficult
• 23:50
  it is to build a community on the most popular platforms,
• 23:54
  making it harder for a creator to monetize an audience based on
• 23:57
  their personal brand alone. Considering this, there seems to
• 24:00
  be a shift away from both audiences and corporations
• 24:03
  investing in influencer first brands and collaborations.
• 24:07
  Recent trends reflect this change like the closure of
• 24:09
  Jacqueline Cosmetics. After being acquired, Jacqueline
• 24:12
  Cosmetics parent company Forma Brands very publicly switched to
• 24:16
  a product first approach to makeup brands and set of formas
• 24:20
  long standing influencer first approach.
• 24:24
  With influencer brand partnerships losing their
• 24:26
  selling power, influencers are heavily pushing affiliate
• 24:29
  marketing and promoting in app purchasing like TikTok Shop
• 24:33
  which has already taken over the app in the US.
• 24:36
  As e-commerce blends with entertainment, social media is
• 24:38
  becoming less social, ushering in the opportunity for community
• 24:42
  based platforms like Discord in Geneva to capture Gen.
• 24:45
  Z's money, time and attention and moving the creator economy
• 24:49
  away from virality at all costs. Infinite Scroll is a podcast
• 24:54
  written, produced, edited and presented by me, Lauren Meisner
• 24:58
  for Centennial World. Additional research and
• 25:01
  reporting is by Annabelle. Ben, David, thank you so much
• 25:04
  for listening. I love you guys so much and I'm
• 25:07
  so excited to be back in your ears every single week.
• 25:11
  Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks for more exciting
• 25:14
  updates on the podcast coming soon.